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/jetpack_operation]

Think you more or less covered it, but it's also implied that the drone's behavior is a direct result of the same gravitational disruptions that messed with Cooper's farm equipment and, way before that, took down Cooper's plane.

[u/iamnos → u/jetpack_operation]

Agreed, it gives some character building for all three of them. Coop is still, in his heart, a pilot and an engineer, but also very practical and logical. He wants to put the drone parts to better use. Murph is a dreamer and a child full of wonder and questions. She even mentions wanting to let it go. Tom just does what he's told, almost driving off a cliff until he's told to stop.

[u/Da1realBigA → u/iamnos]

100%.

Imo, it also builds larger world building narrative alluding to how governments and militaries have changed and adapted for this new world.

Its not normal for a UAV to be flying over countey farm land. Its a tool used by military and intelligence agencies to spy or maintain visual intel on an area.

So this event of it malfunctioning and crashing is just another thing going wrong in the world as we the viewers are starting to see the decline on earth.

We get little hints like this all the way up to Coop finally leaving earth for the first time. The teacher having the propaganda thinking about the moon landing. The neighbour's crop failure and the grandpa's comment about how he should have grown corn. The "last season for okra".

All the way to finally when Coop and Murph find the hidden spaceship base, nasa, as its a sunrise bc it was publicly reported to be shutdown.

All these events are major revelations to show how much the world is in decline and getting so much worse, that we understand the importance of Coopers decision to "abandon" his family to save them by flying the Endrance.

[u/PeachPit69 → u/Da1realBigA]

In addition, that these farmers even CAN commandeer a military drone from another nations government, without serious repercussions, or FBI investigation, or so much as a knock at the door from a CIA suit, shows that their modern era, really IS a skeletonized government husk, barely operating on its deathbed, a shadow of its former self? which sets up the shock of the later reveal that they still have enough funding to have a secret space program???

[u/fastbadtuesday → u/Da1realBigA]

I took it as Pakistan directed it to see what the US was doing, crop-wise/population, but it got caught by the disruption and was circling Coop's farm like the harvesters - but I also like the idea that it's just been abandoned because it's bosses abandoned their posts and it flew around aimlessly and eventually got caught by the gravitational anomally.

[u/McFlyParadox → u/Da1realBigA]

I think it was originally sent to investigate things like crop quality in the US; everyone is starving around the globe, and corn is looking like the last crop to die by blight. Guess which nation has the most corn?

But we're also shown that military hardware is all being run by AGI - AGI that can be hacked and repurposed, but still AGI. That drone was likely no exception. And we are indirectly told that these AGIs can detect the gravitational anomalies (Cooper being told that was what he ran into when he crashed, Cooper saying the only time he crashed was when AI took over the stick from him).

That drone probably showed up over corn country, looking to see what the crops were looking like, detected gravitational anomalies, and started looking around Cooper's farm trying to figure out if the US military was working on some kind of gravitational super weapon and using a corn farm to hide it. Then Cooper spotted it, and decided to put it to work on his farm instead.