******SUN-SIZED SPOILERS!******
As a fan of author Andy Weir (“The Martian”) since the mid-2010s, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his three novels to date, as well as his short stories. It’s safe to say Weir is one of the best sci-fi novelists working today. Each new book of his is an event. Given Weir’s information tech background, his books are rich in science and real world physics (with very few cheats). His books also make great use of modern humor and language for their underdog characters, for whom science is the candle in the darkness as they navigate impossible circumstances. I read–no, devoured Weir’s 2021 novel “Project Hail Mary” over a three-day weekend four years ago, and I’ve listened to the audiobook version at least twice (so far). To say I’ve greatly anticipated directors’ Chris Miller and Phil Lord‘s big screen version of the book is a tremendous understatement. Adding to my enthusiasm is the fact that screenwriter Drew Goddard is adapting the book. Goddard scripted a near-perfect adaptation of Weir’s “The Martian” for director Ridley Scott ten years ago, so “Project Hail Mary” already has much going for it.
The trailer for “Project Hail Mary” dropped this week, and while the movie’s theatrical release is still months away, the trailer’s three minutes affirm its fidelity to Weir’s source novel:
The story centers around mild-mannered schoolteacher-turned-astronaut & solar savior Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who finds himself drafted by an international consortium for an involuntary voyage to the star system of Tau Ceti, where he must find a cure for a mysterious ‘astrophage’ infection that is rapidly dimming local stars–including our own sun. Grace soon realizes he’s not the only species working the problem. In broad strokes, it’s “Interstellar” meets “E.T,” but with the potential to be greater than the sum of both.
Trailer Breakdown
Once again, I’d like to offer readers another MAJOR SPOILERS WARNING. With my big, clumsy feet, I’m afraid I don’t tiptoe very well, so I’m going to assume you’ve read Andy Weir’s book (or at least its Wikipedia page), and are familiar with the story. That’s the only way I can safely explore these images from the trailer with freedom to comment and speculate.
That said, let’s dig in…
Top, Bottom: The trailer for the movie opens the same as the book, with a disoriented Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakening from hibernation aboard the spaceship Hail Mary, which is arriving at the Tau Ceti star system. The medically-induced hibernation leaves reluctant astronaut Grace amnesic, and he slowly regains his memories–via flashbacks–as the story progresses. Whether the movie sticks to this nonlinear storytelling format remains to be seen.
Top: We see schoolteacher Grace in his element, teaching science to 8th graders. Grace is very popular with his students, and enjoys his anonymous midwestern existence. Bottom: The somewhat cowardly Grace is recruited–nay, drafted–by Eva Stratt; who heads an international consortium tasked with saving the world by curing our sun from a mysterious ‘astrophage’; a stellar disease that the modest but brilliant Grace helped to isolate through his own research.
Top: German actress Sandra Hüller is the no-bullshit character Eva Stratt; who leads an international worldwide consortium to save our sun, via “Project Hail Mary.” She’s also tasked with drafting a reluctant Ryland Grace to save our civilization. Bottom: As we get to know Eva Stratt, we see glimpses of her humanity and sense of humor, as in this scene where she lets her hair down during a pre-launch karaoke jam with her teammates aboard an aircraft carrier repurposed as the consortium’s world headquarters, for security reasons.
Former “AT&T girl” Milana Vayntrub (left) costars as ill-fated Russian cosmonaut Olesya Ilyukhina; at least that’s the character’s name in the book; which is subject to change for the film, of course.
Note: It’s refreshing to see Milana Vayntrub in what promises to be a serious role, since her credits to date suggest she’s better known for her comedic roles (I only know her as “Lily” from the AT&T ads, I’m afraid). Other Hail Mary crew members from the book included astronauts François Leclerc and Dmitri Komarov. I’m not sure if one or both of these characters will make it into the film, or who will be playing them, but the unknown actor in the gold flight suit seated behind Vayntrub in the screenshot might be Komarov.
The spaceborne bacterial ‘astrophage’ is causing our sun to rapidly dim, and is afflicting other nearby stars in our local stellar group, with the greatest concentration of astrophage infection found at the star Tau Ceti, which is 12 light years away.
Through his own research, Ryland Grace isolates the star-killing astrophage, which is also harnessed as an energy-rich propellent for the Hail Mary spacecraft–at least in the book.
Note: Andy Weir’s books have a solid adherence to science, though he’s not above a few deliberate scientific fudges here and there; such as the intense sandstorm in “The Martian,” which had enough force to topple the Ares ascent vehicle. Weir has admitted in multiple panels I’ve attended that he had to greatly beef up the thin Martian atmospheric pressure to make astronaut Mark Watney’s stranding on the red planet more plausible. The ‘astrophage’ of “Project Hail Mary” is certainly not impossible, though it does require a bit of speculative stretching to do all the things it does in the book (and presumably the movie).
The course to Tau Ceti; destination of Earth’s Hail Mary spacecraft–and a spacecraft from another spacefaring civilization.
Ryland Grace’s eighth graders send him encouraging artwork for his interstellar voyage. The message of their well-wishings is the story’s main driving force and the reluctant hero’s own incentive–saving the Earth for his kids.
Note: What fascinated me most about Ryland Grace is that he doesn’t begin as a classic hero. If anything, he’s a lot more fearful, much like the protagonist of the recent “Godzilla Minus One” (2023), who also found his heroism during the course of that movie. In the book, Grace has to be literally strong-armed and kidnapped by the calculating, ruthless Eva Stratt. Stratt knows that Grace is the only person with the knowledge to make the mission work, as well as the best biological chance of surviving the experimental hibernation procedure. While the trailer reiterates Grace’s reluctance to join the crew (“I put the ‘not’ in astronaut!”), it remains to be seen if the movie will retain the other more cravenly aspects of the character.
Here we see a body ejected from the Hail Mary‘s airlock (à la “ALIEN”), shortly after it arrives at Tau Ceti, where Grace finds his crewmates didn’t survive their experimental hibernation process. The trailer features some nice shots of the vessel’s exterior, which somehow managed to capture my mind’s eye-image of the ship from when I first read the book four years ago.
Grace uses ladders to get around the ship’s vertical axis. In the book, this was where the semi-amnesiac Grace came to realize that the ship’s acceleration creates its own gravity, which is somewhat higher than that of his native Earth.
Ryland Grace in the Hail Mary‘s hydroponics bay, where he must nurture and grow plants for his own survival. The ship’s no-expenses-spared, interstellar-capable design reflects an Earth singularly focused on survival and little else. Despite the ship’s extensive labs and groundbreaking technologies, its suspended animation process was hit-and-miss, with low chances of survival.
Shortly after awakening and realizing that he’s on a spaceship near Tau Ceti, Grace learns that he is not alone, as he makes contact with an alien spacecraft on the same mission as his own. Here we see the alien spaceship extending an airlock corridor to the Hail Mary, where a nervous Grace is about to make humanity’s first contact with an alien species.
Grace meets “Rocky,” a fellow star voyager on his own mission to study and solve the astrophage problem. He also reacts to the intelligent, peaceful alien’s appearance as many of us would, unfortunately.
Ryland Grace chronicles his close encounter with the alien he later names “Rocky” in his ship’s digital log; a device Mark Watney (Matt Damon) also used to great effect in “The Martian.” The movie makes a sly reference to “ALIEN” as Grace gratefully jests about Rocky not using him as a parasitic host. If memory serves, that was a line from the book, as well.
Note: As a character, Ryland Grace is very different from “The Martian” protagonist Mark Watney. For starters, his long career as a middle-school teacher has trained him not to curse aloud; something very different from the lovably foul-mouthed Watney. Even in his post-hibernation amnesia, Grace finds he has a great reluctance when it comes to swearing.
Top, Bottom: The trailer teases us with glimpses of the alien “Rocky” (James Ortiz), who hails from the planet “Erid” orbiting the star 40 Eridani. Rocky is a large, spider-like being with a hard, crusty carapace which evolved in under the intense heat and atmospheric pressure of his planet. Beyond the heat and pressure, Rocky’s native atmosphere is a chlorinated mixture that is toxic to humans. This disparity in their core physiologies means that Rocky has to construct transparent bubbles and tunnel-like apparatuses to work within Grace’s ship.
Note: Ryland Grace and Rocky also have a language barrier to overcome, as Rocky communicates in a musical, mathematical language that Grace is eventually able to eventually translate through his computer, as Grace is unable to approximate Rocky’s language with his limited human vocalizations. Rocky’s race also evolved on their hot, dark planet without sight organs–they interpret their world entirely through sonar-like vibrations and other sensory means. Their lack of light perception also led to the deaths of Rocky’s crew, who had no concept of radioactivity and died from cosmic ray exposure in their poorly-shielded ship. Rocky was the ship’s engineer, and he lived in thicker compartments which were shielded from the engines’ heat–and which kept him safe from stellar radiation. If the lovable Rocky is successfully realized in this movie, I am betting he could very well be the most popular cinematic alien since E.T.
I’m not sure, but these images might be from the coda of the book, which sees Ryland Grace unable to return to Earth, and living out of the rest of his life within his own climate-controlled habitat on Rocky’s dark, hot world of Erid.
“Project Hail Mary” is slated for release in theaters on March 20th, 2026. Granted, that’s a long way off, but if the trailer is any indicator, “Project Hail Mary” may well be one of the best pieces of cinematic science fiction in a long while, and some things are worth the wait.
Where to Read
If you haven’t yet read it (and I’ve just spoiled the hell out of it for you), the book “Project Hail Mary” (2021) is currently available from most major booksellers with a suggested retail price of $30, as well as a audiobook version read by actor Ray Porter (“Zack Snyder’s Justice League”), via Audibles.com.
