The Side Quest Book Club Podcast

Jonathan, Slava, Spenser, and Josh watched the recent Project Hail Mary movie and had some thoughts...

ABOUT THE MOVIE 

The wait is finally over! Project Hail Mary, the long-awaited adaptation of Andy Weir's bestselling novel, is officially in theaters and IMAX. Directed by the visionary duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Spider-Verse, The LEGO Movie), this sci-fi epic stars Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace—a middle-school science teacher who wakes up millions of miles from home with no memory of how he got there. He soon realizes he is humanity's last hope to stop the Astrophage, a space-borne threat that is literally eating our Sun.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir: The Ultimate Survival Story 🚀

Ryland Grace wakes up on a spaceship with two dead crewmates and zero memory of how he got there. As his mind clears, he remembers the stakes: Earth’s sun is being consumed by a microscopic parasite called Astrophage, and he is the sole survivor of a last-ditch mission to Tau Ceti to find a cure.

Facing impossible odds, Ryland must "science" his way through a series of interstellar disasters. But he soon discovers he isn’t the only one trying to save their home world. He joins forces with an unlikely alien ally, Rocky, in a race against time to save two civilizations from total extinction.


ABOUT THE SIDE QUEST BOOK CLUB PODCAST 
Reading is the ultimate side quest. Side Quest is a casual book club podcast full of literary adventures. Join Slava and Jonathan as they discuss the books they are reading, life, history, belief systems, and much more. Explore world-building, characters, and story development—and share some laughs along the way.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jonathan
Host
Slava
Digital Strategist. Co-Host. Aspiring writer of stories.

What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?

If you’re a reader looking for something deeper or an indie author working on your book, The Side Quest Book Club is for you. We skip the usual book reviews and ratings. Each episode turns fun side quests into real lessons, so you’ll leave not just entertained, but with a better understanding of why storytelling matters.

I want my $17 back. $22. Yeah, I saw it on IMAX.

I had to pay $22. You saw it on IMAX? I would not do that. I was not... You might have gone in with low expectations, but that's your fault for spending the extra $5.

Hell, it's not. It's shot for IMAX. Why would I watch it on a 13-inch screen to save $5? How poor do you think I am? I don't think you want me to answer that on live on screen.

Hey folks, welcome back to the SideQuest Podcast. You might have caught us giving quick reviews of Project Hail Mary on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or another platform. We are going to give you just a quick overview of our thoughts together of how much this book was bastardized by the filmmakers.

And I think that Andy Weir should be really upset. Okay, so here's the thing. Rocky's a puppet.

Okay, you saw the clip. You saw me complaining about this. Rocky's a puppet.

They just move him around, and then it's like, oh, Rocky can do a thing, and then he just sits there. In the book, he's so much more dynamic. He's funnier in the book, too.

Not that there wasn't funny moments in the movie, but the book is so much funnier. It's not even a question. Just out of there.

Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. Same thing.

Rylan Grace doesn't get any play. Ryan Gosling, hey, you're not going to win an Emmy or any of the freaking awards for this, but good job. Appreciate you playing the character.

I think you did a good job. However, script-wise, awful. We don't get any time with Grace himself being himself.

It's just a full movie of flashbacks, and not even tastefully done. Visually, fine. I enjoyed it.

Whatever. But where's the nuance of him reflecting on, man, I don't want to die? We have one moment where he's with, what's the freaking German name? Strat. Strat, thank you.

We have one moment with Strat where she's like, I need you to do this. And he's like, I don't want to die. And she's like, okay, then I need you to understand what I'm going to do.

That's it. But throughout the book, we had the opportunity to see him struggle with this, especially the opening. They just spoonfed, not even spoonfed.

They just like, hey, he made it to the next part. There's no tension. The movie has no tension.

Yeah, I hear you. I thought the movie was pretty good overall. I mean, there's... About to interview Spencer.

Nobody asked you. When you take a book that's as good as Project Hail Mary, and you have to condense it into a two and a half hour film, obviously you're going to miss some stuff. There's a lot of things you can't put in there, especially inner monologue.

That's a lot of what I think Hail Mary is, is just him wrestling with his own thoughts. And when you're by yourself, obviously you're not talking out loud. Well, I mean, maybe you are, but... Just me, I think.

In a movie form, that would be kind of weird. So I think some of that stuff you're just going to miss, unfortunately. But I think as far as between this and The Martian, I think The Martian was better as far as adapting the book into the movie.

But one thing that I wanted to kind of mention, and this might be a little nitpicky, but in the book, Grace is finally recognized for his theory, like his initial paper that he was initially rejected by the scientific community by. And when he discovers astrophage in the movie, he finds out it's a carbon-based water-life form, and he's super disappointed. But then Rocky is not.

Rocky is a completely, totally different makeup. Grace isn't recognized for that in the end. Strat doesn't give him any sort of recognition in the scientific community.

I don't know. I think that would have been a fun little note in the end. Just a little addition to Grace's contribution to saving the world, right? So again, maybe a little nitpicky, but I thought that would have been fun.

And then, yeah, just the other thing at the end was the ending was very condensed. In the book, it's very much more drawn out. I forgot to complain about that.

Oh, yeah. When Grace discovered the astrophage was leaking, it was because of the tormiba escaping the xenon cages that they had them in. And it wasn't described.

It wasn't explained very well. It was just a quick, oh, here's the problem. Oh, he found the issue.

Oh, got to go save Rocky. And that all happened within, like, I don't know, a minute or less. Yeah, it was barely any time.

In the book, it was like, I don't know. Yeah, no tension. It was like five chapters in the book.

Or I don't know, it was a good portion anyway near the end. So those are my complaints about it. Overall, I will give it a four out of five.

Yeah, I'm giving it a B. And I enjoyed the hell out of the movie. I said so in my little review that we posted. Where it fails for me and why it gets a B instead of an A is the ending.

Now, before I show you my cards, the good parts about the movie. I did like Rylan Grace. I like Ryan Gosling playing him.

I like Strat. I like Strat being a little bit more friendly and winsome and kind of humanized. I like that.

I like the freaking karaoke scene. Rocky was fun. And while I agree with Jonathan Assessment and, you know, Spencer's here, that everything's so condensed and some things get glossed over.

I expected that. It actually did better than I thought. I expected this to be hot garbage.

But it turned out that it was a fun movie. As far as Hollywood is concerned and book adaptations go, this is a B. I expected nothing. Well, I did expect less and I got a little bit more.

But why it gets a B is the hot garbage ending. Absolutely garbage dumpster of an ending. And if they added 10 seconds, you know, a whole book into two hours, fine.

Add 10 seconds for Grace at the end. Maybe give him something there. Whether it's him being recognized for his work, the realization of that, or more so for me figuring out, oh, wow, I was kind of a jackass on earth.

I was put in this position and I kind of came out okay. That realization, even in the fast paced way they did all the other scenes, would have been great. And the aliens jumping around like idiots at the end, when he starts to teach them, I get what they're trying to do in the book.

He's like, oh, I'm on a foreign planet and I'm a teacher again. And it's kind of like coming back to his familiar roots. I get what they're trying to do.

But the aliens jumping around like little kids, it was such a letdown. So overall for Hollywood production, fabulous. Couldn't have asked for more except for the ending.

I think that's what killed it for me. It would have been an A. I would have been agreeing with you guys and telling you, hey, it's Hollywood. They had to condense a book, learn to live with it.

They're not going to be as faithful as you wanted, Jonathan, or as faithful as you wanted, Spencer. But that ending was a kick in the nuts. I was like, what the hell? It was just so poorly done.

Everything is great. The shots are great. The music is great.

The acting is good. The characters to me, because this is an adaptation, were good enough. I thought Ryan and Rocky, fun, great.

I knew what they were doing. That didn't disappoint me. You just wanted to fist your bum, just be honest.

Please, somebody better fist my bum. That ending just sucked. It went off the rails for me.

The biosphere threw me off. The whole big space, call that six acres. From end to end, six acres.

That's a lot more space than the book implies, in my opinion. Yeah, and that was weird too. How do they make water when, to Spencer's point, that they're an inorganic... I looked it up because I couldn't remember.

Rocky's people, the Iridians, are made of oxidized minerals and metals. They're living stone tarantulas. How are they making water if their whole thing is like xenonite and ammonia and whatever the other thing is? That's how you make water, those three.

They melted their own people to make an ocean. I don't think you know what water is made out of. This isn't Russia.

Of course it's not. Well, and oxygen hurts Rocky's people, right? I guess he doesn't really explain that in the book though either. They're little glass spacesuits.

I know it's not glass, but xenonite. Listen, I'm going to agree with every gripe and complaint you guys have. I'm going to agree with you 100%.

My pushback would be, it's Hollywood. I wouldn't do it expecting them to ruin something. Here's the thing, look, it's hard... I get it.

It's hard to translate book to movie with a book. We're spending, to quote audiobooks, 15 hours at 1.25 speed with the characters. You're not going to get every little nuance.

However, really, really good book to movies, what's the main point? What should the climax be? And then you work your layers in like, hey, with Grace, how do we make sure that we still capture some of those things? And the trailer's better than the movie. Yeah, I agree with that. The trailer's better than the movie.

Well, they even wrecked the trailer anyway by giving away Rocky. Right. That was a huge reveal in the book.

So again, it was a little bit poorly done in my opinion, but who knows, maybe it helps sell the movie. Yeah, I think people who haven't read the book knew Rocky was going to be in it. So it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess.

They could have used him or could have not used him in the trailer. I think people wouldn't... Somebody made a comment on one of our YouTube videos that people wouldn't go see the movie if Rocky wasn't shown. Because they're like, oh, why is this guy not in it? Here's the thing, I don't fully disagree with them.

Because if you haven't read the book, then you're like, oh, Project Hail Mary, it's Ryan Gosling in space. Maybe I'll see it. But then they tease that there's an alien encounter and it's like, oh, hey, so if you haven't read the book, that might draw you in to go, hey, let me take a quick look at this thing.

To your point, Sava, visually, beautiful, right? Honestly, the shots are isolating because it's just him and it's all this wide negative space. Really great, right? The color, really great. It was a little weird to go to Rocky's point of view on and off.

I get it, I understand. But I don't know, I think it was a little much, frankly. In a way, I kind of liked it just because you kind of get, you now understand how Rocky sees the world.

Without eyes. Yeah, and how was he able to communicate with Grace if not, if we don't... Like, I don't know, it just helps give the viewer a visual understanding. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, the communication with Grace didn't feel true enough. And that's probably the only thing that I would like, I have a lot about how it takes this. That's the thing that I die on, is the him discovering how to do language together didn't feel tangible enough the way that it does in the book.

Do you know what I mean? When he's trying to get, because he uses more musical notes and that was a very fun part of it. And instead, it's just like, oh, hey, the noise you made, not musical, just the noise you made is this thing. Yeah, yeah.

In the book, it was definitely like, oh, this is music note C. This is music note C, DNA combined. And each little sound had its own word. So each set of notes was its own word.

It was just very, very cool in the book. And yeah, I feel like you're right, Jonathan. I agree, that was just kind of skipped over a little bit.

Or maybe sort of condensed into like, oh, the sound, oh, the sound is this word. And it was just too easy, in a sense. And that's kind of my point, right? That the tension that we feel in the book stripped from not even like, oh, they didn't do it well.

It's like, it's just not there at all. Yeah, I didn't feel anything that I could call tension. There's no tension.

No, but again, I default to my answer. You went in with much lower expectations. Much lower expectations, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I expected a lot more. I'm a purist.

I did too. Based on The Martian, how that one turned out. And then I was expecting a lot more on this one as well.

You see, I enjoyed the movie The Martian. I couldn't get past chapter two in the book. And I don't know why.

It wasn't because I thought his writing was bad. Because I started reading The Martian after I watched the movie. And I kind of got distracted and I wasn't that much into it.

So it fell by the wayside. After we read Project Hail Mary, I'm like, I still have Audible. Let me go back and try it.

And it just never took. And I can't tell you why. I can't say, well, because I'm so bored of the character.

Or I don't like the writing. Or the pacing is off or anything. Or why I didn't like A Wise Man's Fear for the first 10 chapters.

Or 30 chapters, actually. There was just no reason. I just couldn't get into it.

Was that? 34, I think you said. 34 chapters. I just couldn't get into it.

And so I can't relate to what you're saying, Spence. But to Jonathan's point, my expectations for this movie, irrespective of how cool the trailer was, was low. I'm like, I want to come out of this just rage filled.

Then I was like, oh, this is fun. This is a cool movie. Hollywood did OK.

Hollywood did its usual. But like I said earlier, Josh, he just joined the chat. The ending just garbage.

I couldn't handle it. I want my $17 back. What the hell is going on here? I want my $17 back.

Josh, what about you? $22. But yeah, I saw it on IMAX. I had to pay $22.

You saw it on IMAX? Well, I'm not that. I would not do that. I was not.

You might have gone in with low expectations. But that's your fault for spending the extra $5. Hell, it's not.

It's shot for IMAX. Why would I watch it on a 13-inch screen to save $5? How poor do you think I am? I don't think you want me to answer that live on screen. Yeah, the ending was strange to me.

I'm with you on that, Slava. Also, I don't know what else you guys have talked about yet. But did anybody else think that Rocky was going to be larger? The way the book described it, I thought Rocky was described as being very large.

You read it this week. So I will err on the side of trusting your remembrance. The three of us read it a year ago.

A year ago. I mean, maybe a little bit more. But even in the trailer, I felt like I was expecting him to be larger based on the clip that they showed in the trailer.

But in a way, it kind of made sense. Just so he had room to bounce around and grace his ship there. Yeah.

No, I thought that they did a good job of portraying him. And then there were just a few things that were condensed, right? That was like, oh, as I was watching it, like, oh, yeah. They really left out a few things here and there.

But overall, especially with the team, we get to spend more time with the team. And we spend zero time with the team. Except for when he brought in Grace as being quasi funny.

But again, I've said this to them. I'm going to say it to you, Josh. Sorry, audience.

You're going to have to hear it for the third time. I agree with all your gripes, especially Jonathan's. I just don't think Hollywood could have done better.

But they could have done better with the ending because that was just off the cliff. And I'll just, I'll die on that hill. Okay, movie.

Okay, movie. Garbage ending. Steve's going to tag the production company in all of the chats that we put out.

Yes. Sorry, Josh, you were saying? Well, I was going to chime in on the debate over going to see it in IMAX. I would have seen this movie in IMAX.

I'm a big fan. It's shot in IMAX. I agree with that as well.

I thought the colors and the visuals were really well done. Uh, yeah, I would go see it again in IMAX, probably. I'm busy that day.

It's worth it, dude. In IMAX, and I got the primo seat right in the middle, just a little bit off to the side. And the whole screen is right at the bottom.

The screen was maybe, you know, at a 10 degree angle right here. And I was there for the moments you're talking, Jonathan, the empty space, the colors. It was out of this world visually.

Any other hot takes, Josh, as we close down? No, I'm sure they'll come to me as like, after we wrap up. But yeah, this ending and another thing. That's true.

I got a lot of problems with you people. Oh, I thought that, you know, I thought it is funny that they condense some things, but they did slip in. I don't remember the character's name, but she wanted to die by a heroin overdose.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Russian engineer. Yeah.

And they also didn't do, they mentioned it, but the jazz hands, like, that was kind of a big deal in the book. They covered, like, that was a big. That's part of the nuance I'm talking about.

Like, there's no, and they mentioned it once to do that, though. Yeah, it was more like they really wanted to go with the fist bump thing in the movie, which, yeah, it was funny. Fist my bump.

Ha ha. But like, I don't know. The jazz hands was kind of, like, that was the fun little, like, between them, between Rocky and Grace.

There was somebody in front of me, which is like, you know, there's a lot in front of me, actually, about 20 feet in front of me. And somebody was bawling, like, throughout the movie. Like, somebody was sniffling hard.

And I was like, I get it with the book. The book is a little bit of a tearjerker towards the end. I can see that.

But the movie, I was like, why are we crying? So somebody was moved. I thought there were a few moments where it was like, ah, this is a nice, nice moving moment. But was there anything where I was like, yeah, in tears the whole time? No.

There's a kid also, they were walking out and his older brother took him, I guess. They looked like they were related. But one was definitely older.

And he's like, man, that's kind of sad that he's on, you know, all alone on a distant planet. And the younger brother goes, that's not sad. That's the best part of the movie.

I wouldn't want to come back to Earth if I did what he did. I was like, I like that kid. That's funny.

That kid, you were brave enough to actually go on the mission. And so you had to be drugged into it. Yeah, because after that, I wouldn't want to go back home either.

Oh, my gosh. That also, Spencer, do any of you remember him having to be drugged to be put on the mission? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, I don't. I remember it being kind of him being strong-armed, but I don't remember him being drugged. Josh did a mental filter, like, I don't appreciate people being drugged.

So I just blocked that part out of my mind. Talk about trauma. Different episode.

I was rushing through the book to finish it before we went to go see it. To be fair to you, you picked up the book on Tuesday and it's Saturday. So I mean, it's not a long book, but I think you did it.

It's still a quick read. Yeah. I read A Wise Man's Fear, 50 chapters at 2.5 speed.

And I think I missed maybe a few things. He missed a lot, folks. Stay tuned for that episode coming in season six.

But anyway, thanks for joining us today to do a quick review on Book to Movie, Project Hail Mary, and how trashy it was. What did you guys think? Did you really like it? Or did you agree with me and think it was just absolute horse crap? See you next time.