Daily Dialogue — July 20, 2017

Romilly: Of all these anomalies, the most significant is this: out near Saturn, a disturbance of space-time.
Cooper: It’s a wormhole?
Romilly: Appeared 48 years ago.
Cooper: And, it leads where?
Dr. Brand: Another galaxy.
Cooper: A wormhole’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon…
Brand: Someone placed it there.
Cooper: “They.”
Brand: And whoever they are, they appear to be looking out for us. That wormhole, lets us travel to other stars. Came along right as we needed it.
Doyle: They’ve put potentially habitable worlds right within our reach. Twelve, in fact, from our initial probes.
Cooper: You send probes into that?
Doyle: Mm-hm.
Dr. Brand: We sent people into it. Ten years ago.
Cooper: The Lazarus missions.
Dr. Brand: Twelve possible worlds, twelve Ranger launches, carrying the bravest humans ever to live. Led by the remarkable Dr. Mann.
Doyle: Each person’s landing pod had enough life support for two years, but they could use hibernation to stretch that, making observations on organics over a decade or more. Their mission was to assess their world, and if it showed potential, then they could send out a signal, bed down for the long nap, wait to be rescued.
Cooper: And what if the world didn’t show promise?
Doyle: Hence the bravery.

— Interstellar (2014), written by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Scientific Explanation, suggested by Melinda Mahaffey.

Trivia: Steven Spielberg, who was attached to direct the film in 2006, and hired Jonathan Nolan to write the screenplay, chose other projects instead. In 2012, after Spielberg’s departure, Jonathan Nolan suggested the project to his brother Christopher Nolan.

Dialogue On Dialogue: As far as exposition goes, this is some pretty sweet background info.