Project Hail Mary (movie)
- Thread starter Mortus
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Just got home and yes, it's an incredible adaptation. I don't think very many people are going to be disappointed. Amaze amaze amaze!
This movie is going to be one of those generational touchstone films.
This movie is going to be one of those generational touchstone films.
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Gee, I remember everyone saying the same thing about "Avatar" which I've seldom heard much of anything about except when each sequel came out.
What's the point of this comment? Do you just enjoy shitting on people's good time?
I was expressing my joy at the best time I've had in the movies in probably over a decade. Maybe it was just me, but that's how I feel about it. If you're just going to cynically shitpost at everyone who comes into this thread saying they enjoyed it maybe this isn't the thread for you.
Also my nephew recently got a degree in film production and editing and chose to have his party by renting out a theater for a showing of the third avatar movie. So there is definitely a fandom among the younger generations (not for us though, we didn't stay for the whole movie)
I was expressing my joy at the best time I've had in the movies in probably over a decade. Maybe it was just me, but that's how I feel about it. If you're just going to cynically shitpost at everyone who comes into this thread saying they enjoyed it maybe this isn't the thread for you.
Also my nephew recently got a degree in film production and editing and chose to have his party by renting out a theater for a showing of the third avatar movie. So there is definitely a fandom among the younger generations (not for us though, we didn't stay for the whole movie)
Based upon the two praises here so far, I'll definitely check it out when it streams. Would you say, overall, fans of the book will really like this, or will it be nit-picked to death?
Hopefully, praise and pressure doesn't force Weir to write a part II, it ended perfectly. Even worse, if studios make this an entire IP. /shivers
Though they didn't with the Martian and that was pretty good and received highly too.
Hopefully, praise and pressure doesn't force Weir to write a part II, it ended perfectly. Even worse, if studios make this an entire IP. /shivers
Though they didn't with the Martian and that was pretty good and received highly too.
I really liked the book, though I read it years ago. It’s basically a perfect adaptation in my mind.
Are a few things changed a little or cut down to fit the medium, of course. Were those good choices for a movie adaptation. I would say yes in basically all cases. The worst I can think of is one scene near the end that seems to mildly reference something that got cut for time. Given the length of the film and what stayed, I don’t think it was a bad choice.
Will I be watching this movie again? Absolutely!
An additional perspective; I loved The Martian. As a film, I think this is better.
Are a few things changed a little or cut down to fit the medium, of course. Were those good choices for a movie adaptation. I would say yes in basically all cases. The worst I can think of is one scene near the end that seems to mildly reference something that got cut for time. Given the length of the film and what stayed, I don’t think it was a bad choice.
Will I be watching this movie again? Absolutely!
An additional perspective; I loved The Martian. As a film, I think this is better.
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Excellent. I'll be going to the just-after-11PM showing on Friday night. That's on my weekend, and means I'll get out of the movie right around my lunch time.
As a fan of the book, I thought they did a great job. I think it might even be a more faithful adaptation than The Martian. There were some plot elements that were skipped/condensed (especially in the beginning of the story), but that makes sense as there are different pacing expectations for a film than in a novel. I wasn't disappointed at all. I honestly can't even think of any real gripes but I'm sure eventually someone here will have some. If anything, I guess I just hope there will be an extended edition when it comes to home video that expands on some of the things that were removed or shortened.
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My review from the movie review thread:
Project Hail Mary : My God, It's Full of [dying] Stars
What it is: The next epic from the writer of the Martian, Andy Weir
Feels like: Gravity meets Interstellar meets The Martian meets Contact meets 2001
Where it falls down: Prince's I would Die for You is not in the movie and only in the last trailer, as far as I can tell
The VFX: Brilliant and perfectly fitting the theme of the movie, with the usual fictional/visual shorthand of centrifugal gravity, which is probably within the original novel as well
Bathroom Break: When first contact happens in the inter-vehicle docking tunnel that is shown in the trailer
Soundtrack: great mix of atmospheric instrumental music as well as a widely varied selection of appropriate vocal tracks mixed in
Voiceover: moderate amounts thankfully, with the visuals telling the story instead of requiring longwinded exposition
I had high hopes for this movie, based upon The Martian as well as a quick read of the wiki of the novel.
And I was overjoyed to see the lack of politics as well as lack of social commentary, with a sharp focus on humanity in extremis and the required focus on survival with the real world alternative of every country/person for itself once things got truly dire.
The humor was on par with the kind of humor seen in The Martian, and the movie's characters felt less full of themselves as in Contact.
It's that kind of dramatic tension and feel good story that you feel is worthy of the best of Science Fiction, without the ponderous galactic empire backstory of some kind.
The Verdict: 9.0 for Andy Weir/The Martian fans, 8.5 for sci-fi fans, 8.0 for non sci-fi fans
Project Hail Mary : My God, It's Full of [dying] Stars
What it is: The next epic from the writer of the Martian, Andy Weir
Feels like: Gravity meets Interstellar meets The Martian meets Contact meets 2001
Where it falls down: Prince's I would Die for You is not in the movie and only in the last trailer, as far as I can tell
The VFX: Brilliant and perfectly fitting the theme of the movie, with the usual fictional/visual shorthand of centrifugal gravity, which is probably within the original novel as well
Bathroom Break: When first contact happens in the inter-vehicle docking tunnel that is shown in the trailer
Soundtrack: great mix of atmospheric instrumental music as well as a widely varied selection of appropriate vocal tracks mixed in
Voiceover: moderate amounts thankfully, with the visuals telling the story instead of requiring longwinded exposition
I had high hopes for this movie, based upon The Martian as well as a quick read of the wiki of the novel.
And I was overjoyed to see the lack of politics as well as lack of social commentary, with a sharp focus on humanity in extremis and the required focus on survival with the real world alternative of every country/person for itself once things got truly dire.
The humor was on par with the kind of humor seen in The Martian, and the movie's characters felt less full of themselves as in Contact.
It's that kind of dramatic tension and feel good story that you feel is worthy of the best of Science Fiction, without the ponderous galactic empire backstory of some kind.
The Verdict: 9.0 for Andy Weir/The Martian fans, 8.5 for sci-fi fans, 8.0 for non sci-fi fans
I've got my tickets for tomorrow night. I loved the book and I haven't been this excited about a movie in a long time
Spoiler-free review: it’s very very good.
For those who have read the book:
For those who have read the book:
It’s pretty faithful to the book’s storyline. Like The Martian, it has to simplify and skip over some of the lengthy science bits to avoid it being a six hour movie (it’s already long at 2.5 hours) but I thought it was done well. There was one choice that I’m not sure how I feel about yet, but overall I’m very happy.
It hit the book points well, as I remember the book. I’m going to reread the novel this weekend. My wife enjoyed it, going in blind having not the novel.
Just got home. Saw it in Cinemark xD.
I enjoyed it. But just as I like The Martian novel more, so do I feel the same about the films.
Pretty darn solid adaptation, though!
I enjoyed it. But just as I like The Martian novel more, so do I feel the same about the films.
Pretty darn solid adaptation, though!
Only the Dolby Atmos intro before the film was painful.
The rest was fine, with some words being lost due to different accents.
FWIW, the karaoke scene is a high point in the movie, and last vocals are heartbreakingly beautiful within the context of the story.
Oh boy! Front page article on the linguistics of the film… with Dr Betty Birner (former professor of linguistics at NIU) and featuring some comments from Andy Weir.
It’s a pretty long read, too.
https://meincmagazine.com/culture/202...y-is-in-theaters-but-do-the-linguistics-work/
To quote @pokrface :
It’s a pretty long read, too.
https://meincmagazine.com/culture/202...y-is-in-theaters-but-do-the-linguistics-work/
To quote @pokrface :
I saw it in a Dolby Atmos equipped theater last night and the music volume was painfully loud. I'm probably going to bring ear plugs the next time I go to a theater. It felt like when I watch TV at home with the volume turned to a reasonable level and the subtitles on so I can keep up with the conversations, except there were no subtitles available so I had to crank the volume to hear them talk.
The film was really good otherwise. Rocky is fantastic. Great words of encouragement
I got the book today. I'm going to read it before I watch the movie.
That's what I did, except I got the book back at the beginning of the month.
Just got back-- that was excellent. Definitely up there with The Martian; I'll need to watch both again to decide which I like better but it'll be close.
Saw it last night. It was a good adaptation of the book. If you liked the book, you'll like the movie. I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't already been said.
What I think what it said:
Blip 1 (or 2 or 3) detected - Early on when Rocky was throwing the canisters over, toward the end of the movie it was "Contaminant detected"
Blip A is what the computer calls Rocky's ship; the canisters were Blip B and Blip C.
I did like how they made the ships computer/AI a lot more intelligent than it was in the book. That reflects all of the advancements in AI in the last 3 years.
IMO, they made Strat too likeable as a human. In the book she was ruthlessly efficient in pursuit of her task. I know that had to leave some things out of the book, but I was hoping that was not going to be one of them.
IMO, they made Strat too likeable as a human. In the book she was ruthlessly efficient in pursuit of her task. I know that had to leave some things out of the book, but I was hoping that was not going to be one of them.
If that were true, it would have hallucinated at least once at a critical moment, and ended up with Rocky and Grace dead. Not to mention half the astrophage onboard being dedicated for powering the GPU’s to run said LLM that will eventually get the two killed.
Yeah, I think that they missed an opportunity by cutting out the parts from the book about nuking Antarctica or covering the Sahara in solar panels so they couple breed enough Astrophage for the journey. Strat fully expected to end up in a war crimes trial after everything was said and done.
TBH, I was fine with the movie skipping that (and glossing over most of the science in general, although I will admit that the movie's probably less intelligible to someone who hasn't read the book because of that). The movie was already pretty long as it was, and focusing tightly on Grace and Rocky is what keeps the movie from becoming a four or five hour monstrosity (and needing to be turned into a two-parter, in a story that doesn't really have a clear dividing point).
I saw it on Saturday afternoon. For an 2.5 hour long film i really did not notice the length of it. Uhh i loved it's exactly what i was expecting, world building sci-fi with a twist of emotion. Dammit if that little boulder guy didn't make me cry more than once. My only issue, and its a small one that was maybe answered in the book, what about all the rest of the stars infected with Astrophage? Were Earth and Eridium the only planets that sent some one out to take a look and try to fix things? Of all the star systems highlighted (and possibly more that they don't know about, in the first part of the movie were those the only two that had intelligent life? They sort of glossed over that in the movie and dont bring the other infected stars up again. One more thing.. the ending was fantastic! I really love that he ended up on Eridium teaching them about relativity and radiation, the two things he said the Eridian's didn't understand. Id love to see a part two where he makes it back to earth possibly with Rocky.
That's pretty much my reaction, except the one part where i noticed the length, which was more due to my bladder being full than the passage of time.
Saw it last night. Dolby track didn't bother me but sometimes I found the dialog hard to hear. I've probably read the book 3 times and listened to the audio book, too. There was a lot left out and I understand the reasons but I felt like someone who hadn't read the book would be lost. The biggest cuts I disliked were the food situation Grace faced and the bubble on Rocky's planet. The left out the high gravity and made his environment too earthlike.
In the book they establish Astrophage can only go 9 LY on their stored energy. The star cluster infected is as far as they could go. As far as why there wasn't other aliens there, the book doesn't go into it. If those solar systems are/were inhabited they didn't notice their star until too late, or were not technologically advanced enough to do anything about it.
He was teaching kids basic science. Like he was on Earth before he got press-ganged into working on the project.
I saw it last night with two of my adult children. I did not read the book, they did.
The movie was pretty good; I didn't feel any holes in the plot or feel lost.
My first question I asked of my kids after the viewing was "what didn't they cover in the movie that was in the book?". They both agreed that they didn't miss much from a big picture standpoint.
Burn marks on Grace was the only nit they pointed out.
I will read the book now.
the book goes into much much more detail on the science of, well, everything. And they didn't have the subplot of the astrophage predator couldn't survive in the atmosphere of Venus or Erad so they had to force evolution along and breed strains of the predator to survive the in the specific conditions of those two planets. Not really critical to the story, but there was more to the story of the predator being able to escape from Xenonite containers.