ok I know I seem insane for watching project hail mary for the fourth time in 10 days but I got to watch it with the directors commentary tonight and it’s incredible how much thought and love went into this film by EVERYONE. the directors, ryan gosling himself, the sound department, costumes, set production, cameras. everyone has so much pride and the story is so beloved by all. anyway here are some of my favorite things from the commentary
no one knew how to pronounce eridani (air-id-ah-ni or air-re-deni) so they just literally never said it in the film
the “good luck” at the beginning is supposed to have been written by the astronauts on the ISS who delivered ryland to the hail mary
the mop ryland was dancing with was called moppy ringwald
when ryland calls stratt after successfully breeding astrophage and he says “carl and I made a baby,” that was ryan gosling calling sandra hüller on her day off and she had no idea that’s what he was going to say. that “what” was her genuine first reaction
the scientist whom ryland called a stagnating waste of carbon was the bearded guy sitting next to him and stratt in the initial phm meeting
the idea of the soundtrack being so hopeful was supposed to be like there were two different planets cheering him on
when ryland is sitting on the beach in that don’t-go-crazy room and sees a figure walking towards him, that’s him on erid at the end. he’s seeing himself
among the markings on rocky were the petrova line mission patch, his rank, family crest, and wedding band
rocky always stamped his claw on the ground twice for a question
they wanted to make it so that eridani could have different tones. so it could be a given series of keys for one word and then you could change the frequencies for happy, sad, scared, etc.
after rocky wakes up and asks ryland if they caught the taumeoba and ryland shakes his head no and then yes, the directors went “what an odd thing to do”
ryan gosling wrapped all the gifts that ryland gave to rocky himself
the entire reason that exchange panel was put on rocky’s ball was so that ryland could pass him the little beanie earth
the movie starts with an upside down shot of ryland waking up. the epilogue starts with a right-side up shot of ryland waking up. he also makes his bed and brushes his teeth to show how time has passed LOL
their headcanon for explaining the rocky nature of the beach is that the eridians tried to emulate sand but got the scale of the grains wrong
rocky had them create a beach, and wave machine for the beach, and a tree for ryland so that he felt closer to home, but rocky was all he needed for that
