Formerly Keepingtimetimetime

The cinematographer made such a cool choice with how everytime Grace had a flashback, he’s framed in the dark right before and right after the flashback, particularly with how his face is obscured in shadows.

The first instance of this is that after the first flashback, Grace’s face is engulfed by his hair. The hair is all over his face, but I thought it was interesting how most of the hair was only framing one side of his face. We can’t see his face fully, and he can’t see himself because he does not know himself.

My favorite instance of this is when Grace finds out that he was forced onto the Hail Mary and the way the light frames this. It’s so utterly gorgeous and I love because it’s an inverse of when Grace finds out that he can go home.

In the scene where Grace reveals to Rocky that he’s not going home, he’s is in the dark. He’s faced away from the camera, from Rocky and ultimately his desire for home. He’s barreling away from home at a speed that is incomprehensible to the human mind. He’s further than anyone’s ever been before and he’s alone. He’s stranded and the lighting in the scene highlights that, and there’s a beautiful shift with a swell of music when Rocky gives Grace an out.

Grace walks into the light, and there’s this beautiful light that shines on him. The light is framing one side of his face and it’s a beautiful scene absolutely, but I also had the feeling that it was sad. I had the read the book, and this was the calm before the storm and ultimately one of the last moments where Grace wasn’t burdened by the truth.

Whereas when Grace finds out the truth, he walks out of the light and into the dark. In the start, the xenonite is reflecting of the surface of his EVA suit, casting a rainbow on his face, BUT only half of it. It’s a direct continuation of the fact that the last thing Grace sees on Earth is a rainbow. He had half of his face in the dirt, and when he learns the truth, half of his face is engulfed by a rainbow.

It’s a cold comfort that haunts him because he can’t feel it. He can’t feel the warmth of the sun, the breeze around him, the dirt in his nails, or the grass beneath him. He’s in a clinical EVA suit in an air he cannot breathe, and in a place that is not designed for him. And then later on in the scene, his face is engulfed in the dark and the light reflects on the opposite of face once more.

Something about how the final flashback has this beautiful halo of light around it and then the scene after has Grace stranded in the dark once he realizes the lies he built for himself.

Random Au idea; Miraculously, the Blip-A crew survive, but at the cost of their travel time, making it so they arrive at Tau Ceti around the same time as the Hail Mary. (Don't think too hard about it)

Grace now gets regularly hassled by many Eridians, all of whom can hold multiple conversations at once, unlike him.

So like she gets the recordings and realizes Yao and Ilyukina are dead before he wakes up so he’s got no pilot, no engineer, and no memories.

And then you also have to remember that the EXISTENCE of these recordings and the fact they were accompanied by the Taumoeba means that an amnesticized Grace somehow managed to save earth without a pilot or engineer and shoddy memory that only vaguely gives him enough to work with as he works.

Eridians are going to have a fairly solid grasp of the English language (and possibly even some others), an intimate understanding of the environmental conditions a human needs to thrive as well as their nutritional and psychological needs, a solid grasp of a number of scientific concepts discovered by humans, and decent familiarity with human culture and customs (if probably an American-centric one). Some Eridians might even be explicitly trained as diplomats or ambassadors with the expectation that one day the two cultures might interact more regularly.

Grace some how ends up at one of Tom Ryder's parties with Colt. The two of them get separated at some point and Colt goes on a massive panicked adventure around the property to find him. He ropes Jody and dan into helping him look for several hours.

The video diaries aren’t just Grace talking to Earth. They’re Grace talking to Stratt. Doing what he always did for her, explaining the science, breaking it down. It’s not clear how much of the rest of his life he remembers over the course of the movie (and beyond) but he absolutely remembers her, she is what he has left of Earth to hold on to up there.

It’s undeniable that she’s the one he’s addressing in the final entry, when he says goodbye. But I didn’t realize it was all of them. She is the “Grace friend” Rocky asks about. It puts her there on the ship with him, as long as he can communicate to her they’re still connected, he still has a sense of her presence with him. And how much more of a gut punch that makes his memory of the sedation, as he grew to trust her all over again through his flashbacks, as he felt closer and closer to someone who was light-years away. Only to remember that she betrayed him, that he failed her, that the friendship he was still relying on as he pieced himself back together was already gone, and even if he went back it could never be the same.