Interstellar: The Official Movie Novelization

These descriptors listed above the comment field are pretty stupid for a novelization of a screenplay. Was it predictable? Well, I would say so BECAUSE I SAW THE MOVIE FIRST! A novelization is different from a novel in terms of movies. Movies *never* fully reproduce all the content of a novel. It is almost impossible to do so. So a screenplay is written to make the "inside the character's head" aspect strictly visual. And the sheer detail of most novels defies full reproduction in anything short of a ten hour movie. A novelization is a strict retelling of the screenplay. It is a novel of the actual movie, with very few elements that were not in the film. So, yeah, it was 100% predictable in that I saw the film first and it is word-for-word the same. With that in mind, I bought this because there were explanations and descriptions that did a better job helping me grasp what I had seen on the screen. There is a lot of density in this film, and a lot of details that most viewers will either not even notice or perhaps will not understand. The science behind the film is all within the realm of the possible, but some liberties had to be taken for the sake of the story. This book helps to clarify exactly what you see in the film. In that regard, it is excellent, despite my dislike of novelizations of films, which are usually very thin, intellectually. My wife really liked this film, but she does not follow science news like I do, so when we discussed the possibilities and the impossibilities of this story along with the general plausibility, I found that she did not know much about current ideas in this field - I had to pause playback repeatedly and answer her questions (about 50 times, total). Some of it I knew, and some I had no idea. This book helped clear up a lot of that for us both. At least now we fully understood what was supposed to be happening on screen. To bolster this we looked up several interviews with the scientist who was the chief advisor for the script. He was questioned (or lambasted) for his views so much that he wrote a book specifically about the science used in the movie and where, exactly, he had to bend rules to make the story work. It is surprisingly accurate with many fewer bent or broken rules than I had expected. Much more real than fantasy, I am glad to say. Though it *is* fiction and fantasy and not fact, there are lots of aspects that we know are possible. This book I purchased as a companion to this novelization, and the pair are an excellent combo to read. I highly recommend this novelization of the script by Greg Keyes as well as the *real* book by Kip Thorne, available through Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393351378?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00 If you get both you will be pleased. The two make great bookends to the film. Highly recommended!

I bought this novelization for two reasons. One I loved the movie. But I had many questions the film didn't answer. I figured the novelization would add the detail I was looking for. And I was not dissatisfied. The second reason was the science detailed in the film was explained here by the author. SPOILERS! The questions I had...What was the Blight? How was the rest of the world? Were there other space stations? What is time slippage? What was that "beer" Cooper was drinking? What was Romily doing all those years on the Endurance? Who "They" might be? All my questions were answered or at least mentioned. And besides that it was an entertaining read. A great job by the author.

This is intended to be a review of the novelization of the movie Interstellar. It’s easy to get pulled into a discussion of the details of the movie, but I’ll try to stick to an evaluation of the book. I watched Interstellar during a long flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta. By the end of the movie, I was convinced of two things: 1. I needed to have my hearing checked ASAP. I felt like I had missed about half of the dialogue. It seemed to me that the background music was totally overriding the conversations between the characters. I was actually quite relieved when I read several online reviews of the movie and found that they too complained about the background music obscuring the dialogue. 2. As a result of number one, I felt that I really didn’t understand a lot of the movie. My thinking was that if I could find a novelized version of the movie, I could at least understand the dialogue and maybe get the gist of the film—thus the purchase of the book. The book is definitely a novelization based on the screen play. It is not an in depth novel, but more of a scene by scene recap of the movie. That was fine with me. It actually made clear a number of the events in the movie that I didn’t realize were closely related (the strange behavior of the Indian aerial drone, the farm combines losing their orientation and the strange gravity signals). Being able to read the dialogue definitely made the evolution of the film make more sense. The book, as it is written is an excellent companion to the movie. Particularly if you, like many, have seen the movie and missed much of the dialogue. Now, with respect to the story: Much has been written about how much effort was put into making the movie scientifically accurate and to the credit of the writers and directors, much of the science is accurately presented. However, some parts of the movie don’t seem realistic. For example, Cooper, the main character, is a retired astronaut who is now a farmer in the Midwest. Something has happened to the earth so that almost all types of food crops have failed. Growing corn to feed the nation (world) is the primary focus of just about everyone. Governments, apparently, don’t exist to any real degree and there are hints that population explosions have placed so much strain on the food supply that nuclear war was employed to reduce world population. Now, this portrayal of a post-apocalypse world is fairly standard stuff, but when I see Cooper driving a late model Dodge pickup truck it seems a little out of sync with the time it would actually take for life to decline to the extent implied. Another scene that didn’t seem to work is the moment in the old farm house when the adult Murph realizes that her childhood “ghost”(the one she and her father discuss when she is ten years old) is actually her father contacting her from the future. There is no build up to this sudden epiphany and no explanation as to how/why she suddenly makes this realization. Then, there is “the paradox”. The mysterious “They” who position the wormhole where the earth team can reach it and who send the gravity message to Cooper and Murph turn out to be (based on the book’s explanation) five-dimensional beings highly evolved from humans in the very far future. If they evolved from the humans, it would be the humans that escaped the earth during Murph’s time. The paradox is, of course, how could the evolved beings set up the conditions needed for the people on earth to escape and evolve into the beings that send the message to earth to get the ball rolling on escaping earth (and allowing them to evolve). It’s an endless loop and makes my head hurt.

Absolutely love it, just like the movie and took no time to arrive

OK, this is an "indirect" review, as I have not read the book myself. Yet. I bought it as a present for my mom. She read it and loved it! She saw the film much later, i.e. after reading the book (which is based on the film). Result: She likes the film but still prefers the book. So, any way, looks like it's a good novelization of the film and a safe bet if you like the film or Sci-Fi in general. HOWEVER, as it is a movie novelization, it follows the film closely, so you cannot expect much additional content as would be the case if the film were a book adaptation and this book the source material. So if you read the book first, you probably just enjoy reading a good book. If you watch the film first and hope for the book to go deeper into topics or character stories, etc. you might be mildly disappointed. Apparently, there were not enough deleted scenes or unused script in the film they could put in the book. After all, the film was nearly 3 hours long and the book is surprisingly short (just 288 pages).

Best science fiction of the century. Kindle edition works nice. Not worth buying paperback though. The story strictly sticks to the movie and nothing extra

Es un pésimo producto, mala. Alisado de los materiales, no funciona como dice, sí hubiera la opción de poner cero estrella. Lo haría. No lo recomiendo en absoluto. No pierdan su tiempo comprando este producto, se van a arrepentir.

Ok

I enjoyed reading this book very much as it helped me to understand the movie more. I would recommend this book to anyone.