As if that's news, but as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray." Friday didn't go as planned and at 9:00 PM I'm not finding any stories that look like big Space news. I'm ordinarily well into the next day's post by this time.
So since we're short of space news anyway, I'm going to shift gears and get into something I thought I'd write about over the weekend. A visit to a movie theater. Our first in more years than I can think of.
On Wednesday, we took a break from the endless spring of "what needs expensive work done on it now?" to go see what comes across as a surprisingly popular movie, Project Hail Mary. It's long movie based on a complicated story by Andy Weir, who wrote the book The Martian was based on. The movie is primarily Ryan Gosling on screen, although that's an over simplification. It seems to be that rare combination of a sci-fi movie that tries to get the science right for a story that's long and involved.
Gosling plays biologist Ryland Grace who was essentially kicked out of his science career when he published something that was poorly accepted by big names in his field, and he's working as an elementary school teacher. It was the only kind of job he could get. But you don't know that fact when the movie starts. The movie opens up with Grace coming out of an induced coma, on a space ship in deep space; lost and not remembering where he is or why he's there. Everyone else on the ship is dead. The movie bounces back in time to set up the answers to that and it starts with him being told someone had discovered an unexplained stream of something going from the sun to Venus. Researchers then discovered this mysterious thing was actually slowly destroying the sun and calculated that within a short time (20 years, I think) the sun will stop working and the entire population of Earth will die off. Every one and every thing will die.
They go farther to point out that every star in our part of the galaxy is showing the same effects except one, so why is that star unaffected? The name of the movie comes from realizing their only hope is to stop this thing which is pretty quickly determined to be some exotic microbe they call astrophage (star eater). Astrophage needs to be exterminated and they've found no way to kill it. It comes down to this mission named after the desperation hail Mary pass from football. Humanity can build a one-of-a-kind ship that can go nearly lightspeed and get a crew to that star to find out why it's different, but it's a one way flight and the crew is expected to die off because they don't have enough fuel to get back home.
If they go, the world may have a chance. If they don't go there is no chance. Either way, the crew is expected to die.
I found it a very well done movie and enjoyed it a lot. Gosling is the only person in the cast I recognized and know I've seen in movies before. If you go watch trailers and other videos on YouTube, you'll see that featured side to the story is that he meets a sentient, rock-creature (alien) from another planet. After they learn to communicate coarsely, Grace calls the rock alien "Rocky" and Rocky calls him Grace. The story goes back and forth between the past and present situations to explain why some parts are setup the way they are; I found those transitions fairly easy to get used to.
A large crowd scene from one of the memories before the launch of their "Hail Mary" mission. Next to Ryan Gosling (Grace) is actress Sandra Hüller as Eva Stratt, one of the project leaders, and seemed to be the one that tracked down Grace for the mission.
I heard the audiobook of Project Hail Mary last year, as it was the next book released by Andy Weir. The book/audio is, like almost every movie made from a book, a much deeper dive into the story, and I'd rate it almost as good as The Martian.
ReplyDeleteNot a shot at his writing, just the lens through which he views the universe - Weir is agnostic, and views everything as evolutionary. While one would expect that in modern science fiction, it does explain some of the discoveries and minor plots within the greater story of the book.
SiG, you gave a good review for someone who had not read/heard the book, and I'd probably see it based on your report. I just hope Weir writes more space operas - none of his stuff seems woke or political. That alone is quite refreshing.
Thanks, James, for the mention of the book and the deeper story it presents. I've gotten the idea that movie was originally intended it to be shown on Amazon's Prime streaming service and they were surprised by how well it did. I read that as it might go to the streaming relatively soon and I might watch it again.
DeleteAs usual for our theater and an early showing on a Wednesday, I doubt there was more than 10 of us in the theater and that quiet makes it easier to catch details you might miss on a weekend night showing. I noticed a lot of places where I chuckled and didn't hear another one in the place.
It was a good book.
ReplyDeleteThanks, SiG! My wife went to see this and enjoyed it very much and I have heard nothing but good things about it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I appreciate about the movie (without seeing it) is that the alien is done with practical effects (puppetry) instead of CGI.
Yeah, I thought the whole purpose of putting Rocky in the movie was to allow some of the explanations and jumps in time to be easier for some parts of the audience. I may be being too harsh. When Grace wakes up from his coma, he finds two or other three people who had died during the trip. When he learns to communicate with Rocky, he finds that Rocky is also the only survivor of his trip to that star, and Rocky lost far more of his crewmates. I'm hazy on this, but I think Rocky lost 32. It's something else they have in common.
DeleteLooking forward to watching this when I can watch it in my living room.
ReplyDelete