Project Hail Mary

I’ve read the book multiple times, and when the movie trailer came out, I was excited. But I was also cautious. I’ve been burned on book conversions before. So last night, I bought a ticket and went to the theater.

This post contains spoilers for both the movie and the book.

Visuals

The first thing I want to talk about, is how good this movie looks. Because holy shit, does it look both good, and right. I was looking forward to seeing the massive fire ball from when the Hail Mary points her engines at the planet Adrian, and I was extremely not disappointed. Everything, just looked, right.

And watching the behind the scenes, that makes sense. A ton of stuff was done practically. From the flight deck, the outside of the ship, to even Rocky. They used a mix of CGI, and full sized animatronics, and puppets for him.

I highly recommend watching the behind the scenes. Including the videos from Adam Savage going on set. Here’s some links.

Story

The story stayed extremely close to the book. All the big beats were there, and done well. They did cut a few things, but nothing overly major. Some things were compressed, especially when Grace was researching the Astrophage on Earth. Adding a completely new character to help with that. But with the movie being just over two and a half hours, it was needed. And that new character, Carl, was fantastic.

The biggest changes that were made, were the ships. The Hail Mary is bigger than it was in the book, with a couple extra rooms. The main addition was the “Mental Health Room”. A sphere with LED panels. Nothing overly crazy.

The Massive departure from the book. Was when Grace went onto the Blip A. This was pretty short, and honestly, pretty well done.

Thoughts

Overall, it was good. Very well made, very high effort, very good. If you liked the book, check it out. If you haven’t read the book, and like hard sci-fi, check it out. Then read the book.