No question about it. The Martian is one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. I enjoy it…for the most part.
However, there’s just something about The Martian that I don’t quite vibe with. I read Andy Weir’s book of the same name, and I liked it. That said, hard sci-fi really isn’t my jam. Oh, and for those who don’t know, hard sci-fi is a subgenre of science fiction that relies heavily on scientific accuracy.
However, you know what movie I loved? Project Hail Mary, which is also based on an Andy Weir novel. Now, I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know how “hard” it goes into the science, but I do know that I liked the movie a lot more than The Martian. Here’s why.
Project Hail Mary Puts The Story Before The Science
Now that Project Hail Mary is available to stream on a Prime subscription, one of my good friends also recently watched it, and his biggest complaint was that it wasn’t scientific enough.
I’m actually happy about that since I honestly don’t watch movies to learn things. Instead, I go for the stories, as I don’t want a lesson on planting potatoes on Mars, which is what I got from The Martian. Instead, I just want good characters that I can root for, and that’s what I get with Project Hail Mary.
The story is actually pretty simple. The sun is cooling at an alarming rate, and in a few years, it won’t be able to warm the Earth. The cause of this is some scientific mumbo jumbo called astrophage (which I had to look up, and is, in fact, made up), and it’s a major problem. Our hero, Dr. Grace (Ryan Gosling), knows everything there is to know about astrophage, but he doesn’t want to go on a suicide mission up in space.
However, due to certain events, he finds himself up there anyway, and his goal is to solve this problem. Honestly, it’s that simple, and I love that the science is there, but it feels more like background stuff. Now, I know that some people - such as my friend - would prefer more of a leaning into science. That said, given how popular the film was with audiences (We even gave it a pretty good review ourselves), I think that most people prefer that we got a great story over an overly scientific one. Especially since we got such a cool sidekick in the process, which I’ll talk about next.
Adding A Buddy Character Goes A Long Way
Ah, the sidekick. Sometimes, as good as the protagonist is, their sidekick just steals the show. Thus is the case with Grogu in relation to The Mandalorian (both of whom had their own movie this summer), and thus is also the case with Project Hail Mary, as we get a delightful, rock-form alien that our hero calls Rocky.
Now, Rocky is unique in that he’s not your typical alien companion. Instead, much like our hero, he’s a scientist, but from his own planet. The two characters form a bond that, I’m not going to lie, may be a little glassy-eyed in one part of the story. This is important though since The Martian doesn’t have anything like this.
Instead, we get Matt Damon playing an astronaut who’s stuck on Mars, while NASA tries to bring him back home. Now, again, I dig The Martian, but – and I’m not the first to call it this – it’s essentially just “Cast Away in Space”. However, the big difference here is that Cast Away at least had Wilson!
This isn’t an issue in Project Hail Mary, though, as Rocky makes for an excellent companion, and, in a lot of ways, steals the movie. So, while I’m down with The Martian, give me Project Hail Mary over it any day of the week!
