Is Project Hail Mary the Best Studio Movie of the Century?
Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: With all the stars in the galaxy dying, a middle school science teacher with a wild theory about life is sent on a suicide mission to study the one star that isn’t affected in the hope of somehow, some way, saving earth.
About: All hail Ryan Gosling, who’s aiming to become the biggest movie star in the world. Gosling spearheaded this entire project. It was he who read the book and sought out Lord and Miller, then sent them the manuscript, telling them, “Let’s make this.” Apropos of last week’s post, Lord and Miller are not fans of AI. From their Guardian interview: “AI could never conjure up any of the film’s happy quirks and accidents: the jumper Gosling demanded he wear in tribute to a fox he encountered while locked out of his London flat at midnight, say; or the scene where Hüller’s character belts out a karaoke rendition of Harry Styles’s Sign of the Times, included on the spot after Gosling and the crew noticed her terrific singing voice between setups.” Miller says AI “can only regurgitate the average of things that have come before it.” If this is the best and most popular movie of the year and the directors hate AI, does this mean the AI debate is over?? Screenwriter Drew Goddard adapted the novel (by Andy Weir). Goddard is the same screenwriter who adapted Weir’s “The Martian.”
Writer: Drew Goddard (novel by Andy Weird)
Details: 156 minutes!
I’m just so pumped that it’s still possible to make an awesome movie.
And a studio movie at that!
I always go through these periods of doubt that it can be done anymore. That maybe Hollywood isn’t relevant anymore. Or I’ve watched so many movies, I’m incapable of being affected by them anymore.
This movie blew those theories out of the water.
Not only that. This is an EXCELLENT screenplay. If I were a film school, this is the new movie I would be using to teach screenwriting. Goddard, Lord and Miller do SO MANY good things here and they end up making a great movie as a result.
Let’s take a look…
We meet scientist (and science teacher) Ryland Grace as he wakes up in a coma in a spaceship very far from home. Grace has no idea why he’s here or what’s going on. It takes him quite a long time to learn that he’s on a ship 11 light years from earth heading to a star that happens to be the only star in the galaxy that isn’t dying.
You see, years ago, back on earth, scientists realized that the sun was dimming. And upon some more research, they learned that, actually, *all* the stars in the galaxy were dimming. That there was this stuff called “astrophage” that was essentially eating stars. If they didn’t find out how to stop this, then in 30 years, earth would cool to a point where all the crops would die out and everyone would starve.
So the governments of the world came up with this idea called “Project Hail Mary” where they send a ship to a star called Eres, which is the only star that isn’t dimming. Three people will be sent – a pilot, an engineer, and a scientist – to figure out what’s happening, send their data back to earth, and then, since they don’t have enough fuel for a round trip, die.
Well, two of the crew die while in an induced coma on the trip, leaving just Ryland Grace, the scientist who was chosen, to save the world. And Ryland is completely out of his depth. He’s been working as a school teacher for the last few years. And Ryland just doesn’t believe he can do this alone.
Which is why he lucks the hell out. He finds that there’s another ship in that solar system – an alien ship – there for the same purpose he is. Grace eventually makes contact with the lone alien on that ship – a rocky crab-like creature Grace nicknames “Rocky.” And the two start working together to save their respective planets, while also building an amazing friendship in the process.
When Rocky learns that Grace isn’t going back to earth, he offers him half of his fuel. It looks like they’re both going to survive this. But then one final perilous, but critical, experiment puts them in grave danger and everything about the mission is thrown into doubt.
I can’t remember the last time I felt this confident that a movie was going to work than when I started watching Project Hail Mary.
This is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be and it aces every single test on the way there. From the drama to the plot to the humor to the emotion to the characters to the risks it takes. It’s a rare achievement in Hollywood when a studio film is this good.
Because the studio system is designed to stifle any risk – anything in the movie that may bring the meter too far to the extreme. Because any extreme (trying for a big emotional moment, for example) is at risk of creating the opposite effect. Which is why studio films live in that bland middle space. They want you having just as much of a positive experience that you leave better than you arrived, and not one iota more.
Project Hail Mary is not that movie. And I’m guessing the main reason for that is Amazon. Cause MGM would’ve never been able to make this movie. I mean, it would’ve literally been impossible. That place had a bunch of dinosaurs working for it, none of whom were good enough to work at any of the more celebrated studios. An infusion of new blood always inspires people to take more risks and they not only took those risks. They knocked them out of the park.
What kind of risks are we talking about?
The time-jumping was the main one. Time-jumping always creates issues because it chops up the narrative. And when you’re chopping up a narrative, the pacing gets a lot tougher. The plotting itself gets tougher. It’s not nearly as easy, in screenwriting, to know where to place moments because your traditional 3-Act structure is constantly being invaded by the past. I know it doesn’t look all that difficult from the outside. But any screenwriter who’s tried to get that balance right knows what a bitch it is.
The culmination of the time-jumping choice comes towards the end of the movie. Spoilers, of course. We see Grace finally figure out the solution to destroying the astrophage. And then we cut back to 10 years ago, on earth, when project manager Eva asks him if he’ll go on the mission. And Grace says, “I’m just not that guy. I’m not brave. I’m not a hero. I can’t do this.” Even though we just saw him do it! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a screenplay do that before. Officially introduce the character’s flaw AFTER he’s overcome it. That was really cool. And the reason it worked so well was because of that pre-established time-jumping.
But that was just one of many great moments in the movie. We’ve spent countless hours on this site discussing how to create a hero that the reader falls in love with. And Project Hail Mary shows you exactly how to do it. One thing that was really reinforced here, on that end, is how important humor is to the reader liking the hero. I’d say it’s a cheat code but then you still have to execute it. Some writers are not naturally funny. So they don’t really have this option. Lord and Miller may be the number 1 guys in Hollywood for executing “big movie type humor.”
They understand that exact tone and where the ceiling is and where the floor is. And they never go above or below those levels. The humor in this was perfect and it made us fall in love with both of these characters.
But they didn’t stop there. They didn’t just stay with humor the whole time. They were unafraid to get emotional – to hit those big emotional beats unapologetically. And that’s a choice, guys. Some writers are afraid to lean into emotion so they choose sarcasm instead. But as long as you have balance in your script, it’s okay to lean into the emotion of a moment. I mean when Rocky breaks out of his container to save Grace, that sequence was so well done that I would put it right up there with E.T. as far as the emotion it evokes from an alien character dying.
You know who’s not happy about all this? Kathleen Kennedy. She HATES these guys. Absolutely hates them. And she thinks they’re hacks. Which is why she fired them in the middle of Solo. The success of this movie is going to inspire a movement to release the Lord and Miller version of Solo. Disney will never do it because they want to bury the fact that that movie was ever made.
But Project Hail Mary shows us that it’s easy for Lord & Miller to be misinterpreted before they’re finished. When I saw this trailer, I thought it was too goofy. There was way too much humor. And that’s exactly what Kennedy said was the reason she fired Lord and Miller. But when they put their final cut together, it all makes sense. You can’t judge them in parts. They’re a duo where you need to see the final product to understand what they’ve done.
How good is this movie? It’s an instant classic. That’s how good I think it is. And I don’t think there’s been a classic movie in Hollywood for a decade now. This is a reminder of what’s possible if you connect with material and dedicate yourself to write the best possible version of that story and you will stop at nothing until you get that version on the page.
Cause this was awesome, man. The music is something I probably wouldn’t get to until 10 or 11 on the list of things I liked about this movie. And the music was awesome! Everything about this was awesome. This movie was literally ten minutes away from scoring a ‘genius,’ which you know I rarely ever give. I actually don’t think I’ve given it to a finished movie yet.
Why didn’t it get there? Ahhhh…. I’m honestly not upset about it because the movie is still great and the ending delivers. But anybody who watches this film will know what I’m talking about. It sticks around ten minutes too long. It had THE PERFECT FINAL MOMENT between Grace and Rocky and then… I don’t know what happened. Maybe Spielberg saw a cut and suggested one of his classic 4-ending structures.
It’s still awesome, though. I don’t see a single person going to this movie and not enjoying themselves. It will probably be my movie of the year.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This script does some very sophisticated things that 99% of audiences won’t be aware of. One of those things is that the narrative has to deal with constant large chunks of time that must be bridged. For example, Grace’s ship is in the outer portion of the solar system and needs to move closer to the destination planet. Well, that doesn’t take ten minutes. It takes weeks. So the writers have to figure out a way to seamlessly bridge these huge time gaps that are constantly popping up. Without looking ahead, how would you handle this? The way Lord & Miller do it is simply to cut back to a key moment back on earth before the mission started. We watch a scene from back then, and then, when we cut to Grace on the ship again, those three weeks are over. We’re at the planet. And no audience member will notice this. AND THAT’S THE POINT. Your job as a screenwriter is to make these things invisible. And Goddard, along with Lord and Miller, are experts at it.
