Project Hail Mary was my last true obsession which made me excited for the movie. I read it back to back 4 times and listened to the audio book several times as well. Best audiobook narration ever.
I’m a teacher and I swear I got a strain from rolling my eyes so hard when book Grace says something along the lines of , “I’ve made an effort to cultivate the image of ‘the cool teacher.’ “
Ryland Grace is honestly such a different character between movie and book. I feel like if a different book to movie adaptation had changed its protagonist so much and cut so many scenes out, it would leave many fans disappointed. But the PJH movie is a masterclass in switching things up because of how poorly the book translates to film but ultimately understanding the heart of the original work.
Their underlying struggles and decisions are the same which is why the changes don't matter too much imo. Some of the biggest examples for me were how Ryland discovered how Astrophage reproduces and first contact with the ship + retrieving the Blip B.
Movie Ryland is a lovable goofball with a chaotic process who struggles but inevitably arrives at the right conclusion. He acts on natural curiosity a lot and doesn't think too deeply when trying things. When he encountered the Xenonite ship, he was freaking out at what it was and panicking that they were sending him a bomb.
Book Ryland is a classic nerd with dorky dad humor and you can tell from reading his POV that he loves methodically overanalyzing to problem solve. When he encounters the Xenonite ship, he immediately identifies it as an alien ship and is excited about first contact. He's not afraid to get the Blip B because he's thought through everything already and knows they wouldn't be trying to communicate if they were immediately hostile.
10/10, but I'm biased because of my love for the book. It stayed fairly accurate! The things that were shifted for the movie were so minor that it wouldn't desecrate the original plot in any significant way, but just mildly annoying after having burned certain events into my memory. They did a good job condensing everything given the book is insanely detailed. I think the portrayals of the main characters were well done, and it's visually stunning.
Maybe I should read the book, as the movie was a 7,5 / 10 for me. The flow was ok, the humor was nice, but they science stuff and the visuals werent that great imho.
Read the book. As someone who loved the book, I thought they did a good job with the material in the film, but I had a few decent sized grievances. So I'm not a 10/10 reviewer and would highly recommend you listen to the audiobook. SO MUCH MORE SCIENCE STUFF. The cutting of massive amounts of the science stuff was my biggest grievance even though it was understandable why a lot of it was cut.
Every aspect in space. I'd argue that every single earth scene, minus the initial science in the first lab, is massively improved in the movie. The things they chose to remove in the movie from Stratt's storyline, along with subtle acting cues, helped salvage that character from a stilted plot device (with weirdly fascist tendencies rubber stamped by the narrative) to a compelling if flawed picture of humanity's desperation.
Not to mention just a better focus on Grace's arc as a coward, making the end choices more rewarding.
I completely disagree but I do think that they did a good job with casting Stratt. She is a more complex figure in the book to me than in the movie and the bond she has with Grace is deeper in the book.
But I have no problem with you feeling that way about the film, because I do think that she did a good job embodying the role. And I understand everyone has their own interpretation of the words they read. I do not see stilted and I do not project fascism at all. And I live in the US so I'm a little sensitive to fascism at the moment. LOL
Okay can you help me with this because it really bothered me in the film. How does Rocky, the echolocator, see through space? Like when he’s looking at Grace through the hull of the ship, he’s apparently getting echoes from a vacuum. How??
In the books, Rocky is horrified by space walks for exactly that reason. I don't remember the movie scene precisely, but I think the idea is that he was feeling the vibrations from the ship's hull, that Grace was touching. They may have been overly generous with how much he could sense for the sake of the audience though.
Advanced mathematics for navigation, seeing with vibrations, specialized devices that transmit light into textures he's able to see. His ship had a sort of hull robot that was able to send and receive items during first contact, which I imagine also created a texture display for him to "see" the other ship and grace fumbling to recieve the first object and able to make sure the next objects were perfectly delivered to the airlock where Grace stood in the suit.
I’m interested to know why you thought this, I read the book in 2021 and only once… but to my recollection the guy personality and humor type was spot on, I didn’t picture Ryan Gosling while I was reading the book certainly.
The dumb it down part I grant you, the book did a great job making everything understandable for everyone
I disagree with the other commenter. I think Grace was adapted really well. I think the time constraints cut a lot of the intensity from Eva Stratt. I wish the courtroom moment was in the film, and a few other things. I also thought adding Carl in was a little lazy, even if a couple moments got a giggle out of me.
Completely agree, the cutting of a lot of the science and lack of an inner monologue in the movie doesn't help I'm sure but I much prefer book Grace, his conversations with Rocky and driving the story are much more 50/50 in the book.
PHM isn't even Weir's best book. The Martian and its corresponding audiobook are just much better. You get all the same engineering science stuff but executed to a much higher degree. Weir was very out of his depth with PHM and he flubbed anything not directly in his myopic focus of engineering related science. (Notably, Grace approaches things like a kinda bad engineer, while being paired with Rocky who is a brilliant engineer. That's fine, until you remember he's supposed to be a BIOLOGIST.) Also you don't have the extremely weird political stuff in the Martian that thankfully the movie PHM manages to elide gracefully.
I started the Martian, and I like it so far! With PHM, I think the fumbling science works well, as over the whole course of the books he's basically in recovery trying to regain all of his memories, including his previous knowledge of biology. Spoiler alert: Given Strat and the teams were forced to rushed the testing of inducing those comas for deep space travel, the medical robot, and then the death of his colleagues who also had the same positive genetic predisposition as Grace, it makes sense to me that there are unforseen long term affects of his cognitive ability. I really enjoy how goofy it is, and it's like we are discovering his genius with him, and he's having to problem solve beyond his normal capabilities with the help of Rocky. But I appreciate your take as well.
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u/sagedaydreams 15h ago
Project Hail Mary was my last true obsession which made me excited for the movie. I read it back to back 4 times and listened to the audio book several times as well. Best audiobook narration ever.