Hacker Cinema
Project Hail Mary
2026 · Film · 157 min
Directed by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction.
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73 comments on Hacker News
I think this year is actually the final nails in the argument that people are desperate for "original" films. The top ones this year are Spider-Man and an adaptation of a literal ancient story. Followed by a fifth Toy Story, a Michael Jackson biopic, a Mario film, the Devil Wears Prada 2 and Project Hail Mary. Only Michael and PHM are arguably non-franchise films, and PHM wasn't one of the ones that grossed over a billion.
And the next expected major films this year that will pull in audiences are Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday.
It's looking like franchises are what are reliably bringing people in. They just want quality stories and not a deluge of committee-designed experiences. The new Spider-Man film was good because it gets Spider-Man and what audiences like about the character.
You can't really spin a small spacecraft to get rotation gravity - the rotation period would make it unworkable.
However, you can connect two parts of your space craft with long cables and then spin the resulting contraption around its now center of rotation & the rotation period will be manageable.
This concept has been nicely demonstrated & quite well popularized by the recent Project Hail Mary movie.
You picked a commercial movie to make your case? Why not Bugonia, The Odyssey, One Battle After Another, Project Hail Mary, Frankenstein, etc. (all recent)
The only movie I've ever enjoyed after reading the book was Jurassic Park. I've never seen the Dune movies or most other book-based movies, but honestly The Martian and Project Hail Mary were tempting. I'll probably surrender to one of those two someday.
Yeah, I've reversed course on both those things now. I literally just tell my spouse, "I think tonight at 8 I'm going to go see Project Hail Mary" since I'm the only one interested in that kind of movie. And dine wherever I want when I'm alone.
I think it was a lot harder when I was 18 because I saw being alone as a reflection on my worth as a person.
If the ticket sales show that demand difference, they'll often flip back. e.g. I missed Project Hail Mary in imax because they bumped it for the Mario movie, but if I'd waited an extra week they swapped back to Project Hail Mary in the imax theatre, presumably due to relatively low ticket sales for imax Mario.
Project Hail Mary does a pretty good job, although probably doesn't come across in the film. SF that doesn't even bother using wormholes or some other FTL travel (e.g. warp speed) is quite annoying, though.
> Project Hail Mary was predominantly practical effects
Don't drink the Kool Aid. The studios love to make this sort of claim — recent examples include F1: The Movie, Top Gun: Maverick, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and you'll see interviews where the main actors say it was all real — but it's just marketing.
Project Hail Mary leans heavily on CG. For example, while they did hire a puppeteer (he ended up voicing the alien!) to control a neat physical puppet on set, almost all of it was replaced with CG in post production, and only used for reference. Corridor Crew has a great breakdown [1]. They frequently provide a good counterpoint against fraudulent "no CG" claims.
[1] https://youtu.be/l9zqIo8KtjI?is=e7-3Wz_mnMdl2Yp8
This analogy has layers that OP probably doesn't recognize.
The film industry loves cgi because none of the digital vfx houses are unionized and they can treat the artists like crap. It severely devalued a ton of skilled labor around miniature and set design.
Now, after 20 years of hard swing into cgi, people are starting to recognize just how much better movies from the practical era looked, and there is a push back towards it. Project Hail Mary was predominantly practical effects, for example. Stop motion animation is coming back, and theres a push back into hand cell animation.
if you havent seen the movie project hail mary, at least find the clip with the Eridian Clock from an alien world, really interesting!
I do definitely watch TV and movies from time to time. Really my beef is with social media. TV and movies as media, that's a wagon I just largely fell off of at some point.
I'll still watch a good movie, for sure. Interstellar, Primer, Coherence, Run Lola Run, The Big Short, Contact, Excalibur... But The Expanse, Project Hail Mary, The Martian... I enjoyed the books more than than the movies, and the movies were good. Still haven't read Contact, shamefully.
Even accepting that Project Hail Mary, Obsession, and Top Gun are "good movies" (which I completely reject), you're cherry-picking. The top three films of the year are Super Mario Galaxy, Michael, and The Devil Wears Prada 2.
No True Cinephile would enjoy a movie like Top Gun: Maverick, Obsession or Project Hail Mary.
/s
Top Gun: Maverick, Obsession, Project Hail Mary
Those movies might be good, but cinema are they not.
Cinema traditionally has meant movies like, À bout de souffle and Citizen Kane.
> Even cinema is dying and nobody seems to care that much.
Cinema is dying from mostly self-inflicted wounds though. They keep making movies (or re-making movies) with bad writing, bad stories, and unrealistic character development arcs that not many people want to watch.
Good movies have been rewarded in theatres. Top Gun: Maverick, Obsession, Project Hail Mary, etc. all had great box office sales when other movies around them flopped.
I can absolutely find new stuff on there. It took Project Hail Mary a little while to get on there, presumably because it was a cinema release only for quite a while but a good quality version popped up after a couple of weeks, and a bad quality "guy holding a camcorder in the cinema" version showed up after about 1 week, IIRC
I remember reading Project Hail Mary years before the movie was announced, and thinking "this is written, if not exactly as a screenplay, in such a way to make it SO easy to adapt to a screenplay that given this is from the Martian author there is no way this will not be made as a movie"
I enjoyed both the book and the movie btw
This year seems to be turning a bit of a corner. Of the top box office movies so far this year there's Michael, Project Hail Mary, Hoppers, Wuthering Heights, GOAT.. with Obsession and Backrooms rapidly rising.
Last year it was basically F1 and Minecraft (and while not sequels, both are arguably well known "franchises" outside of movies - but I guess MJ and Wuthering Heights are too ;-)).
A star-chart that is part of the scene furniture in the popular movie "Project Hail Mary".
You are spot on. The simpler version of this is the three step story structure - setup, conflict, resolution. Which is what is used in most pitches etc.
But as stories get more complex, with multiple stories weaving in and also as you bring different genres in, some structures are better than others for different stories.
While I have figured out 15 so far, I want to take the WGA 101 screenplays of all time, which goes all the way from Casablanca, - and i want to see how some of these structures have evolved and are evolving over time.
For eg, since the past 2-3 years, leaving an open end (like in the case of Project Hail Mary in a new universe) shows up in 12% of films, compared to less than 1% before that. Those kind of insights are interesting.
Thanks for sharing that link.
Not sure why this is showing up here, but happy it is. I remember seeing it at a conference in '79 or '80 and it retaining an oversized footprint in my "mental floorspace" for at least a decade.
You can definitely see how DarkStar led to Alien. And now that I think about it... Maybe the Project Hail Mary film owes something to DarkStar as well.
I'm surprised to not have heard of someone trying to do a reboot, but happy that some things are good enough to be remembered fondly, but bad enough that no sane studio head would greenlight a remake.
I think whether or not it's worth it really depends on the kind and quality of movie.
When I went to see Project Hail Mary, I enjoyed the full theater, when I went to watch the new Jurassic World movie in an empty theater I was bored out of my mind, on the other hand I've seen many anime movies in empty theaters where I absolutely loved having a quiet theater entirely to myself.
I go to the theater rarely, but recently watched Project Hail Mary in-theater and quite recommend it. There _have_ been some great films made in the last while, among a sea of derivatives.
(E.g., you may find the new Dune films too violent, but they were great. And the moral is not very subtle in them. :)
I think Hollywood has been churning out derivative content for a while, and catering for "modern audiences" (as opposed to the silent majority) too much.
One or two exceptions - Project Hail Mary, for example.
But the decline of Marvel, Star Trek and Star Wars franchises has been stark.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker has some great commentary on the problem.
Also, a number of other factors:
* massive TVs are cheap now * people behave disrespectfully in cinemas * cinema tickets are now unaffordable for the low end of the market * the experience hasn't modernised and become luxy enough to retain the high end of the market * streaming services have high budgets now
I just went and saw Project Hail Mary last week and I was all worried I'd be late after navigating the parking situation, arriving at 7:35 for a 7:30 show. My worry was needless as after the ads and previews the actual show didn't start until 8:15! I could have even stopped and gotten popcorn instead of rushing in afraid I'd missed the beginning of the film.
For the past 10 years I found most movies to be unwatchable and not worth the time. Last one I saw was Project Hail Mary at a cinema and it was really bad in spite of a huge budget (more than Interstellar!).
So long, Hollywood.
I wonder if this article got inspired by the recent movie Project Hail Mary?
Another thing related to this subject is the frequency in watch making. I own a manual winding watch that I wear everyday. It is certainly an engineering marvel. These watches are ticking by the hair spring and its frequencies are targeted to 2.5Hz to 4Hz (5 times per second, or 8 times per second). I don't know the rationale behind these numbers. I guess that they must have been a combination of engineering constraints and finding a good balance to keep every second accurate.
That's only the source for the first sentence. The second sentence cites the Associated Press, but the science and astrophography info starts in this article
https://www.wcvb.com/article/heres-some-of-the-science-facts-behind-the-science-fiction-film-project-hail-mary/70866851
There's also links to...
- The site of Australian astrophotographer Rod Prazeres
https://www.instagram.com/deepskyjourney/
- The video on IMAX's YouTube channel where the film's directors explain how they used non-visible-light photography for a crucial scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3i8WgxeKi0
- The Stellar Australis "Project Dune" page
https://www.stellaraustralis.com/project-dune-stars/
I like the underlying theme of both Project Hail Mary and The Martian: No great evil just be human and solve problems with a little humor. We need more of that and less might makes right superhero movies.
Source: https://variety.com/2026/film/news/project-hail-mary-global-box-office-amazon-mgm-highest-grossing-film-1236702246/
Project Hail Mary. It's a sci-fi novel by Andy Weir (author of The Martian) that was adapted into a movie that released in theaters a couple weeks ago. It's fantastic and you should totally read/watch it.
> made the movie of Project Hail Mary without paying one dime to Andy Weir.
and is there anything really wrong with that?
I personally would have liked to see fan made movies of various IPs like star wars, and harry potter, but it is impossible due to the long reach of copyright infringement.
If copyright was only a decade then Sony could have waited 5 more years and made the movie of Project Hail Mary without paying one dime to Andy Weir.
I think the law is too long now, but a decade is too short to protect artists. Even a patent is 20 years.
The studios behind Project Hail Mary have documented histories of fake online promotion and the industry to do it again is booming. I don't have proof that Amazon MGM Studios is astroturfing HN or Reddit about Project Hail Mary. What I do have is a chain of documented facts that should make anyone reading enthusiastic comments about this film pause and consider the source...
Project Hail Mary is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and distributed internationally by Sony Pictures. The film cost $200 million to produce and needs roughly $500 million to break even. Amazon MGM has had a string of expensive flops (Crime 101, Melania, After the Hunt), and there was reported internal pressure for this film to change the narrative.
Amazon MGM's Head of Global Marketing is Sue Kroll, who spent 24 years at Warner Bros. serving as President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution. Her deputy for international marketing, Charlie Coleman, also came from Warner Bros. Awards head Juli Goodwin spent nearly 20 years at Warner Bros.
This matters because Warner Bros Home Entertainment was caught by the FTC in 2016 paying YouTube influencers (including PewDiePie) thousands of dollars through ad agency Plaid Social Labs. Warner Bros settled with the FTC. Also lets not forget Sony Pictures invented a fake movie critic in 2001, and around the same time, were caught using employees posing as moviegoers in TV commercials for The Patriot. Sony at the end paid $326,000 to Connecticut's AG and $1.5 million in a class-action settlement...
The industry to do this on Reddit and other public forums is openly thriving. There are companies that will, right now, post on Reddit and HN? as "organic users" for paying clients. They describe these services on their own websites:
• Onemotion Group (onemotion.group) openly advertises "real-looking posts, comments, and threads that catch on" with a focus on "organic posts, community replies, and making threads spread naturally."
• Single Grain (singlegrain.com/agency/reddit-marketing-agency) sells "conversation monitoring," "question response systems," and "thoughtful comments and contributions that establish your brand as a helpful community member."
• OutreachBloom describes monitoring subreddits and responding with "helpful" answers using pre-warmed accounts with built-up karma.
Specially an agency called Iron Roots (ironrootsinc.com) lists both Amazon Studios and Warner Bros. as clients...
Describes services including "engaging communities with compelling content and fostering active, loyal brand advocates across platforms."
I am not claiming Project Hail Mary is being astroturfed. I am pointing out:
1. Both studios behind this film (Amazon MGM and Sony) have documented, FTC-adjudicated histories of deceptive online promotion.
2. The marketing leadership at Amazon MGM comes directly from Warner Bros., where this behavior was institutionally tolerated.
3. An entire commercial industry exists to post as organic users on Reddit, HN, and forums, some of these agencies list Amazon Studios as a client.
4. The financial incentive is massive: a $200M film from a studio desperate to prove its theatrical strategy works.
5. The penalties when caught have been trivial relative to marketing budgets ($326K for Sony, consent decree for Warner Bros.), and there is no ongoing enforcement mechanism for community forum manipulation.
When someone on HN or Reddit posts an enthusiastic take about a major studio release, the question is not whether astroturfing happens. We know it does, the companies that do it have websites. The question is whether you can tell the difference between a genuine fan and a paid account?
> If there is no objectivity....then you would have no basis to explain why a film is better or worse than another
This is indeed the case. You can consult many film experts and get very different top ten lists. Some critics may hate The Godfather. Some won't get Citizen Kane. Some love a good popcorn fluff movie and find this year's Oscar contenders pretentious.
It becomes a matter of general consensus. And that consensus appears to be that it's a pretty satisfying movie; https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/project_hail_mary. (High art? No. But that wasn't its goal.)
>>When it comes to the concept of entertainment? No.
You are confusing taste and quality....
If there is no objectivity....then you would have no basis to explain why a film is better or worse than another, A student first iPhone short would be equal to The Godfather. A child banging pots would be indistinguishable from a Symphony.
The moment you say something is good or bad, we can talk about craft, skill, storytelling structure and emotional impact, all of which can be measured and compared and where this movie fails on all parameters...
You can personally dislike something excellent...for example few people can appreciate the genius of Miles Davis, and enjoy something mediocre... Too many to quote here...but Project Hail Mary is one :-)
> Do you believe in the concept of objectivity?
When it comes to the concept of entertainment? No.
Is the 2003 movie The Room (written/directed/produced by Tommy Wiseau) "objectively" good or bad?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room
If it is "objectively" 'bad' why do (many) people have such a good time watching it? Are they "objectively" happier after watching The Room? Are people "objectively" happier after watching Project Hail Mary?
Deadpool's humour was violent and crude. I don't remember anything like that at all in Project Hail Mary.
It was a buddy film, and an American one, so had that culture in its humour, sure. But it was light-hearted and quite fun.
Star Trek is true scifi? I always considered it to be soft scifi due to it being more about social issues in space rather than the more hard scifi about the fictional science. At least the book of Project Hail Mary is closer to hard scifi than Star Trek as they spend a lot of time describing the science. The movie rightfully skips most of this tedium in favor of a beautiful spectacle.
This is the first time I've heard of the idea of "true" scifi though.
It's not just software: I use my Vision Pro (now in year 3) less than once a month now, and each time I do the painful/awkward/unpleasant set-up and prep and difficult interface sours me on the device yet again, until a new blockbuster movie like "Project Hail Mary" appears that when watched on the VP in 4K on a virtual 40-foot screen blows my mind.
It’s a hot topic right now because of the movie, but Project Hail Mary is one of my all time favourites.
Regals unlimited pass and their snack saver has made movies a no brainer for me and my friends coupled with their monthly themed events showing older movies we almost always have multiple things we want to see and often go multiple times a week, especially during the gloomier winter months!
At last check i was at almost 25 visits this year, just saw F1 again on saturday and off to see Project Hail Mary tonight
Seems crazy to me, always had to (presumed) view that cinema was cheap in the US, otherwise how is the business so big there?
In Spain I went to regular cinema this Sunday, 8 EUR per ticket per person, + ~10 EUR per person for snacks, so ~20 EUR per person for me and my wife.
Also got tickets to see Project Hail Mary at IMAX, 2 tickets for the premiere, and I paid 29.80 EUR for two tickets, thought it was expensive, but seems we're luckier than I thought :)
I saw Avatar 3 here in Tokyo where I live. It was great! I saw the Dolby 3D version. Popcorn was pretty cheap, tickets were reasonably priced, the audience was as quiet as the dead.
I've seen several other movies (normal ones, not 3D/IMAX/etc.) here since I moved here, and they were all the same. Audiences here have excellent behavior.
We're planning to see Project Hail Mary this weekend when it comes out, this time on IMAX.
I'm going with a group of friends to go see Project Hail Mary. It's the first time in years that most of us have planned ahead of time to see a movie, because it's mostly been garbage. I think the last time was Avengers Endgame, but we were all pretty disenfranchised in the series by that point.
Having a good home theater does mean I watch far more movies at home than in the theater, but almost none of them are new releases, and the ones that are are usually released straight to a streaming service.
Project Hail Mary is getting a major movie release in a couple weeks.
The reality is that the home movie experience is now better.
Seeing a film on the big screen was still a great experience back in the 80s and early 90s when the home experience was VHS and a smallish CRT with mono audio.
It started to change when DVD arrived, but then we reached the era of affordable large LCD TVs, blu-rays, and then streaming. And now a lot of people have a 'big screen' at home. With a volume control and pause button. Better drinks (including alcohol) and snacks without paying the premium price, without having to drive anywhere. And no kids throwing popcorn around, or other people talking during the movie or other phones going off during quiet moments...
(That and the decline of movies. Maybe I'm just getting old and miserable, but there's been very little that's got me excited in recent years. Maybe I'll get out to a cinema for Project Hail Mary, loved the book and the trailers look promising)
The Silo series by Hugh Howey -- some excellent sci-fi to go along with the show
The Red Rising series by Pierce Brown -- lots of sci-fi fun, extremely epic
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King -- King's "Lord of the Rings" opus, great writing, ending maybe a little unsatisfying but not abnormal
Artemis - Andy Weir's first book -- Fun read about a heist on the moon. Anticipating Project Hail Mary movie early next year!
Currently in the middle of: The Talisman - Stephen King / Peter Straub
It was nice seeing my 2025 reading list represented.
I started the year reading the first five books of the Foundation Series (book #1 on the list). A must read for anyone who hasn’t read it. I couldn’t believe how well it held up 70+ years later(!!)
I just finished the 3 Body Problem trilogy, and think it’s appropriate book #2 (The Dark Forest) is on the list as it’s probably the best — but all three are great.
I’m now ready Project Hail Mary. It’s been a long time since I read the Martian,but Andy Weir’s writing style is fast paced and practically a screenplay already. It’s obvious from the first chapter why it was picked up for a movie.
I don't and have never gone very often, but it's a lot of fun to see certain films in enormous theaters like IMAX. I will definitely see the Project Hail Mary film that way. And my kids still like to go, and I know people who go a ton on the subscription plans. So, who knows!
I really need to re-read Project Hail Mary, especially with the film in development. I really hope the film lives up to the book. I think they did a reasonably good job with The Martian, even though they cut out the entire dust storm section (and my favourite joke in the book!)
I agree that I really don't like Andy Weir's character writing: his dialogue in particular is rough, but despite normally characters being what I'm there for in stories, I give Project Hail Mary a bit more credit than this. The story has some interesting ideas and I think Weir's strength is the mystery of process: you see a challenge, and then you get to enjoy the competence porn of someone successfully going through the process of finding a solution, and I think he nails doing that in a really engaging way.
I do think the movie will probably end up better than the book: having a screenwriter go over the dialogue alone will do a lot, I think.
Obviously subjective, but I had seen The Martian before I read the book (many years after seeing the movie), and liked the book way better than the movie. Read Project Hail Mary right after finishing The Martian, and enjoyed that one even more. I guess the writing is a bit dry, but it kind of makes sense and I quite like it. I'm cautiously optimistic about the new movie.
It was really enjoyable to read. And I also do not read a lot of fiction, with my last book being the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series.
My verdict is that Project Hail Mary was way much more engaging in terms of story-telling. The concepts were cool, and tbh I look forward for the movie and see if the adaptation will be nice
The Abyss is a movie by James Cameron, who also made Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens, True Lies, Titanic, and Avatar.
"The Abyss" is about a deep sea crew that encounters ... aliens...?
And yes, in general, I recommend The Abyss. It's definitely not the same as Project Hail Mary, but it does have similarities.
A film adaptation of Project Hail Mary wrapped filming last year and is set to be released in 2026.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)
I enjoyed The Martian (novel and movie) but I didn't care for Artemis or Project Hail Mary. I thought the characters and dialogue were fairly weak, even though the underlying ideas were clever. Also I thought that "main character amnesia" was a frustrating plot device (in PHM).
Overall, his authorial voice reminds me a lot of YouTube hosts? Perhaps that's just the cultural moment we're in.
Unfortunately many of the books I had time to read this year were a bust. But here's some of the ones I did appreciate very much:
* Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive - Philipp Dettmer.
* The Gene: An Intimate History - Mukherjee. Won't necessarily teach you much new if you've already read a few genetics books, but a fine read nonetheless.
* On Sophistical Refutations - Aristotle. Like anything by Aristotle, read it with a grain of salt and as historical document. Still, it's always a wonder how a text like this can be over 2000 years old.
* Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann. Skip the movie and read this instead.
* 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus - Charles Mann. It challenges common misunderstandings of pre-columbian society without being anti-Columbus.
* American History, Combined Edition: 1492-Present - Thomas Kidd. Goes beyond just the usual narratives we are all familiar with. Not recommended as a first American-history deep-dive, but a fine supplement.
* The Man Who Saved Cincinnati - Peter Bronson. Entertaining civil war history book. It's not only about Cincinnati.
* Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power - Carwardine.
* The Catalyst: RNA and the Quest to Unlock Life's Deepest Secrets - Thomas Cech. RNA is now kinda required reading since 2020. This is a good starting point.
* The Genetic Book of the Dead: A Darwinian Reverie - Dawkins. His latest is definitely worth a read, like (nearly) all his previous.
* Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI - Harari. How information traveled historically, with modern technology, and in the near future. Enlightening and a little scary.
* Beauty and Sadness: Mahler's 11 Symphonies - David Vernon. Even if you haven’t listened to all of Mahler’s symphonies, still very interesting read on “the first modern composer.” If you /are/ familiar with all his symphonies, the book is even better, and it will show you layers you didn’t realize were there... in case the music isn't dense enough to absorb by itself ;-)
Fiction:
* Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir.
* Dark Matter - Blake Crouch.
* Red Rising - Pierce Brown. A light read, maybe will seem derivative at this point but it was fun.
* Rifters Trilogy - Peter Watts. Super bleak, very creative.
* You Like It Darker - Stephen King. Another fine collection of short stories.
* The Forest of Lost Souls - Koontz
* House of Leaves - Danielewski. I waited way too long to read this. As good as everyone said it would be.
If audiobooks count, so far enjoying the hell out of Project Hail Mary, I possibly got turned on to it by a mention on HN (I like The Martian movie, so I gave it a shot, and maybe decide to get that on audiobook too, now)
Project Hail Mary is soon to be a movie...
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/
The Stars are Legion and Alien Clay are the two best sci-fi books I've read in the last year and I don't think they've shown up on any lists, although the latter is another first contact book by the author of Children of Time which has gotten a lot of acclaim (although I didn't care for it).
FWIW Beacon 23 has an adaptation on Apple TV+ and Project Hail Mary has a film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling that's already finished shooting, so I don't know how long they'll stay in the category of "you may never have heard of"
I heard there might be a movie adaptation of Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling.
I also found the film of The Martian way better than the book. I got so sick of reading about concentrations of gases and stuff in painful detail. So yeah, good story, but not so good writing. If Project Hail Mary is anything like that then I'll give it a miss.
Two of my favorite sci-fi books of all time.
Just found out Project Hail Mary movie is in pre-production...
I don't want to spoil anything but intelligent life that evolves under high pressure depth is explored in Project Hail Mary by Any Weir (author of recent popular culture book then movie The Martian).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary
https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135202
The Martian is an excellent movie based on one of the best scifi books. Gives me a lot of hope for the Project Hail Mary movie.
Also, the assumption that math is universal so sharing vocabulary in math is helpful for bootstrapping language understanding is a fascinating assumption to question. Even if you can explain Pi and prove that you can mutually understand trigonometry that might give you some small portion of engineering insight, but it can't yield most of the rest of engineering such as design or aesthetics (or emotions) or any number of other things that make for useful project communication.
It's something I've often thought about in the way that the Voyager record was built and Sagan's Cosmos novel assumes it and many others. Even recently, the novel Project Hail Mary borrowed that assumption that math is enough shared language to bootstrap understanding. I think the movie Arrival did some of the best work of showing why that wouldn't necessarily work, but also had the language in question designed by a mathematician and still fell into some parts of the assumption/trope. I'm not saying any of these examples are bad for doing this, I certainly love them all. It's still a small something worth criticizing.
It's certainly not a bad thing to want to communicate math, and to hope that things like Pi are "constant enough" to provide bootstraps to other communications, but it's also such a fascinating thing how much science fiction thinking (and real world scientific thinking such as the Voyage Record) think that you can just sort of "yada yada yada" your way from "so we established communications of basic mathematical constants and concepts" directly as a straight line of some sort to "now we can communicate all sorts of other things".
Arrival! It's a great movie, but I don't want to explain too much.
Also I believe there's a movie in the works for Project Hail Mary. Just finished the book and am hoping the film will be as good.
Worth mentioning: Project Hail Mary is being made into a movie, will be adapted by Drew Goddard who also adapted The Martian.
Read the book a while ago, didn't realize it was being made into a movie until recently, maybe others are unaware too. I'm eagerly optimistic :)
I would have linked to its wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary which covers the whole book, upcoming movie, pretty well. Exciting story. But completely unrelated to the recurring polar vortex. No sun-eating microbes, just H and He.
Honestly, I'm not sure a super long adaptation is necessary for Project Hail Mary. I could see all of the major beats getting done in about 2 hours or so. There are chapters with fairly long descriptions of the experiments that could be summed up in just a few seconds of screentime. People who want to see the math can read the book. Part of making a good movie adaptation is realizing that film and print are different media and a fully faithful direct translation rarely works very well. The movie ends up bloated and overly exposition heavy, sometimes forgetting that the audience can see what is going on.
Maximum City, a nonfiction book about Mumbai. A good companion to a first time visitor. I believe that an update is coming out soon.
Project Hail Mary, a book about space for engineering nerds.
The Body and At Home. They're books by Bill Bryson. He geeks out about stuff and showers is with fascinating trivia. It's hard to put his books down.
The Right Stuff, a book about how they picked the first astronauts without knowing what the job would even entail. A fascinating look at the psychology of test pilots. Pairs well with the movie First Man.
Not to be offensive but this article made me feel dumber just reading it. THE MARTIAN isn't enough to inspire people to pursue science? Why? Because it uses clever ideas to "work the problem"? I'm not sure about his background but that is pretty much the only way to solve problems in the real world. Servers down you "work the problem", a researcher who doesn't understand why data looks like it does - "work the problem", trapped on Mars - "work the problem". Then he talks about reality and how Sci-Fi doesn't match up with reality!?
Including political realities is absolutely important when designing technology to solve large scale problems. Acting like SciFi (Andy Weir, Star Trek, and Neil Stephenson are all good examples) doesn't address that is a shitty shallow analysis. The Martian, is mostly an adventure story but Project Hail Mary deals with the political reality heavily and TNG talked about political reality and social issues and in fact the best episodes revolved around that. As someone that is an engineer, a life long SciFi fan, and am studying to change careers as a scientist (Biology/Data Science) this article reads seems pretty terrible as analysis/criticism of Sci-Fi like someone that has never actually built anything.