Interstellar has been playing long enough that I think we can now clear the rapturous space fantasy vapors from our brains, look at the film with critical eyes, and recognize it for the ideological monstrosity that it is.

At a critical point in the action of Interstellar, as hot-dogging space pilot “Cooper” (Matthew McConaughey) attempts to do some crazily dangerous aeronautic maneuver likely to end in death and destruction, a terrified fellow astronaut yells at him to stop, because “it’s impossible!”

“No,” ripostes The Coop, “it’s necessary.”