KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren
-
Posts
3051 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
5
.thumb.jpeg.6661608a194105c6581894253f5a8d69.jpeg)
KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren's Achievements
1.2k
Reputation
Single Status Update
See all updates by KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren
-
Yesterday I watched the Project Hail Mary, along with a bunch of friends, some of whom had read the book (@Spahc11@Katalri_105@Emperor Comatose) and others who hadn't (@The WorldHopper Taynix@RealMemori@ElendTheEmperor, and 2 non-Sharder non-Sanderfans).
Now, some background
1) This was the first time I voluntarily went to a movie in years
2) This was also the first time I watched an adaptation of something I'd read. I'd read a lot of books with adaptations, but never watched any of them until yesterday.
So, my (probably controversial) opinion: it felt like a rushed version of the book. And that wasn't just me, it was everyone I went with who'd read it. The people who hadn't read it said it was alright. Which is strange, as everyone here on the Shard as well as my uncle and aunt who watched it said it was really good.
So not to say I didn't like it, I did, but not that much.
PHM spoilers below.
SpoilerI just felt like they'd cut so much and rushed through so much else, like Grace figuring out where and who he was, learning Eridian, the whole thing with using the beetles for propulsion, the first Taumoeba leak, the nitrogen, etc.
And basically everything happening on Earth in the flashbacks was like
Gone
None of Stratt's Vat was even named, and most didn't appear at all.
Again, this is probably because I'd never seen an adaptation before, but everyone else I went with thought so too, so I don't know.
-
As someone who didn't read the book, I liked it a lot. While yeah, the pacing was kinda fast and it definitely felt like they were trying to cram, I kind of liked it. I feel like a lot of movies always beat around the bush when doing stuff, so in a way I'm glad that they didn't have unnecessarily long segments.
SpoilerLike I feel like Grace remembering the flashbacks as they're revealed to us without really addressing them verbally, it flowed better than him sitting down and going "Woah I remember." I like how there wasn't a 10 minute long montage of Grace and Rocky submitting words into their translator, I sorta like how they didn't always play Rocky's Eridan speech. and I don't mind them not showing Grace learning Eridan when he started living there, it was p much an epilogue so time skips are standard
My nitpicks come from some discrepancies that didn't sit right with me. Like how Tau Ceti was 20 lightyears away from earth or something, but the probes they'd send back took 4 years to return, and they clearly don't have FTL travel. Or why couldn't they just breed more astrophage for a return trip home. I get the narrative reason, but still.
Maybe I'm glazing the movie too much because I liked Rocky. I'm a sucker for non-humanoid aliens. But I did genuinely enjoy it. I guess experiencing an adaptation of something is bound to have some inconsistencies though, so I 100% understand where you're coming from.
idk
-
SpoilerThe movie also took place over a much faster time scale, the whole present-day plotline was only like a few weeks, compared to like the months the book took place over. At some point before Adrian in the book, Grace just became fluent in Eridian and didn't need the translator.
It took 4 years for the beetles from their perspective because of time dilation; Earth experienced the full 11 or 12 years. In the book, why they couldn't get more Astrophage is also explained way better; they had to pave the entire Sahara Desert with solar-powered Astrophage breeders to get enough for the trip there on time; there was no way they could double it.
Yeah, I agree, Rocky is really cool, he's like the only non-humanoid realistic alien I've seen in all of sci-fi.
I enjoyed it too, though just not as much as I thought I would. Though I do like it better than any movie I watched in the past few years, so yeah.
-
-
