All good observations and I agree wholeheartedly with both of you. To me this movie was pretty clearly anti-faith in the beyond/what we can't see and very much pro-faith in what's right in from of you.
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In Pitt's occasional narrations he talks about how he has a rage in him, how he's been not great in his life, how he treated people badly, but we never see this. The movie never bothers to dramatize this (although the Surge is clearly a metaphor for it), just as it never bothers to dramatize Roy and Cliff's relationship. This is a movie where half the situation is told to you, explicitly, and the other half is your responsibility to fill in. And I don't mean fill in with logic Ad Astra asks you to fill in emotional gaps, to bring your own life and understanding to these characters and provide the mortar that goes between the bricks, that makes them stick together.
israeliag said:
I watched this one yesterday, and cam out of it thinking it was good not great. But, the more I sit on it, reflect on it, and even read y'all's comments, the more I'm moving this to the great territory.
I avoided all trailers and previews, but did hear/read that it was more meditative than action, which helped me set into it a bit. If anything, at first I thought - sorta in line with TC - that there was too much action. The action scenes, while profoundly cool given their physics, felt out of place and unrelated to the character growth and plot. But, in the connection to Heart of Darkness, there's a descent in evolution of each existential threat to Pitt's character: first being a technological threat - this sort of apex of evolution with a space antenna (should have been a space-elevator, but minor quibble) failing; then space piracy as a step down in evolution to a more primitive near-anarchistic threat; then a literal primal threat from the space monkeys; to a mindless drone-like threat from the three crew members on the Aephus.
The father-son themes were particularly poignant to me, and even though they were transparent, there was more below the surface. This idea of trying to be a better version of your father without truly examining his fallacies, but then, when confronted with the truth of his errors, growing not just further than him, but beyond the boundaries of this image of your father. Although nearly impossible to portray a father/son conflict without Christian allegories, the stand in of that relationship to that of Christ and God, and the questions and theories it brought up, was even more touching to me - which was perhaps my biggest surprise of the movie as an agnostic Jew: maybe this is an obvious thinking in Christianity, maybe its heretical, but the concept of the son atoning not for the sins of his peers, but for the sins of his father really opened my eyes to how you can reconcile the god of the Old Testament with the god of the New Testament (not to mention that the father than sacrificed himself to allow for the son to go forth unburdened). Jones' character, like the OG god, was literally causing catastrophes on Earth because some people didn't follow his command, and it was his son which had to speak to him and fix the danger.
Agreed with others about the voice over (and the title card explaining Ad Astra) and that it felt more of a producer's hand rather than the director's original intent, but despite, and given all the layering of themes, this is a movie I want to watch again (at home) to try and unpack more (or see if all my thoughts are just bull****).
While watching that, with the knowledge that there were pirates out there as previously mentioned in the movie, I wondered why, with the ability to send people all the way to the far reaches of our solar system, did they not just send these guys via a shuttle craft to the station on the dark side of the moon? Nothing about that sequence made any sense.bearamedic99 said:
I saw this today. The action scenes seemed out of place but the movie was so freaking visually stunning. I never looked at it and thought CGI (except for the shuttle ride to TLJ's ship; that seemed off for some reason, maybe Neptune's glow).
I can see what the writer and director were hoping for but this movie fell short of its goal. Lots of good points already stated here but I have to dive back into the moon buggies in a "war zone" that seemed lacking in functionality. If they could build rockets and bases, why not buggies with armor or vehicle mounted weapons?
Here is a link to a good summary.OldArmy71 said:
I'm all ears. I would seriously love to hear what you have to say about it.
The space pirates mean that humans have evil within them? The space monkeys mean that we descend from wild beasts?
YouBet said:
Watched this last night. Thought it was good but not great. Visually stunning and I thought Brad Pitt did a great job. As I was watching this, it hit me that this was the first Brad Pitt movie I could recall seeing since WWZ. Is 2019 the first year he's made big movies since that one?
Someone early in the thread mentioned that they wanted/needed more world building here to explain what was happening around Pitt. Competition between countries for resources and glory doesn't end with our atmosphere. So, the reason for the "state of war" mentioned in this film is simply countries and humans extending their natural state of aggression towards one another into space. Thus, I didn't need any explanation as that made sense to me what was happening around Pitt.
However, something I must have missed while watching this (probably because I had been drinking wine most of the afternoon) is what exactly was The Surge and why was it dangerous to Earth? Was it basically an EMP from space that would hit the giant antenna on Earth and wipe out all modern electronics returning Earth to the Stone Age?
Rian Johnson f^cked that movie up so badly it has crossed into other film?Counterpoint said:YouBet said:
Watched this last night. Thought it was good but not great. Visually stunning and I thought Brad Pitt did a great job. As I was watching this, it hit me that this was the first Brad Pitt movie I could recall seeing since WWZ. Is 2019 the first year he's made big movies since that one?
Someone early in the thread mentioned that they wanted/needed more world building here to explain what was happening around Pitt. Competition between countries for resources and glory doesn't end with our atmosphere. So, the reason for the "state of war" mentioned in this film is simply countries and humans extending their natural state of aggression towards one another into space. Thus, I didn't need any explanation as that made sense to me what was happening around Pitt.
However, something I must have missed while watching this (probably because I had been drinking wine most of the afternoon) is what exactly was The Surge and why was it dangerous to Earth? Was it basically an EMP from space that would hit the giant antenna on Earth and wipe out all modern electronics returning Earth to the Stone Age?
And how was TLJ causing the surge?