I recently watched the Hollywood adaption of Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling, itself based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir. I did read the book years ago, and my fiancé read it in advance of us going to the movie. I’ve made many posts on adaptations at this point, so readers of the blog can probably anticipate some of my thoughts on this one. To put it simply, I liked it quite a bit. For those who have read the book, I found it to be a pretty faithful adaptation. My only real critique was that they had to drop so much of the science, but that was a change made understandable by the medium and the target audience. Without going into spoilers, if you enjoyed Andy Weir’s other book/adaption, The Martian, or really any tale of an intrepid space traveler using scrappy problem-solving in an attempt to save humanity, you’ll enjoy this one. Given his appearance in the trailer and general popular culture at the moment, I feel like it’s not much of a spoiler to say our astronaut meets an alien. His name is Rocky and he’s pretty great. Big thumbs down (you’ll get it when you watch the movie, it’s a good thing).
For those who have already seen it, I’m curious on your thoughts. For me, as I mentioned before, my only real critique was that so much of the science was lost. For example, there was much made of the main character Ryland Grace’s argument that water was not requisite for life. In the movie, while this was brought up in him being roped in to study the astrophage, after it was shown astorphage did indeed require water, it wasn’t mentioned again. In the book, ample time is spent on the particulars of Rocky’s fascinating biology. While Rocky still technically requires water, the high pressure of his home planet Erid and its ammonia atmosphere makes for some interesting ways Rocky’s people evolved to cope, such as liquid mercury functioning as his blood. While not a full proof of Ryland Grace’s theory, as Rocky still uses water-based cells in his body, it does directly show that life didn’t require the thin goldilocks zone temperature band so many of Ryland’s peers had assumed.
However, even though much of the science wasn’t discussed to the same depth, there was one aspect that the movie improved upon: character. Andy Weir as an author is incredibly skilled at making the scientific method of trial and error and constant learning incredibly exciting to read, weaving it into sci-fi stories of intrepid heroes doing their best against the odds. Sometimes, however, character work gets less focus. Enter the writers for the movie adaption, Ryan Gosling, and whoever voiced Rocky. They gave them a depth that was at times lacking in the book.
To summarize, each of the mediums has their strengths and weaknesses: the book expands on the science while the movie expands on the character work. Either way, it’s a fantastic tale worth enjoying.
All the best,
M. Weald
M. Weald 