Imagine releasing a movie in 2026 where writers have control of the writing. Also the set design is amazing, they really did a lot of work to keep CGI use to a minimum and when they did use CGI it was well done. I’ve been a long time fan of the book and I’m glad to see an adaption so well done
Because it has a basis in science , although they dumbed it down from the book.
I’m so fucking sick of “Zerb from the planet Glip-Glop seeks the mystic stone of Sacros” being call science fiction.
Star Trek, Star wars are not science fiction.
Star Trek literally started from ideas from 1940-1950s SciFi novels. I understand why star wars is more in the fantasy genre than anything, but I don’t understand the need for gatekeeping lol
Just got back from the movies. Loved it. And I’m relieved that they didn’t stray too far from the book. My 14 y.o. son also loved it, and he never read the book. He’s got ADHD and I’ve never seen him complete such a long movie, let alone in one sitting, before.
10/10, would recommend
I really appreciate how they didn’t try to use too much bullshit science. One of my biggest complaints with movies or shows is their use of science that is just completely wrong. Xenonite is quite flakey but I think that’s the worst thing
Gosling’s use of an unbalanced centrifuge made me exclaim “No!” aloud, though.
That one stuck in my craw too! I still loved the movie, but that was just sadly lazy
Even science majors and grads don’t always get it at first.
I taught students and trained junior researchers during and after grad school. When I’d catch lab assistants doing lopsided centrifuge loads, especially in the big floor-standing centrifuges (I even caught one genius sitting on it to dampen the vibration), we’d take a trip to the physics department for a quick lecture on the amount of energy contained in their spinning samples compared to the amount of energy required for a plastic centrifuge tube to fracture and penetrate a human skull.
It helps that Andy weir basically comes up with all the science before writing a story around it
I felt like the author was winking at us when he namee it xenonite and made it a miracle material. “Heres the McGuffin!”
With such a high rating, would you recommend watch the movie or reading the book first? I’ve never even hear of it until recently and never seen a trailer so completely blind about what it’s about.
The book is just a nice read. If movies spoil books for you, definitely read the book first. But the movie is true to the story and both are great.
Book was great, movie was ok, but a little too much buddy comedy.
The book is (mostly) hard scifi, though one with an emphasis on character development. In contrast, the movie is an unlikely buddy comedy meets scifi. They’re very different and while the movie is a faithful adaptation, if the scifi stuff interests you I’d recommend prioritizing the book first.
Thanks for the great reply! I don’t think I’ve read too much hard sci-fi, but I enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s “Scientific Magic”. With all the hype I’ll have to check out the book.
I just watched it today in theaters, great experience… minus the fact that no subtitles and I can’t hear some of the dialogue lol
Also I sat through 30 minutes of ads in the beginning lmfao, if I had known I could just relax annd not rush worrying I’d be late (first time going to theaters)
Big theaters usually have 30 mins of ads but smaller ones will be much shorter usually. This does depend per location though. Some screenings can have 0 ads too if you’re going to a very underground theatre.
Some tips so you don’t end up surprised :)
Super happy for Weir. Great writer and now two great adaptations.
I just hope this leads to Artemis.
Isnt the egg story his? Maybe they could do that next
I assume they called it Project Hail Mary because actually crafting a well written story out of a basically new/unknown IP is the actual last thing that anyone in Hollywood would contemplate as the basis of a movie.
I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think it was that much of a gamble. The Martian set a pretty decent expectation for success.
The Martian came out in 2015.
11 years ago.
In 11 years… how many well known IPs were rebooted or continued or reimagined, as major movies?
How many times did Hollywood release another version of Skyrim?
That reminds me, I gotta re-up.
How many times did Hollywood release another version of Skyrim?
I believe zero. 😂
It based on the book of the same name.
Right, and prior to the movie coming out… how many people had read that book… compared to how many people have seen a piece of media from Star Wars or Marvel or some other well known IP?
It was an amazing movie. There are definitely scenes that I missed that were in the book and I feel should have been in the movie, but I understand they had a lot to get through.
Well to be fair, if they included everything it would have been a 5 hour movie.
I think the adaptation was pretty good.
Apparently the directors cut was 4hrs
Maybe we’ll get that on a separate release later.
Please let this usher in a new era of non-reboot or sequel high budget films
I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. There are choices that always have to be made when turning a book that requires several hours to read into a much, much shorter movie. In this one, they trimmed out some of the relationships and a lot of the more detailed explanations for things. That was probably the right choice, though it did make a lot of it feel much more superficial.
I agree, but for me all the cuts where in acceptable range. The main story was kept, and they didn’t dumb down too much. Some things were shown, rather than explained, that what movies are all about. I had read the book just week prior the movie and I picked where they made changes immediately. But after a while, it felt not impactful that much. The book was also much more science heavy, which I missed in the movie. But I guess if they included all of this, it wouldn’t add much to the story, and only make general audience more confused.
For sure, I agree with all that. The science-heavy explanations and deeper character relationships made for a richer experience with the book, but that’s pretty much always the case. They did well.
I come back from the movie. I loved it, my wife less so. I guess I hyped it up too much, and she is expecting a masterpiece, not entertainments.
We both agree the scene, narrative, and music are great, I like the story and charactor arc, but she feels the plot holes are too distracting in the story to enjoy it.
But we both agree there are too many plot holes,
complain 2
and the whole “lone wolf genius” plot line is very annoying and cliche: science progresses mostly through collaboration and sharing. There are lone geniuses, but the work of most scientists, including many considered geniuses, are not irreplaceable. It is very rare for a genius to out perform a coordinated group of scientists when they are working towards the same goal. Good thing they didn’t spend too much time on it.
I guess the biggest plot hole is
!!! SPOILERS !!!
potential plot hole
Why didn’t they use the super advanced rocky ship to collect the predator, when it can instantly create environment that are livable for humans; instead, they used the super fragile tiny human ship?
Because Rocky’s ship has no science equipment, no radiation shielding, and is under 29 atmospheres of ammonia. The technical challenges to allow Grace to roam in the Blip A are far greater than those allowing Rocky to roam the Mary. Granted, the film shows Grace going into the Blip A, but this didn’t happen in the book.
no radiation shielding
The sampling would have killed both of them.
The journey would have put them both at risk. That’s why Rocky was the sole survivor of his crew, they all died from cosmic radiation exposure during the trip from Erid, while he was protected because he bunked near the fuel tanks. The trip across the Tau solar system took weeks.
During sampling, Grace wore an EVA suit, which provides radiation protection. Also his dose would have been low, as he was only outside for a matter of minutes.
Perhaps that ship was incapable of approaching the atmosphere for reasons that weren’t discussed.
Yeah, I feel it is the only reason, but it feels very werid that an alien in a much more advanced ship seeking to save their entire planet don’t have ability to a approach planet at their destination.
Or rocky is a way worse pilot than Grace.
They talked about it in the book. The hail Mary has way better tech/science on it than the blip A. Basically the blip A is iridians first spaceship. It’s bare bones and the shit for even collecting astrophage doesn’t work. Plus rocky was literally stuck in space wondering around by himself for 40+ years and still couldn’t get the stuff to work.
As to your second issue: one ship had a science person and a bunch of equipment that they’d need built to operate in that science person’s environment.
But the collection process doesn’t need a science person and is extremely dangerous. One ship has a fabrication person (basically can build and repair structures instantly) with robot arm and prob. It doesn’t seem like a science person’s job to “space walk” (atmosphere walk, really) on a completely unknown planet’s atmosphere.
After the collection, they can bring the sample in the lab to test and breed, which is exactly what they did.
There are a lot more details in the book
But it basically boils down to, that the hail Mary is more capable
Plus, navigating would be a two person job due to the complexity, and grace can’t get on board of the blip a (the scene with him in the xenonite suit is movie-only)
From what other have pointed out, the blip is much more primitive than hail mary, and Eridian is not really a space-dwelling spices. I guess this is hinted at in the movie: the way they communicate via throwing bottles, they don’t understand Grace phoning home, and they don’t know about space radiation.
But I feel these are not properly conveyed in the movie: rocky can instantly build tunnel and adjust to environment to make it livable for human (without encountering Grace or visited his ship), and later Grace went on rocky’s ship, seems to all suggest Eridian has much more advanced technology than human.
Just a sentence in Graces log probably can set a better tune that human has more advanced tech, but Eridian are better at manufacturing.
Part of the book is that everything is slower, it took them weeks to get to the planet from where they met, and Rocky had already spent time retro fitting graces ship to let him live there. (they did not go to the planet with the intention of sampling it, they were just going to sample the line and orbit the planet as an easy way to get close to the line)
It’s been a long time since I read the book, but I think they considered the danger relatively low for the ship with their plan to stay high up and were more focused on “maybe we’ll lose the bucket risks” and didn’t want to go back to rocky ship until they were done because travel time and stuff.
if amazon dint spend 4bn+ on the disasterous ROP series, they would have better content on thier other shows.
That last scene in rivendell when they’re raising their swords was such an eye-rollingly bad “please clap” scene, ugh
Whats rop?
I’m assuming Rings of Power
yes ring of powers.
It’s quite enjoyable but the rave reviews really set my expectations too high and I ended up disappointed. Great movie by modern Hollywood standards though!
