# Interstellar (2014): The Future Looks Better on IMAX Again Canonical URL: https://themodernhermit.blog/interstellar-2014-the-future-looks-better-on-imax-again/ Published: 2026-11-04T22:57:00+00:00 Updated: 2026-11-05T04:06:16+00:00 ## Lede A film about humanity travelling beyond the stars still looks magnificent on IMAX, even if its astonishingly intelligent robots seem to have borrowed their appearance from an earlier age of science fiction. ## Hermit Off Script *Interstellar* had been sitting on my streaming screen for quite some time, but I never felt particularly tempted to watch it again. There are simply too many newer films and television series waiting in the queue, and revisiting something I've already seen doesn't usually take priority. But when I noticed it was showing in IMAX, I couldn't refuse. And I'm glad I didn't. Some films deserve a second viewing, but others deserve a completely different screen. *Interstellar* definitely belongs in the second category. The enormous landscapes, the emptiness of space, the spacecraft and Hans Zimmer's music are simply on another level when experienced in IMAX. A film with a title like *Interstellar* deserves to be seen at its proper scale, rather than squeezed into a television screen. Definitely worth seeing again. However, one thing caught my attention this time, and that was the technology. Some of it looked surprisingly old-fashioned for a story imagining humanity's distant future. Of course, the film was made in 2014, years before the current boom in conversational AI and the more recent developments in robotics, so that's understandable. But then there are TARS and CASE. They might look like rather unusual pieces of mechanical furniture, yet they're remarkably intelligent, capable and independent. So the AI was already there, and in some respects, it's still ahead of what we can actually build today. Perhaps the problem isn't the intelligence at all, but the way we expect advanced technology to look. What I find particularly amusing is that Nolan deliberately drew inspiration from *2001: A Space Odyssey* and older architectural ideas when designing these machines. And there it is again: that familiar habit of creative minds who have a thing for the past, even when imagining the future. I suppose none of us can entirely escape the world that shaped our imagination. We picture extraordinary futures, but we keep bringing familiar objects, habits and ideas along for the journey. None of this takes anything away from *Interstellar*. Its ambition, atmosphere and emotional weight remain impressive, especially on IMAX. If anything, the experience reminded me that technology can age much faster than a great piece of cinema. Twelve years later, the film's imagined future may look a little old, but its cinematic experience certainly doesn't. --- ## Interstellar - Trailer - Official Warner Bros. UK https://youtu.be/zSWdZVtXT7E?si=-lwjrmkj\_otrn0cC ### Movie synopsis In a future where environmental conditions threaten humanity's survival, former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) lives as a farmer with his family. When an opportunity arises to join a mission beyond Earth, he must choose between remaining with his children and helping search for a world where humanity might survive. Travelling with a team of scientists through a wormhole, Cooper faces unfamiliar planets, extreme distances and the effects of time on those he has left behind. The story combines space exploration with the personal consequences of a mission that may determine humanity's future. ### Cast and credits **Director:** Christopher Nolan **Writers:** Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan **Genre:** Science fiction, adventure, drama **Main cast:** Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn and John Lithgow **Composer:** Hans Zimmer **Production company/studio:** Syncopy and Lynda Obst Productions, in association with Legendary Pictures; presented and distributed by Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures **Runtime:** 168 minutes (Paramount and BFI IMAX); the BFI and AFI catalogue list 169 minutes **Release year and platform:** 2014; theatrical release including IMAX, with later home entertainment and streaming availability --- ## What does not make sense - Humans can travel through wormholes and explore distant worlds, but some of their most intelligent machines look as though they belong in an old science-fiction museum. - TARS and CASE demonstrate extraordinary capabilities, yet their deliberately simple appearance makes them seem less advanced than many modern gadgets. Apparently, intelligence needs a shiny exterior to impress people. - Nolan drew inspiration from *2001: A Space Odyssey* while imagining humanity's future. Even the future has trouble escaping the past. - Science-fiction creators can imagine extraordinary advances in physics while remaining attached to familiar designs, technologies and social habits. - There is something convincing about the robots' practical design. A machine built to perform difficult tasks might make more sense than another humanoid robot designed to look impressive. - A film created partly for IMAX screens can spend years buried in a streaming queue, waiting for a cinema to remind audiences what they have been missing. ## Sense check / The numbers 1. **2014:** *Interstellar* had its original theatrical release in November 2014, before the current boom in consumer-facing conversational AI. Its technological vision reflects its production era, even though some of its ideas remain ambitious. \[Paramount\] 1. **168 minutes:** Paramount lists the film at 168 minutes, while the BFI and AFI catalogue list 169 minutes. The BBFC records the original UK IMAX 70mm cinema version at 167 minutes 31 seconds and another UK cinema version at 168 minutes 49 seconds. Published runtimes can differ by edition and source. \[Paramount / BFI / AFI / BBFC\] 1. **2014:** In an October 2014 Associated Press interview, Nolan explained that TARS's minimalist appearance deliberately concealed complex functions. He cited *2001: A Space Odyssey* and the architecture of Mies van der Rohe as influences. The retro look was intentional, not evidence of an absence of imagined AI. \[Associated Press\] 1. **More than 1 hour:** Paramount confirmed that more than an hour of *Interstellar* was photographed using IMAX cameras. The film received 70mm IMAX presentations in 2014 and returned for a limited tenth-anniversary IMAX engagement starting on 6 December 2024. Its large-format presentation was part of the original design. \[Paramount / IMAX\] 1. **$100 million:** By 15 December 2014, *Interstellar* had surpassed $100 million in worldwide IMAX box-office revenue. That shows substantial demand for the format, but cannot prove that every viewer preferred IMAX to a standard screening. \[Paramount\] --- ## The sketch Scene 1: **The Streaming Queue** *A viewer sits on a sofa facing a television displaying a growing queue of films and television series. A small Interstellar poster is almost buried beneath them.* Dialogue: Viewer: "Maybe another time." Television: "Queue: Still growing." Scene 2: **The IMAX Invitation** *The same viewer sits in a tiny cinema seat beneath an enormous screen showing a spacecraft approaching a distant planet.* Dialogue: Viewer: "Now that's cinema." Screen: "Welcome back to space." Scene 3: **Tomorrow, Yesterday** *The viewer stands between a rectangular robot labelled 2014 and a sleek modern robotic silhouette labelled 2026. The older-looking robot stands confidently while the modern robot studies its own hands.* Dialogue: Viewer: "You look rather outdated." TARS: "My intelligence isn't." --- ![Editorial sketch for "Interstellar (2014): The Future Looks Better on IMAX Again".](https://themodernhermit.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/themodernhermit-interstellar-2014-the-future-looks-better-on-imax-again-sketch-1300x555-1-1024x437.jpg) A forgotten streaming title becomes an IMAX event, until the robots reveal their age. --- ## What to watch, not the show - **Cinema economics:** IMAX gives older films another commercial life by offering an experience that is difficult to reproduce at home. [Jurassic Park on the big screen](https://themodernhermit.blog/jurassic-park-standard-screens-squint/) made a similar argument for scale. - **Streaming habits:** The endless supply of newer content can discourage audiences from revisiting films that deserve another viewing. [Cinema advertising streaming subscriptions](https://themodernhermit.blog/michael-imax-moonwalk-cinema-funeral-ads/) makes that competition even stranger. - **Creative imagination:** Fictional futures often retain the machinery, interfaces and social assumptions familiar to their creators. - **Robotics and AI:** TARS and CASE show that intelligent machines do not need human faces or fashionable designs. The argument over what society wants from such machines also appears in [Bicentennial Man and its questions about AI](https://themodernhermit.blog/bicentennial-man-1999-ai-roadmap-corporates-ignore/), although that film focuses more on personhood. - **Technological ageing:** A film's fictional computers can become dated while its photography, sound and emotional story remain compelling. - **Premium presentation:** A film photographed partly with IMAX cameras has a different case for large-format viewing from one simply shown on a bigger screen. ## The Hermit take The future in *Interstellar* may look old-fashioned, but its intelligent robots are still ahead of their time. Twelve years later, the film remains exactly where it belongs: on the biggest screen available. ## Keep or toss ***Keep*.** Keep the film, its ambition, its music and especially its IMAX presentation. Toss the assumption that a future imagined in 2014 must still look futuristic in 2026. --- *Satire and commentary. The film assessment and comments on its imagined technology are subjective. Production, release and box-office figures are attributed to the sources bellow.* #### Sources - Paramount Pictures, official film details and credits: [https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/interstellar](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/interstellar) - British Film Institute, film details and credited runtime: [https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/b07de850-8dd4-5fe1-a1e1-8d27fec041c1/interstellar](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/b07de850-8dd4-5fe1-a1e1-8d27fec041c1/interstellar) - American Film Institute, catalogue and production credits: [https://catalog.afi.com/Film/70145-INTERSTELLAR](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/70145-INTERSTELLAR) - BFI IMAX, screening format and runtime: [https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/imax/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Apermalink=interstellar](https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/imax/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Apermalink=interstellar) - BBFC, UK cinema and home entertainment classifications: [https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/interstellar-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zode4nzi](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/interstellar-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0zode4nzi) - Associated Press, Nolan interview on the robots: [https://www.ksl.com/article/32168649/qa-interstellar-filmmaker-nolan-on-his-robots](https://www.ksl.com/article/32168649/qa-interstellar-filmmaker-nolan-on-his-robots) - Paramount, original IMAX and film-format release: [https://ir.paramount.com/news-releases/news-release-details/christopher-nolans-interstellar-film-november-5th-two-days-its/](https://ir.paramount.com/news-releases/news-release-details/christopher-nolans-interstellar-film-november-5th-two-days-its/) - Paramount, IMAX filming and box-office milestone: [https://ir.paramount.com/news-releases/news-release-details/paramount-pictures-and-warner-bros-pictures-interstellar-crosses/](https://ir.paramount.com/news-releases/news-release-details/paramount-pictures-and-warner-bros-pictures-interstellar-crosses/) - IMAX, tenth-anniversary release: [https://www.imax.com/movie/interstellar/tickets?sha=f004b286f510229ca20827009da80cd15e4db8ad](https://www.imax.com/movie/interstellar/tickets?sha=f004b286f510229ca20827009da80cd15e4db8ad) - Legendary Pictures, film production companies: [https://www.legendary.com/film/interstellar/](https://www.legendary.com/film/interstellar/)