I just advertise my writing and scream here.

Yes, that's why I called it a subjective opinion, and I also said they left out many things that book readers may miss. The point of my post was to say that if you watched the movie cold, like I did, you would not miss any of the things they left out because they were not actually relevant to the core of the story that had to be told. The audiobook is over 16 hours long. It's a statement of fact. I love how whenever anyone mentions 'skimming' ever, you guys act like it means reading only the first ten pages and giving up and not giving a book a quick read-through. I know what happens. I have read enough of the book to know what happens and what was cut out. And I've read enough of the book to know that Grace has the emotional depth of wet tissue paper, Rocky mentions and then blows off Adrian, and they never hug. Also, finally, I mentioned that this was subjective. What was your comment supposed to do? Get me to read the book? Good job. I'm now less likely to read the book. I guess I just don't have a high enough IQ to appreciate Andy Weir.

PHM's movie works because it's not the book. It's better than the book. It's like that one fix-it fic in the fandom that everyone likes better than canon but people don't want to admit it because they're afraid it will make them look superficial or lame or not smart or whatever, so they have to pay lip service to the original or else they're bad fans who care more about feelings than facts. Fuck that shit.

Babes, the movie is better, and you're right to say it. You can still like the book or you can not like the book. I don't like the book very much. I've skimmed the book. I would not have watched the movie if I had read the book first. I would not have been nearly as delighted by the movie if I'd read the book first. It's subjective but you're allowed to be subjective. You will not lose fan credentials if you don't like the book or prefer the movie to the book.

I saw a post today that described the book as the rough draft and the movie is the finished product and it makes perfect sense. Andy Weir is a brilliant scientific and technical writer but his imagination has limits. Everything is fantastical but also cripplingly utilitarian, and if you like that, it's fine. Shit's subjective. But I can see why the directors actually gave Grace a nice, livable home on Erid with a beach and a house and a tree and an ocean and not a box for the one of the literal two saviors of their planet. James Ortiz came up with more Eridian culture and lore in five minutes than Andy Weir came up with in years. It shouldn't have taken the puppeteer to point out that Rocky kind of blowing off his relationship to Adrian in the book was cold and awful and that Rocky likely needed something to keep him from throwing himself out of the airlock twenty earth years into his solitude. It shouldn't have taken the puppeteer to describe Eridian social dynamics and to give Rocky some actual backstory and to point out that hey, bro's heckin' traumatized. But it did. I saw someone making a point about how we shouldn't consider Ortiz's headcanons as actual canon, and boy did that rub me the wrong way, because listen. My guys, he is the reason movie Rocky has a character and is so beloved, and it's his backstory insights that defined how he played him. They are canon.

The directors told Andy Weir that the coma gene sucked and they were right. I'm glad Rocky's not wearing anything but utilitarian work garments for holding tools because the directors and writers were probably like me and wondered why literal rock crab spiders had to be fully dressed at all times. They gave Ryland Grace and Eva Stratt actual emotional depth and complexity. I assure you that Eva Stratt showing an emotion and an actual interest and connection with the world does not make her portrayal any less feminist or powerful. In fact, it's probably more feminist that they took out Eva Stratt's objection to Ilyukhina's presence and Grace's white knight moment.

They gave emotional moments actual heft and weight. They let Grace and Rocky actually emote about things. They had Grace have an emotion depth deeper than a puddle. They give him an actual honest-to-god emotional reaction to being told he's going to live that's not him just bursting into tears, because while I know we love a man who's a wet cat, Andy Weir used him bursting into tears as a substitute for actually properly describing how he feels. They accomplish actual emotions while keeping Grace a wet cat. They gave Rocky a suit that only exists for the sole purpose of being able to interact with Grace better. They make Grace choose to go back for Rocky. Not for Erid. For Rocky. They do not hug in the book. I cannot emphasize this enough. They do not hug in the book. It took the movie to get them to hug. It took the movie to decide that maybe Erid treats Grace with more than basic kindness and a well-lit house surrounded by darkness. That Rocky would interact with him beyond saying hi through a window. The book does have a lot of fun details, but if you were watching the movie without any knowledge of the book, you don't need them. You don't need Steve Hatch or Dmitri or Bob or Marissa. You don't need Eva Stratt nuking Antarctica. You don't need the coma gene. You don't need the plagiarism trial. You didn't need Grace somehow supermaning Rocky back into his airlock or cleaning out his vents. You did not need the Beetle Arc after Adrian. The fact that you can watch the movie by itself and not realize that any of these things are missing is an indictment about Andy Weir's writing as well as how good the movie adaptation is itself. I saw the book being described in an add on an Adam Savage video as a movie 'tie-in', which made me laugh, but it's also true. The book reads more as a tie-in to the movie than anything else now. The movie has ascended it. The movie is better. The directors saw the amazing scaffolding and detail and realized that, unlike The Maritian, this does not read best as a story of survival and human ingenuity. It reads best as a love story. It reads best as a love story that encompasses themes of selflessness versus selfishness, of the fine line between bravery and cowardice, about loneliness, of autonomy and choice, of finding home in the most unexpected places, and about connection with the world around you. I could make a two hour video essay about these themes. There is no way this movie doesn't win Best Picture next spring.

Andy Weir did not have the capacity to come to that conclusion in his own writing. The movie's creative team did. Whether you like it or not, Project Hail Mary is a love story, romantic or platonic or otherwise. It only works if it is. Rocky makes Grace a beach, a house, a tree, and an ocean out of love. Yet Grace doesn't need any of that. Only him. Movie Grace goes back for Rocky. He does not mention the fate of Erid. He would go back for Rocky and Rocky alone. He does not cry over the revelation that he will die in space for him. He shrugs at the camera like 'whelp, guess I can't go back to Earth, mea culpa'. He doesn't hesitate. Love makes him brave. Grace doesn't want to go back home because he already is home. His head was in the clouds. His head was with Rocky this whole time.

Because he ran, he had to be sedated and put into his coma early. Since he was still on Earth/the ISS when this happened, he was induced under advanced medical supervision, while Yao had to induce Ilyukhina’s coma himself and then his own without help. If Grace had agreed to go on the mission for his own free will, he would have been put under by Yao and Ilyukhina; and while her technical expertise would have been a help, neither she nor Yao are doctors, so there’s a not insignificant chance that he also wouldn’t have survived the voyage. He would’ve just lived longer than the others, like Ilyukhina lived longer than Yao.

If all three of them had died, no one would have been left to game out the astrophage problem, which means that Rocky wouldn’t have been able to solve the astrophage problem—and there’s no guarantee that Erid would or could have sent another ship.

The point is that there is a very strong probability that Grace’s cowardice—his flawed and messy humanity—inadvertently saved two worlds.

Because let's be real: can I trust this website and the people on it to have the maturity to realize that a subjective opinion isn't an objective judgement or a condemnation of anything or anyone; and that when I speak in generalizations, I'm not literally generalizing every single fan and every single fan work?

Not in the slightest, but I'm GONNA WHINGE ANYWAY, SO LET'S TALK ABOUT ROMANTIC ASEXUALITY.

Thank about it. Rocky's a spitfire and bounces off the walls at baseline and they looked at that little autistic, bossy ball of energy and went 'yes. that's them. the creature I want to spend the next 500+ years with'. They have to at LEAST match their energy somewhat. And if you think you wouldn't be a fucking ball of PTSD and bitterness at your culture and society after fifty plus years of not knowing they were alive or dead, you're fucking operating on moon logic. Honestly, Adrian and the other families were probably begging for a rescue mission that never happened for various political and logical reasons; and while it probably would have ended in mass fatalities as well, so thank goodness that figurative and literal ship never got off the ground, the fact that it didn't happen probably burns more than a little, reasonable or unreasonable.

So one day Adrian gets some Eridian diplomat on their doorstep, and they're expecting the formal condolences at long last, but instead they go into this whole spiel of ' so. So! Turns out twenty two of the original crew died, but your mate survived! When did they die? Oh, early on, so your mate was submerged in crippling and literal deafening loneliness for over four decades; and now he's back and acting weird, and he's become codependent with this weird fragile squishy human being that's the only reason he came back at all, and he's refusing to send down the cure unless we make the blob an aquarium. Could you come to the space elevator and tell him to stop being so unreasonable?' If that were MY mate? I'd fucking lose it.

Just throwing things at this poor messenger and shrieking like " Oh! Oh!! So it's somehow Rocky's fault that you're refusing to take a few months out of the several hundred Eridian years we have left to ship the cure we already have to Threeworld before things actually become problematic to make sure one of the two saviors of our entire species doesn't die?! To give the sole survivor of the mission--my mate, who's been alone and in silence, with no one to watch him sleep, for hundreds of years--some sort of solace and peace?! And you're wondering why he's acting erratically?! Maybe you wouldn't be in this position at all if you'd sent the rescue mission for which we've pleaded for years at every single thrum! I don't care if this Grace thing is a literal giant space amoeba; get the fuck out of my house and tell the powers that be to give it literally everything it wants and needs!" And they're all 'be reasonable' and Adrian's like " I've been reasonable for hundreds of Eridian years, and you would not be in this situation if you'd actually sent a rescue mission and not simply wrung your claws and hoped for the best, so fucking live in the nest you made. All I'm going to do if you get me on the radio with Rocky right now is tell him he's doing amazing and give him advice on how to properly parboil the Taumoeba so that you can't even recover even the slightest scrap of DNA if you don't give the flesh blob that saved his life and saved OUR lives PLURAL goddamn vitamins." Like, they think it's bad that Rocky basically stands over Grace's sleeping body and hisses? Wait until they get the MUCH LARGER ERIDIAN doing that for Grace and Rocky. Wait until the much large Eridian leads the families of the dead twenty-two crewmates to the space elevator to riot because this sure sounds like a coverup to them!! This sure sounds like the deflection of blame on the sole survivor!! This sure sounds like the same paralysis that left them to die alone in space because you didn't want to admit failure!! Yes, I know, I'm weaving some sort of political intrigue plot that probably doesn't exist in canon. All I'm saying is that you all are missing the delicious implications of a mission that went radio silent for fifty plus earth years with no word from the government and no obvious attempt at rescue, followed by your partner coming home with the only being that's been around to watch him sleep since the rest of the crew died forty-some years ago, and people are calling him weird and changed. You'd be horrified. You'd be sick.

Please, learn from my mistakes, because I received my Wallace figure from Pokegalerie crafted by JB Studios approximately two weeks ago, and he is already in this many pieces.

Please note that he would have been in more pieces had we not re-glued his cape and also his HEAD. Also note that I was NOT throwing him against the wall or having him attacked by a small child or a dog, and that his entire arm and fingers came off after a soft fall onto carpet from a 3 ft tall dresser. I have no clue how the rest of him got broken and attempting to re-glue the scarf broke off the middle portion of it, as you can see.

Also, per Pokegalerie policy, there is apparently no way to get a refund. All I can do is warn people that you will purchase figures designed by JB Studios at your own peril.