We saw Project Hail Mary last night - NO SPOILERS

[thewayne]

When a movie is based upon a book or graphic novel, there's three ways of comparing it to the original source material: not as good, did it justice, or better than. It is very rare that a movie is better than the source material.

For me, this movie was better than the book.

Several books - for me - do justice to the source. To name a couple, the 1973 Michael York/Richard Lester Three Musketeers, V For Vendetta: those did a pretty darn good job of representing the source material and bringing it to life. Let's ignore what Lester and the producer was doing to the actors behind the scenes... Then you have the movie adaptation of Alan Moore's comic series Watchmen, which massively deviated from the source material.

This movie was one of those very rare occasions where I feel that the book was much better than the movie, and lots of people think the book is pretty darn great.

I did not like the book Project Hail Mary. I wrote about this last year. I liked The Martian and enjoyed the movie, then last year I read Artemis and PHM back to back and realized they were a combination of Dr. Who and perhaps Mary Sue: a hero who could do absolutely anything.

It really turned me off, to the point that I had very little interest in seeing the movie. But Russet wanted to see it, and I like spending time with my wife, so last night off we went.

And I have to say that the team did an excellent job of adapting the book and turning it into something that was much more palatable for my taste: he's not a GOAT or a JOAT, he's really good in his field and has some understanding outside of that, but he ain't The Doctor. The movie is long at 2:50, and I did have to bail at one point for an extended pee break, fortunately at a point where there was no big action going on and I remembered from the book what was likely to be happening.

I had some minor quibbles of things that I would have really liked to have seen included, but it was already a pretty darn long movie, it didn't need to be made longer.

I am hoping that the same production team might adapt Artemis and make it more palatable, that may or may not be possible. We shall see. I'm sure there will be a clamoring for it since with the success of The Martian and now PHM, the bidding on anything written by Andy Weir will definitely be heating up.

Definitely recommended if you like contemporary space science fiction.

Oh, almost forgot to mention: nothing in the end credits, so once they start rolling you're safe to run for the restroom.


On a side note, have I mentioned the web site/smart phone app Run Pee? You can look up a movie, and it will tell you during what scenes you're safest to run off to the bathroom. Useful information to be armed with. The one problem with this app is it seems to update all the freaking time, so load it before you leave home and be prepared for a bit of a wait until it's ready to be queried.

Comments

[moonhare]

“… the 1973 Michael York/Richard Lester Three Musketeers…”

I love this adaptation!

[thewayne]

I've never seen the Gene Kelly version, but the Michael York pair is definitely my favorite of the few that I've seen.

[white_aster]

I reread the book real fast after watching the movie, and there are definitely things I like better about the movie than the book. I forgot how Grace was characterized kind of blandly in the book (in general, Weir's characterization always seems to be very one-note), and I definitely think he's a better character in the movie. I appreciated how much hardship and I-cannot-cope they saddled him with.

I wasn't really a fan of how Rocky was more comedy and less even-keeled than he was in the book, but really that was my only nitpick. (I also thought that the extended scene where he talks to Stratt and then she does karaoke was a little odd of a thing to spend time on, but I think they were trying to add in some more characterization, which I guess I can't fault them too much for and am just glad they didn't try to inject overt romance.)

Still, it was a great movie, and...such a refreshing message nowadays. ;_;

[thewayne]

I agree, Rocky didn't seem as smart in this one, which was sad.  Unfortunately I don't have much of an opinion on Stratt because I couldn't hear her very well.  A combination of our theater having a really sucky audio system and I'm in-between hearing aid generations and getting a new pair next week.  Maybe I can see it again in Phoenix next week in a Harkins with really awesome sound, but I don't know if I'll have time.  Otherwise, I'll have to wait for streaming release.

[thewayne]

And kudos on the fast re-read!

[white_aster]

Heh, I really speed-read through it, skipping things that I didn't care much about (they very rightfully skipped over some of the before-launch stuff that was described in the book) but it really just was a very fast read, with all the conversations. I can see that last time I read it I read it in like 2 days, as well.

[thewayne]

Looks like it took me about three days to read it after finishing Artemis, 1/25-1/28 last year.

[disneydream06]

WOW, that says a lot when a movie is better then the book source. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[gingeriana]

Oh cool, we saw it too this weekend.
I liked the whole thing very much! (Knew nothing about the book, so like zero expectations)

[thewayne]

Frequently going in with no expectations is the best way! ;-)  I read so much that it's sometimes hard for me to not have read a book before seeing the movie.  But I try to keep an open mind.

[kaishin108]

I haven't read the book but I do want to see the movie!

[thewayne]

Very enjoyable, such that we talked about it all the way on the drive up the mountain going home.  It's not common that a movie rates such.

[garote]

Took Rachel to see this at the Grand Lake, with the organist doing a 15-minute collection of old showtunes before the film. So much better than a bunch of f*%@$ car ads they cram into your eyeballs at the chain theaters. It was the first time Rachel had been to the Grand Lake, and I think that good start set the tone for the movie itself, which was a whole lot funnier than either of us was expecting.

Seriously, it's written primarily as a buddy comedy movie, and secondarily as sci-fi, and I love it for that. Nearly three hours long and Rachel actually wants to go see it again, which is extremely rare for her. I can barely get her to walk into a theater at all these days.

Last week she got ahold of the book and blazed through it in three days. As a linguistic anthropologist, she was impressed with some parts of the language learning process invented in the book, and rolled her eyes at other parts. Made for some lively breakfast discussions. One of her gripes was:

"Beyond the very basic concrete stuff, the bulk of language consists of metaphors - even at the level of single words - and building communication involves patiently explaining those metaphors over and over in different ways until you learn enough about their interrelationships to actually understand their meaning. You can't just go 'Oh, 'concrete', that's a new word, what does it mean? Hard thing? Okay, good. New word. Done.' That word is used a dozen different ways, most of them metaphorical. You still need to explain 'take concrete steps', 'concrete understanding', 'one concrete example', 'concrete jungle', 'a fight for the concrete', 'concrete shoes', 'useful as a concrete parachute', ..."

[thewayne]

Very good points about the metaphors being a serious building block.  I'm glad you two enjoyed it!  That sounds like an utterly fantastic theater, it's a shame there aren't more like it.  We have a theater in Las Cruces called The Fountain (named after a person) that's over a century old, operated by a film society, they show a lot of cool stuff and we were members during the brief time that we lived there.  I like them because they have a crock pot full of real butter for the popcorn at their concessions.  But no organ.

[garote]

REAL BUTTER!!!!!

https://www.bdmonkeys.net/m/BDM-Real_Butter-10-real_butter.mp3

[thewayne]

ROFL!  That is some really weird stuff.  Reminds me a lot of J. Geils Band: No Anchovies Please.

[garote]

We do have fun. :) Here's a similar thing from 25 years later: https://www.bdmonkeys.net/m/BDM-Meta_Meat-13-hellPhones.mp3