Mock spaceships weighing around 4,500 kg had to be transported to the icy wastes. The water and ice planet surfaces were filmed in Iceland, where Nolan had previously filmed parts of Batman Begins in 2005. Interstellar film location: the alien planet surface: Eldhraun Lava Field, Iceland | Photograph: wikimedia / Zairon More Brokeback – this was the area where Ennis and Jack pitched their tent on the night their passions erupted. Responding to mysterious messages, the Coopers take the Spray Lakes Road / Three Sisters Parkway east from Canmore a couple of miles to the entrance to the secret NORAD facility, which was built at Goat Creek parking lot, south of Whiteman’s Pond beneath Ha Ling Peak. You probably won’t recognise Fort Macleod behind those impenetrable clouds, but it was the town which became ‘Riverton’ in Brokeback Mountain, where Ennis and Alma ( Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams) lived in an apartment above the Laundromat. The small town through which the Cooper family drives during the storm is the Main Street of Fort Macleod, over 100 miles southeast of Calgary, where giant fans kicked up thick (but biodegradable) dust. North of Longview, toward Calgary, the Seaman Stadium in the town of Okotoks hosted the ball-game which is brought to a premature end by one of the increasingly frequent dust storms threatening the planet. The school, where Cooper learns that “the world needs farmers” at the parent-teacher conference, is Longview School, 128 Morrison Road, in Longview. Interstellar filming location: the parent-teacher meeting: Longview School, Longview, Alberta | Photograph: Google Maps Not only that, but the corn was then sold at a profit. The ranch-house where Cooper ( Matthew McConaughey) lives with his kids and his father ( John Lithgow) was built for the film near Longview, about 35 miles south of Calgary.Īfter his experience as producer on Man Of Steel, director Nolan believed it was feasible to grow the 500 acres of corn needed. The early, earthbound scenes are filmed in the area around Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, coincidentally near several locations from Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. Then one character observes that “Love is the one thing that we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space”, which feels like the ultimate screenwriter cop-out.

The method of space travel was based on the work of physicist Dr Kip Thorne (which was also the basis for Carl Sagan's novel, Contact), and Dr Thorne laid down two guidelines to be strictly adhered to: nothing would violate established physical laws, and all the wild speculations would spring from science and not from the creative mind of a screenwriter. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic owes quite a debt to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and is mightily impressive for most of its running length.

Interstellar rocket league