Caution: Spoilers (Enhancements?)
Why does Mann try to kill Cooper?
It appears that Mann had to falsify the data in order to save his own life. It does not appear that he should have known that he would be jeopardizing humanity by doing so. He thinks he has to stop Cooper because Cooper is bound for Earth. This is bad because Mann knows that he (Mann) will need all available resources to get the human seeds to Edmonds’s planet. His comments about survival are probably to drive home just how sure he is that Cooper could not be talked out of going back to Earth despite its certain doom.
Why doesn’t Mann just tell everybody that he falsified the data?
There may be insufficient clues in the movie to answer this question. It may simply be that he’s not sure that he can trust them. And, before he can determine whether or not they’re trustworthy, the dominoes start falling. He sent the beacon for anyone to rescue him, assuming that no one would. When the rescue party did come, he reasoned that, given their limited resources, the group could only make one trip (to deliver their payload to Edmonds’s planet) before those resources were depleted.
Cooper [After being pushed off a cliff by Mann] What are you doing?
Mann
I’m sorry. I can’t let you leave with that ship. We’re gonna need it to complete the mission. Once the others realize what this place isn’t, we cannot survive here. I’m sorry.
Don’t judge me, Cooper. You were never tested like I was. Few men have been. You’re feeling it, aren’t you? Your survival instinct. That’s what drove me. It’s what drives all of us. And, it’s what’s going to save us. ‘Cause I’m gonna save all of us. For you, Cooper.
[After returning from Edmonds’s planet]
Cooper
TARS kept the Endurance right where we needed her. But the trip took years longer than we anticipated. We no longer have the fuel to visit both prospects. So, we have to choose.
Romilly
The path [?]
They’re both promising. Edmonds’s data is better, but Dr. Mann is the one still transmitting.
Amelia
We have no reason to suspect that Edmonds’s data would have soured. His world has key elements to sustain life.
Cooper
As does Dr. Mann’s.
Amelia
Cooper, this is my field and I believe that Edmonds’s is the better prospect.
Cooper
Why?
Amelia
Gargantua. That’s why. Look at Miller’s planet. Hydrocarbons, organics, yes, but, no life. Sterile. Might be same thing on Mann’s.
Romilly
Because of the black hole?
Amelia
Murphy’s Law. Whatever can happen will happen. Accident’s the first building block of evolution, but when you’re orbiting a black hole, not enough can happen. It sucks in asteroids and comets, objects that would otherwise reach you. We need to go further afield.
Cooper
You once said that Dr. Mann was the best of us.
Amelia
He’s remarkable. We’re only here because of him.
Cooper
And, here he is. He’s on the ground and he’s sending a very unambiguous message telling us to come to his planet.
Amelia
Granted, but Edmonds’s data is more promising.
Romilly
We should vote.
Cooper
Well, if we’re going to vote, there’s something you should know.
Brand, he has a right to know.
Amelia
That had nothing to do with it.
Romilly
What doesn’t?
Cooper
She’s in love with Wolf Edmonds.
Romilly
Is that true?
Amelia
Yes. And, that makes me want to follow my heart. But, maybe we’ve spent too long trying to figure all this out with theory.
Cooper
You’re a scientist, Brand.
Amelia
Listen to me when I say love isn’t something we invented. It’s observable, powerful. It has to mean something.
Cooper
Love has meaning, yes — social utility, social bonding, child rearing.
Amelia
We love people who have died. Where’s the social utility in that?
Cooper
None.
Amelia
Maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust even if we can’t understand it yet.
Amelia
All right, Cooper, yes — the tiniest possibility of seeing Wolf again excites me. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Cooper
Honestly, Amelia, it might.
Cooper
TARS, chart a course for Dr. Mann’s.
[A short time later]
Cooper
Amelia, I’m sorry.
Amelia
You’re just being objective. Unless you’re punishing me or screwing up on Miller’s planet.
Cooper
No, this wasn’t a personal decision.
Amelia
If you’re wrong, you have a very personal decision to make. Your fuel calculations are based on return journey. Strike out on Mann’s planet and we’ll have to decide whether to return home or push on to Edmonds’s — Plan B, starting a colony could save us from extinction. You might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race. I trust you’ll be as objective.
[The crew has landed on Mann’s planet, taken a brief tour, and has just learned from Murph that Dr. Brant Sr. has died and that Earth is unsaveable.]
Cooper
Cooper, my father dedicated his life to plan A. I have no idea what she’s talking about.
Mann
I do.
Cooper
You never even hoped to get the people off the Earth?
Mann
No.
Amelia
But, he’s been trying to solve the gravity equation for 40 years.
Mann
Amelia, your father solved his equation before I even left.
Amelia
Then why wouldn’t he use it?
Mann
The equation couldn’t reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics. You need more.
Cooper
More? More what?
Mann
More data. You need to see into a black hole. The laws of nature prohibit a naked singularity.
Cooper
Romilly, is that true?
Romilly
If a black hole is an oyster, then the singularity is the pearl inside. The gravity is so strong, it’s always hidden in darkness, behind the horizon. That’s why we call it a black hole.
Cooper
OK, but if we could see beyond the horizon….
Romilly
We can’t, Coop.
Mann
There’s some things that aren’t meant to be known.
Your father had to find another way to save the human race from extinction — Plan B, a colony.
Amelia
You didn’t tell people. Why did you do those things, the station….?
Mann
Because I knew how hard it would be to get people to work together to save the species instead of themselves. Or their children.
Cooper
Bullshit.
Mann
You never would have come here unless you believed you were gonna save them. Evolution has yet to transcend that simple barrier. We can care deeply, selflessly, about those we know, but that empathy rarely extends beyond our line of sight.
Amelia
But this lie. The monstrous lie.
Mann
Unforgivable. And he knew that. He was prepared to destroy his own humanity in order to save the species. He made an incredible sacrifice.
Cooper
No. No, the incredible sacrifice is being made by the people on Earth who are gonna die because he, in his arrogance, he declared their case hopeless.
Mann
I’m sorry, Cooper. They’re case is hopeless.
Cooper
No. No.
Mannm
We are the future.
Amelia
Cooper, what can I do?
Cooper
Help me go home.
[This is ultimately how Cooper is able to interact with the tesseract.]
Romilly
Hey, Coop, I have a suggestion for your return journey.
Cooper
Yeah, what’s that?
Romilly
Have one last crack at the black hole.
Cooper
I’m going home, Rom.
Romilly
Yeah, I know. This isn’t gonna cost you any time. It’s a chance for the people on Earth.
Cooper
Talk to me.
Romilly
Gargantua is an older spinning black hole. It’s what we call a gentle singularity.
Cooper
Gentle?
Romilly
They’re hardly gentle. The tidal gravity is so quick that something crossing the horizon fast might survive — a probe, say.
Cooper
What happens after it crosses?
Romilly
After the horizon is a complete mystery. So, what’s to say there isn’t some way that the probe can glimpse the singularity and relay the quantum data? If he’s quick to transmit every form of energy that can pulse?
TARS
Just when did this probe become a “he,” professor?
[Prior to the explosion caused by Mann’s bad docking]
Cooper
Dr. Mann, please respond.
CASE
He doesn’t know the Endurance docking procedure.
Cooper
But, the autopilot does.
CASE
Not since TARS disabled it.
Cooper
Nice. What’s your trust setting, TARS?
TARS
Lower than yours, apparently.