3 Christopher Nolan Movie Lines That Sound Clunky but Are Secretly Brilliant

While Christopher Nolan was writing The Odyssey, his son came to visit him and noticed something odd. Missing from their usual place in the office were his Oppenheimer Oscar statuettes. Nolan explained that he was working on a new script, and he’d put the Academy Awards away to avoid being intimidated by these past successes. “Oh,” said the son. “But you didn’t win for writing.”

It’s true that the man’s reputation for writing isn’t quite so stellar as his one for directing. Still, if Oscars mean anything, he has been nominated for screenwriting three separate times. And when it comes to his lines of dialog that have received especially harsh mockery from audiences, some of them might not deserve all the criticism they get.

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The Odyssey: ‘Our Age of Bronze is Collapsing.’

Image via Universal Pictures

People who attended preview screenings of The Odyssey rushed online to share that the movie contained one line that’s head-thumpingly dumb. A man who lives in the Bronze Age, right before the Bronze Age Collapse, says, “Our age of bronze is collapsing.” That’s ridiculous, observed audiences. It’s the equivalent of someone in 1915 saying, “I sure hate this World War One,” or of someone a thousand years ago saying, “I can’t wait for the Middle Ages to be over.”

Of course, the line wasn’t really quite as ridiculous as those examples. Calling the Bronze Age “the Bronze Age” doesn’t require historical hindsight, like those other periods’ names do. You can choose a name for the period you’re experiencing, the way people call our era the Information Age. But more importantly, Odysseus (Matt Damon) here isn’t calling his era by name at all. He’s describing it. He’s describing it as an age of bronze, lowercase b, lowercase a. He calls it an age of bronze, palaces, trade and language. He’s saying it’s been a time of splendor and advancement, and they had it good, but it’s coming to an end.

The fact that we, millennia later, do call it the Bronze Age, and consider the Bronze Age Collapse to be a whole thing, is supposed to give you a fun ah-ha moment when you hear that line. And if it doesn’t, if you instead roll your eyes, then sure, the line doesn’t work as intended. Just know that issue here isn’t that it makes no sense. It makes sense that Odysseus thinks civilization is collapsing. It makes sense because he’s spent the last dozen years going from island to island and seeing the whole world has gone mad.

It also makes sense because people of almost every era think they’re witnessing the end. We certainly think the end is nigh right now, shaking our heads at the next generation, fearing they’ll all be illiterate and have their brains melted by AI. Or as Odysseus puts it, “Songs will be all they have to remember those of us who could write.” Apparently, some people groan at that line as well, calling it too on-the-nose, but for those of us who feel the same way about the future, and who somehow feel personally responsible, the line hits hard.

The only thing that makes Odysseus different from everyone else across history who’s convinced collapse is imminent is he happens to be right. Still, he has hope. He’s convinced civilization will rise again (he’s right about this, too). So, he does not die. And this hopeful twist means he is now free to shed his burdens and go off and wander with Anne Hathaway.

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Interstellar: ‘Love Is the One Thing We’re Capable of Perceiving That Transcends Dimensions of Time and Space.’

Image via Warner Bros.

In Interstellar, after the astronauts have checked out the first of the three planets they’re considering visiting, Brand (Anne Hathaway) suggests traveling to the planet that just so happens to be the one where the ex may be living. The others question her motivation, she admits she’s driven by love, and she says maybe that’s okay, and maybe love is some fundamental force of the universe. Her speech lasts nearly an interrupted minute.

Many who watched the movie didn’t like this scene. THey particularly disliked the line saying that, because we irrationally love those who are long gone, “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” Some people found the delivery awkward and thought it clashed with the surrounding scenes. Other people seemed angry to have a speech about love inserted into their sci-fi film, when what they really wanted was more plot details for their “Interstellar explained” diagrams.

One thing to keep in mind about this scene, though, is that Brand’s words aren’t meant to be a winning speech. If the monologue ended with everyone standing and clapping, we might object, but it doesn’t. Instead, one character (David Gyasi) is so embarrassed for her, he can’t make eye contact (his inability to look at her is spelled out in the script). The final astronaut, Coop (Matthew McConaughey), started the scene unsure which planet to go to, but after the speech, he’s now newly confident that Brand is wrong.

So, the speech is supposed to sound unconvincing. Nevertheless, Brand turns out to be right, and this part plays into the plot, in a way those fans with their diagrams might appreciate. Because there’s another nitpick people have about the movie. It turns out that all the weird space stuff they’ve been seeing (the wormhole, the tesseract in a black hole) were set up by future humans to send information back to us through time. So, if they wanted to send us this information so badly, to save humanity, why couldn’t they just do that, instead of making a team of astronauts go through this interstellar odyssey?

The reason is that love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Coop, in the tesseract, cannot send a message to just anyone: He can only send it to his daughter Murph (Jessica Chastain), whom he loves. The aliens/future humans can’t send it to anyone in the past at all, because they don’t know or love any of us. The tesseract also has to be somewhere hard to reach so someone motivated enough by love to risk their life and die would be the one to enter it.

But Coop does not die. And this hopeful twist means he is now free to shed his burdens and go off and wander with Anne Hathaway.

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The Dark Knight Rises: ‘No. I Came to Stop You.’

Image via Warner Bros.

In the third act of The Dark Knight Rises, Batman (Christian Bale) has completed an odyssey and returned home to expel unruly guests who have taken over. After initially arriving incognito, he reveals himself, and Bane (Tom Hardy) says, “You came back. To die with your city.”

“No,” says Batman. “I came back to stop you.” The line lands with a thud. This has to be the lamest superhero comeback line ever. And let’s not pretend these movies are above quips. The Dark Knight trilogy is full of quips, funny ones. This is the same Batman who, when Joker asked, “Do you know how I got these scars?” replied, “No. But I know how you get these,” and slashed the guy’s face open.

Once again, though, when wincing at a line, we need to understand its significance. Some people who hate the line don’t, based on their suggestions for alternatives. “No,” says one suggestion, “I came to die for my city,” while another says, “If that’s what it takes.” But Batman did not come to die, and this represents a major shift for him.

At the start of the movie, he does want to die. This isn’t just subtext, as with so many stories about depressed heroes: Alfred (Michael Caine) tearfully says he fears that when Batman confronts Bane, he’ll want to lose. When he does confront Bane, Batman doesn’t put up much of a fight. The movie’s big turning point comes when he manages to rise from the pit where he’s imprisoned by regaining the fear of death and deciding he wants to live.

Once he’s back in Gotham, Catwoman urges him not to give up his life to save the city, and we’re still unsure whether he will. At the end of the movie, it appears that Batman does die. If the movie began with him as some carefree playboy, this would count as a heroic sacrifice and would neatly tie everything up. Instead, it began with him suicidal, so his choosing to die would be a tragic defeat.

But it turns out he did not choose to die. And this hopeful twist means he is now free to shed his burdens and go off and wander with Anne Hathaway.

Release Date

July 17, 2012

Runtime

165 minutes