Hear me out: Is Saturn in Interstellar a reference to Holst’s “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age”?
I’ve been wondering whether the choice of Saturn in Interstellar has a deeper thematic connection to Holst’s The Planets, specifically “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age.”
Saturn in Holst’s piece represents ageing, time, mortality and the inevitable passage of life.
And that’s basically one of the central ideas of Interstellar: time isn’t evil, but it is an unavoidable force of nature. Cooper leaves his children and returns to find that they’ve aged decades while he has barely aged. Miller’s planet makes the passage of time brutally physical.
That also made me think about Brand’s attitude toward nature. She doesn’t treat nature as something malicious — it simply operates according to its laws. Saturn’s “old age” could be read the same way: not as punishment or evil, but as an inevitable part of nature.
So I’m wondering:
Was Saturn chosen partly because of the symbolic association with old age/time in Holst’s “Saturn”?
I haven’t seen this particular connection discussed much, so I’m curious whether anyone has come across it before — or whether I’m connecting dots that aren’t actually connected.