Project Hail Mary Watch A Long
Hey Peaches! Thanks to y'all we went into this movie COMPLETELY blind. We never saw a single trailer for this film so we had no idea what it was about. And it was the best decision. We were blown away time and again by the twists, turns, and emotions as Ryan Gosling tries to save the world(s). Strap in, we get really teary in this one.
Comments (32)
2:18:00, do you want the answer babyboys? Relativity is a b*tch, lol There was never any shot for Mary to send the info back in less than 23.8 years (Earth time) I've done the math. (t was about 27-28 yways Earth time, and ~9 years for Grace.
my friends and I watched this in theaters and we collectivly agreed that this film was such a breath of fresh air with everything that's going, with personal events, this was just so nice. Like there's heavy stuff going on but it's still hella uplifting. Like it felt like we were hugged at the end. I just needed this story more than I thought I did and when I needed it when it came out. It's great
I saw the last clip near the end of you two on twitter earlier and decided, hey, I NEED to see what these two guys thought of the movie. I'm in here blind with you both as I don't know your channel on yt before this (but I have seen the movie seven times LOL). 2m 45s in and I'm already enjoying the energy here, time to sit back and giggle at your ideas and reactions (and cry along too, because that is just what this movie does, oh my goodness.)
amaze amaze movie was very 👎👎
I read the book without knowing about Rocky and was so glad to be surprised by it! Not ashamed to say I burst into tears in the theater as soon as the Blip-A showed up. Wanted to yell, "Don't worry Grace, your bestie is coming!!" What a fantastic story.
Lord and Miller are responsible for three of my favorite things this year - Project Hail Mary, The Sheep Detectives, and Spider-Noir. The first two are my top two movies of the year so far.
Rocky was 50% puppet and 50% VFX
The audio book is amazing. The reader does a stellar job (pun intended) with the characters, and particularly Rocky.
hello long comment time hehe. I read the book beforehand and this was my most anticipated movie of the year. I saw this movie 8 times in theaters, this is watch number 9 for me (so special thank you!). Now, as for the puppet, yes there is a puppet Rocky and it was used for a lot of the shots however there are techincally 3 Rockys. The full-scale puppet, the animated version, and the animatronic. However even with the shots that are not the puppet, James Ortiz and his puppet team mapped out everything with a smaller scale puppet that was then used as reference for everything. So James Ortiz truly brought Rocky to life (also because he was just so good with Ryan he ended up becoming the voice of Rocky!) He deserves an award seriously. Anyways, there are a lot of practical shots in this because they made the effort to build most of the spaceship rooms for real. The closeup shots of Grace on the hull of the ship are all practical. I think it's a great feat that then the more widesweeping shots match so well, it's a testament to the wonderful vfx teams that worked on this movie. If you have the chance to access the directors' commentary I highly recommend!!! Phil and Chris sing the praises of everyone who worked on this (they say about 1,100 people) and they point out everyone's work from animation to sound design to even Steven Spielberg telling them they have to do the Close Encounters joke. The moment shot (with the infrared light) is partially practical with real ir light, it's cool to hear how they did it. I love this movie, I love what it respresents, and I am highly attached to the story of Ryland Grace. The world needed this.
A retroactive trailer reaction/review could be fun now that you guys have seen the film.
I inhaled this book when it first came out and I’m obsessed with the audiobook. That being said, I think this movie works better if you only have base knowledge or none at all. It’s an amazing sci-fi film, but my book loving brain kept wishing they’d had time for certain scenes or to expand other things in more detail. Doing it backward seems more rewarding. You already love the story and the characters and now (and I recommend you listen to the audiobook if nothing else), you get to enjoy the extended edition! This reaction is great, by the way. I was one of the people that hoped you’d react to the trailer, so I’m glad you both connected to it like I thought you would. And as other people have said, definitely look up some behind the scenes things for this. Adam Savage did a set tour and talked to the costume department, which was interesting. And there’s some stuff out there about James Ortiz and the other four puppeteers that brought Rocky to life (in particular the piece Black Girl Nerds did). Also, The Moment in the Petrova line close-up effect was apparently accomplished with blinking lights through chicken wire. Sorcery! I look forward to The Martian reaction. A movie just littered with Marvel actors and they’re able to keep a LOTR reference from the book but make it 100x funnier because Sean Bean is there. The audio book for that one is also fantastic and done by Wil Wheaton.
Jay's joke about speeding up global warming is actually true in the book, where they bring up things they are doing to buy more time for Project Hail Mary. The only ones we hear of are paving over a huge chunk of the Sahara with asphalt and nuking Antartica several times
I was gonna comment this as well! Those are some of the most saddest scenes I've ever read, confirming several animal species extinctions to be inevitable. Those scenes are still in my mind since I've read the book.
Now you should really watch the trailers! They're very well done and are actually incredible to watch all on their own.
Haven’t done the watchalong yet - LITERALLY in the middle of my first watch right now as he tries to figure out now to open the space football and get gravity back - but this is making me realize I need to give a recommendation: Real Genius! If you guys haven’t seen it, of course. But Val Kilmer’s character in that film was HEAVY inspiration for Gosling’s Dr. Grace - from mannerisms down to the fashion.
And YES it was mostly practical - as opposed to what that other commenter said: most of this was practical WITH digital artistry involved. The digital/CG artistry in this film cannot be discounted. But anyone trying to downplay the practical elements is probably someone trying to promote ai. This film was a beautiful mix of CG and practical effects, which honestly is what makes for the most compelling and tactical filmmaking. Tangible and real with enhancements that make it otherworldly. It was perfect in that execution. The puppetry and engineering and hard work on this film are groundbreaking. That sequence with Gosling in the red stars? Mostly practical. Most of his weightlessness is practical. The behind-the-scenes of this film is incredible, and directly shows how well cgi and practical effects can marry together in harmony, with each supplementing instead of overwhelming. And zero AI involved.
Half the time you said "It has to be practical" it's not. And don't let the internet tell you otherwise. There are about 2000 VFX shots in this film and quite a bit of that are Rocky. The animation team at Framestore did an amaze amaze amaze job at envoking the puppeterS type of movement. Now, the practical sets, the puppet of rocky puppeteered by a TEAM (not a single guy) were incredible. That's why some of the movements seem so alien because it's 5 heads controlling 1 body. They deserve so much praise! But you saying "it HAS to be a puppet" is just sign of how far this "it's all practical" false advertisement has got. And it discredits the hard work and artistry of hundrets of incredible artists around the world. Puppet rocky can't turn and can't do grand movements. However in the ones he got replaced or enhanced, the real puppet was a great reference for lighting and movement and texture to get him just right. Some will also tell you "there are no blue-screens" which is technically true, but the reason is the director being very particular about light and not wanting the spill on the set and reflections. So instead they used black backgrounds or anything fitting the lighting the set extension will have. Which means even more work for rotoscope and they too did an incredible job. That's also how they did the anti gravity scenes. Ryan Gosling was on an incredible rig with a ring around his waist. Which gave this amazing, fun performance. Also means for many of those shots his entire suit is CGI. Fantastic job by Framestore again. Loved your reaction! I did see the trailer and I did look up if the movie had a happy ending because I couldn't have watched it otherwise. So I was totally with you on the emotional roller coaster. How dare this rocky nerd, making us cry over and over >_>
There are more practical effects than you are alluding to here, and it’s disingenuous to say otherwise.
What did I ever do? You looked good as Wonder Woman.
There are two physical types of Rockys. One animatronic and one puppet, which uses a main puppeteer and four supporting puppeteers. James Ortiz is the main puppeteer behind Rocky.
You need to listen to the audio book.
the audiobook is an all time favorite for me.
Amaze amaze amaze!!!!!!!
So Jay, Carl was played by Lionel Boyce you knew him from playing Marcus in The Bear. Also Rocky's thumbs down was originally a mistake there was an issue with the puppet but they love it too much that they kept it in
Oh my gosh I cannot wait to watch this again with you guys! Glad to hear you liked it
Rocky was entirely a puppet, puppeted mainly by James Ortiz. He's done a lot of work on Broadway designing puppets for many productions and teaching actors how to operate them. He also wrote a play called The Woodsman about the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz that has almost no dialogue that's absolutely stunning. It's on Youtube if you wanna watch it.
How would I rate this movie...the best I have seen this decade.
They are hoping the pupeteer gets nominated for best supporting actor, as he also did the voice.
James Ortiz! I sincerely hope he gets it. He also made a brief cameo on the news segment in the first flashback Grace has.
I have never been more happy I didn't read a book before its movie adaptation, it made it so much more emotionally impactful!
sound volumes are much better. You truly are a tech wizard thank you!
I was the same way, didn't watch any trailers and I was in love with this movie. I was so emotionally invested.