Monday Musings: Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary is not the type of book I typically pick up, but when I saw that my bestie had read it and rated it 5 stars on GoodReads, I didn’t take the recommendation lightly. If she loved it, I knew it would be great.

And it did not disappoint!

The book

Knowing the movie was hitting theaters on 3/20, my goal was to read one chapter a day in the month of March (it has 30 chapters) so that I’d be done in time to see the movie in early April (the plan was to go on Good Friday).

There were a couple of days where I didn’t make it through a whole chapter (I was reading in bed at night before turning in), but I caught up the following morning. But by the time I reached the last few chapters I couldn’t wait to read just one per day and I finished it a couple of days early on March 28.

No spoilers here. I’ll just say that I was a little hesitant when I first found out the secondary plot point, but I was quickly wrapped up in the storyline and falling in love with the characters, and my heart was swelling from the hope in and of humanity it portrayed. And that secondary plot point soon became my favorite part. My face was leaking!

The movie

My bestie took off of work to see the movie on opening day, and she loved it. So much so that she went to see it at least one more time (that I know of), going with her husband who had no not read the book. He loved the movie too! This made me feel better about going with my mom, as she had not read the book either.

After finishing the book, I was getting anxious to see the movie and more so because Regal hadn’t released the movie times for Easter weekend. I was panic stricken thinking it was going to be out of theaters so quickly! What?? But it was doing so well, why would they do such a crazy thing?? Alas, they release showtimes on Tuesday afternoon for the following weekend. Phew! Mom and I were set to go to a matinee on April 3rd.

We ended up going on Saturday instead. I was a bit under the weather with a dust induced sinus/cough situation. I was popping Ricola for all 2.5 hours + previews + getting there 30 minutes early…that was a lot of Ricola!

The movie was magnificent! Amaze, amaze, amaze! Ryan Gosling :::swoon::: was superb. And Rocky! LOVE, statement!

That night I didn’t sleep well due to my cough, but I was in a dream loop about Project Hail Mary and while I don’t remember the details, it just goes to show how much it stuck with me. And has ever since!

Over the last week, I’ve enjoyed watching behind the scenes clips on social media, interviews with the producers, promos with Ryan and Rocky, reviews by content creators, etc. It’s been so much fun. It’s made me love it even more. My algorithm is going crazy and for once it’s not annoying me. I’m even considering buying a t-shirt or two.

Book to movie adaptation

The book is very science heavy which was lost on me a lot of the time, but the movie didn’t dwell on all the specifics quite as much. Some of the scenes could have been a bit longer or explained more (especially for viewers who hadn’t read the book), but I understand the runtime was already quite long so certain scenes had to be cut or turned into more of a montage.

There were a couple of other bits of the book that didn’t make the movie that I thought should have been in it. To show the stakes that Earth was up against and what they had to sacrifice to make this Hail Mary attempt at salvation.

They added a couple of scenes that were great. The karaoke scene, and the video diary clips throughout. I really liked those and thought they were a great addition to the story telling. And the ending was just as gripping in the movie as it was in the book, probably even more so.