Gnome Sayin said:

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The translation deal went on for quite a bit in the book. Just took a long time, not just what seemed like an afternoon in the movie.

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Using his laptop and sound recording program was really detailed in the book. In the movie you saw Grace with his laptop recording Rocky's sounds. But yes, they skimmed over fairly quickly.

Fenrir said:

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Gnome Sayin said:

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The translation deal went on for quite a bit in the book. Just took a long time, not just what seemed like an afternoon in the movie.

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I think part of that is that the passage of time in the movie was harder to gauge. I'm planning on watching again soon so I'll try to remember to listen for Grace stating how long they've been working at it or something but I don't recall anything off the top of my head.

There were a number of things they had to simplify in general in the interest of time.

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Also, in the book, he stops using the laptop after a while except when a rarely used or new word is used. Unfortunately, that's hard to translate to the screen, especially when Rocky is being snarky/sarcastic in the book. I ended up just assuming that once the laptop wasn't on the screen anymore, it was him understanding Rocky natively. Otherwise, his voice should just be a monotone throughout the movie.

Quote:

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I think part of that is that the passage of time in the movie was harder to gauge.

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Yeah, that was probably the biggest thing for me. It's a small detail, but I guess I was expecting the standard device of his beard and hair growing back out or something to give an idea how much time was passing.

When they arrive at Rocky's planet, I thought about Rocky saying it would take him 6 years longer to get home if he gave Grace enough fuel, and still wasn't sure if he had already used the fuel or how long they were on ship together on the way to Erid. Felt like Paul Rudd Syndrome, where you don't see any signs of aging.

BrazosDog02 said:

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Just watched the movie. Didn't know there was a book but that makes a lot of things in the movie make sense. I loved the movie. Awesome stuff! I really could have been ok if was even longer. It was that good to me.

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

Rewatched earlier this week. Still think this is the best movie of the year and that's taking into account how abbreviated certain aspects are relative to the book.

Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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Maybe a little bit. I thought they balanced it well with the red head lady, what happened 3 days prior to launch and the gravity of the whole situation.

I liken it to Castaway where you head a very insurmountable situation combined with an adorable "relationship" between a man and a volleyball.

CyclingAg82 said:

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FTAG 2000 said:

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What a story line.

A woman really Fs over a guy. He saves the planet and could get any ***** he wants, but decides to go live on another planet with a talking rock.

Flawless.

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Grace had only enough fuel to get home or get Rocky home. 1 of the 2. He sent the Beatles, and saved Erid and Rocky's race of beings.

This is a part of the movie (and huge in the book) that was hard to miss....and yet.

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Wasnt there a line at the end of the movie where rocky told grace that their scientists had his ship ready to take him back to earth, but grace hesitated? So maybe that was hard to miss...

Or maybe i remember wrong?

There was, yes, they addressed in the book as well. Grace found "his home."

Mowdy Ag said:

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I read both books (The Martian and Project Hail Mary).

I've seen both movies.

Without overthinking it…

They are the same: science-heavy.

…and they are different:

- solo, unfortunate, accidental hero, with a few buddy hero(es) showing up late to help save the day = LESS buddy stuff

- lower stakes: save one guy while incurring high incremental risk for a few friends

- no flashbacks needed to explain what's happening

VS

- solo non-hero-turned-hero with a second a hero showing up earlier to help save the day = MORE buddy stuff.

- higher stakes: save billions of guys and gals without exposing any friends to incremental risk

- flashbacks needed to explain how this could possibly happen in the first place

I personally loved both books and both movies. I had already read / seen The Martian. I didn't need to see it again with the setting in a neighboring solar system. If you're a science nerd you'll probably prefer The Martian. If you're a buddy-movie nerd you'll probably prefer Project Hail Mary. If you just want to enjoy an afternoon or night out to enjoy a little escapism you'll probably find them equally interesting and entertaining.

There…

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The Project Hail Mary book was loaded with nerdy science.

Btw,

I enjoyed both the movie and the book.

I read the book before I watched the movie.

Read the book and saw the movie... why did Grace do what he did to his fellow astronauts (to save weight? resources?)?

One thing the movie didn't touch on was the need to synthesize the "fuel" ... and the world politics, cooperation to do it. Guess they just did not have a couple min. to detail that.

Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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Not sure if y'all remember those first two months of quarantine, but it was half fear and half memes. That's all I really remember. The uncertainty and the jokes.

Lathspell said:

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Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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This kind of critique from people about movies or shows that are about serious subjects always makes me shake my head.

It's almost like you have to completely separate yourself from the human experience to have this opinion. You do realize that many people resort to humor when under stress, right? Go talk to ANY guy from any Special Operations unit (SEALs, SF, Rangers, etc) and they will tell you about all the pranks and jokes within the teams, during some of the most intense situations. Humans like to laugh to relieve stress and tension. We ALL do it.

For me, as long as the jokes aren't the MCU style of "look into the camera and joke about the absurdity of the movie itself" then it's not a problem.

People who deal with death in their everyday lives tend to lean into the dark humor of joking about these things to help them cope with them.

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Agreed. I have a buddy that I have an agreement with that nothing is off limits when it comes to humor.

For example, we both have fond memories of Robert Palmer's hit songs. And when he died, we were sad, but we joked that his songs should now be called, "Might as Well Face It, You're Addicted to Dirt" and "Simply Irrevivable".

Those may be seen as in poor taste by some, and they are probably right. But we have a pact about using humor to deal with things.

I finally watched this last night. Pretty good movie, I don't think it reaches all the way to the same level of Interstellar, The Martian or Arrival but it's a worthy film in its own right. It does seem clear (at least to me) that film borrowed elements from Interstellar and Arrival, but where I feel like it fell a bit short of those two movies is in establishing the stakes back home and keeping the audience engaged with the main overarching threat of mass extinction and the loss of loved ones.

Since the movie takes place over 22'ish years, I think I could have used a scene to show the progression of Earth towards doom just as a reminder of why Grace is doing what he's doing. Even a quick shot of the ice caps spreading would have been sufficient.

However, what elevates the film is that we eventually see that Grace isn't really committed to saving Earth as much as he is to saving his friend, and while he completes the mission, his real purpose eventually is grounded in the connection with Rocky. Probably the most creative thing about it is how we eventually discover that our hero was actually a coward afraid to go on the mission. It's a clever way to play with the old trope of the unwilling hero by taking it a step further and having him actually be drugged in order to be coerced to even go on the mission.

I get what you're saying, but I'm saying just a quick transition scene from space, showing Earth growing colder and the ice caps growing. It wouldn't have to be longer than 5-7 seconds just to remind us.

Interstellar is ultimately about the relationship between a father and his daughter, but we still had some scenes showing how blight continued to decimate the world. Arrival ultimately poses the question about whether or not you'd choose love/to have a child even if you knew it would fall apart in the future, but we still have scenes of military guys threatening to blow up the spaceships.

Again, I get your point, but we can have the main story (Grace and Rocky) and also the sub plot (destruction of Earth). They don't have to be mutually exclusive. And as you said, it's the job of a professional filmmaker to figure out how to tell the story without letting the film get too bloated. I think the best sci-fi films can give you the best of both worlds, the personal story and the global story.

That would have been cool information to know raising the stakes for Grace as he realized how desperate things were getting on Earth. He might not have wanted to be the hero, but when faced with the reality of the planet taking extreme measures to preserve itself, that might have really had an impact on his mindset.

For Grace to know of course they'd have to create some kind of way to communicate, and not being a smart person I'm not sure how they'd do that, but maybe have there just be like a long delay, so he can get messages from earth, but when he gets them they are like 2 years out of date. So he knows what's going on, but he is not able to have an active conversation to guide his work with Rocky.

Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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This is exactly my problem with it. And IMO, as much as people love Rocky, I think he screws with the tone too much. He's not a dog - he's an incredibly capable engineer. At least in the book.

Man takes zany trip, meets wacky new roommate, has hijinks. OK.

I think I mentioned earlier in this thread how Gosling was hitting a new apex in his career, and sure enough, he's now Ghost Rider as well.

Dude is white hot right now, which is cool to see for a guy in his 40's. Usually you see this kind of thing with young up and comers.

There's no way for Grace to know any of that because he's too far away.

Lathspell said:

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Again, thank God none of yall wrote the script for or filmed this movie. The tone was exactly what made it so much fun. I don't want a morose Dr. Grace talking to Marvin (hitchhiker's guide) all freaking movie.

Also, wasn't Rocky alone for around 40 years before Grace showed up? That's an emotional being alone for 40 years who finally has someone to speak to. He's also not a human, so why are yall projecting certain personality traits on him? We see, at the end of the film, that this species is just very energetic and animated. They literally "see" from hearing movement.

Honestly, a movie made per all these critiques would have sucked.

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Insert Big Lebowski "that's just like your opinion man" .gif

The movie also nails the tone of the book its adapted from.

I have some complaints about the adaptation, but tone isn't one of them.

We enjoyed it. Great buddy cop movie.

Lathspell said:

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Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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This kind of critique from people about movies or shows that are about serious subjects always makes me shake my head.

It's almost like you have to completely separate yourself from the human experience to have this opinion. You do realize that many people resort to humor when under stress, right? Go talk to ANY guy from any Special Operations unit (SEALs, SF, Rangers, etc) and they will tell you about all the pranks and jokes within the teams, during some of the most intense situations. Humans like to laugh to relieve stress and tension. We ALL do it.

For me, as long as the jokes aren't the MCU style of "look into the camera and joke about the absurdity of the movie itself" then it's not a problem.

People who deal with death in their everyday lives tend to lean into the dark humor of joking about these things to help them cope with them.

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I get what you're saying but this had the humor and silliness of a PG rated kids movie. Which isn't automatically a bad thing, and it sounds like it stuck to the tone of the book which is a good thing for those that read and enjoyed that, but I think people that are critiquing the "light" and "unserious" tone like the poster you replied to aren't all looking for something bleak and humorless, just something more adult.

Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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Lathspell said:

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Seven Costanza said:

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I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone, but The Martian was much better. This has such a light, unserious tone, which is unusual for the end of the world.

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This kind of critique from people about movies or shows that are about serious subjects always makes me shake my head.

It's almost like you have to completely separate yourself from the human experience to have this opinion. You do realize that many people resort to humor when under stress, right? Go talk to ANY guy from any Special Operations unit (SEALs, SF, Rangers, etc) and they will tell you about all the pranks and jokes within the teams, during some of the most intense situations. Humans like to laugh to relieve stress and tension. We ALL do it.

For me, as long as the jokes aren't the MCU style of "look into the camera and joke about the absurdity of the movie itself" then it's not a problem.

People who deal with death in their everyday lives tend to lean into the dark humor of joking about these things to help them cope with them.

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I get what you're saying but this had the humor and silliness of a PG rated kids movie. Which isn't automatically a bad thing, and it sounds like it stuck to the tone of the book which is a good thing for those that read and enjoyed that, but I think people that are critiquing the "light" and "unserious" tone like the poster you replied to aren't all looking for something bleak and humorless, just something more adult.

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That is exactly what I meant. Jokes are fine to have, but it felt like a kids movie. I believe there was plenty of humor in The Martian if I remember correctly, yet it still felt like the stakes were high. This felt like Disney Interstellar, and that's okay. It's a nice movie.