Yeah, Nolan seems to have messed up in the balancing act, in between keeping it a science based movie and something that could be digested by a mass audience. The end result does not please either party. For the kind of movie it is, it would have been better to actually let Cooper select his trajectory from the number of smaller black holes orbiting gargantua. This would have resulted in a spectacular sequence, where you see one black hole lensing another one behind it. It would have been better to show the gargantua at full speed. When Brand says a black hole environment is not great for evolution because it sucks up everything, comets and meteors, not allowing for events to happen, that is all nonsense, and Nolan knew it. It's still in the movie, and not refuted, giving people who don't bother to find out the wrong idea. More such events are likely to happen around a black hole, and this is explained by saying oh, Brand did not know what she is talking about. The storytelling came first, the scientist's job was to back up the story, instead of putting the science first and writing the story around it.
That's just the way Nolan makes movies. For example for Inception, he ditched research and went for his own feelings, because he felt that "research" means that you just confirm the things that you already believe in. This is not an approach that works for a hard sci fi movie, without making some heavy compromises. Yes,it was good, but maybe this movie would have been better in the hands of another director. Pretty sure Robert Zemeckis or Alfonso Cuaron would have handled this movie better.
Im not hating here, The Prestige remains one of the movies I most enjoy watching again and again.
