My review of the 2022 version:
I love the original film, but I do love this version even more. So many "small" edits to make this a focused story, now it never leaves the main themes. I've never noticed the many small annoyances (that are kinda frequent on Christopher Nolan's films, despite his genious) that make the film a little less enjoyable. All of them are gone here, and what an experience it is now! Never going back to the original, this is it for me!
Edit June 17, 2024, adding my review of the hybrid greyscale/color 2024 version:
Love the idea of a hybrid greyscale/color, mimicking Nolan’s other films. A very interesting meta-reference! A lot of small annoyances were trimmed or removed (like Amelia's eye-roll, it was just awkward).
Funny, the editor really doesn’t like the poem, hum? The film and the story don’t lose anything without it, that’s true; and it was overused into gratuitousness.
I like both the wormhole and Gargantua scenes in greyscale; the visual effects are still clear but things became more abstract and immaterial; it’s a really cool effect and it helps with the narrative.
The small shot from Cooper's crash is a smart editing choice when they’re landing on Miller's planet, it increases the tension a lot. Really effective editing in the section “before the next wave hits”; the sound and the slow fades are a very elegant solution to make the perceived time inapprehensible, something like a “Temporal Fog”. The wide shots on Mann’s planet become incredible in greyscale; then again, I’m really into greyscale (when it’s done right).
Another great editing showcase at the "Ammonia" sequence; it was too dispersed in the original, and the stakes at the 3 different places weren’t nearly at the same level, so it felt weird. Focusing only on the 2 main things happening, and limiting the intercutting between them, improved this section a lot.
Also, no burning the corn; this idea is really preposterous and corny (sorry…) And removing the scenes with all the yelling and the family melodrama actually focus the film in the main “concurrent” events, the Tesseract and Murphy brilliantly realizing who the Ghost was. Amazing editing here! The reveal “It was you” becomes so much better without all the yelling and the forced countdown of Tom returning (while making Tom less of a jerk).
Also, Murph's face as a reaction to the storm approaching the farm was very nice editing.
Side thought: what created the conditions to save Humanity were both Cooper’s love for his children and Mann’s cowardice / desperation; this is great writing. This is emphasized in this edit, because of the many changes to the film’s final section.
I can’t say enough good things about Cooper “falling” into Tesseract and color gradually returning to the world; this section became mesmerizing and truly unique. The color helps to give the impression that Cooper is truly outside of time / in another dimension.
And cutting to both young Murph’s and adult Murph’s time in greyscale really works, this is impressive!
Issues:
- at 0h38m11, the audio intensity drops very suddenly, then goes back up after 1.5s
- starting at 02h02m30, in my interpretation the way the section is edited was meant to show (using formalism) Cooper’s fluctuating consciousness. The sudden cuts to black (and silence) and then the audio and video suddenly returning should work, but the number of times it happens (like going off and on and off again) is a bit too much. The quick flash of video and sound at 02h02m33 is the worst offender, regarding what I’m trying to describe.
What worked for me in this section: the cut to young Murphy at 02h02m37 was perfect; the slow audio fade-in at 02h02m43 is a great example of things working fine (that’s a great way to represent someone slowly regaining conscience), this was much better than in the original.
- at 2h16m23, after the (really cool) section of Cooper going through the wormhole in color and encountering Brand in greyscale, there are a few frames that show the inside of the Endurance (in color, which shouldn’t happen), these are clearly editing leftovers. They appear just before the cut to Cooper floating in space.
- at 2h17m39, the line “Nice of you to name the place after me“ and the Nurse giggling is a ridiculous bit. It could be cut. Even if Humanity believes it owes Murph for being able to leave Earth, it is clearly shown later that they also respect the Lazarus and Endurance teams as heroes. Also, the guy just “traveled” 89 years to the future. Why is the Nurse making fun of him for not being updated with the news from Earth?
Side note: the way Cooper says “Cooper Station” is actually a great line, that shouldn’t be cut. I can imagine this scene being much better like this: “Cooper Station”, then showing the doctor’s condescending face, then Copper “What?”, then “The station wasn’t named after you, sir ... It was named after your daughter.” This would be much better, imo.
