project hail mary (2026) dir. phil lord & christopher miller
the last time we watched a film on the big screen was sinners from last year, so it seems only fitting that the big-screen-film that followed was this.
i know people always talk about how fresh it is when a space film isn't the usual clinical, cold, hi-tech aesthetic, and i think project hail mary does this really well. there's an insanely fun and soulful diy spirit about the film, and half of that comes from ryan gosling's character being a middle school teacher.
to clarify, i hadn't read the book prior to watching this film, and i don't know that i ever will because i really, really like this movie and i don't know if i can live with reading the book if it's not going to bring out what i felt with the film. i will try to remember this next time a highly anticipated book-to-screen adaptation comes abuzz: read the book first.
anyway, ryland grace being a middle school teacher bleeds into the rest of the film. he makes dioramas and models to explain scientific concepts to preteens, so he naturally doesn't need hi-tech, super-clean materials to work with. grace carries this diy spirit with him all throughout the film, and out in the nothingness of outer space.
matching this messy, frantic spirit of "just making things" out of nothing is gosling's actor-less costar, rocky the alien. like grace, rocky is a diy machine, constantly making things like figurines and mini-spaceships out of "xenonite".
this is where i'll stop talking about what happens in the film or who dies or who lives and everything in between, because i think the film is worth watching and me talking about plot points will never do it any justice.
i just am so into the diy spirit of the film and its characters. this is a space sci-fi with a lot of science talk, but the film doesn't rely on technology and automation as much as it does on ryland grace's urge to just... make things. there is an onboard ai named armando but the opening scene of the film visually shows us that grace rejects this ultra-clinical, precise ai capable of shaving and completing medical procedures. instead, grace spends half the film bonding with the wonky, clumsy, caveman-speaking rocky the alien. rocky is everything modern technology isn't, but is so fucking reliable and capable i wish his planet was real.
i know we're all tired of talking about ai, and i think i am too, but it just feels so nice and heartwarming, kind of, to see this genuine, colorful, spectacle of a film not champion typical sci-fi technologies.
in the days leading up to us watching this, i also came across articles talking about how no green/blue screens were used throughout the making of the film. instead, sets were constructed. rocky, the alien made of wonky rocks, was a puppet. do you know what i mean? even the film, in its production process, celebrated this diy spirit. this want for just making things instead of having them generated or automated or anything.
i just fucking love that. here's to just making things, yes?