Project Hail Mary Demonstrates More than Good Writing.

[00:00:00]One of the many, many interesting things about Project Hail Mary is that a synopsis could belong to the newest Ridley Scott blockbuster.

[00:00:07]>> A star-eating life form threatens all life on a global cabal headed by a ruthless and calculating leader kidnaps a scientist and forces him on a mission that is certain to end in his death.

[00:00:20]>> Sure feels like you're betraying me.

[00:00:22]>> Don't make this harder.

[00:00:23]>> But this isn't the tone of either the movie or the novel upon which the movie is based.

[00:00:28]>> We can't just show up in this baseball unannounced and move into someone else's spaceship.

[00:00:32]>> It has a much more hopeful take, and many people will say that this is because it has good writing. But I would disagree.

[00:00:39]>> Amazing. Amazing.

[00:00:40]>> Okay, I wouldn't actually disagree. It is well-written, but I want to take it a step further. It isn't just good writing. It's good storytelling, and I would say there is a gulf of distinction here. So, let's discuss Project Hail Mary and the art of good storytelling.

[00:00:56]>> [music] >> Project Hail Mary is a heartwarming and endearing story, and the box office numbers and overwhelmingly glowing reviews show that writers and directors don't need to be all dark and edgy to make a good movie and succeed with a broad audience.

[00:01:16]>> You can't just leave us here.

[00:01:17]>> Sir, we lost contact.

[00:01:21]>> With whom?

[00:01:23]>> Everyone.

[00:01:24]>> There is all of this room for discourse because the characters and their actions are not defined for the audience. Stratt is not portrayed as a straight-up villain, and Grace is not portrayed as a noble hero.

[00:01:37]>> I understand the stakes. I do.

[00:01:40]>> But I don't have it in me.

[00:01:41]>> There remains ambiguity and depth and room for growth and change in all of the characters, except for perhaps Rocky.

[00:01:48]And audiences are not directed to think this way or that way, but instead are invited to see these complex people and their choices and their actions and judge for ourselves how to feel about them. This leaves the audience thinking at the end of a movie, working it out themselves. The themes are more subtle, nuanced, and subject to our lenses, the lens of each individual audience member.

[00:02:14]We see the importance of friendship and collaboration, of course, but when I look, I see deeper themes present and in the most interesting and astounding ways. In the story, the alien life form that is dimming our sun is called Astrophage, or star eater in ancient Greek. It seems to be a simple, single-celled organism. It has no hive mind, no dark intention. It isn't here to punish mankind or hunt us for sport or for food or kill us all so it can steal our resources. It's just eating our sun because that is where it gains the energy for its method of reproduction. It will, without a doubt, cause the extinction of all life on Earth in a matter of decades and it has infected not just our sun, but every sun in our local cluster of stars except for one, Tau Ceti. It's a long shot, a Hail Mary, that the answer to how to stop the Astrophage before it destroys all life on Earth lies there, on that distant star. Humans haven't achieved long-distance space travel yet and in a wonderful twist, the very thing that is destroying us also gives us the means to save ourselves. The energy that the Astrophage absorbs can be used to solve the problem of long-distance space travel. Our destroyer is also our savior. Its physical appearance mirrors this duality. It's a mysterious little black dot, but under the right circumstances, Astrophage is also stunningly, wonderfully beautiful. And this fascinating dichotomy exists all throughout the story, not just in the Astrophage. Eva Strat is the woman that the UN has put in charge of saving the Earth from the Astrophage threat to the sun. In different hands, Strat might have been written as a straight-up villain. As it is, she who orders the bright, gentle science teacher to be drugged and put onto a ship headed to Tau Ceti, a one-way trip that she doesn't expect him to return from. In the book, Strat is a little less sympathetic than in the movie, but the written word can allow for more nuance, while on a screen you often have to make a point somewhat quickly and visually.

[00:04:11]So, Strat is reserved, but not cold when we first meet her. And later on, she gets this little karaoke scene where she sings a beautiful voice and great choice of song. It really got me in the feels.

[00:04:23]>> Remember everything will be [music and singing] all right.

[00:04:30]We can meet again [singing] somewhere.

[00:04:33]>> This unexpected moment of vulnerability gives Strat just enough humanity to make her later decision painful instead of the logical outcome of someone more one-dimensionally evil. She admits she doesn't really struggle with the idea of sending the team that is going to Tau Ceti to their deaths. She doesn't explain herself, which I love, because the audience is left to decide on their own if they agree or not. And she isn't painted as either a hero or a villain explicitly. Again, the audience is invited to think about her character and decide how to feel about her on their own. Even the protagonists of this film are given more character nuance than we tend to see in a lot of modern stories where heroes are often bland and palatable and boring enough for us to easily self-insert. Roy and Grace, played by Ryan Gosling, is the main protagonist. He's an intelligent yet shy guy who hasn't quite found out where he fits in the world yet. He's written scientific papers, but he's settled into teaching at a middle school. He makes awkward jokes in an attempt to connect with people, but even when that works out, he never seems to make a real connection. He's very open-minded and friendly, bouncing ideas off of the guard, Officer Carl, which proves to be very useful as he has a unique viewpoint and creative ideas to share. It is only with the help of Officer Carl that Grace is able to get the Astrophage to breed, and this becomes the main theme of the movie, not just with Officer Carl. After a tragic accident where both the main and the backup science officers for the mission are killed, Stratt confronts Grace and asks him to take up that post in order to help save all life on Earth.

[00:06:12]She gives him 3 hours to think about it, but really that was a small kindness on her part to try and give him space to pick the right option in her opinion, the only option. When he cannot find it in himself to go on a suicide mission, even to save the world, she has his friend, Officer Carl, drug him and then forcibly sent him on the mission. It takes Grace quite some time to recover all of these memories, which is an interesting plot device because we see some of his character growth before we know the depths of his, for lack of a better word, cowardice, which is excellent storytelling because they don't accidentally taint the audience's feelings about Grace before he gets to the main part of the adventure. So, we're free to see Grace as he is right now without all the baggage of his past behaviors. We meet the first Iridian, Rocky, when Grace's ship spots another alien spacecraft near Tau Ceti and investigates. Rocky is there for the same reason that Grace is, to figure out why Tau Ceti isn't dimming and doesn't appear harmed by the Astrophage, despite having a clear line of infection. After some funny introductions, we start to learn more about Rocky right along with Grace. Rocky has a really interesting creature design, and one of the details of this design really stuck out to me. I noticed he made this motion a few times where he brought his two legs tight together, and you could see a pattern on the front of them. This is Rocky's family crest. It is always shown in two pieces, and they must be joined in this way in order to be displayed. I love this detail so much because it is a beautiful echo of the theme of two things joining together to make something greater and a family not being a single thing but a joining together of multiple parts. Rocky's physiology means he can't really make a thumbs-up sign back at Grace. He can only make a thumbs-down.

[00:07:58]>> Thumbs up.

[00:08:01]It's close enough.

[00:08:02]>> Of course, on Earth a thumbs-down is pretty unambiguously a bad thing, but having Grace adapt and accept the thumbs-down to mean something positive demonstrates that communication is a cooperative process. The rules aren't fixed. They're malleable. They just need to be agreed upon and understood by all parties and this is exactly what they're doing with the audience as well, encouraging us to be open-minded about the things we might have thought had definitive meaning and to be free to reinterpret the things that we normally wouldn't have given a second thought to.

[00:08:34]As the two astronauts work together to save their respective dying home worlds, the audience isn't merely observing a by-the-numbers sci-fi plot. They're drawn into a collaborative step-by-step process of decoding language, solving complex physics problems, and building trust across species. This participatory connection amplifies the emotional weight of their character arcs. Grace's evolution from a reluctant, self-preserving scientist into a true hero culminates not in a grand gesture to save the Earth but in a deeply personal choice to risk everything for a single individual. An individual who happens to be both an alien and the closest friend Grace has ever known.

[00:09:16]Mirroring Grace's arc, Rocky's own journey sees him ultimately willing to sacrifice precious time away from his beloved mate to save Grace's life.

[00:09:24]Remember that Rocky has been away from his family for 47 years already. Six more years is not an insignificant sacrifice even in a species as long-lived as Rocky's. I believe that by grounding the survival of two civilizations in this beautifully intimate friendship, the narrative transforms the audience from passive spectators into active stakeholders in an alien, but also very relatable story about connection, growth, and how we can make each other better. So, why do I say this isn't just good writing, but good storytelling? I think that anyone with sufficient intelligence and training can write coherent, mechanically, and stylistically sound prose. Good storytelling is an art, one that involves the audience, invites them to not just consume, but to participate. A writer builds a story like an architect designing a house. The house must make sense, the layout must be functional to live in, but a storyteller fills that house with furniture and paintings and knickknacks and turns it into a home. I might be belaboring this metaphor a little too much. This movie, though, felt to me like a very cozy, well-lived in home. This is a story that people really needed right now. It took a dark premise, but focused on themes of friendship and growth and how we can make each other better. It was a much-needed ray of sunshine in a troubled world. Hi, I'm Sindaria. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs-up. It really does help the algorithm push it out to other people who might enjoy it as well. And please consider subscribing to my channel, where we analyze all sorts of movies, television shows, and music videos. I would like to thank my patrons who are my rock because I can always depend on them. They make everything I do on this channel possible, and if you're interested in joining my Patreon, where I do have Patreon-only content a couple of times a month, and we have a monthly sort of hangout, please check it out in the description below. So, I do hope you enjoyed this analysis of Project Hail Mary, and I will see you next week. As always, thanks for watching. Bye.

[00:11:30]>> [music] [music] >> Woo!