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I tried to do my duty, Cooper. But I knew, the day that I arrived here, this place had nothing... and I resisted the temptation for years. But I knew that, if I just pressed that button, then somebody would come and save me.
~ Mann revealing his true intentions.
When I left Earth, I thought I was prepared to die. The truth is, I never really considered the possibility that my planet wasn't the one.
~ Mann to Cooper.
There is a moment…
~ Mann's last words before his death.

Dr. Hugh Mann is the main antagonist of the 2014 film Interstellar. He is the leader of Project Lazarus who was sent to catalogue habitable worlds to ensure humanity's survival. However, after realizing the mission was a failure, he opted to survive by any means and become a leader on mankind's new homeworld.

He was portrayed by Matt Damon, who also played Colin Sullivan in The Departed, Loki in Dogma, and Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Biography[]

Dr. Mann was the Lazarus Missions leader who convinced eleven other scientists to participate in the cataloging of a dozen habitable worlds on the other side of the wormhole. Mann, however, was stranded upon an icy planet that was uninhabitable and could not substitute Earth as the new home planet for life (in Interstellar, the Earth is slowly succumbing to the "Blight" a plague slowly forcing their last crop, Corn into extinction forcing NASA to send astronauts and engineers to the wormhole near saturn to search for a new home). During his time on the icy planet, Dr. Mann realized that he had been sent there for nothing, stating he knew the moment he landed that his planet wouldn't be the new home for humanity. Feeling hopeless knowing he would die for nothing, the cowardly, or "survival" side of him began to convince him to stay alive, and after years of resistance, Dr. Mann finally went through with his survival intentions: to fake his planet's data from hypothetical models from his robot KIPP, booby trapping KIPP, and put it in a more optimal perspective, and to be a leader on humanity's new planet. So he fakes the data from his planet and uses the hypothetical model from KIPP and goes into a deep cryogenic sleep without setting a waking date while he waits for someone to retrieve him.

Mann is reawakened by the crew of the Endurance approximately 30 years later due to the time dilation of the Endurance on Miller's planet. Mann was critically low on power at this point and Joseph Cooper had to manually break open his sleeping bag to wake him. Once Dr. Mann awakens, he cries, and Cooper holds him and comforts him as Dr. Mann releases his pent-up emotions. Dr. Mann is shaken by the appearance of people coming to his rescue, stating he had not set a wake date for his sleep. He and the crew discuss the planet's environment and any further planning that would be implemented when a video message is received, where the somber revelation of Professor Brand's death is told by Cooper's daughter. The crew is shocked to hear from her that Professor Brand had never actually believed in Plan A, but had to make the crew and everyone else believe it. Brand states she has no idea what Cooper's daughter was talking about, when Dr. Mann chimes in, saying he does know. Dr. Mann reveals that Professor Brand had solved his equation that would be able to bring humanity to another planet before he had even left for space, and the reason why Professor Mann couldn't use it was that the equation couldn't reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics. He continues by saying since Plan A was impossible, they had to go ahead with Plan B, and the reason why Professor Brand didn't tell people was because people would be naturally selfish and attempt to save themselves and their children instead of thinking about the human species. Dr. Mann even goes to commend Professor Brand because this was an incredible sacrifice, telling this monstrous lie and abandoning his humanity to save humanity, which in a way is a rather noble sacrifice, but Cooper angrily retorts by saying the great sacrifice was being made by the people on Earth who were going to die, as Cooper interprets this "sacrifice" as mere arrogance in the belief that Earth's case was hopeless. Dr. Mann somberly states that it is in fact hopeless and that they are the future of humanity.

Once the truth about Brand's Plan A being impossible was revealed, it was decided that Cooper would return home while Mann, Romilly, and Brand would proceed to carry out Plan B on Mann. Mann, knowing his planet could never support human life, in secret, attempts to murder Cooper, seeing his death as necessary to the completion of the mission, as Mann did not want to let Cooper leave for Earth with the Endurance, since he now needed it to get to Edmund's planet. Dr. Mann and Cooper have a long dialogue, where Cooper berates Mann as a coward. Dr. Mann shockingly agrees with him but retorts at the same time by saying nobody had been put through the emotional and psychological trauma he went through when he stayed in solitude for all those years on the icy planet. The two men continue to fight, and Dr. Mann head-butts Cooper's faceplate, causing it to crack. Dr. Mann prepares to leave, stating to Cooper that he is making a noble sacrifice for humanity. After witnessing the explosion of his capsule with Romilly inside, Mann changes his plan to lie about Cooper's death being an accident and instead attempts to maroon the Endurance crew on Mann's planet in order to live and finish Brand's Plan B mission on his own, since the crew would figure out Dr. Mann had lied and presumably imprison him. However, Dr. Mann only succeeds in stealing Ranger 1 and docking it imperfectly on the Endurance, since he is unfamiliar with the proper docking procedure and TARS locking the airlock and overriding the systems of Ranger 1 from Manns control since he did not trust him.

While dismissing Brand's pleas to not do this without the rest of the crew's authority or action, arguing that the plan is to save all mankind, he announces "There is a moment" before the airlock depressurizes, killing him and critically damaging the Endurance. TARS and Cooper rush to undo Mann's damage, which they succeed in.

Personality[]

Dr. Mann was once a brilliant and intelligent scientist highly regarded by his peers as heroic and among the "best and brightest", with Brand pointing out he was the bravest man she ever knew. He shared Professor Brand's belief that humanity was doomed and saw "Plan A" as an impossible dream. He left for a potentially habitable planet, with the hope his planet would be the one to sustain human life, without taking into consideration the possibility of failure. However, upon realizing the planet's inhospitability and his imminent isolation and likely death, he descended into madness. Desperate to survive, he manipulated data and entered cryogenic stasis, hoping for rescue.

Driven by cowardice, he committed murder to hijack the Endurance for his own escape plan. Despite his actions, he was once a good man. He justified his wrongdoings as survival instincts, claiming others would have done the same in his position. He was also remorseful, saying that he couldn't bear to hear as Cooper suffocated. Mann acknowledged his wrongs but believed few would have endured the same hardships had they been put in his situation.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • This is not the only role that Matt Damon played an astronaut; he portrayed Mark Watney in The Martian, which was released a year later after Interstellar. The difference is that while Watney is the main protagonist of The Martian, Dr. Mann is the main antagonist in Interstellar.
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