We need MORE Hopecore | Project Hail Mary and Superman (2025)

Añadido: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]I want to talk about hope.

[00:00:03][music] I recently went to go see Project Hail Mary and it really got me thinking about it really got me in my feels. Okay, it was just a really happy movie at a time when I was not expecting to go into the movie theater and feel something positive, [laughter] uh something hopeful for a change. And so I wanted to make a video essay about it. And when I was thinking about how to frame it, I really started thinking back to when was the last time that I went to a movie and I felt that kind of hope.

[00:00:37]And for me, it was when I went to go see Superman last year in 2025. That was the last time that I left the movie theater feeling overwhelmingly like humanity was beautiful and things were going to be maybe not okay, but at least we were all in it together.

[00:00:57]Some people will say woke Superman, but that's my woke Superman. Okay, I loved it. It just felt like such a breath of fresh air, especially for a time in which most of the media that is kind of like marketed to us is either marketed as complete escapism, just like, you know, trashy fast food media or intense realistic grim dark. And so today I want to talk about these two movies and why I think that they are good examples of how to do a hope core optimistic narrative effectively and what about these two stories makes them work really well. I think that this is a theme that is beginning to pop up more and more and I'm honestly here for it, right? Like I think that this kind of like optimistic hope core is a is a solid maybe underground maybe only on my Tik Tok feed but I think that it is a movement and I hope it's I hope it's coming around and I hope that if you want it to come around you're you stick on board with me and hear me out. Okay.

[00:02:14]We've seen hope for in many take many different forms. Okay. I think the first experience I had with this idea of Hope Court is those little Tik Toks, you know, with somebody talking and I set it to inspirational music and then they throw a couple landscapes on it and they're like, "Hey, you got this, buddy.

[00:02:33]The world is dark, [music] but you got this, buddy." Or something like that.

[00:02:37]I've also kind of seen this like resurgence of these like aesthetics of solar punk which is this kind of like futuristic sciencefilled like technologyfilled world but instead of the technology being the dark and gritty and grim cyberpunk versions which are kind of like a a gray nightmarish usually capitalist hierarchical hellscape. you have this opposite opposing vision of solar punk, which is, you know, trees coming through buildings, spaceships with farms on them. Uh, you know, like cows and also robots together.

[00:03:19]That kind of vibe. I mean, I don't know if you guys have seen that girl on TikTok. I don't I don't remember her name. I feel like it's Ba Doobie, but that's not it. I'll put it up here. But she's been making cyber decks, but she's been making them like from things that she's thrifted and they're really like girly pop and cute. And so everybody is making like their own version of those things. Something that is like individual because you're a lot of people are like thrifting things or using their own like individual style and creativity to make them. But also it's also a community experience because people are helping each other. people who are, you know, maybe not even people who are girly pop, but just techie techy people will will come in and be like, "Hey, you should use this and this and this," you know, and we're helping each other source things and figure things out and together, you know, and it's so it is an individualistic expression of creativity, but it is also a community experience as well. And I think that that kind of like the interest in that and that kind of movement, I like it.

[00:04:22]But the idea behind it is this optimistic vision of the future that we can use our innovation which is in a lot of ways the best things about humanity and actually use that for good right and that is an idea that is like radically opposing what we are seeing in our lives currently have this idea that is opposing that I think hope core can be defined defined as not just an aesthetic like maybe a thematic universe of media, right? A media landscape in which the core principle is a positive view of the world that is not rooted in escapism. It's not rooted in like turn your brain off and just escape for a little while. It is rooted in facing the darkness of the world headon and in spite of that sometimes even because of it still having an optimistic view of the world. So things are not always going to just turn out turn out dandy but there is always hope to be found. And I think when it is done successfully, you see themes like technology helping the future. You see community over individualism. You see collective well-being prioritized over individual gain. I think that those kind of speak to hope core. It's more than just like Disney movie optimism, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, right? This is not a fairy tale in which a fairy godmother is going to come in and save you. That is not even of these Tik Tok hope videos, okay? A lot of times they start off with like very dark, you know, like things are awful, but you got to keep going anyway. Okay?

[00:06:27]You see what I'm saying? So, we are not in Disneyland. We are in something else.

[00:06:32]And I think that this hope these two movies I think that they are also kind of from that same genre of media if you will that same vibe. Even if their creators may not say that they are part of this, I think that their existence, I think that their resonance with audiences at large and in this particular time when we are seeing how technology and science and all of these things can hurt us or be politicized or you know cast aside for certain interests. I think that these movies in a lot of ways stand opposed to those ideas and that is why they resonate with people because it is saying that like the future is not just for some people.

[00:07:19]It is for all of us and there might be an individual hero in these stories but in a lot of ways that individual hero is working for the good of all of us. And in these movies in particular it's not just about that one lone white guy.

[00:07:37]Okay. Saving the world. He has to rely on other people. We all have to come together.

[00:07:44]>> Listen to your heart and you'll find the truth. Care Bears stare.

[00:07:52][music] I'm just kind of Can you see how many notes I have on this? Okay, there's not a lot of notes.

[00:08:02]One day I will write a script before I set up my camera to film. One day I will do that.

[00:08:10][music] We also have to do a little bit of level setting. Okay. A little bit of um actuallys. As I was getting ready to try to figure out like what to do with this video because like I said, I knew I wanted to make a video. I just was really trying to figure out how to frame it. But as I was doing that, Andy Weir went on some podcast. It's always a podcast, isn't it? And he made the comment that uh he really doesn't like when people make things political. He his writing is not political and if people look at it as political, then they're just putting their own spin on things. And I had a have in a way a lot to say about that and then also nothing at all because I am trying to make my videos shorter. I'm trying to make this video not 2 hours long.

[00:09:10]But these ideas that like our collective government funding could be used to fund science in order to save the world from a global issue that will result in our apocalyptic end.

[00:09:24]Right? or the idea of being able to work with somebody that does not speak the same language as you to approach them with kindness and uh you know cooperation instead of distrust and this idea of like I'm going to get mine to me that is also political. These ideas are not like political statements in the terms of like asserting a particular political ideology necessarily or trying to make a political statement about a particular thing. I don't think that you have to do that. But I think to say that those ideas are not politicized. It's just a little silly. It's just a little silly. Or that people like that people reading into that is just them being a little bit overdramatic. It's just a little silly to me. It's just it's just silly. And I think at the end of the day also I would say it also doesn't matter rec I am a recovering English major.

[00:10:19]Okay. The first thing that the that they teach you in your first literary criticism class is about the death of the author. And it does not actually matter what the author intended to say.

[00:10:31]Like the author is only half of the story, right? They may not have intended to say anything but because of the time that they lived in, what they were exposed to, um their view of the world and the time in which they are living, they are going to have some kind of like political underpinning because they are existing in a world as a human with a particular viewpoint that comes from their experiences of the world. That's just how it is. And also on top of that when you read something you are also experiencing it and interpreting it and your interpretation according to death of the author.

[00:11:16]Your interpretation of the book is just as valid as their intent of writing it.

[00:11:22]Andy Weir might have not intended to write a political book with a particular political statement, but that doesn't mean that those messages aren't there to be discussed and discovered. That is what literature is. It just is because everybody coming to the table looks at things a little bit differently and we all bring our experiences to the table. And that is going to be political. Not in the sense of like Republican versus Democrat.

[00:11:52]Okay. I think that when people talk about political, that is what they take it to mean or they take it to mean this is just really stuff that I just don't want to talk talk about. I mean in the sense of political as in like you are an individual experiencing the world and there are forces you are acting against and that are acting upon you and you there are authorities and rules and laws and systems in place that impact us as a collective and also impact us as individuals and that is not something that you can escape uh it's not something that you can avoid and so I think this idea that like reading is not political, books are not political. I just think it's a little silly, and I think it's boring.

[00:12:37]>> Boring, yawning, sloppy.

[00:12:42]>> If you were hoping that I was going to say that it it was good that it wasn't political because hopefulness and optimism is not political. You're wrong.

[00:12:51]Okay? Hope hope is political. Optimism is political. [music] Okay? There are people that want us to not be optimistic because they [music] want us to be nihilistic, right? Because if you are apathetic, then you're not prompted to do anything and [music] you are primed to just consume and be led by whatever forces want to lead you. Okay? And we're [music] not doing that. This optimistic ecosystem that we're creating, it is political. what that means for you is going to look different for you than it does for me. And that's fine. [music] I think that there are several things thematically that are similar in both Superman and Project Hail Mary that make them successful as narratives, as narratives of hope in particular. The strengths of the protagonists in both Superman and Project Hail Mary are in a lot of ways very similar. First, let's start with Superman. Okay, he is in a lot of ways a return to form for these superhero for the Superman narratives, the Superman universe in particular.

[00:14:05]2025 Superman is kind of a boy scout and that could veer into kind of this cheesy nostalgia baiting that we've seen in other franchises trying to recapture this idealized vision of the past that just really doesn't land because the past was never really that amazing. Um, and that mythmaking doesn't always land well with a modern audience. But I think that Superman subverts this by making Superman a boy scout in a way that resonates with a modern audience, but still hearkens back to those kind of classic Superman roots. Superman is not the hero that we deserve, in other words, but he is in this moment the hero that we need in a lot of ways to escape that cynicism of superhero movies that came before him. I'm talking about the snarky sarcasm of Tony Stark's who uh genius who only he can save the world even though he's an [ __ ] We have to deal with him because he's the smartest guy in the room.

[00:15:13]>> I have successfully privatized world peace >> or Batman who has loads of money that he spends on gadgets but he is very angsty about it and tormented. His heroism is a burden that he must carry because they are typically framed a lot of times as people who maybe have access to power, access to wealth, are the are the smartest guy in the room in the vehicle in those movies that saves the day is their individual talent. So in the case of like Iron Man, the thing that saves Iron Man in Iron Man movies is that he is smarter than everybody else. He's going to make something better than everybody else and his tools is are going to triumph over the day. But he can only do that because he is Tony Stark or in Batman, right?

[00:16:07]Again, like Batman's access to wealth and to being the smartest person in the room, right? having all of those gadgets. That is the thing that will save him at the end of the day. And the hero's personal connections to other people are often in these movies framed as a liability. That is not the source of their strength. It's usually a source of like a stumbling block. The super 2025 Superman is a rejection of those past narratives, even of the past angsty Superman narrative that Henry Caval Superman tried. and in my opinion did not very successfully pull off. Superhan is a rejection of all of that. He is a nerd. He is a sweetheart. It could be presented as being to his detriment that he comes off as kind of a sucker. He is saving squirrels when the other superheroes are just focused on taking down the big bad or uh he is hanging back to make sure that there are uh that people are escaping the buildings. And when there's that giant kaiju running through the city and the justice gang is uh taking him down and really just focused on taking him out as quickly as possible, Superman is the one that is focused on, okay, but what's going on with the people around? What is going on with this city that I live in, these buildings that I walk past every day?

[00:17:28]And also even seeing a giant kaiju taking down the city, his first thought is maybe a little bit naively, well maybe we could take it somewhere and have it studied and see how to deal with it instead of our immediate response being violence. He is very much not go one to go in guns blazing if that those guns blazing means that people will be hurt. And the only time in the movie when he does act maybe without thinking fully through the consequences of his action is because again he is having a very human moment. At the beginning of the movie he's dealing with the fallout of this decision that he made which a lot of people are criticizing him for because there there are these two countries that are in conflict with one another. One is Baravia, who is an ally of the United States and is looking to go have in invade this smaller, less well-defended country neighboring it called Jarhandpore.

[00:18:25]And at the beginning of the movie, we're presented with this conflict, what seems going to be kind of a typical superhero movie conflict of is it right for an individual to intervene on behalf of the state? And what does it mean when one person has so much more power compared to other individuals? Like does that impact how does that impact governance?

[00:18:44]How does that impact democracy if one person can make all of these decisions unilaterally? But what ends up really being the core political and moral focus of the movie is this decision of Superman that he can make a decision. He can make a choice to keep people from dying. And in that moment, he decided to step in. He decided to stop Baravia from invading immediately prior to the events of Superman 2025 beginning. So we are presented with this conflict in which Superman is dealing with the fallout of that decision to intervene in this conflict where he felt he saw that a that one country was significantly underdefensed compared to a much stronger neighboring country. And if he did not intervene, he felt like people were going to die for a reason for no other reason than someone's power play.

[00:19:41]And he had the power to stop it. So he felt like he couldn't stand by and his decision is questioned at the very beginning of the movie by Lois Lane, by uh the media, by Lex Luthther.

[00:19:54][laughter] Everyone is wondering, was this even a good decision? Because now there is this guy called the Hammer of Baravia who was pissed and kick Superman's ass in for all of Metropolis to see at the beginning of the movie. And so the question is really that moral question of was it right for Superman to intervene at the start of the movie.

[00:20:16]That decision is ultimately in a lot of ways as much as it is presented as a political one with major political ramifications. That moment that Superman has when he's talking to Lois Lane and he loses his cool a little bit and he says, "But people," he yells, he's like, "People were going to die and I could stop it, so I had to." That in and of itself to me was a very human moment, a very human experience as an individual living in a world where a lot of times you feel like you don't have the power to stop it, to stop bad things from happening to innocent people who are just caught up in these larger forces.

[00:20:55]You do wish that there was just somebody that could swoop in and say, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't just kill people unilaterally just because you can and you want to carve up their land for your warlord interest. Maybe that is not something that you should be able to do.

[00:21:12]And maybe it would be nice to have somebody that could swoop in and do something that's unilaterally life-saving and good rather than people being able to just swoop in and unilaterally do awful things, which is what usually in the real world seems to happen. The core underpinning of the movie is this idea of people using their individual power for the good of the collective.

[00:21:35]>> Tender Heart's right. We can do it, but we have to do it together.

[00:21:40]>> Do what? and doing the right thing, doing the next right thing because it is the right thing to do. Even if it maybe is not the most ex politically expedient thing to do, the best PR move to do, we are motivated by doing the thing that is the hard right thing to do because at our core that's who we want to be. that vision of ourselves that we had growing up as kids and how that comes into conflict with our our idealized versions of ourselves and who we're meant to be and what we're meant to do and then seeing the darker side and rejecting that reject saying what that's your vision of the world and it doesn't have to be mine and so we're presented with this Superman who is very much a boy scout and I think that is important because his strength is not his super strength it's not his laser vision it is his connections to other people it is his ability ability to form a community.

[00:22:32]Metropolis trul Metropolis views him as their superhero. He is a member of that community. He has people on the street that remember giving him food. He has kids running up to him after he defeats that kaiju. He is in a lot of ways in spite of the media narrative around him.

[00:22:52]He is beloved because people can see that he cares about them and he is also participating in that community making right it is a it is a give and take relationship. It is not just that he is cynically saving the city even though maybe it doesn't deserve to be saved it in Batman or uh and he is not constantly except when you know it comes out later on that his family thought wanted him to create hair rooms on earth but before that he he has a very in spite of whatever the media narrative is saying there it is also presented that the people are very much on Superman's side because Superman has been on the people's side and when you build that community that community even if maybe some of them might turn their are fair weather friends there is also a community that is willing to stand with you to do the right thing because that is what has united you together so we have that version of of our hero and I think again a rejection of that cynical sarcastic superhero that we've seen in other movies even with Captain America who is maybe the most arguable able like other boy scout of the superhero universe. I feel like there was there is also always like an edge and maybe just a little bit too much.

[00:24:16]Maybe it's just the Americana of it all for me.

[00:24:20][music] Then we have our other protagonist. Also a rejection of that stoic I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm the only one that can solve the problem. I think that Ryland Grace in this movie in Project Hail Mary is again a rejection of that individualized heroic idea. At least how he is presented to me in this movie because Ryland Grace at the start of our movie he is a disgraced scientist. He works as a school teacher and he just is hiding in obscurity because his paper making fun of the guy who said that water-based life forms were everything was kind of widely panned and mocked by the scientific community. And that's how we find him at the beginning of this movie.

[00:25:11]He is called up by Strat, who's working with the government to combat these things they're calling astrofasages or star eaters, which are these tiny little micro um bacteria things that are devouring the sun. And if they don't find a way to mitigate that problem, um then the earth is going to lose a significant portion of its population.

[00:25:39]and people are going to starve and it's a worldending apocalyptic scenario 30 years from now. And so the start of the movie all of these world governments are coming together to try to brainstorm solutions and Strat with the US government shows up and uh says that she thinks that Ryland Grace's theory could be the thing that that changes the world and can save the world. And in this moment when I was watching the movie because I have not read the book, I kind of rolled my eyes because I was like, "Oh my god, okay, so he's gonna have this halfbaked theory about like nonwaterbased life forms or whatever and it's going to be the thing that saves the world because he's the smartest one, whatever, whatever." But immediately that expectation of mine got turned on its head because Ryland Grace goes with Strat. He tests his theory. He I don't really understand the science behind what he does, but he gives them water, something whatever. He does a test and it doesn't work. It It doesn't work. It completely fails. And his theory was completely wrong. And so he's pouting because he's like, "Okay, well, everything I staked my scientific career on, they were all right. I was I was wrong. Like, it doesn't matter. I'm dumb. I'm not going to save the world."

[00:26:58]Blah blah blah blah. And it's really only Strat coming in and saying, "Hey, actually, yeah, you were wrong, but so what? I have all of these other scientists. Yeah, I can go to them, but I'm going to leave you three astrophasages behind, and I think that you can figure it out. I think that you can keep trying. Keep keep puzzling things out. And so what? You were wrong.

[00:27:17]Like, suck it up." And I really appreciated that because again I think that this is a difference from heroes in the past because Ryland's Ryland Grace's strength is not his scientific mind alone. Yes, he has a lot of knowledge. Yes, he is capable of figuring things out and is very smart.

[00:27:42]But that is not the thing that makes Ryland Grace successful. And it's also not the thing that really makes scientists in general successful. The thing that makes Ryland Grace successful is that he is able to keep trying to keep being innovative and to keep trying things [snorts] even when it seems like there is no answer. He is willing to and he's willing to test his hypotheses but also take feedback from others and incorporate it into his ideas and his tests. The thing that the thing that actually is a breakthrough is just a a comment and a side that his government handler made who says that maybe who says who suggests that they might be attracted to light and they crack the code of how to get the astrophasages to reproduce. It it is not Ryland's amazing scientific mind that figures that out.

[00:28:36]It is a it is his handler saying something offhand that sparks the idea.

[00:28:40]They use their ingenuity to make a box out of duct tape and cardboard in order to test their theory. And then they present it to a panel of these government scientists from around the world who are also able to then test it and replicate it. And because of this ingenuity, they're able to figure out how these astrophasages reproduce. and they're able to figure out they can use the astrophasages that they have reproduced in order to create enough fuel to get themselves to the one planet they have been able to find whose sun is not impacted by the astrophase invasion.

[00:29:20]But the scientists will only be able to produce enough astrophase fuel in order for the trip to be one way. which means whoever goes on this trip will be making a sacrifice for the greater good. So this is not hero on a hill swooping in to save the day. Okay? This is about the scientific process. And I think that's why I liked it cuz it it I don't think that we give enough credit to being wrong and to failing and trying again and to taking a crazy theory and just making it work. and the innovative the innovation that humans can do with very little fancy resources. We can have that ingenuity with very little in our hands and also because we have each other. That is ultimately what the strength of that of project Hail Mary is really about. It is about a meeting of the minds. It is about people coming together in order to solve a problem. And it's not it can't be done with just one person alone. It is not one person one person's breakthrough that makes things happen.

[00:30:29]It is all of the things you don't see along the way. All of the failures you don't see along the way that make something happen. It and that collaborative iterative process, scientific process that makes breakthroughs happen that makes progress happen. If Superman is the like maybe alien superhero expression of human empathy, I think that Ryland Grace is another hu expression of human ingenuity and human cooperation. So I think that that is why these two protagonists function so well in the narrative is because their core traits are things that really are strengths that can be within all of us and strengths that I think really make humanity there are the things that actually make humanity great and make it move forward.

[00:31:25]Granted, yes, these two I think these two movies also are maybe able to do that because you got two hot white dudes at the center of it. And so people can take away some of the like politicizedness of an identity when it is just like, you know, your every man is white. But that is a whole other video essay for a whole other day. I'm trying to make this video not 2 hours long.

[00:31:54]>> [music] >> So, we've talked about a little bit about our heroes, but I think another thing that both of these movies have in common is that they also have a really strong sense of secondary heroes. There is our protagonist in the movie, which in Superman is Superman and in Project Hail Mary is Grace, but they are not necessarily the real heroes of the story. The people that dis demonstrate the most heroism, the true acts of courage and bravery in a lot of ways are not our main characters. It is in Superman. It is characters like Molly. Molly is someone who is just he's a food vendor on the street and he's served food to Superman before and he we see him at the beginning of the movie as Superman is getting slammed into the concrete go up to Superman and check to see if he's okay. And Lex Luthther sees his face through his facial recognition system.

[00:32:53]And then later on when Lex brings Superman to his pocket dimension secret prison, um he uses Molly and plays a game of Russian ru r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r roulette with him to as he's questioning Superman. And Molly in that moment shows an incredible act of bravery but also human connection with Superman. At this point in the film, people like the media landscape has largely turned on Superman because of his parents' message that he should um take over Earth and create a secret herum that was exposed by Lex Luthther.

[00:33:32]And Molly, in spite of that narrative that is being presented, he knows Superman from his connection to him. And he says, "It was an honor to serve food food for you. I don't have any family.

[00:33:42]Don't worry about me, Superman. Don't tell them don't tell him anything." And in the moment it is a heartwrenching moment because it is just again so viscerally human. And I think the actor in the movie does a really good job of really just like creating that empath empathy for Molly's character in that moment and what he is experiencing and like the helplessness of it but still trying in that moment to kind of alleviate the guilt of someone who has helped your community in the past is why it is so touching. And this is what I mean when I'm saying that in a lot of ways Superman is giving to the community, but then the community also is shown to be there for Superman to offer that care and that human connection even when it would be easier not to.

[00:34:31]>> We thought nobody cared, but we were wrong.

[00:34:35]>> And I think in a different narrative, I think in a weaker movie, this moment would piss me off. Honestly, this has happened in other movies and it has pissed me off. But I think that the reason that it doesn't piss me off in this movie is because one, I think they bring it back at the end of showing Molly as in that newspaper as being one of the true remembered heroes at the end of the movie in that newspaper. They don't just throw it away and never talk about it again. It also is something that I think it doesn't just impact Superman. A lot of times those moments in movies are meant more to humanize the protagonist than they are to function in the narrative as a whole. And it's just kind of a way to like punch the hero when they're down at the expense of another person. But I think in this narrative, it actually works because it functions. It does it does impact Superman negatively, but it also encourages elemental guy to right. He sees the horribleness. He sees how inhuman Lex is by just tossing away Molly's life. Like it doesn't matter. And because of that, he winds up helping Superman escape because of that human connection.

[00:35:43]They're able to escape together because they realize in the face of this inhumity, they can he can also make a decision that's hard. He can also take a risk and trust someone and trust that connection with someone to escape together from prison. And it also shows Lex's inhumity. It shows how willing he is to discard people as if they're nothing, as if they're just faces on a screen that he can dangle in front of Superman's face. And he wants to show in that moment that Superman caring about Molly is a weakness. But we've seen through the movie up until this point and then all after that it is actually the thing that constantly is saving Superman is his connection to other people is his ability to have that empathy even when it's hard even when it would be easier to just turn away. In Project Helm Mary we have a similar setup with Rocky and Grace. Rocky is a rock-based alien from a planet whose son is also being weakened by these astrofasages and has traveled to this the same planet as Grace to save his planet and the rest of his crew mates died in the process. Rocky and Grace don't speak the same language. They don't breathe the same air and their scientific technologies are very different from one another. Rocky is able to form these amazing creations out of this compound that Grace calls Xenonite, but he doesn't have the scientific knowledge of things like radiation sickness. Rocky also has these multiple moments after they have after he has developed this relationship with Grace where he is choosing to act in a way that is self-sacrificing in favor of his relationship with Grace not at the expense of their collective goal like he's taking inconvenient routes in order to maintain that relationship with Grace.

[00:37:38]There are three instances where this happens. The first is when he offers to let Grace have some of their his astrophase fuel to get back home to Earth. This is a something that is minor on his part. It adds six years to his trip. So that's 6 years that he's having to spend away from his mate Adrien, but it also means that his friend is able to make it back home when otherwise his friend would just die alone in space. He is inconveniencing himself for the greater good as a whole. And that is something that is admirable and it's something that constantly is a theme throughout the movie. Making sacrifices, making sometimes very very large but sometimes just inconvenience it in order to make someone else's life better in order to to protect your community. and Rocky and Grace at this point have formed their own kind of little twoperson community on that ship. Another instance is when they're having when they've gone astrophase, the bacteria fishing in the prime meridian or whatever it's called, and they have it back in the ship and Rocky decides to exit from his little bubble in order to help Grace, who is stuck after the um gravity stabilizer. or whatever is broken and he has to go and Grace passes out before he can press the button. So Rocky goes and he presses the button and puts himself at great harm. You think that in the movie that he might die and I looked over at my sister and I was like, if this little rock dies and you brought me to go see this movie and this little rock dies, I'm going to leave the theater. I was like, I'm going to flip a table and I'm going to leave the theater right now.

[00:39:23]But he doesn't die. But it is again it is a sacrifice that he doesn't know the outcome of but he makes that decision in order to save grace. And this sacrifice I think in Project Hail Mary is also important because it informs how Grace moves through the narrative. It changes Grace in a positive way. I think Grace is in some ways always within him was the type of person to be self-sacrificing and to consider the collective. But he had to he had to have those pushes to get there. He had to learn how to be brave for someone else for a community outside of himself because he had to be drugged to get on the ship. They had to they had to take him they had to knock him out to put him on this one way trip into space. He did not volunteer to go. But at the end of the movie, you see that complete character arc, that internal change within Grace shown through a similar sacrifice that he makes when they're on the ship. It's the end of the movie. And I was like, okay, I feel like this movie is about to wrap up, but somehow I feel like it's nowhere near the end. So, I was very confused. They have the astrophase bacteria. They like Rocky's in his ship. Ryland Grace is in his ship. Ryland has enough. He has enough fuel to get back to Earth. Rocky's gonna go see his mate. It all seems hunky dory. But no. Okay. No. Because Grace wakes up out of his like bioasis or whatever. And the ship is falling apart because the astrophasages are eating through the little like fuel tanks that are made out of the xenonite compound that Rocky's entire ship is made out of.

[00:41:07]And so Grace has to make a decision. Is he going to He fixed his problem. He knows what the issue was, but Rocky doesn't. And so is he going to turn his ship around, use up his fuel to go save his friend, or and then not be able to go home potentially, or is he going to um nobody would know if he just went home? He could just say, "Yeah, I thought Rocky made it and I just decided to go home." he could just go back to Earth and be hailed a hero and he has enough fuel to get there. But he makes the hard decision to go back to see Rocky. And I thought that when they got when they had their little reunion, I really thought that the movie was going to end there and it was going to end ambiguously. Um, and that that shows how jaded I am that I was okay with it ending with Rocky and Grace reuniting and it being ambiguous if they actually made it back to Rocky's home planet because I was like, well, they saved the Earth and they have each other. So, even if they die alone in space, I guess that's a happier ending than what I was expecting because that is the level of jaded to which I was approaching this movie. Really, at the end of the day, uh, choosing to die alone on the moral high ground, that's that's a happy ending. That's a happy ending.

[00:42:24]>> [music] >> I think that these movies are about a triumph of the collective. These movies shape the world in which the narrative functions as being fundamentally interconnected. None of the pieces can happen without another person's assistance. The crux of the narrative in Superman is driven by other people's desire to help Superman and also to prevent uh Bavia from invading Jarhanpor, this country that is much more ill equipped to defend itself and also um a collective desire then of course to save the world from this world annihilating portal rift that Lex has created from his you know secret uh pocket dimension prison and the solutions are found through the collective works of many people who are not just and not people who are like in the Avengers all equally heroes in their own right. It is found through people that are just kind of like normal everyday people side characters, right?

[00:43:35]Lois is in her own right like she is a major part of why Superman is able to win the day, right? She goes to recruit people who also care about Superman, like Mr. Terrific, and gets him out of prison. She also does the investigation into Lex Luthther that exposes his deal with the leader of Barabia to have half of Jaranpur, the poorer nation neighboring Bavia that they are looking to take over, right? He and Lex strike a deal to split that country in half. and and Lois through her um work, but also through her relationships with her co-workers and and their relationships with other people, they are able to come together with a solution, expose the truth, and expose it to the world and redeem Superman's reputation um and bring Lex Luthther down, right?

[00:44:32]It is not Superman's super strength is needed. He gets to beat up a lot of people, but at the end of the day, the thing that brings Lex Luthther down is this scrappy news team. Lex is ultimately brought down by the uh sexy selfies that his girlfriend has been secretly taking the whole time that show his uh all of his contracts and war plans. Basically, it was really about a bunch of people coming together to find a solution to take down someone with enormous wealth and power. And in project hell Mary similarly right grace is the protagonist of the movie he is the driving force and he figures a lot of the things out in this movie but he wouldn't all he also would not be able to get as far as he does without Strat and her resources without the other scientists he is working with and without ultimately Rocky and his insights. Right? They are two piece two pieces of a puzzle that had to come together in order to solve a bigger problem. And if they and the reason why it could have only been Ryland Grace to come up with those solutions is not necessarily just because of his scientific mind. I think it's more about his personal dynamic that he's able to build with Rock, right? It's about them seeing each other and understanding each other and caring about each other. Even though they come from different places, they don't look the same at all. And they don't they don't even share a language, but they overcome those barriers in order to understand each other. And through that understanding and through that care, they're able to come up with a solution to save both of their planets.

[00:46:17]>> Stop.

[00:46:18]You don't care. She don't care.

[00:46:22]>> Like I said, I approached these movies kind of as a jaded [ __ ] both times when I was watching them. [laughter] And I think that that also has something to say about why these movies are successful is because they do a good job of balancing both the harsh reality of the world and also still having an optimistic spin at the end. In Superman, this is shown through the narrative having to grapple with hard things like a billionaire uh super villain who is able to recognize people's faces with AI's technology and warlords chopping up lesser countries into pieces for their own profit and gain. War profitering at the expense of individual communities.

[00:47:12]this heavily charged negative media landscape where narratives can turn on a dime based on who is able to buy enough, you know, evil genetically mutated monkey bots in order to pump their narrative out into the world and make it seem like someone is less popular than they actually are. Like very relevant to today, unfortunately. I think sometimes people think that those things can be preachy, but to me, I really see the value in them because I think that we need to have that ability to explore these things through narratives. And also, we need to have narratives about how we can triumph over these kinds of evils, over these over individual greed and accumulation of wealth and power.

[00:48:02]and these people who constantly choose violence and money and world ripping apart evil instead of choosing each other. We need narratives that show us that you're not a sucker if you choose a different way. If you choose to care about people, that doesn't make you a loser. It makes you human. And I think that Superman does a good job of not shying away from those things. I think Project Hail Mary in spite of the author saying that there is no politicalness, there is no symbolism, like I said earlier, I think that it also in a lot of ways presents a problem that is an ex existential threat that the world has to come together to fix this environmental this potential ecological collapse. That is something that we are on the verge of if not already like dealing with the impacts of with climate change. I think that is something that we can viscerally see and it is it is an important narrative to explore. I think it's healthy for us to see how humanity has can come together in order to solve these challenges that maybe there's a potential narrative that is not this like Hunger Games apocalyptic water wars battle for resources. Maybe there is a narrative in which we all do come together in order to solve these problems and maybe we get a cute little rocket alien friend out of it. It is important to have those realistic underpinnings, those real issues that resonate with us on a deeper level. Whether it is because it is reflective of our current landscape or whether it's because it is part of a an exploration of human nature in general that just resonates with us because it it explores what it means to be human. I think that those things and not shying away from the darkness and contradictions of that, from the horror of it too. In a modern landscape where you are constantly shown the worst side of everything from every single angle, you're live streaming horrific events constantly and you're always expecting the worst. I think that that makes it more effective when these narratives are able to subvert that expectation. I thought that the end of the movie was just going to be ambiguously open-ended and that that was a good enough happy ending for me.

[00:50:29]You know, that Rocky and Grace would be reunited in space, maybe to die there alone, but you could maybe imagine that they get to Rocky's planet and live there. And maybe Grace doesn't die of atmosphere sickness or whatever. But no, we get a real happy ending. We get a real we really see we see Rocky and Grace living together on Rocky's planet.

[00:50:55]Grace gets to teach the little rocks.

[00:50:58]Rocky says that he can even go back to Earth if he wants to, but doesn't want him to for a long time. And Grace doesn't really want to either cuz his life there is pretty sick. Same way in Superman. We get an unambiguously happy ending. Superman gets the girl at the end and he has a renewed appreciation for his Earth parents. And we get that sweet little moment at the end of the movie where he pulls up his videos, all of his little home videos of his parents and they play that little I'm a punk rock song and it's a be and both of those are beautiful moments and they feel earned because they didn't shy away from how awful things could have been.

[00:51:35]we saw at every moment. And I was expecting for things to take a horrible turn, for it to end with them getting stranded in space, for Superman to be disgraced and thrown out by his community, or maybe at the end of the day that Lex Luthther would would lose, but would go on to fight another day. I didn't expect to get to see his little bald head crying and getting thrown into a car at the end of the movie. And I really needed both of those endings in order to be satisfied as a viewer. The ending has to be earned. You have to battle through the darkness. It has to be earned, but it also has to be hopeful. It has to be happy and it has to stick the landing. And I think that both of these movies do that really well.

[00:52:23][music] And with that, I think that we've explored a few things that make this kind of optimistic media work. I think that you have to have a hero that makes sense. I think in this case they worked really well because for Superman he encapsulated human empathy. For Ryland Grace he encapsulated that human innovation and curiosity and ability to connect that I think really both of those things are core components of the things that have made us survive and thrive so long as a human race. And I think that those things are important to elevate. I think a lot of times, especially from like a western perspective, a lot of these narratives that can get elevated are very individualistic. It is about what is your individual ability to be ambitious, to um rise above the rest, to be different um in a way that is like commercially viable. That is the narrative a lot of times that we are presented with as being heroic. But I think these two protagonists are just really a breath of fresh air because they are able to exist outside of that individualism and they lean into this kind of collective community building this collective experimentation that fosters hope and fosters progress. And the idea ultimately I think it at the core of these two movies is if we take care of one another then we take care of one another.

[00:54:01]>> Listen to your heart and you'll find the truth.

[00:54:05]>> Where are they?

[00:54:06]>> Care Bears [music] shadow >> like it is an ecosystem. And I think that's why I used that word optimistic ecosystem earlier. It's not just that we are feeding into um it's not just that we are taking it is also that we are giving something back. And like I said even when I was watching Superman a second time I it still got me. I still was tearing up at the end of that movie even though I knew it was coming and I knew I was like M get it together. Don't be such a softy. Okay. But it's true.

[00:54:39]There is something there is something really punk rock about being a nice person, [laughter] about caring about other people. Trust everyone and think everyone you've ever met is like beautiful.

[00:54:56]>> Maybe that's the real punk rock. which all of that sounds really cheesy and maybe this whole whole video essay will just come off as very like naive or preachy and I don't mean for it to. Um I just think that we really I really think that we need more of these types of stories in media. It can [music] be very easy to fall into narratives where everything is awful all of the time and [music] people are always going to look out for themselves. people are always going to choose themselves and that the only time that they don't is in kids [music] stories in fairy tales and that just isn't true. History is filled with people who [music] made sacrifices for futures that they would never end up seeing. And I think that that is a really [music] powerful idea. I think it's a powerful thing. We shouldn't ignore that possibility within ourselves. We shouldn't ignore that possibility within story. It [music] is not something that is just a pie in the sky fairy tale. I think it's something deeper. I think it's something maybe a little bit more radical. And I think that's why it resonates with people. I think that's [music] why Hope Core is maybe going to make a comeback. [music] That maybe these stories that we start to tell ourselves are going to have to look different. How low can we sink? [music] How much sorrow can we follow in? Maybe we need to pivot and start telling ourselves [music] better stories. And that's where I'm going to end today. And if you liked this video, please subscribe.

[00:56:32]Yeah, that's right. I brought out the cat for subs. Please subscribe.

[00:56:36]And if you have an example of optimistic media that you think I should read, if you have any solar punk book recommendations, let me know in the comments. Um, and thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. Bye.

[00:56:59][music]