#phm feels

[unimpressed-frog]

ppl still complaining about how the movie made Grace's escape attempt low-key amusing instead of a super serious dramatic moment....u realize that that's kind of the point? He was always treated as a joke by the adults at first. He can never win, at least on earth. He can't even get a dignified exit off the planet.

He's only confident and competent working in the lab and teaching in a classroom. And it's only after he meets and starts working with Rocky, that he's no longer a completely hopeless klutz in all other areas of his life.

[unimpressed-frog]

Still thinking about this major difference between the book and the movie. This is the paragraph right before Grace remembers he did not go onto the Hail Mary willingly. He's still holding onto preconceived notions of what he must have been like in the past to inform his current mindset. That's why the decision to go back and save Rocky has a lot more emotional attention in the book. He's still not sure if he's capable of brave decisions until he makes that one.

Whereas in the movie, we've already seen Grace's growth in courage. He went from backing out of his first EVA (and failing LOL) to voluntarily risking his life jumping off of the Hail Mary to retrieve the Adrian sample collector (to Rocky's disapproval). There wasn't a single moment of self-doubt there. He locked in in a way he'd never done before. He's proven to himself that he's capable of making brave decisions. It doesn't matter as much to movie Grace whether he'd made brave decisions in the past - he's making them now.

The big reveal in the movie comes later, as a contrast to Grace's celebratory mood. It's not so much a predictor of Grace's future actions as it is just a reflection of his self-image.

That's why the decision to save Rocky came with less angst in the movie, and even came with happy Beatles music. At that moment, he was already the person capable of saving a friend at the cost of his own life. What he did in the past no longer has any no bearing to how he sees himself now.

[unimpressed-frog]

I'm still confused why people think Stratt and Grace are "friends" when it's 1000000% obvious to me that movie Stratt is Grace's tough, inscrutable MOM.

Like, she reassures him and hypes him up the whole time, even when he acts like a kid and everyone else thinks he's a joke. She gives him chances to prove himself. She pushes him to his limits constantly. She puts him at a distance because she's supposed to be in charge, but also lets her humanity show for him when he asks her about it.

And that look on her face at the end when she's watching Grace on the recording, him all glowed-up and confident? That's absolutely one proud mama.

She knew he could do it, he just had to learn it for himself.

[unimpressed-frog]

As a former molecular biologist, I am pleased as punch that scores of non-molecular biologists across the world now also know what it feels like to have ALL tHe eMoTiOnS while looking into a microscope.

[unimpressed-frog]

wait wait wait....so Rocky had enough fuel to go home from Tau Ceti several times over but he didn't abandon his mission?? I don't think anyone on Erid would have blamed him for coming back alone after everyone else died. It would be completely reasonable to retreat and figure out how to get more scientists there without dying.

Instead he stayed for 46 years trying to figure out the problem even though he was "just" a mechanic and he was doing it all alone???

Maybe the other 22 Eridians were the best and brightest Erid had and he felt he couldn't let them down, even if it took him his whole life. 😭 He needed Grace just as Grace needed him

[unimpressed-frog]

A line from the movie that really hit me (that wasn’t in the book) was when Rocky demands, “What mean? What mean make peace??” when Grace tells him he’s made peace with the fact that he’ll die after the mission is done.

My mom died 2 years before I had my daughter. Little girls were her favorite and she never got to meet mine. She would have loved my daughter so much.

I’ve accepted it, and don’t think about that often anymore. But have I made peace with it? That scene reminded me that I haven’t, and I never will. She should be joking and doing crafts with my delightful 4-year-old girl and she isn’t.

We are just fragile leaky space blobs with short lives who love so hard that we tell ourselves we’re ok with death because it’s the only way to not go insane.