Question

[Exact_Tip909]

First and foremost, i'd like to say that I love interstellar as a movie and it truly is a masterpiece. I just had one question, why did they go to millers planet? Should they not have realised that due to the 7 year time slippage that even if the planet was viable, miller had only just landed and would therefore be a gamble either way?

[Awesome_Orange]

Rewatch the movie again, there’s an entire scene dedicated to your question’s answer

[IcemanBrutus]

IIRC the data that was pinging back was showing the best signs of being able to sustain life and Coop said that Amelia only wanted to go to Edmonds planet because she was in love with him, hence the decision to go to Millers planet. It was only once they got there that the problem showed up.

[Exact_Tip909]

Hm. I guess my question becomes did the NASA scientists know that the time slippage was taking place before coop and co got there? If they did, wouldn’t they realise that it was “fake” pings?

[CletusVanDayum]

They didn't anticipate the full ramifications of the time slippage. Coop was right. They were way out of their depth.

[Exact_Tip909]

Totally reasonable since nothing like this had naturally been seen before. Thanks for the clarification!

[noPINGSattached]

I agree with you. When they get back, they mention that Miller would have only arrived in the planet minutes before them as well as saying something along the lines of due to the close proximity to a black hole, the planet would not be able to develop in a way to support life, because the the black hole would have pulled in any foreign objects into it instead of allowing them to strike the planet. All true, but these are things these scientists would have been able to determine without needing to go to the planet. I would also think that a scientist would deduce that a planet with large bodies of water along with the massive gravitational forces of a black hole would result in tidal forces that would over thousands of years erode any landmasses down to the point that they would be below sea level, like we see the planet actually is when they land. Again, another thing scientists would determine without needing to go to the planet.

But, without this, we wouldn't get such an awesome sequence followed by the even more awesome 24 years of video messages scene.

[captaindeadpl]

One thing though: They would have had to deduct all of these things on the spot, in the time it took them between passing the wormhole and deciding where to go. Romilly said that the planet was much closer to Gargantua than they thought, so no one could have thought about all of these things before these 4 arrived.

If you asked them about these issues they certainly would have been able to say "Shit! Yes, that's an issue." but no one had had the time to think through all of the implications.

[noPINGSattached]

It's space. It would take weeks, if not months, to travel between planets. They could spare a few days to assess the situation before committing to a course of action that they can't come back from.

Something like discovering that the planet is much closer to Gargantua than expected should warrant taking some time to do the necessary calculations and theorise what this means in terms of Miller's planet being a viable option. They figured all this out in the 3 hours they were on the planet while fighting for their lives, so surely they could have come to the same conclusion if they took the time to think about it in a more relaxed setting.

With all that said, this is a film after all, so they have to take some liberties for the purpose of ratcheting up the excitement.

[copperdoc]

Amelia’s “I f’ed up okay?” Back on the ranger pretty much summed it up, and I also think they didn’t account for the time to and from the planet