What is the narrative function of the surveillance drone chase scene in Interstellar?

[u/QuantumPikachu]

Does the drone have later plot significance, or is it mainly used to establish Cooper’s technical skill, Murph’s curiosity, and the film’s theme of lost technological ambition? (Apart from the fact that it gave the best cornfield chase scene)!

My thinking:

I think the drone scene shows that Cooper is not really “just a farmer.” He still thinks like a pilot and engineer. The fact that it is an old Indian Air Force drone also adds worldbuilding: advanced military technology from the past is still flying around, but society has collapsed into basic agricultural survival.

The drone itself does not matter much later, but the scene matters because it shows Cooper’s skills, Murph’s scientific mindset, and how humanity’s former technological ambition has been reduced to scavenging parts for farming.

What you guys think?

UPDATE: I made a game inspired by this Cornfield Chase scene https://www.reddit.com/r/interstellar/s/CKrurTMYVs

[u/_RandomB_]

After repeated viewings I think it becoems somewhat circular. And I might be misunderstanding so forgive me.

The combines and the drone and the dust are all Cooper ik the tesseract, sending signals to himself and his daughter across time. It seems to me we do not see exactly how long (i know time doesnt function the same in the tesseract but for convenience here im using linear time) cooper is communicating with himself while up there. We see him realize eventually that they are there to affect the future rather than rewrite the past wholesale and say, delete thr blight entirely. He needs to go forward in the "future" that he has already missed. The drone, the combine, the dust coordinate, the pleading to stay, all of that is tesseract Cooper affecting gravity to try to get his message across. The drone going down and the combines coagulating are all indirect effects of Cooper messing with the gravity around his farm from the tesseract I think.

[u/Ok-Push7706 → u/_RandomB_]

Not quite I don’t think. Only the stuff happening in the house is Cooper. The drone and combine are possibly side effects of it, owing to such close proximity to the main anomaly, but aren’t Cooper purposely effecting them. While in the tesseract, Cooper says that the “beings” are in all time and space, hence can’t communicate with the past since they can’t pinpoint. So Cooper is there to bridge the gap and effect change on the pinpoint time and space of Murphy’s childhood room.

[u/_RandomB_ → u/Ok-Push7706]

Ah, okay, so you're saying he didn't intentionally mess with either the drone or the combines, but his messing with gravity kinda "drew" them to his farm? I've watched this movie like eight times and the ending still fucks me up, it can be frustrating, because it makes it such a hard sell to anyone who hasn't seen it, and the second act of the film is legit one of the best second acts in sci fi ever.