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Interstellar

SUMMARY of the MOVIE

In 2067, humanity is facing global extinction following a global famine, and has abandoned scientific pursuits such as space exploration. The ex-NASA pilot Joseph Cooper is forced to work as a farmer.

Cooper experiences a gravitational anomaly in his daughter Murph's bedroom. He deduces it to be a pattern of GPS coordinates and arrives at a secret NASA facility headed by Professor Brand. Brand explains to Cooper that they are trying to find an exoplanet capable of supporting life, and that he is working on a gravity equation to provide a way to transport large numbers of people there. He enlists Cooper to pilot an exploratory spacecraft, the Endurance, with a crew of three scientists: Romilly, Doyle, and Brand’s daughter Amelia. This is humanity's last chance; there are no more resources to mount another expedition. A wormhole has been found near Saturn, enabling the ship to pass through to another galaxy to search for a new home. On the other side, they investigate three planets orbiting a supermassive black hole, Gargantua, each one previously checked by a NASA scientist-explorer.

The first planet is an ocean world of shallow water. Romilly remains in orbit while the others take a probe to the surface. The NASA explorer is found dead, and Doyle is swept away by a tidal wave generated by Gargantua's gravity. The tide floods the probe's engines, but they dry out enough for liftoff before the probe is destroyed. They return to the Endurance after only an hour, but 23 years have passed due to the time dilation caused by Gargantua's gravity. Murph has become a scientist and begun working with Brand. A dying Brand confesses to her that he lied about being close to a solution of the gravity equation. He put his hopes on Cooper's team finding a habitable planet and establishing a space colony using pre-fertilized eggs.

On the second planet, the crew awaken the explorer, Mann, from cryostasis. He reveals to Cooper that he lied about the planet's habitability in the hope that someone would rescue him. Romilly dies in an explosion when he attempts to access the system logs, while Mann tries to kill Cooper and hijack the Endurance. Mann is blown up when he fails to dock properly with the Endurance. Cooper regains control of the damaged ship. He initiates a slingshot maneuver around Gargantua to propel it to the third planet, but has to sacrifice himself by detaching the probe and falling into the black hole to enable Amelia to reach the planet.

Instead of being crushed, Cooper finds himself inside a five-dimensional tesseract, out of view from beyond the event horizon. From inside he can see moments in time from inside Murph's childhood bedroom. He finds her returning to look for clues to the gravity equation, and he contacts her by manipulating items in the room with gravity to communicate through Morse code. Deducing that this construct has been created by future humans with the ability to time-travel, Cooper imparts to her the information she needs. With his mission completed, he is ejected by the future beings, who return him to the Solar System. He is reunited with an elderly Murph, who has used the gravity equation to enable humanity's exodus from Earth. She advises him to seek out Amelia, and he sets off. On the final planet, Amelia finds herself alone; the explorer has died. She removes her helmet and breathes in the air.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)

Gravity

SUMMARY of the MOVIE

The Space Shuttle Explorer, commanded by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, is in Earth orbit to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Dr. Ryan Stone is aboard on her first space mission, to perform a set of hardware upgrades on the Hubble. During a spacewalk, Mission Control in Houston warns Explorer's crew about a rapidly expanding cloud of space debris accidentally caused by the Russians having shot down a presumed defunct spy satellite (see Kessler syndrome) and orders the crew to return to Earth immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly thereafter as more communication satellites are disabled by debris.

Debris strikes the Explorer and Hubble, tearing Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), rescues Stone, and they return to the Explorer, discovering that the Shuttle has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. Stone and Kowalski decide to use the MMU to reach the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit about 1,450 km (900 mi) away, Kowalski estimating that they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.

On their way to the ISS, the two discuss Stone's home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the station, they see that the ISS's crew has evacuated using one of its two Soyuz spacecraft, the remaining Soyuz spacecraft exhibiting damage with its parachute having been deployed in space rendering it unable to return to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Tiangong space station,[N 1] 100 km (60 mi) away, in order to board the Shenzhou spacecraft to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering fuel, the two try to grab onto the ISS; the duo's tether snags on one of the station's solar panels. Stone's leg gets entangled in the Soyuz's parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski's suit, but it soon becomes clear that the cords will not support them both. Despite Stone's protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him. Stone is pulled back towards the ISS, while Kowalski floats away.

Stone enters the space station via the airlock of the Pirs module. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski or Earth, and concludes that she is now the sole survivor. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, forcing her to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the Soyuz away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers snag, preventing the spacecraft from leaving; Stone performs a spacewalk to cut the cables, succeeding just as the debris field returns, destroying the station. Stone angles the Soyuz towards Tiangong, but soon discovers that the Soyuz's engine has no fuel.

After an attempt at radio communication with an Inuit on Earth, Stone resigns herself to her fate and shuts off the cabin's oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, she experiences a hallucination of Kowalski entering the capsule and telling her to rig the Soyuz's soft landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong. Stone regains the will to go on, restoring the spacecraft's oxygen flow and rigging the landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong.

Unable to dock with Tiangong, Stone ejects herself from the Soyuz and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to the rapidly deorbiting Tiangong. Stone manages to enter Tiangong's Shenzhou capsule just as the station enters the upper atmosphere, undocking the capsule just in time.

The Shenzhou capsule re-enters the atmosphere successfully, despite damage during its descent, and lands in a lake. Radio communication from Houston informs Stone that she has been tracked on radar and that rescue crews are on their way. Stone opens the hatch but is unable to exit due to water rushing in. She takes a deep breath and holds it until the capsule sinks, allowing her to swim through the hatch. She sheds her Sokol space suit that is weighing her down, and crawls onto the beach before standing up triumphantly and walking away.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_(2013_film)

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