Ajna Eye Cogitations

patron saints of one way trips

Not Laika and Grace together being sacrificed in space!

Can Eridians get drunk?

Good luck trying to figure this one out Grace.

Mission plan will state that we induced your coma early to maximize your safety.

You will be remembered as a hero.

This may seem like me betraying you, but it's actually me believing in you.

The scene where Rocky shows Grace the Eridian ship! This scene has been puzzling me ever since I saw it for two reasons.

One, I could not make sense of why the scene switched from showing Grace marveling at all these beautiful, amazing things to a close up of Rocky tapping at some random, boring control panel. I took the raised portion to be buttons, or perhaps sounding surfaces to make notes. I thought maybe it was to point out that human design looks boring to Eridians?

Two, I always wondered why it was this moment that caused Grace to flashback to Stratt's betrayal in the movie. Why would a really fun experience, all wonder and beauty cause that memory to surface? Usually there was some connection to the moment when memories would come up.

For instance, in the book, what triggers the Stratt betrayal flashback is and exhausted Rocky giving Dr. Grace a little pep-talk after their very first Tauomeba experiment fails.

"We work more." He says. "We no give up. We work hard. We are brave."

And Dr. Grace tries to internalize the pep talk by telling himself, that yeah, he might not have all the answers yet, but at least he's the kind of guy who would volunteer for a suicide mission to save Earth, so yes he is brave, he will work hard, and he can do this dog-gone-it! Then the flashback hits and the realization that he did not choose to be here, that he was forced paralyzes him with the realization of his own cowardice until Rocky senses his depression and comes over to comfort and stimulate Dr. Grace to action.

My point being there was a very obvious stimulus for that flashback in the book. Grace's thoughts in the moment, were directly, logically connected "I am brave, I must be brave, I agreed when Stratt asked me to come." Memory says, no Stratt asked you to come and you said no and cried about it.

In the movie I could not see what the connection was, until I saw someone refer to the "control panel" Rocky was touching as a crew manifest.

So I rushed over and counted, and sure enough there are 23 raised nubs organized in a pattern that makes perfect sense for the crew of a ship. Captain, 1st officer and 3rd officer around what is pretty clearly a representation of the Blip-A. Then the rest of the crew spread out in groups probably indicating their various specialties. Rocky is probably pointing at his own name/symbol on the chart.

And what would Rocky be saying as he shows his friend Grace the names of his fallen comrades.

"They were so brave. They worked to the very end. Just like you and your crew! They were brave. We were all brave. We worked so hard. We are brave."

Which would then logically trigger the, 'Heck yeah! I'm pretty gosh-darn brave! Just like all these super cool Eridian astronuats and my good friend Rocky who is very brave and whose opinion of my I value highly!"

BOOM, perfectly logical train of thought for that memory of Stratt betraying him to climb aboard and absolutely wreck his mental image of himself.

It's a love story. Not a sexual love, but a deep love none the less.

They’re so naturally curious and ask questions the other had not thought of. Adrian asks Grace for tissue samples to run experiments on and Grace is thrilled to receive tissue samples in return. They make absolutely crazy advancements in molecular biology.

grace fully understood that turning around to save rocky from the taumoeba would be condemning himself to a long death in space.

they both knowingly and willingly sacrificed themselves. they both answered "who would you die for?" with a resounding "each other."