I loved PHM so flipping much, but there’s a missing scene that really bothers me! I haven’t seen anyone else talk about this one yet, too. Spoilers below:
Okay so in the book, there’s a scene where the three astronauts are discussing how they’d like to die. In the movie, we don’t really get to know the other astronauts even as Grace is regaining his memories, and this scene is so important for getting a look at who exactly these people were—including that they understood just how one one-way the trip was.
It’s touched on in the movie, but Ilyukhina says she’s been a “good girl” for her entire life and wants to go on a heroin bender and overdose for one last bit of fun. She’s duty driven, sure, but she enjoys fun as much as the next person and is trying to make the best of her situation.
Dubois chooses to asphyxiate via nitrogen inhalation. It’s practical, painless, and effective; it’s a pretty interesting choice, but it feels in line for a scientist. Also there was a whole thing with the needing the nitrogen to kill off the escaped taumoebas before they eat all the astrophage, and in the book it winds up being a real boon that Grace happens to have a bunch of it thanks to Dubois!
Yao’s method is simplest: he wanted a handgun. Specifically, he wanted a standard issue handgun for the Chinese military. He also specified that he wanted to die last, in case any of the other two’s method of choice failed. Yao is a leader to the end, and he wanted to go down with the proverbial ship.
It’s a dark, morbid conversation, but I think it’s important and gives a good sense of the other crew member’s motivations. It makes the mission stakes feel even realer to understand that there were people with actual personalities signing onto this, with full and clear knowledge that they weren’t going to return. PLUS, it showed how differently Grace felt about the whole suicide mission thing and really hints at his unwillingness to sign up for something like this. If I’m feeling petty later, I’ll write a whole essay about this scene, but it was super memorable and I was a bit bummed it didn’t make it in. It was probably just cut for runtime and it’s not really a plot load-bearing moment, it was just a really interesting take on characterization.
Also the coma gene thing and the amnesia drug thing, but that’s already been said.
