He didn’t make it for Inception, nor for any of his Batman movies but, in the first big surprise of this year’s Comic-Con, Christopher Nolan made his Con debut today to introduce Interstellar at the Paramount presentation. “I heard a lot about this being the place where people are most passionate about pop culture and movies,” Nolan told the masses gathered in Hall H. “I thought it would be fun to come down and see what all the fuss is about.”
While far from pulling back the curtain on his secretive sci-fi project, the reticent director did talk about his motivations for making the film and the thought process that went into it. “I grew up in a time when to be an astronaut was the highest ambition. The idea that we’d keep exploring space, pushing farther and farther out, seemed inevitable. I felt that had fallen off greatly over the past couple of decades. I really like the idea that we’re on the cusp of a brand new era of exploration. I’m very much hoping that the experience we’re putting together will take the audience on that ride.”
Nolan also unveiled the as-yet unreleased full trailer for the film, which finally begins to contextualise the story (far more than the oblique quotes and historical figures did in the initial teaser). From what we can gather the world is in a pretty bad place, thanks to the ravages of climate change. Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper is an engineer who, along with Anne Hathaway and a team of others, embarks on a mission to find another habitable planet to replace our dying Earth. As to the method of the search, Nolan dropped a hint by referencing the help of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, whose studies tackle the existence of wormholes.
The footage, which basked in the visual majesty we expect from Nolan (and offers a tantalising glimpse of just how stunning this film will look on IMAX) showed one or perhaps two alien landscapes, including a frozen tundra with craggy, ice-capped peaks that seemed to wrap around to form both terrain and firmament – not unlike the early dream sequence in Inception. As to what it all means though, Nolan wasn’t telling. “It’s about human beings, what it is to be human and what our place is in the universe.”
While Nolan (and McConaughey) were clearly the high point of the Paramount panel, there was certainly more on offer. A series of clips from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles showed the heroes in a half-shell in all their glory, showcasing some of the action in store, which included the kind of over-the-top martial arts choreography that only CGI can offer. The dialogue was snappy, with Michelangelo in particular dropping a broad array of zingers and the somewhat sinister paramilitary Foot-soldiers are a welcome change from the faceless ninja-fodder of previous outings.
A short clip from **Project Almanac **followed, though with no context offered, anyone unfamiliar with the time-travelling adventure would have been left wondering what on Earth was actually going on. Afterwards, in a very welcome return to Comic-Con, The Rock dropped by to give Hercules a plug (it hits cinemas here in the US on Friday) and the trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine 2 was unveiled and you can watch the red band trailer for it below.
Did Interstellar leave you baffled and confused? We explain Interstellar in detail here.