“Project Hail Mary” is a 2021 science fiction novel by Andy Weir, the author of “The Martin” and “The Artemis,” that has been recently adapted into a movie. Project Hail Mary starts with the main character, Ryland Grace, waking up on a spaceship with amnesia and millions of miles away from Earth, accompanied by two dead crew members. He has no memory of why he is there, where he is going, or even who he is. Slowly, Grace starts to remember things about himself and why he is there. He remembers that Earth is being harmed by the presence of something unknown in space, and he is the one who needs to fix it.
In the book, Ryland Grace is a witty, brilliant molecular biologist and an 8th-grade teacher. Grace is described physically as tall with an athletic build, sandy blonde hair, and blue eyes. Grace’s physical build is said to have been due to the coma that he was put into on the ship, and he was not athletic before the coma. Grace’s knowledge of molecular biology comes to the test when he has to manage the ship alone after both of his comrades died in a coma and find out how to stop this problem.
While Grace was working to solve this problem, he ran into a fascinating discovery. Grace runs into another life form from a different planet, which he names Rocky. Rocky is an alien from the planet Erid, which is in a different solar system than Earth. He is described as a pentagonally symmetrical alien that resembles a spiky, rock-like spider, and he communicates through musical chords and sees through noise due to his having no eyes. In the book, he is described as a loyal, brilliant engineer whose planet is going through the same thing as Earth. After discovering that they both had the same mission, Grace and Rocky decided to work together and save both of their stars.
I read Project Hail Mary after never having read any other science book before, and I totally recommend it to everyone. This is one of those books you have to trust the process before judging it. Project Hail Mary started off slow, but once you push past that, it starts to be really interesting, and without wanting to, I did learn a lot of things.
There were also a lot of funny parts in the book, especially when Rocky was learning English, and the chemistry between Grace and Rocky was fantastic. The chemistry and the funny parts of the book made me not want to put the book down at all, and I ended up finishing it in two days due to this factor.
Four years after the book was published, it was officially turned into a movie, just like Andy Weir’s other movie, “The Martian.” Ryland Grace was played by Ryan Gosling, and Rocky was voiced by James Ortiz and puppeteered by multiple other people. Compared to the book, not much changed when it came to the appearances of both Grace and Rocky. They were both pretty similar when next to the book.
In the movie, there were a lot of original songs that were made just for this, including “Humanity,” “You Were Loved,” “Grace Has Mate,” “A Moment,” “Life Is Reason,” “Time To Go Fishing,” “Believe In The Hail Mary,” and “Amaze, Amaze, Amaze.” There were also some songs that were not made for the movie that were included, like “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles, and “Two of Us” by the Beatles.
When talking about the movie and the book, in my opinion, I did love both of them, but the one difference I would say about the two is what they were focusing on. In the book, it was more focused on the mission and how both needed to save their planets, and the movie focused more on their friendship and how close they grew in this one spaceship. This difference did not make me love one over the other; it actually made me love both and made me want to reread and re-watch them. The one thing that I really loved in the movie was that it was very emotional and made your heart break many times, even over small things.
When reading the book, I only had two quotes that were in my top two, but in the movie, it was hard to for sure choose a top 2, so I found my top 4 quotes from the movie. The first quote that I loved was Rocky saying, “Amaze, Amaze, Amaze.” This one is only based on the humor of it, and it just makes you love Rocky even more. My second quote is when Rocky says, “Grace Rocky saves stars.” I like this quote cause I feel like it just describes the movie perfectly and is a phrase that you can’t forget. My third quote is when Grace and Rocky are talking about mates, and Grace asks, “How long?” and Rocky responds with “187 years.” Grace then says, “That’s a long time,” and Rocky responds with “It’s not enough.” I like this quote because I feel it describes life perfectly and how you find someone that is alike to you, and no matter how long you are together, it still is not enough. The last quote that I loved from the movie was Rocky saying, “Rocky watch crew die … .could not fix… Grace say Grace will die…Rocky fix.” I think this quote is probably number one from me only due to how much this line broke me, and I think it just made me love Rocky so much and love the relationship between Grace and Rocky.
After watching the movie, I think there are three songs that, in my opinion, perfectly describe the plot of Project Hail Mary. The first song that I would choose is obviously “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles. This song is practically the theme song of this movie because it was featured in multiple advertisements, and it was in the movie during a karaoke scene, so in my opinion, it does match. The second song is “Let Down” by Radiohead. I chose this song because when listening to it, I think it describes every emotional scene that happens in the movie, and it just matches the vibe of Grace and his thinking about the mission. The last song that I think matches this movie is “Drag Path” by Twenty One Pilots. I chose this song because it matches some scenes that are in the movie and some plot twists that absolutely destroyed me when reading about it and watching it.
After watching and reading Project Hail Mary, I have to say that both were fantastic and honestly deserve a lot of awards for acting and plot. I would recommend this to anyone who loves movies and books about friendships and people who are looking for something that will make them bawl their eyes out and leave them emotionally drained for months on end.
