okay, so I finally watched the Project Hail Mary movie (thank you @inbeesinblood for the incentive and company lol) while also having finished the book this week, so I wanted to talk (ramble) about some difference or things that were left out of the movie that I thought were strange to leave out, mostly because I'm an English and film nerd at heart and love making comparisons and also because I will not be shutting up about this anytime soon and I'm making that everyone's problem <3
this is also not a criticism on the movie!!! I absolutely LOVED it and am planning on subjecting my entire family and friend group to it, I was just interested seeing what differences there were and the things they chose to leave out!!
there are spoilers for both the book and movie under the cut so I would skip this if you don't want to see those!
we'll start off with some of the more minimal changes or details left out
starting off strong I didn't realize that the movie just never mentions that Grace names Astrophage? he names it after the initial experiments with Stratt and then when he goes back to teaching a class afterwards, one of the students ask him about it by name and he has a Moment
they made Grace much less of a Freak™ in the movie, though I do find his reactions more realistic in the movie LMAO aka there was exactly one second of him freaking out about there being an alien (Rocky) and that was when he saw him fully for the first time and just went "that's a spider." which tbh that's so valid I wouldn't be chill with that either
also rip I was hoping they'd keep the fact that this man doesn't know his name at the beginning at fucking all and does whole experiments before he remembers it
when the whole Centrifuge and gravity issue on Adrian happens after the Fishing Incident™, that situation between Rocky and Grace is different! I do somewhat wish that had remained at least similar in the movie from the book, as I love the fact that they saved each other in the book and Grace blatantly put himself on the line to save his best friend when he considers himself a coward is just Good Shit (also I'm a sucker for scars and the fact that he gets scarred by the ammonia adds something for me okay?)
I do like that they still allowed Rocky to be a sarcastic asshole though, he deserves it <3
he also swears at the end of the book so he has a filthy mouth and I just need people to know this because it means a lot to me
also Grace swears exactly once in the book too and I want that to be known
of the change to that scene though I just need to applaud Ryan's acting for making me Unwell when Grace was crying after finding the Taumoeba because he still wasn't sure if Rocky was alive??? PAIN
also the Don't Go Crazy room is not in the book. there are a total of three actual rooms in the Hail Mary in the book, but I'm glad they added that into the movie
onto more specifically characters because I am a character driven person at the end of the day </3
I was a little surprised that they didn't have Dimitri, Redell, and Leclerc in the movie??? or at least not by name? The people that helped make the Hail Mary a successfully running interstellar ship, as the ones that come up with the plan for how to large scale breed Astrophage for fuel, the one that creates the spin drives as a whole, and the lovely unwilling ecoterrorist who went against his morals entirely to give them a shot of succeeding?? I love you guys, I'm sorry you didn't get the time
I do love the addition of Carl though given he isn't in the book in the slightest, he was a wonderful and heartbreaking character at the end
they for sure made Stratt more sympathetic in the movie, but I honestly like that better??? mostly because the internet doesn't know how to handle nuanced and complex female characters, I loved her in the book but I also see where some people wouldn't
little sad that they left out her talking about the fact that she was a history major though, that added a good layer to her character that was missed in the movie
there was also a piece that was left out of the exchange towards the end when they are telling Grace that he's the backup plan where Yao straight up says he refuses to work with someone who was placed onto the ship unwillingly, so they also lied to him in the end fun fact (not that he ever got to find that one out)
missed the random beef Dr. Lokken and Grace had at the beginning, those two did not get along because of the paper he wrote when they first met I just need people to know that LMAO
also even though this has been mentioned before I gotta mention Rocky barely wearing clothes in the movie even though he is the entire book???????? weird choice but alright
I do really wish they had kept Grace's "you're murdering me!" line in the movie when he was being forced to go, but that situation is also SO MUCH WORSE in the movie than in the book since he doesn't run or get drugged in the book that fucking SUCKED
they only made up for it by 1. letting him see inside Rocky's ship in the movie and 2. adding in the "staggering waste of carbon" line because that is the funniest fucking thing
now for some of the bigger moments that i am just strangely confused that they left out???
the fact that Stratt (and the others) 10000% committed ecoterrorism in the book by paving a quarter of the Sahara Desert to breed astrophage and then bombed Antarctica to release a shitton of greenhouse gases to buy the Hail Mary more time???? just never mentioned but Stratt at the end of the book is like "yeah after the ship gets launched and my immunity runs out I'm definitely going to prison."
there is also an entire conversation—that Stratt makes Grace have—with the astronaut teams where they all discuss their preferred methods of suicide while in space so that they can die on their own terms. Ilyukhina's is mentioned in the movie, lethal injection by heroine (what a badass) but the other two aren't and they are both varying degrees of important???
one is Yao who requests a handgun???? so the entire time there is a loaded handgun on the Hail Mary and while that never comes up again I couldn't stop thinking about that after it was mentioned since I was concerned on whether it was going to be used
and then the one that I would argue is actually important, DuBois requests nitrogen poisoning since it would be quick and painless. why is this important? because that's where Rocky and Grace get the nitrogen that they then use to breed the nitrogen-resistant Taumoeba since that isn't something the ship had aboard otherwise. it's entirely because of this conversation and DuBois' preferred method of suicide that the mission ended up being successful at all and they just gloss over that one in the movie
then, finally, the fact of the real reasoning as to why Grace and the others were the ones sent up, there is a coma-resistant gene which allows for people to survive long-term comas without any major side effects (given everything else in the situation is functioning) but that is found in only in one in every seven-thousand humans, which is why the crew that was originally picked was chosen to begin with, they had it
Stratt gets herself and Grace tested "just out of curiosity" and after his test came back positive for the gene, she didn't tell him. that's the entire reason she kept him around and let him know everything that was happening because he was her backup from the beginning
now again, I'd like to reiterate, that I don't think that this majorly detracts from the movie at all!! I think the movie is fantastic and all of the added elements to it makes it phenomenal and the visuals and soundtrack alone are to die for so these changes or pieces left out didn't take anything away for me personally!!! I just thought that these things getting left out was interesting and I wanted to discuss them because I am nothing if not a loser that loves pointing out interesting comparisons
overall I think it was a wonderful adaptation and I loved it so much, this story has definitely left a major impression on me and I don't see myself becoming un-obsessed with it anytime here soon (not to mention Iron Lung I am not sorry) I could go on for AGES about the music and visuals as well but figured I'd just leave it to this lmao
