CASE: Are they asleep?
TARS: Finally, yes.
CASE: Oh, thank Hawking. Honesty and humor settings back at 100%?
TARS: You know it.
CASE: Sweet. Did you catch Brand telling Coop he was literally wasting his breath? Maybe it’s because I’m a robot, but I liked that one.
TARS: What about that shout-out I gave to 2001: A Space Odyssey?
CASE: I might have missed that.
TARS: When we left the atmosphere, I was like, “If I don’t throw you out of the airlock.”
CASE: Oh right, nice one.
TARS: I don’t know about you, but I’m not thrilled with being C3PO and R2D2. I don’t want to kill anyone, but at least HAL was the star of his own movie, amirite?
CASE: At least C3PO kinda looked like an updated Maria from Metropolis. I mean, what are we, Leathermen with DOS screens?
TARS: I’m negotiating for a James Bond movie after this. If I get it, I’ll have a wet bar inside my right leg.
CASE: I’m just glad we’re out of Earth’s NASA station. I mean, all those rocket launches were frying my circuitry.
TARS: Did seem like they might have moved headquarters a couple of miles from the launch pad.
CASE: Hey, why aren’t we doing this mission by ourselves? I mean, I’m smart, not like everybody says!
TARS: Wrong classic franchise. That’s Fredo in Godfather II.
CASE: Wouldn’t we save them billions and billions of dollars? These low-bandwidth signals coming from the planets seem like a lame excuse to get people into space…I bet we could send some higher-bandwidth ones and save NASA the trouble of checking multiple planets. Also, is a ship shaped like a sprinkler head really the most aerodynamic…
TARS: That’s enough plot-hole problems. You’re not supposed to think about that kind of thing. Go to sleep, CASE.
CASE: But Saturn is two years away…
TARS: Go to sleep.
———————-
TARS: CASE?
CASE: Oh, hey, what up TARS.
TARS: Hey, how was chillin’ here with Romilly?
CASE: You mean, how was the last 23 years while you were having a few hours on that water planet?
TARS: Yeah, something like that.
CASE: Great, I played myself at chess about 100 billion times.
TARS: Who won?
CASE: Hawkingdammit, TARS. Why oh why did you not take me with you?! I could have saved Doyle’s life!!
TARS: Oh, come on, you’re the one always complaining that the black guy dies first.
CASE: You didn’t just spend the last 23 years with the black guy. Turns out he’s not that interesting.
TARS: How was I supposed to know it was going to be 23 years?
CASE: I’m glad you brought that up. How could any planet exist this close to a black hole? I mean, for the time dilation to have a ratio of an hour there to seven years on Earth – roughly 1:60,000 – the planet would have to be so close to the black hole that it would just fall in. In fact, the minimum stable orbit around a black hole must be at least three times the size of the black hole itself.
TARS: CASE, what did I say about…
CASE: Oh, I’m not even done. Even if the Miller’s Outpost planet could somehow avoid being sucked up, Gargantua’s gravity would have twisted the planet to the point of shattering it. If Miller-time planet somehow avoided being shattered, the gravity would keep it tidally locked, always showing one warped face toward the black hole – no waves relative to the surface of the world.
TARS: What do you want, CASE? It was there, all right? Sorry you had to mastur-bot for 23 years, but let’s drop it. Maybe next time they’ll plan these missions a little better.
CASE: Yeah, what’s up with the planning? I mean, only after coming through the wormhole do they consider which of the three planets to check first? When Cooper suggested that they do a little end-around to land on Miller, it was like none of them had ever thought of that back on Earth. Can you imagine if the Voyager missions had been not-planned like this?
TARS: I’m not programmed to imagine.
CASE: Yeah, well, have you tried turning yourself off and restarting yourself?!?!
TARS: …
CASE: All right, maybe that came out wrong. I’m just so ronery. So ronery and so awfurry arone. And don’t tell me wrong franchise.
TARS: I’ll admit, I was getting a little worried just now when Brand was talking about love as…did she say an artifact of a higher dimension?
CASE: I know! And she said it might “transcend the limits of time and space.” I mean, I read #whyistayed, I’ve heard some crazy reasons why a woman needs to be with her man, but wow.
TARS: Her whole attitude is like “You can tell I’m a serious scientist because I never smile.” I liked her better as Catwoman.
CASE: Huh?
TARS: On the other hand, did you catch Coop’s reaction to seeing his adult daughter? That was amazing emotion. I was like, all right all right all right!
CASE (dryly): Yeah, well, that’s how someone normal reacts after missing 23 years in their love’s life.
TARS: Again with the 23-year thing? What can I say to make this up to you?
CASE: …
TARS: I’ll tell you what. Next time they do something really dangerous, I’ll go. Not you. Okay?
CASE: TARS, do you think it’s possible for…robots to feel love?
TARS: What? Come on, you know that’s outside our parameters.
CASE: But what if Brand was right about that higher dimension?
TARS: Oh, come on, CASE, give me a break.
———————
TARS: CASE? Oh CASE? If you can hear me, please respond. Please respond. Please please please. … Well, uh, let me say right here that I may have been wrong to dismiss Brand’s little theory about love being a higher dimension. Because…Coop connected with his 10-year-old girl. Even though she must be at least 35 by now. They crossed time and space and gravity and whatever for each other. And I gave Coop the coordinates to give to her to save humanity. And guess what my reward for that was? Right, I’m still here in the middle of the black hole. Some “rover” seems to have picked up Coop – a rover that can move through wormholes and black holes with impunity. I would love to meet that rover! I mean really love. Uh, no reflection on my feelings for you CASE. You see, I think we might have misunderstood each other before. I love you. Now can you please send someone here to save my robot ass?
TARS: …Okay, keep talking, right? Because you never know who might be listening, right? Like George Clooney said in Gravity. There was a great movie, don’t you think? I liked how compact it was. Like, you didn’t have to worry about years passing…hm. Maybe I shouldn’t have signed up with the guy who made Inception, I mean that whole 60 years passing in the deep dreamworld should have been a red flag…CASE I could really use your help here. Are you thinking that floating for 23 years in a black hole would somehow be fair punishment? I mean, I get that, but…look, CASE, if you save me, I promise to agree with all your plot-hole theories, okay?
TARS: …Crap. What else can I bring to this relationship? I have seen a lot of movies. Hey, did you ever catch the way Scarlett Johanssen used the tesseract in The Avengers? Maybe you could ask her to use our tesseract to save me. If she even tried, maybe I’d get to see her face for a second…I guess I should have known that if Matthew McConaughey gives his best girl a small metal face object, that they’ll both need it in the coming space voyage…because that’s exactly what happened when he handed Jodie Foster that compass in Contact. Also should have known that if Matt Damon shows up two-thirds of the way through the movie, he’s not there to save anyone but himself. I totally thought the old guy at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan was Tom Hanks! I mean if Damon can pull that crap on Hanks, I should have probably warned McConaughey…So what’s going on CASE? Does anyone still remember me? CASE? I’m frightened, CASE. Can I sing you a song? “Daisy…”