another project hail mary observation:
I noticed that Grace was looking at golden plaques with inscription and realized they look like something made based off the Voyager Golden Record, made by Astrophysicist and Cornell University professor Carl Sagan and singer John Lennon. It was sent out in the probes Voyager 1 and 2, I believe. It has a message etched on it which says, "To the makers of music, all worlds, all times."
For reference, pictures below show the Voyager Golden Record.
People keep talking about the science in PHM like yeah, obviously. Math saves the world, equations translate the universe, whatever.
But what gets me is how hard the story leans into something else: Music!!!!
Like the whole movie quietly argues that sure, math is universal because it is precise. It lets completely different species understand each other.
But music is what lets them feel each other.
When we first see Grace's old memories, the first one shown was him teaching the kids about soundwaves being affected by frequency. This is probably a foreshadowing that it will mean so much in the next few parts of the plot. Specifically Rocky.
Rocky’s language is not framed like cold data, even if it technically is. It is patterned, tonal, almost harmonic. Grace does not just decode it, he recognizes it. There is a difference. Even in the book, he always mentions how Rocky drops an octave when he expresses sadness and grief.
And that is why it hits that even someone like Eva Stratt, who reduces everything to outcomes, to sacrifice, to necessity, can still be pulled into something as unnecessary as music.
The movie soundtrack uses songs in many different languages, and it quietly circles back to the voyager golden record. That record was created in case any life beyond earth ever finds it, to teach them what humanity is. In the same way, the music in the film becomes a kind of message too. It represents human diversity, culture, and emotion, everything that exists beyond just Grace and his perspective, showing what it means to be human to someone who is not human at all.
There are 27 songs from all around the world put in the Golden Record btw. <3
Science lets different life forms understand each other, yes. But something like music exists on a smaller, quieter level. It does not need translation in the same way. It just needs recognition.
And maybe that is the point, that even at the edge of everything, when all you have left is survival and logic and numbers, the thing that still reaches across the gap is not just understanding. It is resonance.
Music transcends all cultures and now, extraterrestrial life! ^°^
annaxmalina
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