We're not meant to save the world, We're meant to leave it : Interstellar: An escapist movie

Ahmet Koc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, Turkey, ID LLCE2017-155;    Abstract: Science fiction has the potential to act as an extrapolative tool foreshadowing the possible situations in a setting of post-ecological collapse. As Patrick Murphy indicates in his seminal work Ecocritical Explorations in Literary and Cultural Studies, science fiction is “intimately linked to, and based on getting people think both about the present and about this world in which they live”. In this respect, Christopher Nolan’s science-fiction movie Interstellar is worthy of attention. Although Interstellar presents a picture of world in brink of an ecological disaster, which is mainly caused by global warming and exploitation of resources by humanity, it fails to provide a solution from within. That is, instead of offering the ways to understand the reasons and solve the problems posed by current wrongdoings of humanity towards nature, it reaches to an escapist solution. Despite including eco-conscious moments, the movie implies that whatever happens to Earth, humanity can find the solution by finding habitable planets in the universe, which is an idea reinforcing nature and culture dichotomy and humans’ mistreatment towards nature: Do not worry! NASA will overcome the apocalypse to come.

Key words: Interstellar, Ecocriticism, nature/culture