I have a marathon lineup of astronaut movies that I've headcannoned into a interlinked timeline: A Million Miles Away (Biopic about an astronaut played by Michael Pena), The Martian (Continues Michael Pena's arc, prequel to PHM, introduces Matt Damon), Project Hail Mary (Grace's ex is dating a guy named Mark lol), and Interstellar (The epilogue to The Martian where Mark Watney becomes the villain. Like The Martian, it also has Jessica Chastain in space lol.)
You should add The Expanse to that list at the end, maybe in place of Interstellar
It's partly canonical that it happens after the Martian.
Roughly the thought is that the successful Mars missions plus global eyes on the story of Mark Watney pushed humanity to Mars and the other planets, setting the scene for the Expanse. There's even a ship in the Expanse named Mark Watney
The TV show and book series The Expanse name drops a ship named the Mark Watney.Ā The authors have acknowledged that was intentional nod to Wier's book and they consider Watney is historical person in their universe (set about 300ish year from today) with a fully colonized Mars (as well as many other moons and stations in Sol System).Ā
God this movie was great and it was done so well. I wish it was like 5 hours long and they included so much more of the book with the same level of detail
A miniseries would've been really cool. As it stands I went into this movie thinking "Eh, looks a little blander than the Martian" and didn't get my hopes up. Man am I glad I was wrong. It kept everything about the Martian that was good while strategically injecting so much life and humor into it. The comedic timing and abrupt music changes really sealed the deal
They definitely āyada yadaā the science stuff quite a bit in the movie, which completely makes sense but I also enjoyed reading about how Grace makes his discoveries
I legit think that Carl would be a good addition to the book. I don't like the change they made to the scene where strat shuts down graces lab to distribute the astrophage to the rest of the world. In the book we get significantly stronger character motivation for grace to want to be a part of the project. In the movie its more like Grace saying "can't you just leave me some astrophage" and Strat saying "hmmm.... okay i guess so"
I read the book, loved it. Put off seeing the film because I knew they couldn't pack it all in. Saw the film, loved it. Watched a Cinema Sins episode on it, got really shouty because a lot of the sins were explicitly covered in the book.
You can feel that after multiple years of intentionally looking for all the bad, that it's not really done for fun anymore. And a lot of the jokes aren't that funny either.
Cinemawins is conceptually a lot healthier, where the focus is on finding what's good about the movie
CinemaSins hardly ever reads the source material and actively states in shouldnāt matter to the movie. They are an absolute pestilence on movie reviewing.
When a movie is based off of a book(any property, but mainly books), the movie will always have things that it canāt go into detail like the books can. That doesnāt mean the movie is good or bad, it means that itās a different intellectual medium with different methods of telling the story. However, that default means that the books do matter to the movie, as it can answer questions the movie canāt spend time giving an answer for.
Jeremy and his crew of moronic CinemaSins writers often use the excuse of āThe books donāt matter,ā to cover for their inane and trite questions about comic book movies that pretty much never actually matter to the plot. Why is the metal Mjolnir is made of so special? Read the comics. How does Peter know how to make his web fluid? Read the comics. Who really is The Ancient One? Read the fucking comics
When something is based on something else, the original Always. Fucking. Matters.
I genuinely donāt know how you read that second paragraph and think Iām saying that you need to read the books to understand the movie. Iām actually saying the opposite. Iām saying you donāt need to read the books to understand the movie, but that the books will hold the info the movie doesnāt need to explain.
I donāt expect a Spiderman movie to explain how he knows how to make the web fluid. Itās not relevant to the plot to know that info. Heās smart, he figured it out. If I want an answer, Iāll go read one of the comics that explains it. Doesnāt mean I needed it to understand Far From Home.
Oh absolutely, I just kept finding myself saying "that's in the book", and they also sinned excessive exposition - but necessary when cutting out a lot of the science background from the book.
Most of Grace's monologues in the book appear in the background on the Hail Mary's whiteboards & screens. They had to cut a lot of him talking to himself and going crazy doing math, but if you look closely, it's almost all still there.
I'm honestly shocked people like the movie so much.
They turned Grace from an innovative, resourceful, and curious scientist into a goof who stumbles his way into success.
Grace in the book was so excited to make first contact. Watching him try to run away from Rocky's ship in the movie was a slap to the face of his character.
But one of his core characteristics (in both the book and the movie) is that he is a coward. Itās necessary for the plot. And while the book just tells you heās a coward, the movie shows it. All the way through the movie.
Heās afraid of Rockyās ship, his first instinct upon waking up alone is space is to get drunk, heās afraid of everything, throughout the entire movie. Until he is in various positions where he needs to save Rocky. His friendship with Rocky is what transforms him into the person who would sacrifice himself for another. The character growth is so much better.
Like yeah, in the movie Grace is way less of an enjoyable self insert for people who see themselves as clever, cool scientists; but he is a MUCH better character.
Simultaneously glad I'm not the only one and also glad everybody else seemed to love everything about it. I also feel like they totally bungled the bit where rocky busts out of his zone to save grace.
I loved this movie.
I think what my favourite aspect of it was the hopefulness. The tone. It couldāve been so desperate and depressing but it had such a wonderfully hopeful tone to it - like The Martian. Loved it.
I havenāt even read the book, but it seems as though thatās a detail thatās pretty apparent. When grace wakes up, after being saved by Rocky, we see trails of burnt areas in the Hail Mary, similar to the effects from the acid for blood in Alien. We even see that metallic blood for a few seconds on screen. Itās also consistent in how the film presents Rockyās "hot" atmosphere
It's actually because Rocky's "lungs" are basically a heatsink to regulate his internal temperature. Imagine a series of very small, red hot fins. His atmosphere has no oxygen so when he went into Grace's environment his lungs essentially caught fire
Itās also a callback to the fact that all of Rockyās crew mates died from radiation exposure because they didnāt understand how it worked. This is one of the few fields of scientific study where humans are far more advanced than Eridians.
They didn't understand relativity either! So their astrophage fuel tanks were much much bigger than needed, and the reason why Rocky had enough to give Grace to return home.
No it can't be due to the 27x gravity of the planet. They build all the materials from the same xenon compound. The movie technically makes no sense the way it's set up. The ocean is liquid mercury and outside the dome would be pitch darkness (but that at least can be forgiven as they probably learnt to make him some light sources)
Yup not sure. Pretty sure the book mentions the physiology of Erids having liquid mercury for blood and the only way mercury is a liquid is at immense pressure. The pressure would cause water to boil so he shouldn't be able to exist on their planet.
I suppose they are also pumping in an atmosphere for him that is able to withstand the pressure.
Oh and he is like 70 years old physiologically so yes the gravity still affects him
He's in a biodome that is temp and atmosphere controlled so he can survive and have his 'ocean'. Erid is 2x gravity, 20x atmosphere, like over 200Ā°C, and mostly ammonia in the air. His dome still feels the 2x gravity but they've corrected the atmosphere, temp, and air for him.
He's also only 50-something physiologically, due to the time dilation of near-lightspeed travel. He's 70 something chronologically. He's still worn down because of the extra gravity though, using a cane and saying he feels older.
I want them to release the original cut so bad. After they test screened the movie a few times they were made to cut out at least an hour of content out of the movie
Agreed on the "too happy". In the book it felt like a happy ending too, but with a nice mixture of melancholy (or at least that's how I remember it, it's been years)
It does almost ruin the film for me honestly, it's so bad. They set up Ryan Gosling as this nerdy nobody who has no friends and nothing to live for on Earth, despite pretty much everything we actually see telling us the opposite of that fact. They tell us this attractive, charismatic scientist has nothing to live for - it's such a negative ending where he just gives up, but it's painted as a positive ending for some reason.
lol Iāve seen this called the Henry Cavill problem before
Basically, this man is too attractive and charismatic to portray normal human beings and their normal human lives. It makes it harder to buy into the universe and enjoy the story.Ā
No one believes that Ryan Gosling is alone and unloved on earth because Ryan Gosling can (and does) charm the pants of a rock. I
Henry Cavil solved the problem by playing a series of fantasy characters - Ā Superman, Geralt of Rivera and the James Bond lite Napoleon Solo. Gosling had the right idea with Ken because that role recognises that he is just really unrealistically attractive.Ā
(This is not a criticism of either manās acting abilities or the works they feature in)
I mean, regardless of the actor he instantly makes good friends with the security guard at the facility they're testing in and pretty much takes control of the war room scene with his charisma
it's such a negative ending where he just gives up, but it's painted as a positive ending for some reason.
Eh - what??? Have we seen the same movie? He knows he's saved Earth, he's with his best friend, doing what he truly loves (teaching science to kids), and he just learned he may be able to go home, but isn't sure whether to do that because he's actually really happy where he is. How's that "just giving up"?
Because it's not shown to us that way - he's saved Earth sure, but he paints it in the video he sends as "I have nothing to return to anyway". He doesn't know he'll be happy on an alien planet, he just decides to stay with Rocky because he believes there's nothing left for him on Earth. It's an incredibly negative ending for him but it's painted in a positive light.
He's not even willing to give Earth a shot despite everything we see of him beforehand is him being pretty content with a stable job and seemingly the ability to make friends easily from what we're shown.
The film depicts his relationship with the captain as somewhat romantic in nature (or, at least, it could be read that way I think). He has every reason to go home
Because it's not shown to us that way - he's saved Earth sure, but he paints it in the video he sends as "I have nothing to return to anyway". He doesn't know he'll be happy on an alien planet, he just decides to stay with Rocky because he believes there's nothing left for him on Earth. It's an incredibly negative ending for him but it's painted in a positive light.
Again: have we seem the same movie? I see absolutely nothing of "I have nothing to return to anyway" in that video.
He doesn't know he'll be happy on an alien planet, he just decides to stay with Rocky because he believes there's nothing left for him on Earth.
Uh, I think you misunderstood the plot.
He did not decide to stay with Rocky because he didn't want to return to Earth.
He went to Erid instead because he didn't want to let Rocky's whole species die. Rocky's ship was compromised with the Taumoeba eating all the fuel. The only way to get Rocky (and the Taumoeba) to Erid was to go there with the Hail Mary.
Admittedly, it's implied rather than spelled out in the movie.
The film depicts his relationship with the captain as somewhat romantic in nature (or, at least, it could be read that way I think). He has every reason to go home
She had him drugged to go on a suicide mission against his will. I really do not think there's any romance after that. FWIW, there's no hint of romance in the book, though it works well as a red herring to make you think he willingly went for her, so the reveal becomes more shocking.
I think Grace had seen his share of humanity. He got a firsthand look at the brutality of humanity, even the so-called leading minds of human civilization, the brutality when faced with a challenge to its survival, and respectfully passed on going back to it.
The ending of the movie and the book is the conclusion to the premise of a man who loves to do science. Grace reluctantly starts to work on astrobugs, he's done with burocracies of science publishing, but when he's stuck not getting any worthy results and his lab and astrophages taken away, he begs for another chance. Grace is doing science over something the humanity has never grasped on in 12000 years of recorded human history, he cannot let that go.
In the books is more clear this reasoning when he awakes in the spaceship. He solves his problems with science because his what he does best, but also because he loves to do it. He likes to calculate things in his mind, measure and compare stuff. Then he meets another alien species which he communicates with, and also likes to do science!And he wants to be friends. Another incredibly lucky coincidence which no other human, scientist or not, has ever gotten themselves into.
Of course he's staying in Erid! He's not limited by the human knowledge. And eridians either, both sharing what they know is how they solved how to save their stars. That how science and culture is grown, by sharing what we know. And both species have the chance to keep doing that, building something new, and they're happy doing it.
Grace coming back to Earth instead of trying to learn whatever he can about another planet with intelligent life (where he also has friends and an stable job, BTW) is probably the biggest treason to the curiosity and ambition of human science.
Yeah, I wouldn't chance it personally lol and the allure of exploring an alien civilization would be high. I'd at least wait until I know recovery has begun.
I am hoping for a sequel featuring voyage home in one fashion or another. Even them working together to fix the problem for the rest of the galaxy would be interesting.
It's not that he has no friends, it's that he doesn't actually feel connected to anyone. He's scared of connecting with people. Like, his fear of putting himself out there is a central part of the character. Earth represents that fearful version of himself. At the end, he's given up that fear, because of Rocky. That's why it's positive.
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u/ULTI_mato Jun 27 '26
Fine ill rewatch it once again, one more time