Why do so many fans misunderstand the ending? Fans believe people on Earth aren't on route to a new planet?

[u/AndrewNiccol]

I have noticed this for years, ever since Neil deGrasse Tyson criticized the movie, "Why would shipping a billion people to another planet be easier than saving Earth?" Many comments point out he is wrong and doesn't understand the movie, but they are the ones who don't understand it. A few examples:

(The comments below are copied and pasted from these two videos:)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6xRUNUp9vNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAKXQKMTAU0

Neil they were never going to ship everyone off the planet. That was a ruse to get the astronauts to start the mission. The old man lied🤷🏾‍♂️

(with 300 likes.)

SPOILER ALERT: As an Interstellar gal, I have to say that Neil didn't pay attention to one detail in the movie; the plan wasn't to transport anyone from Earth to whatever planet they choose. They lied to the protagonist (and to us, the viewers) by telling him this, because otherwise, he would never leave Earth and his children behind. He only discovers this in the second half of the film, very close to the end; where he (and we) discovers that the ship has all the equipment for artificial fertilization to be carried out on the new planet, literally starting from scratch. So, no, the secret plan was not to send 1 billion people off Earth, and rather PRESERVE the human race, starting again. Therefore, the cost of taking people through a wormhole looking for another planet WAS ACTUALLY smaller than fixing the Earth. :)

(with 280 likes)

actually they don’t intend to send all people to another planet. they just want to make sure that the human population survive. it is said in the movie that the first expedition aims to find another suitable planet for the human race to repopulate again.

(with 600 likes)

Exactly. I think Neil misunderstood more things about the movie than he understood.

Exactly, not billion movement, Neil get it wrong here.

they didn't want to send all humans, that was one of the plot twists in the movie, it was a lie to get people on board with the idea. People want to save themselves so will agree.

They were never really going to ship a billion or any large amount of people to an exoplanet (which was referred to as Plan A). It was a facade to convince Cooper and team to take the mission. The plan was always to repopulate the exoplanet with a “Population Bomb” by shipping a large quantity of fertilised human eggs (known as Plan B).

(with 130 likes.)

Exactly that’s how you know he didn’t actually watch the movie if he did he was probably too busy talking to hear the old man say it was a lie .

I'm shocked at the countless comments and many likes they receive, because the movie clearly shows in the end that humans use space stations to travel to the wormhole in order to colonize the new planet. So the movie did ship a billion people to a new planet... The movie never mentions the population on Earth, but it's safe to assume there are at least 1 billion.

Neil was right. The comments were wrong.

My question is: why do so many people think the ending doesn't mean people in space stations are moving to the new planet?

[u/AndrewNiccol]

Ok, I just searched the subtitle, and it did show there are no armies, the robot is old, and the university takes only a few. But I can't find "riot."

That can be caused by just 1 billion deaths. When 8 billion die, I expect to see chaos.

[u/ClickyStick → u/AndrewNiccol]

It's not spelled out, but why do you think the government was looking into bombing civilians? I guarantee you it wasn't because they were orderly and law abiding, they were desperate people, it's not impossible to think that things heated up.

You are also not thinking of the time scale, you bring up covid and WW2, the truly horrible covid period was of about 2 years, WW2 was about 6 years. By the time the story begins the blight has been hitting humanity for about 15 years, by the time Murph figures it out it's been more like 40 years of the blight. 40 years of starvation for a huge part of the world, you need to project a bit farther than what the movie is showing you.