Project Hail Mary Discussion

[Clint_L]

I saw Lord and Miller's film adaptation of Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. I am interested what other folks thought of it.

I really enjoyed it, and think it is superior to the book. The book's big weakness is character development; Weir, by his own admission, is great at writing plot but weak at character development. His Ryland Grace is a step forward from Mark Watney in that he has a flaw (a big one, at that) and thus character growth, but it is executed in the most heavy handed of ways; he's still something of a stock character. The film does a much better job of making me buy into Grace as a person, not least because of a spectacular performance from Ryan Gosling, who is on screen for almost every minute.

I also loved the practical sets and puppetry used to bring life to Grace's alien counterpart, Rocky. Rocky is highly entertaining, and the film is great in helping the audience quickly become attached to, essentially, a pile of rocks. Interestingly, though alien in appearance he doesn't some off as alien in consciousness, expressing a very human perspective and emotional range, so this isn't a film that is really interested in exploring alien perspectives. Instead, it is basically an "odd couple in space film."

It is visually spectacular, the score is magnificent, the soundtrack choices are apt, and I was completely immersed for almost the entire 2.5 hours. My one major criticism is that the end of the film is oddly constructed, so that the emotional and plot climax does not match the character arc climax, leaving the last 30 minutes to...kind of pleasantly trail off. That's the one thing that prevents me from considering it an all-timer, and the reason that I like The Martian a little bit more, if we are comparing Andy Weir adaptations. That said, this is an excellent movie that I would recommend to just about anyone.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I would also absolutely recommend it to anyone.

I have not read the book, I watched it with another person that hadn't, one person that read the book and one that heard the audiobook. We all left pretty happy, it was a great movie. The book readers/listeners of course noticed that a lot of the details and depth in various parts of the story were condensed or omitted, but nothing that really bothered them.
But giving their feedback, I'd say it would be fun to finally read the book or listen to it.

The apperance of Rocky is of course not as big of a twist in the movie if you saw any of the trailers and seems to be bigger in the book, especially since the book already has a lot of stuff to tell and describe before he appears in the story. However, I'd also say the movie wasn't too shabby there, him trying to figure out his situation after waking up and the flashbacks to how everything started weren't small bits and they were still thoroughly entertaining.

 

[Vael]

I went to see it with a group of friends who hadn't read the book, and we all really enjoyed it. I loved the book and thought this was a solid adaptation. It's funny, I hadn't pictured Gosling when I read the book and he didn't initially fit my mental picture of Grace, but his performance was very good and when I reread the book after, I could see Gosling as Grace.

Rocky was just as scene stealing as he was in the book, just brilliant. Book Rocky is a bit more impatient with book Grace, but the camaraderie and connection felt real. I do wish we'd gotten

Spoiler: book spoiler

More on how old Rocky is, his physiology, how long he'd been on mission and details about the rest of the crew. The book gives us a bit more here, and it's mentioned so quickly that I don't know if it registered.