having seen the film – the story is amazing, but I can’t imagine how an IMAX version would improve it
it was a film driven by its story and characters. rarely did its visuals even matter at all. I could have watched the film with my eyes closed and missed very little.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think the movie improved on the books by having some neat visuals. I enjoyed it but I still think it was Andy Weir’s weakest book.
Didn’t have the same feeling, but I started with Hail Mary and when trying to go back to read The Martian it was rather painful. Haven’t read his other works yet so guess I’ll see how it pans out.
C’mon, the puppetry and the practical effects looked fantastic. Even the special effects, grounded in real in-camera tricks, were visually stunning.
No lie, but 100% of that film was in the storytelling. It was a pretty movie, but it could easily have been a radio play.
That’s why it was such a good book
The Tau Ceti Petrova line scene would look incredible.
I agree, for this type of sci-fi film it actually looks a bit cheap and green screeny in places.
for this type of film, the story and characters were all that mattered. that’s what makes it better than most.
surely. not that I don’t appreciate some nice visuals-- it’s just that the best parts of this film were in the story, not the VFX
I’m already itching for the director’s cut. Hoping some of the parts I was unhappy with are the editor’s fault and would be improved by more breathing room.
My only real knock on the movie was that there’s this super intense climax scene that they should’ve let breathe. Like pause and maybe fade out. I didn’t care for how it abruptly cut to some flashback conversation. Killed the tension and shock IMO.
So obviously it won’t be a different cut but there’s a movie dubbing app for theaters and they did a promo where you can see PHM with director’s commentary when it’s back:
Haven’t read the book, what did they screw up?
I don’t want to spoil things here but let’s just say the book balanced tensions a lot more deftly (both tension from danger and tension from emotion). In this movie the journey felt much too effortless to me. I’m hoping a longer version would do better building tension properly.
By comparison, I think The Martian was able to capture more of a sense of urgency even though it had the same Problem?… Solution! format.
I think I know what you mean, but it did feel pretty tense for me already. I suppose there’s only so much you can do with characters talking to video blogs instead of having an inner monologue
Agreed the format makes it more difficult vs an inner monologue
Just curious, how many times have you seen the movie? I went twice, and the first time I felt pretty much exactly what you described. On my second watching, having lost my expectations from the book, it felt more like they went for the right balance, still flawed, but much less so.
But yes, director’s cut please.
I’ve only watched it once so you’re right, it might improve upon a rewatch.
I wish I didn’t know about The Martian connection. I found myself comparing the two movies, expecting too much science and problem solving out of Project Hail Mary lol. Instead the movie wasn’t really about that. The core of it was really the relationship between __ and __.
You can understand where I’m coming from then since the book felt just a science-y as The Martian movie/book to me. They didn’t exactly cut the science out in Hail Mary, but instead of making it front and center they alluded to it now and then but didn’t fully explain it to the viewer in some cases (to fit in more scenes, I suspect).
Certain details of time dilation and the ship’s gravity device for ex. really help build important tension that was mostly missed in the film.
To me it felt a little rushed though, so I have my fingers double crossed that an extended version would bring it from “good” to “excellent” in my book.
Tap for spoiler
I could’ve used a more thorough explanation that it was intended to be a one-way trip and that anyone going on the trip wasn’t going to want to go home anyway, because of the substantial risk that society mostly collapses by the time a human can travel back at an acceleration that their bodies could handle, and the time dilation increasing both the risk and aging off any loved ones they might have. That way it makes it clearer that Grace’s strongest emotional connection back home is his students, who will be very different people, if they’ve even survived, and it makes sense that he wants to go back to teaching.
Although I’m also wondering about the pedagogy for teaching a species that doesn’t forget. The need to work through recall itself is less important, but it could be possible that teaching is more about training the problem solving and analytic skills using that body of knowledge.
I haven’t seen the movie, I’ve read the book and seen interviews with Weir.
A couple details in the book that aren’t in the movie: To farm astrophage, they pave over the Sahara desert with solar powered breeders. This, among other things, starts throwing the climate out of whack even faster. Stratt, Grace and a climatologist character who isn’t in the movie muse about how manmade global warming was erased in a month. No, check that, global warming bought them an extra month. Well, if we were able to get that accidentally, imagine what kind of global warming we could do if we really set our minds to it. So they nuke Antarctica to break off a giant ice sheet, to release huge quantities of methane trapped in the ice.
Weir often mentions regret that he didn’t get to add that scene. It was written in the screenplay, and would have been relatively cheap to make because there’s no compositing. Just a dialog scene with no special effects, cut to a pure special effects shot. No editing puppeteers out of the set or layering a live action astronaut in front of a CG planet.
It got cut for time, and I don’t think the scene even got filmed, so I don’t know if a future special Weir Edition blu-ray will include it.
Do you think it got cut for some dumb political reason?
No I don’t.
This is a discussion between Andy Weir and his book editor Julian Pavia. At the 6 minute mark, he talks about how both he and screenwriter Drew Goddard wanted the scene to be in the movie, but “It would have added about 6 minutes of runtime, and it’s like aaah, we’re getting pretty long, so.”
Well, I can understand that. It doesn’t impact the overall story, it would undeline the desperation of mankind more though
Wait… it left theaters already?
It left IMAX, not theaters! IMAX has limited slots
What, they gotta keep showing those shark documentaries year-round?
Are you thinking of the planetarium? I would love it if they produced a sci fi epic for planetarium.
Planetariums show shark documentaries? Did you all gaslight me on discovering aliens?
Some aquariums have planetariums and show films about the ocean.
If you haven’t smoked weed and gone to the planetarium you’re missing out!*
*Unless you’re prone to motion sickness, you might be better off at home if you get motion sick
“pfft if they’re that interested in Saturn’s rings, let’s just show them something even older: sharks.”
That’s what I’m saying. Didn’t it just come out like two weeks ago? Since when did we start speed running theatrical runs? Avatar 3 was in theaters for damn near two months
years ago. the average theatrical run is like 3 weeks, maybe 4-5 if it’s a BIG movie with staying power like Mario Galaxy.
the days of a movie being in theaters for 2-3 months are 10 years ago or more. after 2-3 months the movie is available to stream. 2nd and third run theaters also don’t exist anymore.
No, itt left IMAX screens to make room for Mario, it was still in regular theaters the whole time. Now, it’s coming back to the premium theaters.
Boo! 😒
That’s the wrong galaxy to be showing us!
Already saw it twice at the normal theater ha! I’d go again.
so did you have to remortgage the house for that, or did you not get popcorn?
Haha, where I live movies are insanely cheap.
10 dollars per ticket. A popcorn would have been 6 but I already had eaten.
And this theater shows old movies on rotation too, those are 3.50 a ticket.
Fuck you OP for saying it’s “returning to theaters”
It hasn’t even left the theater for the first time yet.
What the hell?
returns to IMAX screens
They specified the format that it was returning to because it rotated out for Mario
But that claim is a lie. I just checked to verify and this movie has been shown at my nearest IMAX cinema continuously since it opened and it’s showing tonight again. Please don’t post lies on the internet.
Your Imax seems like an exception. All the ones around me stopped showing PHM in favor of the Mario movie as soon as it released. This is exciting news because I’d missed the first Imax run of PHM!
U ok?
Not really
