Project Hail Mary (2026) [+]
Apr 22 2026
Project Hail Mary is a science fiction film based on Andy Weir's novel (Weir also wrote The Martian).
The movie timeline pretty much starts today or very soon but it does start in media res about 5+ years later. A man wakes up with no memory in an enclosed man-made environment that turns out to be a spaceship with two other astronauts (who are both dead having died on the five year journey under induced coma).
Eventually he remembers he's Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and in flashbacks throughout the movie we learn the background plot and how he got there: The Sun is being eaten by some space amoebas (Astrophage -- sun eaters) which will cause catastrophic temperature drop on Earth in about three decades. Turns out all nearby stars are also going through this phenomena except for one, Tau Ceti, 11+ light years away. So Earth's government built a space ship (powered by astrophage which doesn't break the laws of physics but is orders of magnitude more efficient than any other Earth fuel source -- it's neat that the astrophage is jetted out the front which hits a parabolic shield that pushes the ship forward which I guess works because the astrophage is constantly accelerating, without expelling anything, once it starts so pushing out at the start is much less force than when it hits the shield).
Now Dr Grace has arrived at Tau Ceti and he finds another ship there, which then proceeds to make first contact with him (with some neat communication methods). He meets Rocky (eventually voiced via Rocky-language-to-speech synthesizer by James Ortiz), a sort of small rock-like being who is also the only survivor of his 24-being crew, here to save his world from the astrophage. Together they have to work together to figure out how the astrophage in Tau Ceti isn't eating the star...
Kind of like The Martian this is an engineering heavy film (science too I guess but there so much about building and gadgeteer-ing that it's more engineering). Unlike The Martian now we have two very different beings finding a way to both communicate and work together and become friends. I did end up with a few questions about what was going on but I guess the book would explain that better and the film is already 2-1/2 hours (it did have a somewhat Lord of the Rings endless ending that you could have cut off 30 minutes and just did a little voice-over "and then we each went home and saved out peoples").
It's a good film with lots of action parts, lots of cool science and engineering, and cute buddy comedy vibe.
The movie timeline pretty much starts today or very soon but it does start in media res about 5+ years later. A man wakes up with no memory in an enclosed man-made environment that turns out to be a spaceship with two other astronauts (who are both dead having died on the five year journey under induced coma).
Eventually he remembers he's Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and in flashbacks throughout the movie we learn the background plot and how he got there: The Sun is being eaten by some space amoebas (Astrophage -- sun eaters) which will cause catastrophic temperature drop on Earth in about three decades. Turns out all nearby stars are also going through this phenomena except for one, Tau Ceti, 11+ light years away. So Earth's government built a space ship (powered by astrophage which doesn't break the laws of physics but is orders of magnitude more efficient than any other Earth fuel source -- it's neat that the astrophage is jetted out the front which hits a parabolic shield that pushes the ship forward which I guess works because the astrophage is constantly accelerating, without expelling anything, once it starts so pushing out at the start is much less force than when it hits the shield).
Now Dr Grace has arrived at Tau Ceti and he finds another ship there, which then proceeds to make first contact with him (with some neat communication methods). He meets Rocky (eventually voiced via Rocky-language-to-speech synthesizer by James Ortiz), a sort of small rock-like being who is also the only survivor of his 24-being crew, here to save his world from the astrophage. Together they have to work together to figure out how the astrophage in Tau Ceti isn't eating the star...
Kind of like The Martian this is an engineering heavy film (science too I guess but there so much about building and gadgeteer-ing that it's more engineering). Unlike The Martian now we have two very different beings finding a way to both communicate and work together and become friends. I did end up with a few questions about what was going on but I guess the book would explain that better and the film is already 2-1/2 hours (it did have a somewhat Lord of the Rings endless ending that you could have cut off 30 minutes and just did a little voice-over "and then we each went home and saved out peoples").
It's a good film with lots of action parts, lots of cool science and engineering, and cute buddy comedy vibe.