From the moment I saw the teaser trailer, I became extremely excited about this film.
I've been a huge Christopher Nolan fan since Memento and the thought of him doing a film about space travel thrilled me to no end.
Then I discovered Kip Thorne was the scientific advisor and the film would feature realistic portrayals of black holes, gravitational lensing and other phenomena predicted by general relativity.
It was Disney's 1979 film The Black Hole that first got me interested in space and general relativity (and AI, incidentally).
At the age of seven, The Black Hole was the first film I was obsessed with. I had the novelization, the behind-the-scenes book, the sticker book, the soundtrack (on vinyl!), etc.
Unlike Interstellar, The Black Hole did NOT feature particularly realistic portrayals but there's no denying the huge impact it had on me.
For much of my teens and into my first couple of years at University, I planned to be a theoretical physicist.
But it wasn't until 1998 (having abandoned a physics career for linguistics and having abandoned that for the web) that I went back and started teaching myself tensor calculus, differential geometry and other prerequisite mathematics for understanding general relativity beyond a popular science level.
For a variety of reasons, I wasn't able to make it to the cinema to see Interstellar. I now regret that hugely. It would have been amazing to see it in IMAX format.
It could very well be the last big film shot on IMAX format film.
My wife bought me Kip Thorne's book The Science of Interstellar for my birthday but I heeded the warning on the front cover that it contained major spoilers.
I was anxiously awaiting the release on iTunes and I think it's the first time I've actually stayed up to download something on iTunes the moment it became available.
EDIT: I should note I meant the first time for a movie. I've done it for TV episodes a lot.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Within minutes of the film starting there's a giant chord on pipe organ. I immediately thought of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The pipe organ features prominently throughout. I was shocked at the end to discover Hans Zimmer composed the music.
This is not your usual Hans Zimmer score (and I later found out Christopher Nolan didn't want it to be).
It's an incredible score.
The interviews at the start (other than Ellen Burstyn's) didn't seem scripted to me and I later discovered they were actual interviews with people who lived through Dust Bowl.
SPOILER: much like the opening to The Prestige there's actually a real give away about the twist at the end of the film in the first few minutes.
For a film running almost three hours, I found the pacing very well done. It's not fast-paced by any means but it never lingers too long.
I found the robots a little too "Sirius Cybernetics Corporation". They just didn't fit the tone of the rest of the film.
Love the omission of sound when showing shots in space.
Docking with Endurance reminded me of the game Elite.
The orchestral music after docking with Endurance seems another homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Ranger controls remind me a lot of the SpaceX Crew Dragon controls.
Reading The Science of Intersteller, you realize that, despite the goal (and claims) of scientific accuracy, there were still things that were simplified for story-telling purposes and things in the movie that Kip Thorne had to back-explain in his book.
Finally got to see Interstellar at a cinema as part of the one-night-only Beyond the World of Interstellar event.
The score really has striking allusions to Bach's Little G Minor Fugue.
There's also a quotation of the first four notes of the Star Trek theme.