just losing my mind over project hail mary

[rosedavid]

PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

@pscentral​ event 49: literature

[morning-frostie]

probably one of the reasons why i love phm so much is that it's a movie literally about the merits of platonic love and platonic soulmates. enough of these stupid romance movies gimme two characters whose friendship fucking saved both their planets, and who love each-other so fucking much that they would sacrifice themselves for the other over and over again. finally, a movie that shows that all love is powerful, not just that between romantic partners.

[agentrouka-blog]

I love Carl's introduction. It's such a great establishing moment.

Ryland Grace has made it all the way to his bike with Eva Stratt at his heels, so her trusted security team has correctly assessed it's time to move in the cars, and Carl is approaching off-screen.

Grace comes out of the little "I don't know why that makes me such a nut!" rant, and there Carl is, stepping up into frame exactly next to Stratt. Tall, broad, unimpressed, unmistakably a force to be reckoned with, unmistakably a trusted professional.

But also a nameless goon at this point. An extension of the threat Stratt seems to represent to Grace. A depersonalized tool.

Grace clocks the cars, his presence, the unfolding situation, instantly and incredulously. And he does something clever, something he always does, which is to call attention to the absurdity of the unspoken threat by trying to force the situation into a normal mold.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Turning Eva's nameless goon into a person with agency. Trying to force a relationship that hinders coercion.

Ideally, this would force them all to acknowledge how abnormal they are acting and retreat a little to keep up the appearance of normality. Or admit to what they are doing by refusing. Either way, the ball shifts out of Ryland's court into theirs.

Neither happens, though.

Carl sees exactly what he's trying to do with that and interrupts him mid-question. "Carl." And then keeps staring at him the same way as before. One word, and we already know so much about him.

He is not a nameless goon. He is an individual named Carl.

And he fully supports what is happening there. Because nothing is normal and it's stupid to pretend that what is happening isn't happening.

So yes, while he bonds with Grace over silliness and is the astrophage-coparent and instigator of Carl's Hypothesis... he is also entirely introduced to us as the man who will wish Grace the best of success on the mission while he's being sedated on the ground. Because Carl has a personal opinion about what is at stake.

"Sun's really dying, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

[phmthoughts]

The messiness aspect of Grace's Hail Mary era is an interesting piece of characterization I've been pondering for a while. I mean yeah, it's a fun visual gag to have all kinds of crap floating around during zero g, but honestly, I don't think that's best practice on a space ship. Like, what if a rogue skittle had gotten stuck under the centrifuge lever at a crucial moment? I sorta feel like Grace should, would, know better.

It also sort of didn't make sense to me for Grace's personality. His classroom on Earth is very tidy and carefully arranged. Same for his home on Erid. They make a point of showing us him making his bed and smoothing out the wrinkles, showing us all the little knicknacks and trinkets he put out on his shelves and tables to memorialize his past Earth and space lives. He's thoughtful, deliberate, meticulous. When things are going well. When he's in a stable equilibrium. Which, on the Hail Mary, he is anything but.

What do I do when I'm too busy, or kinda depressed? I pull stuff off shelves or outta cabinets till I find what I'm looking for, and then just leave it all lying there because I don't have the time or energy to put it all back. I'll get to it later. Eventually. But I don't. And it piles up.

And what is going on with Grace in space? First, he's just lost to grief and despair, for so many reasons. Then, when he pulls himself together and Rocky shows up, Things Just Keep Happening, and who has time to clean?!?!

The moment when he vents all the ship's atmosphere after The Leak is discovered, the filmmakers make a point of showing us all that crap (skittles, mustard bottles, etc.) flying out of the airlock, strikes me as significant here. Sure, the stuff flying out gives us a visual cue to illustrate the venting (and is a small note of levity in a serious moment). But things that could have been useful (calories, duct tape) are lost, at a moment when Grace really can't afford to lose anything. Except that's the whole point. He is shedding everything. None of it matters. Vent the skittles. Erase the whiteboard. Sweep the ship clean. Grace's Hail Mary era is over, and his Rocky era (short though he believes it will be) is committed to, irrevocably.

[rtfics]

Actors are just big kids.

Sound on.

I love what actors will do to get the best performances from each other.

[starrose17]

Once we're done...I'm gonna die.

[valtsv]

can't stop thinking about how hysterical project hail mary would be from rocky's pov when you consider that, by eridian standards, basic human functioning is simultaneously an incredibly hostile and violently perverted body horror fetish nightmare. imagine you make first contact with an alien and it's an apex predator with an obscene number of orifices, made up mostly of toxic substances that it oozes constantly from said orifices, thrives in an unforgivingly cold and suffocating atmosphere, is highly motivated by searching for its next meal + consumes its food publicly in violation of your society's main taboo, and is capable of rapidly transitioning from vulnerable in sleep to alert and in full possession of its faculties at the slightest change in stimuli. grace is in a heartwarming scifi buddy comedy and meanwhile rocky is bonded with and planning on bringing home his species' equivalent of the xenomorph.

[matagator]

ryland grace being fox-coded... so reasonably i think he should dig holes. just, for no absolute reason. you're one of the eridians tasked with monitoring him and you're going in for your shift. your coworker tells you that hero grace is digging holes on the beach again. you don't know why. you don't ask. hero grace seems content with it. sometimes when rocky is in the biodome, he also digs holes. no one else seems to mind. you kind of want to try it yourself.

[hylasregilla]

Very cool sound design detail! I saw an interview where James Ortiz talked about trying to give Rocky an emotional character arc, something that was absent in the book and script. He talked about telling the story of trauma recovery physically through Rocky's body language. How he wanted the audience to feel Rocky's journey from shell-shocked to feeling comfortable in his own body again.

And that's reflected in the sound design with Rocky's echolocation noise.

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He makes this sound when he's trying to "look" closely at something, usually objects. The cool thing is, he also does it when he feels insecure. Whenever he gets vulnerable and uncomfortable he pings this noise at Grace. It's like looking really closely at someone because you're anxious to know what they're thinking.

He goes from doing it before and after every sentence, to less and less as they get familiar with each other. He's suddenly doing it non-stop again for the whole one-way trip conversation, when Grace is actively hiding his emotions from him. It doesn't show up again after that until the end when he hesitates before calling Grace "brave".

Really good detail.

[picklesinabottle]

I think the ways grace and rocky go about saying "hey don't be sad we are competent" are 1 really sweet and 2 sososo funny because grace, ever the teacher, will be like "hey don't be sad, I'm a science human, we'll figure it out together" and rocky will be like "oh my god stop crying you dumbass, I figured out how to solve the problem twenty minutes ago. lack of sleep is making you stupid. idiot." And they're both like, wow this is exactly what I needed to hear <3

[userilyarozanov]

Project Hail Mary (2026) dir. Phil Lord, Chris Miller

[scarlct-vvitch]

one day grace hurts his right hand somehow and he's all upset bc he's like gosh dang it now i have to do everything left-handed. and rocky's like ?????still have other hand?? and grace explains the idea of dominant hands and rocky is like. you only have two hands. the FUCK do you mean only one of them can do anything

[cerebrobullet]

now, i do enjoy the "grace breaks his glasses and is despondent because it's his only pair" head canons because i love drama and misery, but also this is NASA. They sent him up there with like ten extra pairs because a) it's NASA and b) everyone fucking saw how Grace treated his glasses. The original redundancy plan probably called for like 5 pairs but then Stratt took one look at that and was "absolutely not, he's a fucking menace double that immediately"

[0bscure42]

ohhh my god thinking about how rocky attached himself to grace so quickly makes me sick. he was alone for 46 years. of course he moved in with grace almost immediately. of course he started the whole interaction with grace by sending the cylinders to the hail mary despite not knowing whether he was going to be hostile or not. rocky got angry when grace didn’t come back at exactly the time he told him. rocky made a little gift for grace before even meeting him. rocky was willing to sacrifice himself if it meant grace lived.

[miki-langelo]

Ryland Grace x Reader headcanons!

he leaves you