Project Hail Mary

[Podey]

Anyone seen? I’m a big fan of the book and, whilst the movie sacrificed quite a lot of the backstory for the runtime, I rather enjoyed it. 

Twice, in fact.

Topic

[Dave]

Yes, I saw it with my son yesterday and enjoyed it. I haven’t read the book but might give it a try after enjoying The Martian (both book and movie).

Got some very Dwarfy vibes, specifically the opening of Psirens, from some of the early scenes in Project Hail Mary.

[Podey]

Deffo read it if you’re a fan, I enjoyed both but I think Project Hail Mary is the better book. 👍 If you’ve read ‘The Martian’ then you’ll know what to expect in terms of the level of detail!

[Moonlight]

I really enjoyed the movie. I bought the book like two months ago with the intent of reading it before I saw the movie and then I forgot.

[Dave]

There were moments in the film where it definitely felt like elements of backstory had been omitted or perhaps filmed and deleted, so I’d be interested to read it if only to fill in those gaps. Similar to the difference between The Martian book and movie I suppose.

(It did remind me of The Martian in structure too, particularly that problem/solution/bigger-problem/solution chain that keeps the momentum going.)

[clem]

I haven’t seen the film yet but enjoyed the book. Definitely shades of Red Dwarf in there. 

Not seen or read The Martian. Is that the one where he has to grow potatoes to survive using his own poop as fertiliser? 

[Technopeasant]

I actually read Andy Weir’s webcomic Casey & Andy in the mid-2000s before he was famous.

Can’t claim anything cool like annoying him though.

It was a bit of a surprise to come back in 2016 and realize he was not only finally a published author but got a movie directed by Ridley bloody Scott.

[Dave]

Not seen or read The Martian. Is that the one where he has to grow potatoes to survive using his own poop as fertiliser? 

Yes, that’s the one. 

[cwickham]

There were moments in the film where it definitely felt like elements of backstory had been omitted or perhaps filmed and deleted, so I’d be interested to read it if only to fill in those gaps. Similar to the difference between The Martian book and movie I suppose.
(It did remind me of The Martian in structure too, particularly that problem/solution/bigger-problem/solution chain that keeps the momentum going.)

The movie also cuts quite a bit of the heavy science, but yes the Earth side of things is for-want-of-a-better-word simplified considerably.

[Podey]

The movie also doesn’t include another Dwarf-ish element from the book, which is (minor spoiler) that our climate crisis has brought us a bit of extra time before the sun dims sufficiently enough to kill us and then they actually proceed to “speed up” global warming to buy us even more time.

I presume they cut that out to avoid being labelled as having a “climate change” agenda, which is a shame.

[Flap Jack]

I saw this on Saturday and thought it was fantastic! But come on now, a man is awakened by the voice of a computer after years of being unconscious to find that his crewmates are dead? Blatant Red Dwarf rip off! Blatant.

I presume they cut that out to avoid being labelled as having a “climate change” agenda, which is a shame.

I think this presumption isn’t really fair. Occam’s razor is that they just didn’t have time to cover those extra details, and kept things focused on Grace’s story. The movie is still over 2 and a half hours long. And I’m hoping that we haven’t regressed so much as a society that simply acknowledging the existence of climate change in a movie is now effectively not allowed.

It’s been interesting reading the reactions, because it seems like people who read the book first are more negative on it due to how many extra backstory details and scientific explanations they didn’t include, whereas movie-first people basically proved that those parts weren’t necessary to tell the story well. I’m intrigued to read the book now and learn all that juicy extra context.

And hey, maybe the Blu-ray release will contain a deleted scene where Gosling turns to the camera and gives an hour long lecture about how Astrophage really works.

[Podey]

I think that referencing climate change as being real in a movie would be *divisive* at this point in our history, not “not allowed” and so the studio went with the safer option in terms of making money. I don’t think it’s too out there to suggest that this is the reasoning behind not including it because the movie has more of a “gentle” and unifying tone than the book, though obviously I don’t particularly think we should worry about unifying with climate change deniers. 

The difference between that element and the other stuff that got axed for time is that those are whole sequences/complicated plot devices whereas this is just passing comments made by characters in scenes that still exist in the movie, which is why I feel that way. But hey ho, could be wrong. 

I should note I gave the movie 5 out of 5 stars btw, I bloody loved it. I have seen some negative reaction from book fans online but I, and several others from my book club who’ve read it, all thought it’s a great adaptation. I said at the time it’s the most I’ve ever felt like I was watching the book on the screen. 

[Technopeasant]

The movie also doesn’t include another Dwarf-ish element from the book, which is (minor spoiler) that our climate crisis has brought us a bit of extra time before the sun dims sufficiently enough to kill us and then they actually proceed to “speed up” global warming to buy us even more time. I presume they cut that out to avoid being labelled as having a “climate change” agenda, which is a shame.

Honestly implying that climate change can be a good thing is arguably more problematic than just not mentioning it, even if I am aware the whole global warming versus global dimming argument goes back decades.

[Podey]

It’s nothing to do with the “global dimming” argument, the sun is dimming in the story because an alien microbe from another planet is eating it, causing it to cool. And thus the fact we have a hotter climate gave us an advantage in this entirely fictional scenario of potentially being able to travel to the one star in the region that doesn’t seem to be being affected by the microbe in time to find out why and send the results back, which I think is delivered as a delicious irony rather than being at all problematic.

[Dave]

Yeah, definitely – that’s how I read it too.

[Flap Jack]

The difference between that element and the other stuff that got axed
for time is that those are whole sequences/complicated plot devices
whereas this is just passing comments made by characters in scenes that
still exist in the movie, which is why I feel that way. But hey ho,
could be wrong. 

I see what you mean, but there’s another reason to cut it than for time or for political cowardice – and I think it’s more likely than both. It’s just such a huge revelation to casually mention in dialogue, and the flashback scenes are otherwise devoid of confirmation that massively destructive sacrifices like that are already being made. It makes sense that it would happen, but it also makes sense to focus on Project Hail Mary itself, and keep the mass tragedies in the future they’re trying to prevent.

And ultimately I’m just not convinced that it’s a big enough conservative talking point at the moment for it to galvanise executives to intervene like this. Compared to the many recent movies and TV shows where execs have openly confirmed that queer characters were nixed because they didn’t want to be “political” or “adult”, I haven’t really heard of climate change mentions being censored as a trend. (Plus if they’d wanted to still include the plot point, it would have been really easy to do so without acknowledging it as being related to previous man-made climate change.)

[Podey]

Fair enough, its absence just irked me because it was one of my favourite details from the book. 

[Podey]

In fact here is an interview with them confirming that they cut out us “nuking Antarctica” (to release trapped methane and water vapour into the atmosphere – an idea that sounds even more Dwarf!) because they didn’t have the screen time for that plot point: https://www.polygon.com/project-hail-mary-movie-vs-book-changes-interview/

That’s a shame as I was hoping we’d get some of the cut stuff in deleted scenes, though hopefully there’ll still be some juicy extra bits. 

[Technopeasant]

which I think is delivered as a delicious irony rather than being at all problematic.

I would certainly hope so. Still, for those who have moved beyond outright denial the next recourse is usually either “it’s inevitable” or “it’s a good thing actually” so the room for misinterpetation is sadly there.

[Flap Jack]

In fact here is an interview with them confirming that they cut out us “nuking Antarctica” (to release trapped methane and water vapour into the atmosphere – an idea that sounds even more Dwarf!) because they didn’t have the screen time for that plot point: 

Ah, well that settles that I guess! Funny that the first comment on that article is some dummy saying “good, global warming is too political”, so point proven on it being divisive in some quarters at least.

Apparently an early cut of the film was nearly 4 hours long, so if we don’t get a decent number of deleted scenes it’s not due to a lack of suitable material.

[Author]

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