"Rocky had the Eridians create a tree, and a beach, and wave machine for the sea so Ryland would feel at home. But none of it was necessary. Rocky was all he needed for that." what if I cried for ten thousand years
After watching the director’s commentary twice (seen the movie a total of six times so far), the detail that is sticking with me the most this morning is the fact that both Earth and Erid planned for the mission to fail.
Earth has the golden records room that is meant to be a history of Earth and what they did to try and save the planet, so if any intelligent creature finds the ship but no one alive? They’ll know what happened and some part of Earth’s history will live on.
But Rocky’s ship had the same thing. Rocky shows Grace, right before he remembers how exactly he got recruited for this mission, his ship’s records of Erid. Erid, like Earth, planned for their ship to be a living record of their planet should the mission fail and their planet dies.
I just…I’m so happy they didn’t fail and I’m hit with emotions over two planets taking a long shot and hoping it works, but planning to tell their story if it doesn’t
If you go to see Project Hail Mary with the directors commentary, I recommend using noise canceling headphones! I used sport earbuds, which could NOT compete with the louder scenes, so I totally missed the commentary during the more intense or exciting moments. 🫠
Thoughts and tidbits about the commentary are under the cut!
1. I'm obnoxious, so I asked everyone seated near me if they had seen the movie before, then I told them about the directors commentary! Everyone was very friendly, and I had a nice chat with one older couple before and after the movie.
2. The blurriness of some of the flashback scenes was accomplished by projecting the recordings of those scenes, then refilming the projection to obtain the blur effect. I'm not even a film nerd, but this detail is just so COOL to me.
3. I had been wracking my brain trying to figure who the person walking towards Ryland was in the beach scene right before the zero-g scene. I was not able to recognize the person was until others confirmed that it was future-Ryland. I am now RABID over this scene. Such a cool touch!
4. The EVA scenes were first drafted virtually (which I won't pretend to understand — it sounded like everything was 3D modelled, then a virtual film camera was able to move around the 3D model), but the effect of the shadows cast on the ships from Tau Ceti was discovered during this process!
5. Lord and Miller really did talk about birds during the chase scene with the Blip-A, but the movie was so loud that I missed why they had started talking about birds in the first place. 😮💨
6. Lord and Miller would often point out which moments had puppet-Rocky versus CGI-Rocky. Sometimes puppet-Rocky had CGI for some of Rocky's limbs!
7. The moment where Rocky runs to grab a clock was the first draft devloped of Rocky's running gait. The CGI team provided many different gaits, but Lord and Miller preferred the first because it was so funny.
8. When the primary and secondary astronaut teams are being shown the spin-drive demonstration, Ryan's body-double from the virtual 3D drafting process (mentioned in #4) was the one who activated the demonstration. Lord and Miller were very happy that he was able to be in the actual film!
9. There were a few times where Lord and Miller went quiet and I thought the commentary had glitched, but they were just enjoying the movie.
10. There was one time that the commentary DID glitch, and it took me way too long to notice because I thought they were just watching the movie again. 💀
There were SO MANY cool details brought up in the commentary. I really hope they include it on the disc release so I can watch it again!
