CINEMISSES! Project Hail Mary

In this episode, Matt and Tug explore the fascinating blend of science, storytelling, and character development in the movie adaptation of Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary." Join us as we unpack the film’s portrayal of scientific concepts, practical effects, and the emotional depth of Ryan Gosling’s and Rocky’s relationship.
We'll dive into science with a capital S, the themes of friendship, sacrifice and hope. And we'll ponder why so many alien civilizations have evolved past the need for pants. It's a fun ride -- fortunately, we have enough hot air in both of us to get out to Adrian and back. 3-2-1 BLAST OFF!

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Transcript

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Alright, you're listening to Cinemisses, a podcast about movies that one or the other of your two hosts just never got around to seeing. I'm Tug.

matt (00:17.165)
Yeah, I hit it.

matt (00:27.008)
I'm Matt, reminding you that anybody can make a podcast about movies they have seen. We are here because we haven't.

Tug McTighe (00:33.385)
See that's different. That's a different hook.

matt (00:36.044)
It is. Hey, I'm just realized I don't have my microphone hooked up. Do you think it sounds okay? Well, I I'm talking, talking, talking, talking. Okay. Okay. Hey, so I was out of town for the weekend and came back to realize that it's incredibly hot.

Tug McTighe (00:41.727)
Keep talking.

it's sounds fine. Alright?

Tug McTighe (00:55.633)
It's b literally blistering. I think I sent you a screen grab on Saturday afternoon I was doing something in the yard and I nearly died, and I looked at my weather app and it said that the feels like temperature was one hundred and twenty one. That I've never seen that kind of a temperature number. It's horrifying.

matt (01:12.034)
Wow.

matt (01:17.122)
No, that's crazy. So it's kind of ironic that the movie we're talking about this week is involves the opposite problem of a cooling planet. That movie, of course, is Project Tail Mary, written by Andy Weir, author of The Martian. I hadn't seen it. You have seen it how many times?

Tug McTighe (01:25.469)
Yes. The cooling of the earth

Project Hail Mary.

Tug McTighe (01:41.182)
three now. I saw it No four. I saw it in the theater. I saw it in the theater again in seventy millimeter at Screenland Armor. Plot goes support your local theater. and then I've watched it a couple times on streaming. To be fair, one time I was boozed. One of the streams I was pretty boozed. So I also have read it. I I will talk about that later, but I read this book in about

matt (01:46.678)
On the IMAX, right?

matt (01:57.591)
Okay. I had not seen it.

That's what.

Tug McTighe (02:09.289)
Fifty two hours. I couldn't stop. Yeah, it's a page turner.

matt (02:11.37)
Okay, very good. Well, I had not seen it. so here's what I knew going in. I knew it was written by Andy Weir, who was the aut author of The Martian. and incidentally he was a software engineer for two decades, just writing on the side and the the Martian he had something he posted on his website and it just blew up. So

Tug McTighe (02:22.485)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (02:28.01)
Right.

Tug McTighe (02:31.753)
Yeah, he did a ser he serialized it, yeah. He did chapter by chapter just on his own. Kind of the proto not even really self publishing, but like just writing chapters and it got so big it got all this at all got all this attention.

matt (02:35.948)
He did.

matt (02:44.0)
Absolutely. I knew it starred one of our favorite actors, Ryan Gosling. I Cinemas is all star, yeah. he's been in three of our movies, I think. This is the third. At least I knew that it involved a teacher

Tug McTighe (02:47.571)
I use that Cinemas' Hall of Famer. Yep.

Tug McTighe (02:54.889)
Three. Yeah. Third.

matt (03:00.66)
I didn't think high school, I was thinking like middle school or elementary school, who finds himself on a space mission, perhaps as a reluctant participant. and I believed there was an alien involved, possibly named Rocky, which it turns out it was, which already made it a more compel compelling movie for me than The Martian, which did not have aliens.

Tug McTighe (03:08.221)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (03:18.995)
Right, when it comes to the alien versus non-alien divide in sci-fi, you're pro alien. Yeah, you're pro alien. If there's an alien in it, yes. If there's not an alien in it, maybe likely no. Very good. All right. Well, you're quite right in a lot of those. a lot of those details. Hard to

matt (03:35.97)
Maybe. There you go.

Tug McTighe (03:46.238)
This was a big one and it's recent, so this was hard to hard to miss. This was a big book and a big movie. Yeah, it's it's already yeah, it's it's already out, right? So okay, log line. A science teacher, let me start again. Log line, a middle school science teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship. As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance from killing Earth's son, and he realizes that an unexpected friendship

matt (03:52.982)
And it's on prime already, so you don't have to work that hard to get it.

Tug McTighe (04:15.571)
Maybe the key. That's a good log line. Yeah, because some of really suck. Again, my favorite log line ever is the simplest one of all time. Killer Shark terrorizes Beach Town on 4th of July. It's all you need. You're like, I'm in. I'm in. so what's it about? I'll tell you, Matt. It's a twenty twenty six American science fiction film produced and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

matt (04:17.09)
That's a good log line. That's one of the better ones.

Yes. All right. So what's

matt (04:31.351)
Right. That's it. That's all it was. Love it.

Tug McTighe (04:45.001)
Written by Drew Goddard, who wrote the Martian screenplay as well, based on the novel by Andy Weir. Lord and Miller are Cinemas' heroes as well. Why don't you give us a little background on those guys?

matt (04:57.1)
Yes, they I didn't even know that they had done the they created and produced the Cloudy with the Chance of Meatballs, franchise, which is two movies a franchise. I think it had two movies. I I would say that is a case where the movie was better than the source material. Yeah, that nothing happens in. You you wake up one day and there's just giant food everywhere. But no, I really enjoyed that movie. Lego movie is

Tug McTighe (05:04.309)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (05:07.763)
You bet it is. You bet it is.

Tug McTighe (05:14.419)
Yeah, 'cause that's a kid's book, right?

Yeah.

That's it.

matt (05:25.234)
a quotable film in this household. and the Spider-Verse film franchise is fantastic. I love all. So I I as a grown adult place among my all-time favorites these movies and I will not apologize.

Tug McTighe (05:37.876)
Yeah, they also did Lego Batman. they did they were going to direct Solo, the Star Wars story, and they were removed for Creative Differences early in the process. Ron Howard came in to finish that off. I also wanna let you know something I literally learned last week because both Sean and Nick be and you just don't know why the the the Gen Z

matt (05:41.027)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (06:07.453)
And the Gen Alpha I they're Gen Alpha. Why they're they get on the shit they get on. Apparently, TikTok and Instagram have been recently inundated with How I Met Your Mother clips. So they're both watching How I Met Your Mother. So I walk in there and there's this this I'm watching the end of Nick's watching it. I see the end of an episode, and it says, executive producers, Lord Miller. And I'm like, what? So I looked it up and I watched that show. I love that show.

matt (06:19.035)
Okay.

matt (06:33.677)
That's crazy.

Tug McTighe (06:37.437)
I looked it up, sure enough, the first couple of seasons they were writer producers on how I met your mother. And if you get to the Wikipedia rabbit hole, they were instrumental in the formation of the legend, wait for it, dairy character of Barney as portrayed by Neopatrick Harris. so so that's exciting stuff. no but in all seriousness, super awesome two talented fellas.

matt (06:54.914)
That's amazing.

matt (07:02.442)
Absolutely. along those lines I was I'm a fan of the show Community. it doesn't always hit, but when it does it's really good. And that was produced by the Russo brothers. Isn't that funny?

Tug McTighe (07:15.261)
Right. Right? Isn't that fun okay. Yeah. Hollywood, biggest small town in America, next Kansas City.

Alright, so it stars Ryan Gosling, of course. Sander Huller, James Ortiz, Lionel Boyce. the story follows Rylan Grace, who's Ryan Gosling, a middle age middle age a middle school teacher who awakens aboard the spacecraft with no memory of how we got there. yeah.

matt (07:40.898)
That was interesting, as a plot choice. as a way to tell the story, instead of us knowing this from the start, we kind of get it in pieces.

Tug McTighe (07:43.647)
Hot device, yeah.

Tug McTighe (07:50.4)
P we we we're piecing it together as he's piecing it together. Yeah. Book was like that too. pre-production began in twenty twenty, before the novel was even published. So this is after the success of the Martian, he's got an idea, suddenly it's getting optioned already. Goddard, who wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of The Martian, returned for this film. They shot it throughout twenty twenty-four in the United Kingdom, both on location and in sets.

matt (07:53.507)
Right.

Tug McTighe (08:15.239)
all scenes aboard the spacecraft Hail Mary were filmed on a real practical set that was constructed for the film. We'll talk about practical effects later. We are for them as a rule. So I love that they built a giant giant set. and you know, again, Andy Weir, a little bit of an enigmatic character.

matt (08:23.084)
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

matt (08:34.326)
Yeah, let's do a I so I did a deep dive on him 'cause I didn't know anything about the guy. he's our age, so as you said before the show, that's that's great. You know, our time's gonna come. Any day. We're gonna blow up. born in nineteen seventy two in California to father who was a physicist and mother who's an engineer. He was an only child.

Tug McTighe (08:42.969)
Thanks for that. Thanks for the yeah. Any day, any moment. Any moment.

Tug McTighe (08:55.273)
Yeah, checks out.

matt (08:56.876)
Yep, only child. His parents divorced when he was eight years old. Grew up like us reading Asimov and Ray Bradbury and all the classic stuff. he started c studied let me start over. He studied computer science at UC San Diego but did not graduate. He worked for Blizzard, which is a video game company, developing some World of Warcraft titles until they hired him.

Tug McTighe (09:16.179)
Yep. Yeah, B Bli Blizzard is big StarCraft, World of Warcraft, until he was shit canned.

matt (09:23.072)
Yes, for a poor performance. He in his defense, he says that they were not very good at telling him what they needed him to do. So

That's fine, I'll give him a I'll cut him some slack. meanwhile he was writing short stories and webtoons and doing all this stuff on on the side, on the internet, and as I think you mentioned earlier, he was r releasing chapters of the Martian and people loved it and said, put it on Kindle. He did. He's approached by an agent, next thing he knows, the Martian debuts at number twelve on the New York Times bestseller list, and then and that was in two thousand fourteen, a year later they made it into the Matt Damon.

Tug McTighe (09:55.494)
I mean just isn't that something like Again, it it it's a it's a testament to just creative people wanting to do creative things and the hardest part is starting. Right? The hardest part is starting. It's just shut the fuck up and write your thing. And you know what? Release it chapter by chapter and see what happens. And if you don't have any expectations, sometimes it exceeds everything that you could have ever possibly imagined. So that's that's a fun story. e again, I love this book.

matt (10:08.664)
Sure.

matt (10:20.674)
Yeah. There you go.

Tug McTighe (10:24.717)
I guzzled it down in like two days. And then I heard gossling was attached and I just almost started crying. Yeah, I did hear the latest gossip news, Ghost Rider. Holy moly. A Ghost Rider reboot. but you know who you you you you've had enough you had enough of Matt Damon twenty eight episodes ago, I think.

matt (10:31.928)
Did you hear the latest gosling news? Ghost Rider, baby. How cool is that? That guy could do no wrong for me. Matt Damon I've had enough of. Okay.

matt (10:49.868)
I did. but y he is still making movies so we'll probably still keep watching him.

Tug McTighe (10:54.323)
Well, I don't know if you've heard about this movie that's out right now called The Odyssey, but he plays Odysseus, which is where they got the word Odyssey. So you're you're you're gonna see three hours Yeah, he's one of the main dudes. Yeah. Yeah, he's one of the main dudes. it premiered in London in on March 9th, 2026. March ninth is my best friend Todd Riley's birthday. March ninth is the day after your birthday. March ninth is five days after my birthday.

matt (11:03.02)
He's like one of the main guys then. He's right up there.

matt (11:16.332)
And the day after my birthday.

Tug McTighe (11:23.249)
And four days before Sarah's birthday. We're lousy with Pisces in this in this friend group and family group, I can tell you that. it was released in the United States by Amazon MGM Studios on March twentieth, and Sony released it in every other territory. How'd it do? Yeah. You tell me. So how'd it do, Matt?

matt (11:30.072)
You know it.

matt (11:39.117)
And how did it do? Domestic Opening was eighty point five million, eventually growing to three hundred and forty four million, which is a lot. Internationally did almost as well bringing in another three hundred and thirty-nine million, six hundred and eighty-four point two million worldwide becoming the fifth highest grossing film of twenty twenty six, against a two hundred million dollar budget, which I saw two hundred million dollars on the screen. Like

Tug McTighe (12:08.327)
Yeah. Yeah, they Yeah, not at all.

matt (12:09.228)
That doesn't surprise me. Sometimes I I'm like, how did it cost that much? But this one I get it.

Tug McTighe (12:13.437)
And and and you know it's not it's not actors, it's not cast either. It's effects, building, it's yeah, they they left it all on the screen.

matt (12:21.452)
Yes. so the fifth highest grossing film of twenty twenty six so far. Do you want to guess which movies beat it?

Tug McTighe (12:30.867)
Terrible at this game.

matt (12:32.75)
So you got four movies that did better than this. And two of are way up at the top. So I'll I'll give you the fourth one, Devil Wears Prada 2, which kind of surprised me. I don't know, but it made more than it made more than six hundred and eighty four million dollars. Which is crazy 'cause I can't believe people get that excited, but everybody loves Stanley Tucci, so maybe that's it.

Tug McTighe (12:43.697)
god, really? How much?

Tug McTighe (12:51.165)
It made more okay, so it's seven hundred million dollars. Okay. Keep telling me.

Tug McTighe (12:59.377)
Right, it's it's I think it's yeah, definitely Stanley Tucci. That's the reason.

matt (13:02.218)
At number three was a children's movie. no. That's number one though. Mar Super Mario Galaxy's number one. number three was the fifth movie in a franchise. Toy Story Five. The second was a biopic.

Tug McTighe (13:05.716)
Mario

Tug McTighe (13:09.565)
Okay. Okay.

Toy story.

Tug McTighe (13:23.187)
I don't I'm gonna die when I hear it.

matt (13:25.368)
You're looking at the man in the mirror, buddy.

Tug McTighe (13:27.898)
the Michael Jackson movie.

matt (13:29.292)
Yes, Michael. Not the not the terrible Nora Efron movie with John Travolta, but the Michael Jackson movie. I didn't realize it was as as successful as it was, but Super Mario Super Mario Galaxy and Michael made a billion a piece with that's billion with a beat.

Tug McTighe (13:34.793)
Correct.

Me neither.

Tug McTighe (13:43.686)
Up over a billion. Wow. I would not have pegg Michael to make a billion dollars. Can I tell you can I tell you, especially because this is a new movie? sorry, new movie, but recent movie. Because of the modern movie releasing patterns, where they're in the theater for such a short length of time and they're then theater, bang streaming, bang DVD, etc. It's hard for me to

matt (13:47.884)
I wouldn't have been.

Tug McTighe (14:13.381)
even r like when you wrote the question sorry, when you said the question what twenty twenty six movies I'm like I I don't know when anything was released. Like like I just watched and we'll talk about this later, probably on this podcast, I watched The Long Walk over the weekend. Which I felt like came out three months ago. No, it was last year.

matt (14:26.734)
Right. Good point.

matt (14:36.066)
So lie.

matt (14:42.222)
I didn't know that.

Tug McTighe (14:42.259)
It was almost a year ago, twenty twel like yeah, so like that there's just it's like a time crun not a crunch. It's just time doesn't exist in in the way these movies are released, marketed, and delivered anymore. So it's just weird.

matt (14:53.256)
I agree. And I think also the the degree to which they are marketed makes a huge difference. Like I hate to acknowledge that advertising actually works, but I think it probably does. Yeah, keep us keep keep dad needs a new pair of shoes.

Tug McTighe (15:09.097)
Daddy needs a new pair of shoes. Daddy needs a new office.

matt (15:11.682)
But I think of the long walk felt like a made for T V movie to me in l largely. I mean I didn't need it. Okay.

Tug McTighe (15:15.987)
Yeah, yeah. We'll we'll chat about it, maybe we'll pot about it, but okay, so the critical response, we won't go through all these because there's a lot. Critical response was near universal acclaim. Praise for Lord Miller's direction, Gosling's performance, Rocky, how he was rendered, as well as the humor, the heart, the visuals, the themes. lots of people said it was their one of the best films of twenty twenty six. Metacritic gave it a seventy-seven out of a hundred.

which is only a C, but audiences gave it an A. The San Francisco Chronicle said a masterpiece, a f a family popcorn movie. Robbie Calling of the Telegraph. Does it have many original ideas of its own? Perhaps not, but its greatest this greatest hits mix type of other people have been com has been compiled with such flair. So there's there's a lot of feedback. Now the great thing is with all the likes

There's always a hater. And it's typically Owen Gleberman, who used to write for for Entertainment Weekly and was this guy, now he writes Variety. He said, not a very good movie. It's baggy and incredibly derivative of movies you've seen before. More crucially, everything to do with the onboard alien is far too cute and formulaic. Well Owen, I couldn't disagree more. you picked at the one thing that is almost untouchable for me.

matt (16:17.1)
Yeah, he's got that one.

matt (16:39.265)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (16:45.185)
but I love that yeah hey we gotta have the yin and the yang. Got to. Yeah, baggy. Rotten Tomatoes, ninety five percent for the tomato meter on critics, and ninety five percent on the popcorn meter, which I'm thinking maybe the b best double popcorn and tomato meter we've ever had. Yeah.

matt (16:48.674)
Yeah, I get it. I'm I'm not sure what baggy means.

matt (17:05.066)
I've never seen it that high. The website's consensus reads, Are you ready for this? A visually da dazzling space odyssey that's carried along effortlessly by the gravitational pull of Ryan Gosling and his most winning Project Hail Mary is a near miraculous fusion of smarts and heart. I don't know if AI wrote that. I don't know if a some suck up. did you ever watch The Critic that did John Lake Show? Yes. It made HUD look like Chud, and I love Chud.

Tug McTighe (17:24.469)
It's it's definitely punny. I love the critic, which on Lovitz, yeah.

Chud, cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.

matt (17:34.674)
so it it seemed near. So Near Miraculous seemed like a little overkill, but I do acknowledge that Ryan Gosling is a very likable actor. He's got that

Tug McTighe (17:47.55)
Yeah, back to back to me being the anti Owen Gleberman. the way they personified Rocky I thought was near miraculous. he has no face. And you you love him, right?

matt (17:57.816)
Right.

matt (18:01.743)
when he got a voice that helped. But I mean he yeah.

Tug McTighe (18:03.805)
Yeah. Yeah. So development you know, a lot of the same stuff that always happens in development. In March twenty twenty, MGM was nearing a deal to acquire the book, was not even out yet. Gosling was already attached to produce and star. The rights three million for the rights, pretty good payday for old Andy Weir. And then two months later Phil Lord and Christopher Miller hired to direct and produce.

They weren't able to where they they usually write their their stuff, but they were working on Spider Verse, the second one. So they didn't have time to do it. So Goddard was hired, who he wrote the Martian as we said, and knocked it out. Amazon decided they were getting involved. and then we got our cast. We got, you know, Sandra Huller Huler, who was Hold on, I'll say it again. what was her name? Strat.

matt (19:00.216)
Strat?

Tug McTighe (19:02.473)
Yeah, Sandra Huler was strat. Greg Fraser was hired as cinematographer, and in advertising news, a woman by the name of Milana Vaintrubb joined the cast the following month. Matt, do you know who Melania Vaintrubb is?

matt (19:18.954)
I do, it's Lily from the ATT commercials.

Tug McTighe (19:21.693)
Lily from the ATT long running campaign. I was I was ho I was hoping that you would notice who she really was, and that's Lily. Now go buy some fucking iPhones, will ya? Go ahead, Matt.

matt (19:25.25)
I didn't even recognize her. But I mean then I saw it the second time, I'm like, of course

matt (19:34.808)
There you go.

matt (19:38.326)
Hmm. One sec.

matt (19:43.181)
So in terms of filming, the principal photography took place in the UK and wrapped on October twenty-sixth of twenty twenty four. This all happened. We got put together pretty quick. Right. it was filmed for IMAX. So six point five K of resolution, twenty megapixels of resolution. there's a lot of kind of technical camera stuff, but you saw it on a giant screen. Was it awesome?

Tug McTighe (19:53.375)
Pretty quick, really.

Tug McTighe (20:01.877)
Cra that's crazy.

Tug McTighe (20:11.655)
It was, 'cause it was it's so big. Right, the space is obviously especially the space scenes were just so vast, so yeah, it really worked.

matt (20:18.09)
Absolutely. Very good. no chroma keying, everything was shot practical.

Miller had previously stated that VFX was used to depic depict the spaceship from the outside and shots of gosling in space were shot against a black background, but they did a lot to not lean on special effects and computer CGI type things.

Tug McTighe (20:44.03)
yeah, they tried to they tried to make it as real as possible, which I think really, really helps. And we'll get into that when we talk a little bit about Rocky and how they brought him to law.

matt (20:50.646)
Right. But you had industrial light and magic involved, so Sony pictures, image works, a lot of people that were really great. Again, going back to Griegs the Grieg Fraser, the cinematographer, just amazing shots. It's really a beautiful movie, even if y you didn't like the story it you can't deny that it looked

Tug McTighe (21:13.907)
Yeah, that it really was rendered beautifully for sure. yeah, let's move on here. So again, there with regard to post production, ILM, like you said, Sony was there. So David Ortiz was the was the puppeteer who voiced Rocky during filming. He was operating the puppet on the set. And he was voicing Rocky

Because they needed Gosling is such an improvisational guy and you know there's a ton of improv in this and Gosling is clever and quick and w so he needed somebody to to to to bounce off of to run the lines with. And so Ortiz was doing the doing the doing the lines and and the whole time they're like Well, we'll just replace him with some

matt (21:50.838)
Right.

Tug McTighe (22:08.999)
high profile actor that's known and etc etc. And Lord and Miller were like, no, no. This is perfect. This is what we need it to be. They started seeing some dailies and some screenings. They're like, no, he's he he's Rocky. And they they praised the collaboration between this practical and visual effects in the creation. There's a ton of behind the scenes content about Ortiz and Rocky. I recommend just dialing some of it up. They they they had a

matt (22:22.466)
He's doing it.

Tug McTighe (22:37.393)
Offset they had a table and they had like a ten inch tall Rocky that they would operate and they would film the small puppet running through the scene or doing his action. Then he would go on to the set, like when Rocky's in the ball, he's he's rolling the ball everywhere and Gosling's a interacting with the ball. There's nothing in the ball at that point. But then they would go back.

Take the footage they shot, you know, they had the full size Rocky built, and then they would stitch it all together, and I'm just like, it just it just became such an interesting combination of real practical effects and digital effects. which I just think made it feel again, weightier and more truthful and more honest. which is what you're looking for. So just really fascinating. I again I recommend looking some of that up.

matt (23:35.031)
Yeah, Miller noted that by the end of the film, Rocky was about fifty percent CGI and fifty percent puppet. And I'll take fifty percent puppetry for practical effects. Absolutely. I thought he was visually interesting as a character in terms of design, character design, but also charming and much you know, a lot of that was his voice.

Tug McTighe (23:46.582)
Hun hundred percent.

matt (23:58.217)
the visual effects, the spacecapes, the ship architecture was really well done. this was Lord Miller's highest grossing movie to date, beating out LEGO movie, which I loved. And Ryan Gosling's second highest gross grossing movie after what was your guess? No. Barbie. Remember when we talked about Oppenheimer, Barbie made a billion dollars somehow?

Tug McTighe (24:09.597)
Okay. Which made a shit ton of money.

Tug McTighe (24:15.625)
The notebook.

Barbie. I blanked Barbie out.

Another billion bucks. Woof. I like this little bit here, Matt. They digitally shot it, transferred it to film stock, then redigitized it in order to have the warmth of analog film. the original the initial test screening was three hours and forty-five minutes. I will buy that director's cut. obviously it was people like we we can't be in here for four hours. We gotta cut some of this out.

matt (24:41.998)
Okay.

matt (24:48.45)
That yeah. We we like this, but you gotta get us you g you gotta get us out of here.

Tug McTighe (24:52.009)
Yeah, yeah. music, Daniel Pemberton was the composer who scored the film. he did both of the Spider-Verses. and this is the first Lord and Miller film not to be scored by Mark Mothersbaugh, who he of Devo and of who who's who scored our most recent cinemas?

matt (25:22.347)
Wes Anderson. He's scored a bunch of Wes Anderson stuff. We mentioned that last episode. Nice.

Tug McTighe (25:23.411)
Yeah. Yeah, he's a he's a Wes Anderson guy. So anyway, thirty eight tracks. It includes fourteen other songs, including Sign of the Times by Harry Styles, Two of Us by the Beatles, Rainbows by Dennis Wilson, and Gracias a la Vida song by Mercedes Sosa. So as a giant Beatles fan, the needle drop for two of us was especially satisfying. of course these two liked each other, Rocky th Rocky and Gray Sat

That is, way more than Lennon and McCartney liked each other toward the end. and I wanted to give one important detail from the book that was left out of the movie. The the four unmanned return probes that were in Hail Mary, that were s he was supposed to put all his data and info and when you solve the problem sent us the info. They were named Beatles because the guy, Steve Hatch, was the character in the book, loved the Beatles. And of course they were John Paul, George, and Ringo.

matt (26:20.716)
Remember that.

Tug McTighe (26:21.331)
And right, they were supposed to be loaded with the data. And then in the book there was a prototype that they didn't use named Pete, because Pete Vest, of course, was the Beatles drummer before he was fired for Ringo. So little inside Beatles gags there.

matt (26:33.374)
Yeah.

Nice. first trailer was released June thirtieth, twenty twenty five. It was the most viewed trailer for any original film in the last let me say it again. It was the most viewed trailer for any original film in the first week of its release, accumulating four hundred million views globally, and I remember that being a big deal. They really there was a lot of hype around it. Lego Lego released a model of the Hail Mary spacecraft as part of the Lego icon series.

Tug McTighe (26:56.298)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tug McTighe (27:04.405)
it's a sick Lego set. It so in the movie, as you recall, when he wants to get gravity they push out that piece and it goes out on those wires and then they start rotating around it. Well the Lego set actually does that. You pull a lever and twist the thing and it goes out and then it can turn it's just cool Lego engineering.

matt (27:17.735)
wow.

matt (27:23.136)
I feel like once my kids are out of the house and out of college I can j I'll just have tons of disposable income to buy toys. Pretty much.

Tug McTighe (27:29.577)
Buy all the toys you want.

Tug McTighe (27:33.808)
it was released on March twentieth in four thousand theaters. was released in IMAX. film was released on digital streaming May twelfth. Man, again, that's quick. yeah, prime video on June eighteenth and July third. Okay, wow, just crazy. And then it'll be out on Blu ray, etcetera, etcetera, here in a couple of weeks in August. and then of course there'll be a three disc giant set. I hope we get that three hour and forty five minute cut.

matt (28:01.494)
You might. That might be worth having getting with all sorts of extra bonus content and such.

Tug McTighe (28:06.281)
That's right. Speaking of bonus content, if you're looking for marketing content, you've come to the right place. Ryland Grace, of course, is not a marketer. But when he wakes up alone in deep space with no memory, no crew, and somehow still has to save humanity, he's under a lot of pressure. If your business feels like it's drifting through the cosmos with a website from twenty twelve and a logo that screams Microsoft Clipart, our sponsor Little Bear Graphics can help.

They're a small but ridiculously talented design for him that creates websites, logos, social media campaigns, branded apparel, and more. Basically everything you need to make your lit brand look brighter than the Petrova line. Think of Little Bear as your own Rocky. Brilliant, dependable, and capable of solving problems you didn't even know you had. So check out little bear.graphics today. Astrophysics? No. Great design? Yes. Fist my bump!

matt (28:54.656)
That's my bum. and you don't have to have an astronomical budget to work with us here. Hey let's talk about the cast.

Tug McTighe (29:00.447)
Yay There we go. Yeah.

matt (29:06.836)
as we mentioned, Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace. did you notice apparently the ship's called the Hail Mary and he's the only one in it, so it's a Hail Mary full of Grace. Somebody I don't know if that's real, but somebody said that. he's a middle school science teacher and former molecular biologist on a mission to save humanity. Well, he wa reluctantly, but he's on it. this is his first cinemas' appearance in a dramatic role.

Tug McTighe (29:16.268)
Não! WERU!

Tug McTighe (29:30.047)
Right.

matt (29:34.658)
But there's a lot of humor. He brings in Aperless humor to it.

Tug McTighe (29:36.189)
Yeah, he brings that he brings that gossling persona to everything. Yeah, even ev yeah, some stumbling and and crashing and stuff like that for sure.

matt (29:40.586)
And physical comedy too. He can play that

Yeah, for being like a handsome movie star he can play the gawky nerdy nerd. So he was the only actor even considered for this part. And they said, We want you and he said, Great.

Tug McTighe (29:48.029)
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Tug McTighe (29:53.268)
Yeah, once yeah, once I Yeah, I'm in. Alright, Sandra Huler as Eva Stratt, the head of the international task force behind Project Hell Mary. Apparently she's a pretty big star outside of the US. This was her first English English speaking role.

matt (30:06.22)
The Netherlands Yes, her first American film. James Ortiz Ortiz.

Tug McTighe (30:14.869)
Why don't you go back? I think that's Ortiz.

matt (30:17.494)
James Ortiz as Rocky, an alien Grace encounters on his journey. The character is affected through a puppet controlled by a team of five puppeteers, led by Ortiz, who I believe is like a renowned puppeteer in Puppeteer.

Tug McTighe (30:30.323)
Yeah, he he in in that behind the scenes content if you look when you go look at it, y he's he's been on Broadway like operating the King Kong puppet, operating the horse from the aqua I can't think of what it's called, but there's a a horse p a play about a giant horse, some of that the puppets in Lion King. So he's one of those guys. Just been around.

matt (30:55.51)
Yes, his team was called the Rocky Tears. He which is funny, the team of Puppeteers. as we mentioned, Ortiz also provided the voice.

and had an uncredited role as a T V presenter presenter. So you'll see him earlier in the movie reporting on the news. I thought it was funny that again I kn I know why they did this, that Rocky's voice it was just a computer translating written words into spoken words, but it managed to have volume control and intonation and emotion and which it would not actually, so that's why. No. Alright.

Tug McTighe (31:20.201)
But yeah. Right and this Yes, this is you taking yourself out of the narrative, sir. I pull you back in. Lionel Boyce was Carl, a security personnel that was assigned to Grace, best known as Marcus from the Bear, the T V show The Bear.

Ken Young Ken Lung as Yao Li Ji, the Chinese commander of the Hill Mary spacecraft. He maybe are that guy. I've seen him before in quite a few things.

matt (31:49.713)
his when he speaks to them at the beginning in ch in Chinese and Strat speaks back to him and they laugh. and Ryan Gosling's like, What did you just say? Apparently he says, Why does he speak to us as though we're children? And she says he always talks like that. So that was the line.

Tug McTighe (32:05.493)
okay. I see. Very good. Melania Vaintrubb, Lily from ATT and then a handful of other folks that don't much matter 'cause they were backup scientists, etcetera, etcetera. Now additionally I do want to mention this. Eunice Hoothart, the film stunt coordinator, so more stunt co coordinator love on cinemases. Damien DeFrobreville, co president of Sony Pictures Animation,

matt (32:13.922)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (32:34.491)
Ray Porter, the audiobook narrator, I'll talk about Ray Porter in second. And Meryl Streep herself provided the rejected alternate voices for Rocky. That was a funny bit. When it's like when it's like Rocky thinks no, nope, too scary. And then there was one that was like, gosh. jeez. Right. And then literally Meryl Streep. But Ray Porter did the audiobook narrator and and does all the voices in that narration. And it is widely

matt (32:43.714)
That was a funny bit.

matt (32:47.853)
Right.

Breathy, sexy one.

Can you

Tug McTighe (33:03.261)
renowned as one of the best ever performed audiobooks in the history of audiobooks. So everybody says don't e if you haven't read this, don't read it, listen to it because of Ray Porter's narration. So very exciting.

matt (33:10.107)
very good.

matt (33:14.498)
Okay. Yeah the Meryl Streep was funny. Is there is there anything she can't do, he says.

Tug McTighe (33:18.125)
Is there anything she can't do? Yeah. At the end of the day it's they're in a they're in the spa Hail Mary trying to figure this shit out. So Alright. So in 2032, American Middle School teacher and former molecular biologist, widely overqualified for his science teacher role there, Ryland Grace wakes up from an induced coma on the interstellar spacecraft Hail Mary suffering from amnesia. He learns that he is a sole survivor of a three-person crew that was traveling towards the Tau Ceti system.

matt (33:20.334)
So slim cast. I mean and really it's gosling and rocky.

matt (33:27.682)
Let's talk about that.

Tug McTighe (33:47.261)
Eleven point nine light years from Earth.

matt (33:49.783)
Okay, so all for all you graphic designers and advertising pros who are not required to know math or science or anything like that to do our jobs, a light year is the distance that light travels in a year. So this would be twelve of those, which means if you're traveling the speed of light, which of course you can't, it would still take twelve earth years to get there. Okay. Early on. Yeah. I'm saying there's I'll say this later. There is s for a show about science

Tug McTighe (34:09.381)
So it's far, you're saying.

Tug McTighe (34:19.247)
yeah.

matt (34:19.52)
Embracing the science, there's a lot of non science in this.

Tug McTighe (34:22.365)
Yeah, for sure. for sure. through a series of flashbacks, we get Grace's backstory that Earth scientists discovered a Petrova line, because the person who discovered it was called Petrova, of infrared light stretching from the sun to Venus. There is a substance in that line that they call astrophage, and it was proliferating on the sun's surface, dimming the sun at a rate that would cause catastrophic global cooling within thirty years. So it's literally eating the sun.

It's like the sun got sick, they say at one point. The head of the now created newly created Petrova task force, Eva Strat, recruits Grace to study this Petrova line because he's got a background in speculative astrobiology.

matt (35:05.292)
Yes. He had said at one point that he believed that there were organisms that didn't need water at all and that aren't carbon based and she thought this is the kind of person I need for this project.

Tug McTighe (35:11.039)
Correct.

Tug McTighe (35:15.315)
Yeah, he's Why'd you come to me? And she's like, Did you write this? And she throws this paper down and he goes, Yeah, that's what got me fucking fired and kicked out of the scientific community because I thought I was a frickin' moron. And she goes, Yeah, well we think there's something interested in it. That we we think there's something interesting in it. spoiler alert, he was wrong. It was water. but that's why she she she she said, I need somebody who can think about this differently than everybody else is thinking about this.

matt (35:34.401)
Right.

Tug McTighe (35:44.016)
so he goes into the they bring him into the lab, they give him like eight astrophages. He's like, How much do I have? And they're like, Well that's what we got. The this little bit. So he does this he does all this testing and he learns that it's composed of a unicellular organisms that absorb the electromagnetic radiation from the sun and expel it for propulsion. And that reminds you of something that you do

In your spare time.

matt (36:14.274)
Yes, as a beer brewer, an amateur beer brewer, but an experienced one, yeast kind of does that. it it consumes sugar and expels CO two and alcohol is what you get. That's why you put yeast in it to turn your sugary water into beer.

Tug McTighe (36:21.279)
Right.

matt (36:32.458)
And it's also in this movie, Astrophage is kind of like the force. It's a magical substance that we can harness, and it's also a MacGuffin. Wouldn't you say it's a MacGuffin? But it's the most interesting MacGuffin I've ever seen in that it is both the point of it and the way to solve it. It's the problem and its own solution.

Tug McTighe (36:37.789)
huh.

Tug McTighe (36:41.227)
it's a thing, astrophage.

Yeah, correct.

Tug McTighe (36:52.115)
Yes, correct. Because it That's right, because they the only reason they can get there fast enough is because Astrophage they turn it into a fuel, 'cause it's really efficient fuel. And they can yeah, they can pro prop use the propulsion to get themselves out out to the

matt (37:03.138)
Yeah.

matt (37:09.536)
Okay, but also the problem with light speed is not that you can't go fast enough. It has to do with mass and all sorts of stuff. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (37:15.559)
No, the problem with light speed is that you're actually time traveling. Cause if you watch Interstellar, Christopher Nolan, remember they're down on that planet with a different gravitation and the guy's like, I've been waiting twenty three years and it only felt like they were down there for a couple hours. So there's all this if you go Google time travel Carl Sagan Cosmos TV show and there's a episode about it, if you could ride your bike faster than the speed of light and you left your friend, by the time you got back there he would be an old man.

matt (37:26.541)
Yeah, yeah.

matt (37:43.843)
Right. And I think part of what they did in this movie is did they explain it or did they not? It okay, so it had something to do with the r the reason he got there in four years was that not only was he traveling at the speed of light or close to a which is BS, but also the

Tug McTighe (37:44.799)
But again.

Tug McTighe (37:52.137)
No.

matt (38:08.238)
point of departure was moving away at half the speed of light, so yeah.

Tug McTighe (38:12.821)
Right. When you read the book, there's pages and pages of these explanations that all sound reasonable and that's what keeps you going. but we'll talk about reasonable science as well later on. so so he joins the the Project Hail Mary, the long shot mission is send a crewed spacecraft to Tal City, the only star in Earth's solar neighborhood not occluded by astrophage, so not being affected.

matt (38:19.97)
Yeah, my head was dark.

matt (38:26.679)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (38:42.579)
The flight to Tal City to to your all of your points would be a suicide mission 'cause there's no way to get back. It takes too long and we can't put enough fuel on there. and then you just have to send these findings back on these on the Beatles, these space probes.

matt (38:47.927)
Right.

matt (38:55.982)
Right. I was laughing 'cause you said a crude spaceship. You meant a spaceship with a crew. But as though it was just like we just threw the shitty spaceship together. I know it's a little crude, but it'll get you where you need to go. Right.

Tug McTighe (39:02.157)
a crude. A c a a spaceship with a crew. Now this is a shit This thing is crude. There's not even a toilet. Jesus. yeah, like I said, there's a shit ton of science in this book. And it's science of the junk science variety like we got in Jurassic Park when they're like, So what we did was Dinosaurs were bitten by mosquitoes. Sap ran over the mosquito.

There was dinosaur blood and henceforth DNA in the mosquito. We extracted that DNA and made dinosaurs. And you go like this. You go maybe I'll just go with it. Okay, if you say so. Alright, you go, Matt.

matt (39:39.798)
Okay.

matt (39:50.827)
In the present, Grace encounters an alien spaceship that docks with Hail Mary and that was a fun kind of an exchange where he's throwing something to him and he has to catch it and figure out a piece.

Tug McTighe (39:57.47)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (40:01.648)
Right, and he at first he Grace is like he sees the giant spaceship and he he hits his thrusters and he goes he goes, Whew, got rid of them, and then it goes, Whoop comes up next to him, then he goes the other way and it goes, Whoop Right, and then it sends right it throws a th a gift to him that he has to catch. It it build the ship builds a tunnel like a big long tunnel over to over to R to Grace's ship. So yeah, that was a very

matt (40:12.691)
It's power now.

That was fun.

Tug McTighe (40:31.273)
That was an a fun meat cute in space. Yeah.

matt (40:34.316)
He was. it's good that he wasn't xenophobic. He he wasn't terrified. he found this solid form of xenon, so we know xenon is a gas, but this was solid xenon, which he's like, that can't be. But it kind of made him reevaluate everything. and he meets Rocky, who is a rock like alien, kind of like a spider from Erid, planet in the forty Iridani A system, I guess. Grace

Tug McTighe (40:38.398)
Right.

matt (41:03.948)
deduces that Iridian C via echolocation. I don't know how he deduced that, but he was right. And creates a machine translation system, kinda like a spee ET speaking spell, to interpret Rocky's musical language into English, which seemed to happen really fast. So I don't know if I was in the bathroom when that happened, but they went from not speaking to five minutes later having full-on conversation.

Tug McTighe (41:15.219)
Yep.

Tug McTighe (41:27.097)
So yeah, so he he he goes, We've got about three hundred words now and then suddenly they're just talking. Right. but again in the movie they dig they really do get through the no communication to full talking with no computer in the frame. 'Cause don't forget it's still a computer telling it. So instead it's just their talking. But again in the book there was a lot of description of this and even in the book they had the musical

matt (41:32.716)
Yeah. Right.

Tug McTighe (41:56.404)
the bar with the musical notes on it. So it's a really interesting language and I guess I've not listened to the audio book, but I guess it's really portrayed beautifully in that as well. How Rocky sounds.

matt (42:05.312)
nice. And you had a fun Close Encounters reference, the he does the five notes. That was pretty fun. Right.

Tug McTighe (42:09.309)
Yeah, there's right. No right. Yeah. So very fun.

matt (42:16.056)
So it turns out Rocky is a mechanical engineer and the sole survivor of the Iridian's mission is save their star from astrophase astrophage infection. So they figured out the same thing. They need to go to Tao Ceti, which is what we figured out. so they decide to work together.

Tug McTighe (42:30.303)
Correct. Correct. And that's there there's a ton of what am I trying to say, Matt? There's a ton of heart and sadness because Grace's crew passed and then he says, What wh why are you on this giant ship? and he goes, Just only Rocky. There were twenty three or however many he says, other Iridians, but they all die. Only only me.

matt (42:54.36)
Right.

Tug McTighe (42:58.289)
and he and then Ro Grace says only you and then Rocky says only us. So again you've got this beautiful theme of theme of friendship, yeah.

matt (43:06.83)
It was very sweet. we have another alien species by the way, that r f doesn't wear clothes. They're just naked. It's it's E.T. Close Encounters Aliens, Signs Aliens, they're going out into space just naked.

Tug McTighe (43:18.461)
Yeah, d yeah, yeah.

Tug McTighe (43:24.009)
The th they c they can travel right near light speed in these giant ships. They have no need of pants.

matt (43:32.002)
They just evolved past pants. I talked to my brother. it i it's worth considering that maybe humans are are the only beings in the universe that have a sense of shame to cover our sexual

Tug McTighe (43:44.726)
Right. Right. Well and and and now I will say that the all the aliens you've named are smooth. Down there. Like they're smooth like Ken. He too down there he was. I don't think we saw any let's call it an appendage hanging off. But we did anyway, we digress.

matt (43:53.954)
True.

I don't know if E T is. I mean I assume he has, but

matt (44:03.468)
No, I that's a good point. Maybe they lay eggs or something. I don't know. I don't know, pants. but as you said, Rocky and Grace work together. Rocky creates a little ball with his own environment in it, his own atmosphere, so he can come aboard Grace's ship and run around and

Tug McTighe (44:21.623)
yeah, 'cause it's really hot. It's like a pure ammonia. And yeah.

matt (44:24.556)
Right. And then next thing you know, he's he's like a bad roommate. He's Can you hear this? Yes. The whispering scene's funny.

Tug McTighe (44:29.139)
Yeah. Messy, messy, messy. Why trash? Why trash? So they're so they're looking at this petrol line, right? to this planet that they're near, Tau Ceti E, and which Grace names Adrian, and he names it Adrian because he's called his new friend Rocky, as in Rocky and Adrian, Adrian. and then they are studying it and they're like, Okay, wait, there's an entire

biosphere in this petroviline that's going off this planet. So Rocky then theorizes that the microbial organisms in Adrian's atmosphere are eating the astrophage, keeping the population in check. So really, really interesting.

matt (45:12.59)
Mm-hmm. Adrian was Adrian was Grace's name that he came up for Rocky's mate's name. That was a musical, really long musical name. So that's where that came from. And they had they had watched Rocky together.

Tug McTighe (45:21.917)
Yes, right. Right. sorry, I screwed that up.

That's right, 'cause 'cause Grace has that like dome of of earth stuff. It's like a screening room.

Tug McTighe (45:40.596)
Lost the plot. Where are we? I got it. I got it. Yeah, so Rocky Rocky theorizes that these organisms in Adrian's atmosphere are consuming the astrophage, keeping the population in check. So everything that they come up with is correct. They're they're doing it pretty fast. so again, I'm glad they sent the right guy. but then during all this

matt (45:44.069)
learning the grace. Start there.

matt (46:00.664)
Yeah, every time.

Tug McTighe (46:09.373)
Rocky says, What what are you gonna do when you go home? And Grace is like, I I can't. I don't have enough fuel. this was always a one way trip for me, buddy. And and he says, Well that's no good and Grace is like, I've made my peace with it and then Rocky says, Well, why don't I give you some fuel and you can get home? And he goes, Well, I don't want you to do that And he goes, It'll only be eight years He's like, Well, how long have you been here? And he's like, Forty three years. Like he's been he's been out there by himself forever

matt (46:36.11)
Because

Tug McTighe (46:38.655)
'Cause they live a really long time. But Right, but then Grace starts crying and Rocky goes, What I thought you said you made peace with it. And he's like, I totally was lying back there, man. No. I'm no way. And again, it's just that beautiful Ryan Gosling being gossling. So then he he he's gonna share some of his fuel so so him and Eric can get home.

matt (46:40.437)
yeah, he's a hundred and fifty years old or something.

matt (46:57.986)
Yeah, he was good.

Tug McTighe (47:06.749)
And then this is when Grace is really starting to get his memory back. He now recalls that a big Astrophage explosion killed the original on Earth. So the the crew he was with was the was the backups. And the the real crew they were they exploded in this terrible test with the Astrophage. So he's starting to remember it. And there's no time to ch trade

cha train replacements. So Strat asked Grace to join the mission and he but he's totally afraid and he's like I'm no I can't. I'm not gonna get in space Right he's like Spacewalk I can't even moonwalk. Right. He's mak

matt (47:43.821)
Yeah, and this was all done through flashbacks. So there were a lot of flashbacks in the movie. so I think they needed to establish that he considered himself a not brave, kind of a coward. But then he does all this heroic stuff anyway. He does do a space walk, which I wouldn't do. Like he put the suit on, like, well, I assume it'll be fine.

Tug McTighe (47:46.805)
All done through flashback.

Tug McTighe (47:53.777)
A coward. Correct.

Tug McTighe (47:59.272)
Right. Right. Right. I gotta go out there and I gotta drop the ball into the thing and right. So it's i i it

matt (48:09.91)
I didn't really buy it but I get why they had to establish that s for him to get past it. For some kind of character growth.

Tug McTighe (48:12.817)
Right, right, right. but again that's right, that's the point of his character arc. That Carl remember in the first act, Carl, his security guy, says, You know who you are, you're gonna be fine, you're good. he he solves all these to to the point, he solves all these problems, he's super bright. and and you know, it just reminds me, right, of in romantic comedy, when you have the characters that hate each other in the beginning, you just know they're gonna be together in the end.

And as they've set up this, this guy doesn't want to do this, he's scared, he's just a teacher, he failed in his his science career. You you know he's gonna win. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows but him. Right? That's the growth.

matt (48:53.261)
Right.

Tug McTighe (48:56.245)
You go.

matt (48:58.414)
Is that your dog still? Ha ha no worries. During a risky maneuver to gather the astrophage predator

Tug McTighe (48:59.765)
Yeah, just that's

matt (49:07.778)
This is the bacteria that's keeping the astrophage in check from the atmosphere. there's a fuel leak and the Hail Mary's spinning out of control. Grace gets knocked out, and Rocky has to break out of his ball. The only way to save Grace is for him to s subject himself to Grace's atmosphere, which of course is toxic. There were some really beautiful special effects in this. The

Tug McTighe (49:24.533)
Atmosphere, yeah. Right.

He's kinda burning.

matt (49:33.89)
Well, I mean even the the planet, like showing

Tug McTighe (49:36.357)
unb no, unbelievable. The spinning of the ship and the and the gravity being gone and st and coming yeah.

matt (49:40.493)
Yeah. I think that was funny, Rocky thinks it's boring. He wanted to name it like plain, dull plain planet. Yeah, 'cause he can't see anything 'cause he doesn't have eyes. So he just echolocates stuff. So and then Rocky Sacrifice really tugs with the art strings there and as you mentioned, he he has no face and he moves around like a spider and even so he's surprisingly lovable.

Tug McTighe (49:46.407)
Right, it's really Right. Pla plain or plain ordinary planet.

Tug McTighe (50:02.196)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (50:05.585)
Yeah, and and that is that that for me is miraculous and magical that they they brought him to life so well without hum without being humanoid. And you know w we talk about aliens in movies, they're almost always humanoid. They have eyes, mouths, nose, it doesn't look like ours. Like in Star Trek, as you know, you just get you either got a weird forehead or a weird nose, but you look like a human being otherwise. Maybe both. But I I think that's really really incredible what they did here.

matt (50:26.412)
Maybe both. Yeah.

Yeah, it was impressive and it was kind of a the risk. I mean it's a real risk. but an alien that's very alien, I l I like that.

Tug McTighe (50:35.699)
Hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Yeah. So Rocky, it saves Grace. Grace wakes up. And now Rocky's over on his side of the of the tunnel, just passed out. So y you're really worried for a long time that he's dead. because he's just not moving. And it feels like it's a while that he's not moving. so he's really, really injured. and then he wakes up and it's a great recovery scene. I missed you, buddy, and

matt (50:55.171)
Right.

Tug McTighe (51:05.823)
You know, he's hugging the glass ball and all this stuff, so really great. So they're studying Rocking Grace are studying the the captured astrophage predator. They call it Talmeba. and they s start to breed it so it can survive okay, and again, I'm just gonna I don't know how they did this, but they did. They selectively bred it to survive the nitrogen in Venus's atmosphere.

matt (51:31.756)
Sure. As one does.

Tug McTighe (51:32.604)
So that it can so it can live on Venus and eat the astrophage that's hurting Earth. Rocky's awake, he tells him what he's done, he tells they've solved the problem. There's a great montage of them doing karaoke. You say neither, I say, neither. Nope. You say either, I say, neither. Nope. Nope. they're looking at all the cool eating and Rocky says, I I like I like Earth.

matt (51:50.446)
Either either. No.

Yeah.

Tug McTighe (52:00.606)
Right, and then in my maybe favorite line of the movie, he's talking about his mate and he can't wait to see her and he says, Grace, what about your mate? And he goes, Well, I I had a had a mate before, but we're not together anymore. She's she's with Mark and Rocky Rocky goes, Rocky hate Mark So

matt (52:20.522)
That's pretty funny. And then Grace remembers starts remembering that Strat actually had him drugged 'cause he had to Yeah, he had to run away, and they they caught him and drugged him up. not very cool. In the book, you read it. I think he was angrier about it in the book than he was. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (52:26.415)
Yeah. She literally kidnapped him. Yeah. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (52:38.483)
He was much madder, yeah. Yeah.

matt (52:42.078)
I was laughing at this part. We're supposed to believe that Strat is just this cold bitch who it's easy to make these life or death decisions and she doesn't care. but they have to humanize her so you don't hate her. So she comes inside during the party, the kind of farewell, pre farewell party, and they're all doing karaoke, and someone has started singing a song, because we hear the beginning of it, and then just put her mic down and

Tug McTighe (52:58.73)
Right.

matt (53:06.576)
Strat comes in and picks up the mic mid song at a perfect moment and just starts singing the song and she has a beautiful voice. So I've never seen anyone do karaoke karaoke rather where they sing part of a song and are just done and then someone else wanders in and just takes over. I thought that was silly. But things that happen in movies, 'cause you want to get you wanting to do this. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (53:06.762)
He's a

Tug McTighe (53:11.657)
Right.

Tug McTighe (53:22.931)
Right. Picks it up. Right. she gives you some sh I gotta move the Yeah, it's let's move this along, Betty, right? so I do wanna tell you this about her being a cold hearted bitch and about her kidnapping him and doing this against his world. In the novel she acknowledges that she's gonna be tried and imprisoned by the government the world government's

For these extreme auth authoritarian abuses of power that she's made. And she goes, as soon as this thing launches, I'm going down because my global any authority I had is expires. She she basically commits fraud, misappropriation of funds, and kidnapping. Also in the book, Matt, she orders a desperate a desperate plan where they detonate hundreds of nuclear weapons in Antarctica.

matt (53:56.93)
Uh-huh.

Tug McTighe (54:18.685)
To release trap methane gas to warm the earth. So yeah, so she's she's kinda like Thanos, Matt. Only only Strat has the will to do what needs to be done. Yeah, so there's a lot there. and and again, so they figured out the Talmeeba. Rocky gives him enough Talmeba to get home and he says, but he says, I'll get just get home eight years later, is what Rocky says.

matt (54:22.061)
Wow.

matt (54:25.964)
Right.

matt (54:30.402)
my god.

Tug McTighe (54:48.453)
a and they begin their journeys back home. And now, Matt, we break into the third act where everything falls apart. Wouldn't you agree?

matt (54:57.004)
Yes. We thought they were set, right? He's just gonna head home. And before you know it, there's a flashing red light, which is always bad in a movie. And it turns out that the Talmeba has evolved to escape its breeding tanks and it's starting to consume the astrophage fuel.

Tug McTighe (55:06.26)
Never good.

Tug McTighe (55:17.235)
Right, and everything was made by Xenonite 'cause Rocky had a whole ship made of it and that's what they're using for everything. So it learns how to escape the Xenonite.

matt (55:24.938)
Right, but his whole ship Rocky's whole ship is Xenonite, it's gonna be even worse for him. it's gonna eat all his fuel.

Tug McTighe (55:28.575)
Correct. Right. And then and I can't remember Matt if it's at this moment. I think it's before, but Grace surmises that the Rocky's crew was too close to the Xenonite or too close to the Talmeba or the the Astrophage. It gave them radiation poisoning. There was some There right there were some connects in there. So anyway, carry on.

matt (55:48.332)
Yeah, and that they don't know what radiation is or something.

yes, so he and part of the story going going throughout was that he didn't Grace didn't have anybody. Like he was he didn't have kids, he wasn't married, his parents are dead, he doesn't care about he doesn't have anybody to care about. And this was the moment where he makes a choice that he cares about Rocky more than he cares about getting home. So

Tug McTighe (56:02.463)
Correp. Yep. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (56:09.844)
Right.

Tug McTighe (56:15.903)
Correct. So what does he do? Turns around.

matt (56:18.586)
he turns around, he uses his the fuel he's got left to go rescue Rocky and get to Arid and he sends his video logs and his samples to Earth. honestly I was kinda scienced out by this point.

Tug McTighe (56:31.285)
Yeah. well this is the friendship Winsall moment, right? Like you said, he had nobody. Even Grace says that to him. Yo your parents are dead, you don't have anybody. You're the perfect person to do this. And he's like, but I'm not. But he you are. Obviously, you've solved the problem. and and again, this is only together could they do this, right? Like when Rocky said, he Grace says only me, and he goes, No, only us.

matt (56:50.122)
And he was. Yeah.

matt (57:01.718)
Right. They needed each other. and you know, i and he gets to return the favor. Rocky saved him and now he's gonna save Rocky.

Tug McTighe (57:10.217)
Now he says that. Yeah, so we cut to Strat and her team re s receiving the probes, the Beatles. You'll note she's in a base a a winter hat and a coat, so the earth must be cooling. There's a little

matt (57:23.212)
Yeah, and she's on a ship I think the same ship she was in, but surrounded by ice flows now.

Tug McTighe (57:28.371)
That's right, so it's all cold now. so they use the Talmba to cure the Earth's astrophage problem. sorry, the sun's astrophage problem. And then we cut back to Arid and Grace wakes up in a apartment and he gets his coffee and the robot Mary from the ship is there, and there's a knock at his door and it's an impatient knock and

He opens a door and you look out and you see this landscape of a of a earth beach and these mountains and then the camera tilts down and who's there in a little suit? But Rocky, because they've built him this biodome where he can live, because they're very smart. And they're walking on the beach and he says, Can we talk about the water? And he's like, What problem? And he goes, First of all, it was boiling hot and then you fixed it, but now it's freezing.

matt (58:11.436)
Mm-hmm.

Tug McTighe (58:22.323)
And Rocky then goes out in the water and takes a swim and comes back. So it's just this really cute again moment where they're living together and they're friends and they're still together and they saved their planets and and then Rocky says, Hey, we now have enough fuel. Right? Our engineers have sorted this out So you can get home. And Grace kinda looks at him and is like, Well, we'll talk about it later. And then he goes into this room and there's like thirty

matt (58:22.37)
Yeah.

matt (58:47.832)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (58:51.975)
Iridian children and now he's teaching the k kids. And that's one of my favorite parts where he says something and then they're all like right. They're just having it they just fucking love him. so yeah. What right right? So but right because they didn't understand relativity.

matt (59:00.654)
Yes. Yeah, what's what's the speed of light and they just go crazy.

That was fun.

matt (59:13.547)
really?

Tug McTighe (59:14.761)
They didn't understand relativity. Yeah. That's why they they they they got there kind of not luckily but they didn't have any concept of of how long it was gonna take him to get there. So yeah. Alright, speaking of no concept, that's unlike our sponsor, Little Bear Graphics, they've always got a concept. In Project Timere, you know Rocky's favorite word, amaze. That's exactly what you want your customers saying when they see your brand. Amaze, amaze, amaze.

matt (59:16.673)
I get that.

matt (59:28.002)
Okay.

Tug McTighe (59:44.746)
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matt (01:00:16.406)
That's nice.

Tug McTighe (01:00:17.919)
Alright, so there you go, Matt. late on me. What do you think?

matt (01:00:22.796)
Okay, I'm rereading what I said. I've maybe mellowed a little bit. but when I was in high school when I was in high school I read Catch Twenty Two. You read Joseph Heller's Catch Twenty Two? and I thought it was amazing. I like, what a cool concept and this is such a great book. so of course then like I always did, I'm like, I gotta read all the stuff and I read a book called Good As Gold by Joseph Heller and it was the same shtick. It was the same bit.

Tug McTighe (01:00:29.587)
I like it.

Tug McTighe (01:00:36.285)
I read it, yes.

Tug McTighe (01:00:49.951)
Just the same yeah, right. Just the d same story but for it, yeah.

matt (01:00:51.45)
Different characters, different settings, but it's still catch it's still the catch twenty two idea. when I think back to the Martian, I think a lot of Andy Weir's books are gonna have the same kind of cadence, the same, there's a problem, we'll use science to solve it unless we can't, and then we'll just ma we'll just use magic or just gloss over it or whatever. I didn't I didn't get the whole

reliance on visual things. A, if you're if you have if the world's gonna die and and you're gonna put a ship together to send people for this suicide mission, I don't know that you're gonna go to the trouble to put in like a Star Trek style holodeck so they can That was or was not. and also if Rocky can't see anything, if like they when they show the clock and it's flat, and you d all he sees is a disc and

Tug McTighe (01:01:33.979)
Right. That wasn't in the book.

Was not.

matt (01:01:48.379)
Grace has to kind of create three dimensional numbers. well the how a light based visual it's like watching a movie. How did he watch how did he watch Rocky? With no eyes.

Tug McTighe (01:01:51.327)
Correct, right.

Tug McTighe (01:01:58.538)
How did he watch the screens? Yeah. Well, he made that wand. I will say he made the wand that he would occasionally hold. But yes, plot.

matt (01:02:08.044)
Yeah. I don't know. I just feel i it's fine. I really I like the performances. I thought it was beautifully shot. I just think there's this we don't you can't say hey it's all about science until I just don't feel like having it be about science. It seems

Tug McTighe (01:02:18.025)
Yeah, you you were

Okay, so y tell me this, and I think I know the answer, but I well let me I'll start again. So tell me this. Did you feel the same way about the Martian as you did about the science in the Martian as you felt about the science here? Or did that adhere closely enough to to the science that you weren't taken out of the plot? Because clearly you were taken out of the narrative by this multiple times. And I don't

matt (01:02:48.396)
Yeah. No, I bought it in the Marshall.

Tug McTighe (01:02:50.237)
I don't remember you saying that like which by the way, hold on. I completely understand. This is way more of a f fantastical yarn than the Martian was. I Martian is like, we gotta math this up. It's all math. Right? You Yeah. And cool. And and we're done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Right.

matt (01:03:01.708)
Right. And I bought it. Yeah. It's like, hey, we're gonna MacGyver this shit and then you do it and it's you use science. There that there was less of that here. I will say I like this movie better than The Martian, in terms of having kind of an emotional pull and liking the characters and liking their relationship. I liked all that stuff. So that's why I'm kind of softening my my response.

Tug McTighe (01:03:24.991)
Sure. so you know how I feel. I love this movie, I love this book. I love that it's love that saves the day between these two creatures. I I said this to my family, we all went I made everybody see it because I was so obsessed with the book. And I said, I think we all needed this dose of optimism in our lives at this sort of particular juncture in our in our collective earthly timeline.

I love Gosling, I love Space Friend Rocky. and I think I shall watch this movie again because I just adore that especially that when they start working on the problem together, that is just a great you know, rewatchable half an hour, forty minutes. really fun. So

matt (01:04:09.474)
It was, it was a lot of fun. And in the Yeah. The some of the dialogue was really good. Some of the the fact that Ryan Gosling, that Grace was ir irritated by him at a certain point. That he's glossy.

Tug McTighe (01:04:20.319)
yeah, yeah, that we we didn't even talk about the when he when he yeah, when he's he's doing the video diary and he's like Because he doesn't see or hear in a traditional sense, there's no privacy. Who is Grace talking to? Okay. And then he gets quieter. He's like And I'm now try can you hear me? Yes, I hear you. Rocky hear you. He's like, There's no way you can hear me now. Rocky hear you fine. He's this is like having the roommate I never wanted So there's all this Ryan Gosling gossling shit.

matt (01:04:31.88)
Ha ha ha.

matt (01:04:41.518)
Right. Ryan Gosling is pretty good at I don't know how to put this. Like

Being affectionate in a way that doesn't seem weird or you know what I mean? 'Cause yeah, it's hard for guys to kind of sh show their feelings. He's really good at showing his feelings in a way that feels comfortable.

Tug McTighe (01:05:01.745)
Yeah. Yeah, but he's Yeah, and but it's it's it's real and it's but it's you know sort of wrapped up in a bit of comedy or ball busting, but it's it just but it's it's real. Yeah, he did he did this this is a whole character of Crazy Stupid Love, right? Of Jay he's this you know, he's busting this guy's balls, but it's 'cause he likes him.

matt (01:05:14.829)
Yeah.

matt (01:05:28.376)
Yeah.

Tug McTighe (01:05:28.979)
Yeah, anyway, he's really good at it. All send a hit or send a miss.

matt (01:05:32.363)
as you said, nice family fair. I thought it was way overstuffed and I had to work too hard to figure out what's going on. so I was kind of exhausted mentally by the end of it. if I'd been the people that watched the three hour and forty-five minute cut, I probably'd have would have jumped out of window. but I liked Ryan Gosling. I liked Rocky, I liked seeing some character growth with Ryan Gosling actually kind of becoming the hero he didn't think he ever would be, and finding someone, a friend to make a sacrifice for.

And finding that kind of friendship 'cause I think you needed it. So I would say mild synhit for me.

Tug McTighe (01:06:02.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (01:06:07.349)
Plus, on the Matt Laura Trova line of sci fi movie with alien or without alien, you got alien. And then we got more aliens with the kids. So you that had to make you happy.

matt (01:06:16.012)
Yeah, so b better

Yeah, sure. Maybe there will be a sequel.

Tug McTighe (01:06:22.451)
Alright. Okay. Thank you again for listening to Cinemisses. If you like what we're doing here, please help us grow the show by subscribing, sharing some episodes, or writing a review, it really does help. And even better, tell someone you think might like it to give us a try. Word of mouth is the best. We want to hear from you, follow and comment on socials, and please drop us a line at cinemasses at gmail.com with ideas to make the show better and records for movies we may want to cover. Please visit us at our website, cinemasis.com. Alright.

matt (01:06:50.752)
Next Cinemas. And what does our Cinemister think he knows? Have you seen this? well shoot, I don't know that I have either. Alright. Another rare. We are gonna watch Cloverfield.

Tug McTighe (01:06:57.076)
Nope.

Tug McTighe (01:07:01.607)
Okay. Well Okay, yeah. Well I thought you'd seen it, but either way I don't mind if you haven't.

matt (01:07:08.162)
Well, I think we're probably on the same boat here. What did you think you what do you think you know about this movie? Okay?

Tug McTighe (01:07:12.617)
JJ Abrams.

Matt Reeves directed it, who did the Batman and the upcoming Batman two, which I like. I know they worked on the show Felicity, which Sarah loved. But I don't know anything other than J. J. Abrams' mystery box and I think it's found footage.

matt (01:07:20.206)
Okay.

matt (01:07:27.659)
Okay.

matt (01:07:32.652)
Yes. I think it's

Tug McTighe (01:07:34.057)
when it or when it well when it maybe somehow connected the movie Super Eight, which I loved.

matt (01:07:39.178)
Okay, yes, I believe this is a monster movie. Possibly a kind of kaiju movie. I think it's a big monster. and yeah, JJ Abrams kind of fell off the face of the world, but I enjoyed his Star Trek run. I thought those were great.

Tug McTighe (01:07:42.311)
It's in that super Edo verse. Okay.

Okay.

Tug McTighe (01:07:54.932)
Me too. and Matt Reeves also Matt Reeves did those Planet of the Apes reboots, which I quite liked actually. I was a I was a giant Planet of the Apes fan when I was a kid. And I love those the I love that this recent round of movies I really liked.

matt (01:08:01.942)
Yeah, they made like ten of those. sure.

matt (01:08:08.756)
yeah, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. Well that's what it's gonna be next time. And meanwhile, thanks for joining us. I'm Matt.

Tug McTighe (01:08:15.517)
I'm Tug. That's a wrap. Kaiju!