I feel like it would be terribly selfish of Coop if he DIDNT go.

Saving the human race (including your own children) > Staying and dying slowly with your children

Children will make u take sacrifices. If ur not willing to give up ur children they will simply give u up… he left his kid to save the world. He didn’t exactly just leave to do some random thing he wanted.. his intention was to save his family and mankind. Ur thought of him choosing one over the other is simply wrong. That wasn’t his intention and I don’t see how u came to think that was what the film was portraying.

I think you’re missing the point. It wasn’t about the type of father he was.. rather the story was written as such to emphasize a longing for.. a connection.. that sometimes is missing when certain priorities in life outweigh what seemingly is already staring you in the face as the primary priority.. which the story’s premise does explore and their relationships are used to convey.

yes.

but, no.

he realizes he would have preferred to die with her on a hellish earth but he did help her save humanity so i think she understands in the end

I wouldn’t call him a bad father at all. He sacrificed to save his family and humanity. He’s flawed for sure, but that’s kind of the point of his character. Movies need flawed characters or else they are boring as hell

Why would he try to leave once he learned dr. Mann had lied to him about the gravity solution? Why was he so devastated after losing 20 years to Amelia's mistake? She even admonished him about wanting to get back to his kids after the wave hit them. His kids are the motivating factor and he mentions it several times. So do others. It's like you didn't watch the movie.

Coop needs to go to save humanity. The thing I found annoying is that his daughter is written as a one-note character who despite being a scientist doesn't understand this and for her entire life is defined by her anger for him. This is a general problem with Nolan's often poorly conceived female characters. And I say that as someone who really likes Interstellar, what is good in that movie is so good that it makes me give it a pass for its flaws, of which I think this is the biggest.

>Firstly, when Coop is presented with the mission to go through a wormhole to another galaxy he doesn't protest on the ground of possibly never seeing his children again.

He does, though.

Coop: "How long would I be gone?"

Brand: "Hard to know. Years."

Coop: "I got kids, Professor."

Brand: "Get out there, and save them."

And the very next scene is Brand putting him at ease by giving his word that he will solve the Gravity Equation by the time Coop returns.

He never really had a choice. When the people from the future created the wormhole and the tesseract they built it for him. His choices would always lead to that moment where he sent the data back through the watch. It's a bootstrap paradox.

ITT - people using fundamental plot points to explain quite clearly, OP refuting based on head cannon and self restricted view of the plot.

Beggars can't be choosers. Coop may literally be the greatest father in Earth's history so the fact that he missed playing catch with his kids a few times is like.... one child's teat in an ocean lol

This take is not very good

Love is the death of duty.

The movie establishes he cares for his children and wants to return home multiple times

Feel like saving the human species makes the question irrelevant.🤷‍♂️

Yes, he was a terrible father. And probably intentionally framed as such, since the film also explores the "pioneer myth" and some of its implications, like leaving a family behind.

To be fair, not every father has those same thoughts that you do. In real life, there are men that abandon their kids for much less than the chance to save the world.

>this is going to be really long but i don't think i can condense or shorten my thoughts

>Not only as a father, but as the parent of 2 children

I think you could have condensed your thoughts at least a little there i.e. as the father of 2 children

I haven't finished the third paragraph yet, but no coop is not a terrible father. His kids were likely to die slowly and painfully on Earth. Also in the first 20 mins we see him actively working to maximize his children's happiness and education

I dunno why you're getting downvoted, man. I'm guessing everyone who's downvoting you either isn't a parent or is a shitty one.

I totally understand what you mean - the goal of "save all humanity" is extremely impersonal compared to the parental instinct of "protect my offspring," and Coop acts like he just doesn't care about his role as a father. He treats his kids the way you'd treat a friend/acquaintance.

Deleted the post like a Mupp

I think you might be projecting your own parental issues onto Cooper. This is literally a movie about trying to prevent humanity's dying breath. It's clear that Cooper doesn't want to leave, but knows the hard choice is the only way for his kids to survive. The easy decision would be staying with them and doing nothing.

The 'I can't be your ghost right now' thing is just ham-fisted foreshadowing.

I think he might be, yeah but it doesn’t take away from the story for me. there can be a few ways to look at it, he did walk away from his children but in an effort to save humanity. but he did it for his children in a way, and for his grandchildren and those who come after. I own this movie so i’d have to watch it again for the nitty-gritty but there also the paradoxes that come into time travel. it has to be him because it is him. he sends himself the coordinates for the lab/base which causes a domino effect that led to him eventually leaving (because he already left) and didn’t he say that the people from millions of years in the future who opened the wormhole chose him?
also he’s a brilliant man who served his country in whatever effort was his past life and now he’s a farmer (don’t get me wrong, farming is amazing and i’d love to sell it all and buy a farm and live a more simple life but i’m also not facing extinction). this could be argued as a sense of duty towards his nation which is hard to overcome; parents leave their kids all the time to go on deployments with promises of coming home.
also, i’m not sure I agree that this is his dream. yes I agree that being a pilot was a big part of his identity and there’s def ‘fish out of water’ context throughout the set up for the movie but none of it comes off as his dream.

also as a side note, there is an argument in there somewhere that Tony is adopted in the MCU. been thinkin about that a lot since my last Endgame rewatch

Yes

hard yes

you saved the world and your daughter is left with the emotional and mental distress of abandonment for life

hero and asshole, two things can be true

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