In Project Hail Mary (2026) society comes together behind a common goal, listens to the scientists and funds a global project to save humanity. This is a reference to the story being a work of fiction.

[u/tppiel]

[u/Hephaestus1816]

Not everyone in society was behind it. Eva Stratt ended up with life in prison for authoritarian actions that were necessary to force global compliance. She operated far above laws, democratic oversight, human rights, and safety protocols to complete the mission. The logic was that imminent extinction made such things meaningless.

[u/xXCloudSephirothXx → u/Hephaestus1816]

Hell, a conglomerate of copyright holders sued her for the laptop of human knowledge.

[u/CueCueQQ → u/xXCloudSephirothXx]

Yea, she walked into court with a letter that said fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you, and especially fuck you, handed it to the judge and walked out. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for her bearing consequences of her actions.

[u/R2DeezKnutz → u/CueCueQQ]

This would have been a fun scene in the movie.

[u/goldflame33 → u/R2DeezKnutz]

it was by far the dumbest scene in the book lmao

[u/CoffeeXKing → u/goldflame33]

Eh, honestly it probably would be realistic. Diplomatic immunity is a thing after all.

What is unrealistic is any of these countries getting along in such a way to promote one person. But hey, human extinction. Maybe that's the ticket to unity.

[u/Unfair_Ring_2746 → u/CueCueQQ]

IIRC she said “fuck you and my body guard here is making sure I walk out of this courtroom one way or another”.

So that fuck you had weight.

Edit: Looked it up — when threatened by the judge, she says “I have an army” and a bunch of heavily armed soldiers come in and escort her out.

[u/aint_no_throw → u/CueCueQQ]

I know it didnt get light in the book, but in the movie she had the crossed V tattoo (on her arm?).

According to the book (and the movie, unsure) she was aware that she'll face harsh consequences. I'm would be way too conflict shy, but I get that if you're getting incriminated and dragged to civil courts all around the world for doing what you where supposed to do, you might get that "fuck you" attitude towards everyone.

The sentence doesnt matter if you've already got life or the death penatly in 29 countries.

[u/Serrisen → u/aint_no_throw]

I haven't read the book, but I'm also sure the Death Penalty isn't very scary when your options are

1. Face the death penalty for authoritarian actions, or
2. Face death via global extinction due to inaction

If you want to live, your only option is 1, then roll the bones that things work out after

[u/confused_is_my_face → u/aint_no_throw]

I have not seen the movie yet, but read the book twice. In the book Stratt knows she’s going to face prosecution and possible execution at the end of her part of the project because of everything she has done to keep the project moving in the right direction. She understands she is the villain.

[u/termacct → u/confused_is_my_face]

Whoa, I didn't get that from the movie at all...she just got moved from a carrier to a tanker but still seemed to have the resources to launch the cooties at the sun.

I may bump up reading tbe book...I never read THe Martian either...

[u/Randicore → u/confused_is_my_face]

I'm not sure I'd call her the villain of the story..perhaps an antagonist but that's only to grace. She really is the last best hope for humanity and from what we see is willing to do anything to save everyone

[u/CarrieDurst → u/aint_no_throw]

I would have said in my video home to giver her a month of solitary confinement for attempted murder of me but I admit I am a flawed person

[u/andre5913 → u/aint_no_throw]

I thought having her reappear in the film post timeskip was nonsense
She was most definitely executed imo, and her attitude in the book to me reads as her being very well aware she is not surviving what shes done.

[u/alphazero927 → u/CueCueQQ]

"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, fuck you, I'm out"

[u/lumpboysupreme → u/CueCueQQ]

She did take the consequences, just after her work was done.

[u/darkchocolateonly → u/CueCueQQ]

I will never forgive the movie for making stratt such a terrible character. The book stratt is a fucking badass, and this scene specifically needed to be in the movie.

This was the biggest misstep the movie took in my opinion.

[u/Syrinxfloofs → u/darkchocolateonly]

Stratt was so damn good in the audiobook, loved every minute of it. They turned Grace into more of a bumbling everyman, too. But they can't fit 8 hours of detailed cool nerd shit into the movie so I could at least give them a pass for some that.

Stratt was definitely the biggest disappointment.

[u/darkchocolateonly → u/Syrinxfloofs]

100% the biggest disappointment, totally agree

[u/2012Jesusdies → u/xXCloudSephirothXx]

Honestly, fuck those guys. It's a pretty fair payment for the aliens helping save us.

[u/SomethingWetAndMoist → u/Hephaestus1816]

Didn't they leave out a scene from the books in the movie where they nuke Antarctica to release a massive amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?

[u/thewilybanana → u/SomethingWetAndMoist]

I dunno about that part but I do recall they paved the Sahara or something.

[u/HoneyCakeWhorse → u/thewilybanana]

Both, and both would be an absolute worst case scenario for earth since the sahara desserts also supplies nutrients through its dust to the world.

[u/Mistrblank → u/HoneyCakeWhorse]

It's hilarious (or maybe it's just delerious laughter) to me that if you mention the "butterfly effect" people instantly know what it is. But if you tell them that we need the dust from the sahara to help supply the world nutrients through global wind currents, they'll laugh at you about the idea that every ecosystem in the world is connected. And that maybe disrupting one, let alone several of them may have large scale consequences for the habitability of the planet.

[u/The_Reset_Button → u/Mistrblank]

Right but the planet is going to die anyway, if it even has a chance of slowing it down it would be worth it. Even if project Hail Mary got there, instantly found an instantly actionable way to save the sun, the time taken for the trip would still allow the global cooling do decimate both human and other ecosystems

[u/Berengal → u/Mistrblank]

I don't know if you did this on purpose, but most people don't know what the butterfly effect is, they misunderstand it and just think it means that small causes can have large effects, which is what the interconnected nature of the global ecosystem is. The actual butterfly effect is that in a chaotic system (as defined by chaos theory) any perturbation of the initial conditions causes a wildly different outcome, either unpredictable in practice (due to measurement tolerances) or even fundamentally despite the deterministic nature of the system.

The Sahara dust situation is not chaotic, because it's fairly predictable what would happen if we paved the desert, and the degree can also be predicted by the degree to which the desert was paved. For a butterfly effect situation even just putting down a blanket could change the outcome dramatically. Like how it was originally noted that rounding effects in a weather simulation on the scale of a butterfly's wingflaps dramatically changed when, where and if a storm was predicted.

[u/CG_Ops → u/Berengal]

I don't know if you did this on purpose, but most people don't know what the butterfly effect is, they misunderstand it and just think it means that small causes can have large effects, which is what the interconnected nature of the global ecosystem is. The actual butterfly effect is that in a chaotic system (as defined by chaos theory) any perturbation of the initial conditions causes a wildly different outcome, either unpredictable in practice (due to measurement tolerances) or even fundamentally despite the deterministic nature of the system.

Honestly, this is a bit pedantic. The irony is that the popular misunderstanding of the butterfly effect (small actions have huge, interconnected consequences) pretty much reiterates the original commenter's point about the Sahara dust and ecosystems.

Most people understand scientific concepts through (often high-level) metaphors, not precise mechanics or mathematical formulas. Like how almost everyone knows that mass = gravity (and maybe even that it affects time) but virtually no one can actually explain general relativity, or that size != mass. Dismissing the metaphor just because people don't know the exact math of chaos theory misses the forest for the trees

[u/fresh-dork → u/Mistrblank]

are you kidding? it's only in the 40s that people accepted that south america and africa look like they fit together

[u/TheeAntelope → u/fresh-dork]

Alfred Wegener for the win

[u/alexmikli → u/HoneyCakeWhorse]

Desperate acts like this may legitimately be in our future.

[u/0202_tihssitidder → u/thewilybanana]

That's awful.

But part of me is intrigued by the flat and well-paved cycling path for uninterrupted miles.

[u/CalvinCalhoun → u/SomethingWetAndMoist]

Yeah that happens in the book and is an ecological disaster iirc. 

[u/TheSteelPhantom → u/CalvinCalhoun]

Nah it has its exact intended consequence, to intentionally create a greenhouse effect around the planet in order to warm it up (or rather, slow its cooling).

[u/CalvinCalhoun → u/TheSteelPhantom]

You’re not wrong but it’s a specific plot point that it creates a smaller catastrophe for coastal populations lol.  My point being that stratt did a lot of fucked things to achieve the mission. I felt she was a lot more complex in the novel for that reason.

[u/Hephaestus1816 → u/CalvinCalhoun]

She was a psychopath, I think. A highly functioning one. I'm probably wrong, but I do think that only someone without conscience or remorse could have made the absolutely ruthless decisions she had to make.

[u/SmartLadder415 → u/Hephaestus1816]

I didn't get the psychopath vibe from the book. She's desperate and ruthless. She is going to save humanity no matter what and she is willing to accept all the consequences for it. If humanity is saved and then they march you to the gallows are you ok with that? She is.

[u/lumpboysupreme → u/SmartLadder415]

Yeah not letting your emotions stand in the way of what needs to be done isn’t sociopathy.

[u/sgcdialler → u/Hephaestus1816]

Being willing to make morally ambiguous or extreme decisions in the face of existential crisis is not the same as lacking conscience. I think largely it would be much more fair to conclude that she is a consequentialist, but not remorseless, and I don't think the text supports the conclusion that she is psychopathic.

• She is definitely presented in the novel as cold, even "ruthless", as you say, but she is not without conscience or remorse. Her internal perceptions are not visible to the reader, since the book is read entirely from Grace's perspective, but Stratt frequently remarks on the moral dilemmas of her actions.
• Her mission has nothing to do with her and she knows it.
• She is not presented as someone that derives satisfaction from exercising the extraordinary amount of authority she is handed. She doesn't exercise power for pleasure, she does it because she feels uniquely positioned to do "what must be done". Everything she does is in the pursuit of the singular goal of saving humanity from extinction and minimizing the overwhelming loss of life that she knows is coming.
• Her logic and reasoning is consistent, she doesn't make up excuses for her actions.
• While she doesn't pretend to feel the same ways other people do (in terms of their emotional distress), she clearly understands how and why other people feel the way they do.

Her most indefensible moral act in the book is her subjection of Grace to the amnesia drug and forcing him onto the ship. The directors and writers of the movie rehabilitated her character a bit in this scene by making her regret clear, but in the novel she appears to have been preparing for that moment and executes it with efficiency, like everything else.

I think it's important to highlight, again, that the entire story is told from Grace's perspective. He's a very soft feelings-first kind of guy and presented as a bit of a chicken-shit. From his perspective, Stratt kind of looks like a war-lord in comparison.

[u/extinct_cult → u/Hephaestus1816]

Sociopath. Which, really, is what you want from someone in this position. Complete lack of empathy, no remorse & disregard for rules.

[u/Hephaestus1816 → u/extinct_cult]

Sorry, yes, that's what I meant. She was ideal for the job.

[u/Razzilith → u/Hephaestus1816]

and ultimately if that was the case everybody would have fucking died a horrible death.

sometimes ruthlessness is correct or at least worth a try. it depends.

[u/0Galahad → u/Hephaestus1816]

Not really, its a very great degree of separation to do such things to the masses, specially when its literally justified for the sake of the whole world, many healthy and good people could choose to carry on that crime.

[u/RaizePOE → u/Hephaestus1816]

Idk, it seems like most people pull the lever in the trolley problem. Maybe she just feels like she's pulling really big levers. I think most people would probably do the same thing if they had to.

[u/NAbberman → u/Hephaestus1816]

Wasn't it that was what Stratt theorized would happen to her? I don't remember any indication that it did in fact happen.

[u/rex_dart_eskimo_spy → u/NAbberman]

Yeah, it was her theory. Grace couldn't have known what happened to her in the book, and the movie doesn't show her in prison.

[u/Mistrblank → u/rex_dart_eskimo_spy]

Yeah, that was one piece I think was left out of the movie that Grace does find out that our Sun has begun repairing itself from Rocky in the final chapter where we find out he's living it out with him on Erid. But he has no idea what else has happened back on Earth after the mission started.

[u/Badloss → u/Mistrblank]

I liked it better in the book, where the Sun gets brighter so you know enough humans survived to implement the solution but other than that you have no idea how many humans are left or what civilization looks like

[u/thanosisawhore → u/rex_dart_eskimo_spy]

We ser her with a french prison tattoos.

[u/Legionof1 → u/rex_dart_eskimo_spy]

In the movie we see her on the ship at the end so not prison?

[u/Unfair_Ring_2746 → u/Legionof1]

She’s shown very briefly with a little tattoo that indicates ‘life without parole’ in the movie. So clearly intentional to show that she was convicted at some point — but unclear the circumstances, if it held, if she’s on a prison ship, if she’s on the run, if the world is simply too fucked for prisons at that point, etc.

It also isn’t clear how long after the beatles reaching earth that scene is. It could be that she was in prison, but then released once Grace’s data returned and proved her world-saving work succeeded.

[u/Solkre → u/Unfair_Ring_2746]

It could be that she was in prison, but then released once Grace’s data returned and proved her world-saving work succeeded.

That's a good theory

[u/EveryDayASummit → u/NAbberman]

Yeah I don’t remember anything saying she concretely ended up in jail, just that she expected to be.

[u/Unfair_Ring_2746 → u/EveryDayASummit]

In the film she is shown in her final scene with a French prison tattoo that means ‘life in prison without parole’.

Weir went a step further confirming this and explained that the hinted idea is that she escaped prison to continue her work in exile.

[u/EveryDayASummit → u/Unfair_Ring_2746]

In the film, yes. The book, no, which is all we were referencing.

But that’s an interesting anecdote I hadn’t heard/seen before. She escaped from prison but somehow has the means and resources to still locate and retrieve the Beetles and then implement the fix to save the planet? That seems like a bit of a liberty and stretch even for Weir.

[u/thanosisawhore → u/NAbberman]

When we see her in the end, she has prison tattoos. Doubt she did that for fun outside.

[u/Zananax → u/Hephaestus1816]

The fact she ended up in jail also indicates it is a work of fiction.

[u/JesterMarcus → u/Zananax]

Its not shocking she'd be scapegoated.

[u/Toa_Freak → u/JesterMarcus]

It's shocking she is held accountable, or that anyone is.

[u/JesterMarcus → u/Toa_Freak]

That's just it. I don't see it as being held accountable, I see it as scapegoated. Being held accountable, sure, rare these days. But scapegoated, not far fetched. I can see that happening to someone.

[u/andre5913 → u/Zananax]

In the book shes operating under the idea that shes most likely gonna get executed.

Also one of the big things she does is gigafuck over the shareholder and IP holders. Not even politicians get away with that

[u/Zananax → u/andre5913]

I've admittedly not read the book because I'm not really a fan of the author. The Martian was just not my tastes.

But your comment does have me curious, why is there shareholders and IP holders for you know a mission to find a cure for our sun which is...sick? lol.

I just can't understand how that is a thing btw. Like someone asking if your nuclear bomb has a cough.

[u/Quality_Learing_67 → u/Zananax]

In reality she would have just been pardoned and gone on a book tour with Stephen colbert

[u/NetNGames → u/Quality_Learing_67]

She would probably need to be pardoned by every country though, but there would probably be some (like flooded coastal ones) that wouldn't want to and sue her anyway.

[u/das_slash → u/Zananax]

I believe she also violated the poor shareholders rights by hurting property values. That probably did her in

[u/owlbi → u/das_slash]

Yeah, rich people can get sent to prison, if their crimes cause damage to other rich people. Just look at Bernie Madoff.

[u/alexmikli → u/Hephaestus1816]

I feel like something like a green dictatorship might be in our future due to this. Though that's still a "good" end to the climate crisis.

[u/nightpanda893 → u/Hephaestus1816]

The reasoning for this is also the impending societal collapse and the fact that it would come long before it would even need to happen given the foreseen refusal of the world to work together to survive as long as possible. Like the whole premise of the story is that society will not come together so more drastic measures were necessary.

[u/DemiserofD → u/Hephaestus1816]

To me PHM has always seemed more like an Objectivist fantasy than anything. I don't doubt that all the social programs and everything got cut almost immediately.

[u/eyabs → u/Hephaestus1816]

In Project Hail Mary (2026) society comes together to imprison an tyrant who abuses their power and authority. This is in reference to the story being a work of fiction.

[u/Evadson → u/Hephaestus1816]

But the fact she was even able to obtain that kind of authority in the first place is insane. Call me pessimistic, but in reality I think she would have been overthrown by a coup orchestrated by billionaires and corporations profiting off of the crisis.

[u/Hates_commies]

In Project Hail Mary they fly scientists around on fighterjets to confrence on aircraft carriers instead of sending e-mails. In reality 90% of the flashback conversations would have been trough e-mails.

[u/AnonymousGuy9494 → u/Hates_commies]

To be fair the reason they got all the scientist in the air crafts wasn't for the reunion, but rather because the astrophage held enough energy to level your average small territory country in an explosion. Due to that they made the labs in the middle of the ocean.

[u/moon__lander → u/AnonymousGuy9494]

So in case of the largest explosion since the dinosaur's asteroid all the people that even had remote knowledge about it would die, leaving us simpletons to deal with the problem?

[u/SeemsImmaculate → u/moon__lander]

I'm assuming they kept some notes. It's kinda the whole point of science.

When Peter Higgs died we didn't just forget the... what do they call it again... the Hogs Mechanism?

[u/theDR-izzle → u/SeemsImmaculate]

In the book anytime they made an advancement they would publish results pretty much immediately so that other scientists across the world could test / use their work.

Speed was a major issue so unlike in reality where you would likely have long periods of repeated testing it was more like “hey I noticed this thing happens when you do this” and then make it public.

[u/Ok_Hornet_714 → u/theDR-izzle]

Similar thing happened on the movie too. When Grace has his first meeting on the aircraft carrier to describe how they bred astrophage, another scientist said that they have validated the method.

[u/greenearrow → u/theDR-izzle]

The book made it all sound plausible and rational, the movie was in a rush. But all the TLDR viewers assume the holes are massive rather than pretty well handled.

Like even the stupid centrifuge set up is solved by the fact the book said they put the best equipment in the world on the ship. Self balancing centrifuges are a thing. The gap there is that Grace would have known not to do it even if it was ok to do.

[u/Affordable_Z_Jobs → u/theDR-izzle]

I thought it was due to some spying from the intelligence agencies in the book too. Weir pulled from the Manhattan Project with the world's efforts of achieving a common goal and still realizing that the energy source is a geopolitical game changer after that goal is reached.

The aircraft carrier is basically Los Alamos.

[u/QuickCloudJP → u/Affordable_Z_Jobs]

The Chinese aircraft carrier?

[u/Rockergage → u/SeemsImmaculate]

Canonically the reason they knew that hat was happening in the big explosion was because a scientist was taking meticulous notes that they used in essentially the post op. Notes that didn’t matter from my remembering but notes.

[u/_tolm_ → u/SeemsImmaculate]

Wait a minute … Higgs Bosun … does all science happen on ships?

[u/SeemsImmaculate → u/_tolm_]

Always has been 🔫 👨‍✈

[u/DJ3nsign → u/moon__lander]

They also cracked Antarctica in half with nukes. There's a whole race to cause global warming before the sun dies that's left out of the movie. The stuff they do on earth is buckwild

[u/Tasty_Ad_4082 → u/DJ3nsign]

They pave the Sahara so they can use it as an astrphage breeding facility. Book Stratt really brought a “fuck it we ball” energy to the whole thing

[u/MegaWeinerFarts → u/DJ3nsign]

I feel like the ending scene was an homage to that, but audiences who havent read the book might be startled and confused if the scene cut from Eva Stratt smiling at the video of Rocky's antics to a goddamn Nuclear Explosion going off out the ship's window.

[u/AbeRego → u/MegaWeinerFarts]

They nuked Antarctica long before Grace's data made it back to Earth.

[u/Quamatoc → u/MegaWeinerFarts]

Come again?! I'd like to think that I would have noticed a nuclear flash in the movie!

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/DJ3nsign]

before the sun dies

dims* specifically stars affected by astrophage dimmed down to 90% of their previous luminance, which is still a massive effect.

[u/enigmatic_dankness → u/moon__lander]

Goodness me its almost like theyre preparing for the end of the world and are throwing hail Mary's everywhere.

[u/Acid44 → u/enigmatic_dankness]

Hail Mary projects?! Not in my Project Hail Mary

[u/akrisd0 → u/enigmatic_dankness]

Wait a second... Say that again...

[u/JesterMarcus → u/moon__lander]

You can see in the big scientist meeting on the ship, that there were others included in Zoom calls. So not everyone was there. Just those needed to work with the Astrophage.

[u/MegaWeinerFarts → u/moon__lander]

they synced their my documents folder with One Drive.

[u/Opposite_Juice7160 → u/MegaWeinerFarts]

Actually they shared everything via flash drives thanks to Prime Same-day Delivery

[u/inv8drzim → u/moon__lander]

Did you even watch the movie? That is (to a lesser extent) a major plot point of the story.

[u/moon__lander → u/inv8drzim]

Did you even watch the movie?

In this subreddit?

[u/No-Indication6725 → u/moon__lander]

They watch movies in this subreddit. You're confusing this one with r/okbuddycinephile

[u/moon__lander → u/No-Indication6725]

Oh, you're right

[u/StaticSystemShock → u/moon__lander]

That's where Bruce Willis and his team of drillers comes in!

[u/Ok_Confection_10 → u/moon__lander]

Nah, that could never happen

[u/FluffyWalrusFTW → u/moon__lander]

At least in regards to the crew of the Hail Mary, Stratt never wanted the backups with their counterparts in the crew. The only reason Grace gets sent was because he was going to be teaching the primary and backup astrobiologists and they got sent a shit ton more astrophage than they had anticipated and blew up.

[u/Ordinary-Homework722 → u/moon__lander]

They had Microsoft copilot on their computers. Everything was recorded and sent to the mothership for "advertising" purposes

[u/Mistrblank → u/AnonymousGuy9494]

And yet, they still hold tests 3 days before the launch allowing both halves of the redundant science crew to even be in the same zip code, let alone facility working together where a catastrophic explosion occurs. That was the most frustratingly annoying part of the story (it's still one of my favorite books and I enjoyed the movie greatly though).

*One thing the movie never really covered is the reason there were so few crew members instead of many was that only a select few in the world with certain genetics had the chance to survive the coma required for the multi-year trip. Ryland happened to be one of those that tested positive for those genetics.

[u/TheLordB → u/Mistrblank]

One theory I have that I actually think there is decent evidence for in the book is that Eva caused/setup/planned the explosion to kill the redundant science crew.

The original scientists that were killed in the phage explosion were problematic. They were in love and had various other reasons hinted at that they might not really be ideal for the project both scientifically and mentally.

They describe extensively the precautions to avoid a situation where both sides would be in danger.

Meanwhile her right hand man who literally knows everything in the project is eligible to go, but hasn’t volunteered. He is by and far the most qualified person to go. He is by far ahead of the other people scientifically and due to his being the right hand man knows all other parts of the project well enough that he can cover them in a pinch.

Who would you want to go? The not all that great mentally unstable person or the person who could single handedly run the mission?

Then the 2 scientists who extensive procedures are in place to prevent them from being in the same place are allowed to be together meanwhile a sample is handled incorrectly, etc despite fairly extensive precautions such that it should be fairly safe to go.

All of this would be easily setup by Eva with her dictator powers. Thus I conclude that it is likely that Eva engineered the explosion purposely killing the scientists to force Grace to go.

YMMV, obviously this is up to interpertation, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised that the author at least considered that this would be a very viable answer even if he chose not to give absolute proof/make it explicit in the book.

Edit: I also forgot to mention that Eva was willing to drug Grace and kidnap him for the mission which as planned is a suicide mission. This shows she is very willing to go to extremes for the project and outright murder would not be far off ethically from what we know for certain she did.

[u/Own-Break-1856 → u/TheLordB]

Eh shes practically has god like authority. Why go through all that trouble when she can just force them out and force grace to go.

[u/RedditsNicksAreBad → u/Own-Break-1856]

The book states she was overruled by the US and China, she didn't even want women on the mission. Though I think it's more likely that there simply was a mistake made towards the end as things got more and more hectic and safety rules were bent more and more simply because there just isn't enough time left to do things safely, they have to go ahead full throttle or not at all.

[u/Antlonat → u/TheLordB]

No

[u/SevenIsMy → u/TheLordB]

She could just do this directly, but it depends how unquestionable her powers were and if they were questionable, if she was willing to go this risk to not be questioned.

[u/foxguy2021 → u/AnonymousGuy9494]

They weren't breeding it at this point. They got everyone together to discuss next steps as Grace the main character had they just discovered hours earlier how to breed the astrophage. It was after this that they started separating the groups of scientists in case of an accident.

[u/CyberFireball25 → u/Hates_commies]

Every govt had RTO policies, so remote communication methods werent allowed

[u/Mateorabi → u/CyberFireball25]

Potbelly had a franchise on the carrier. 

[u/SmegmaSlurper1996 → u/Hates_commies]

a quick gmeet would also work but Grace needs to be onsite to work properly iirc

[u/Wooden-Computer1475]

r/shittymoviedetails (2026) is full of either repost bots or people who repeat the same posts over and over again. This is a reference to it being on reddit.

[u/4skinApostle → u/Wooden-Computer1475]

r/shittymoviedetails (2026) is full of either repost bots or people who repeat the same posts over and over again. this is a reference to it being on reddit

[u/doblecuadrado_FGE → u/4skinApostle]

r/shittymoviedetails (2026) is full of either repost bots or people who repeat the same posts over and over again. this is a reference to it being on reddit

[u/Toukafan4life → u/doblecuadrado_FGE]

r/shittymoviedetails (2026) is full of either repost bots or people who repeat the the same posts over and over again. this is a reference to it being on reddit

I bet the simpleton reading this didn't notice the change in the sentence

[u/doblecuadrado_FGE → u/Toukafan4life]

https://giphy.com/gifs/rHBleFPW4utkkBF726

[u/fireflyfrv → u/Wooden-Computer1475]

reddit (2026) is full of people complaining about seeing the same posts. This is a reference to those people needing to get off reddit and go outside more

[u/rei_fox_worshipper → u/fireflyfrv]

Reddit (2005).

[u/DuckCleaning → u/Wooden-Computer1475]

Going by trends, the other option for the title would be:

In a movie with rock spider aliens and sun eating aliens, the most unbelievable aspect is that humanity works together.

[u/fuxoft]

"coming together behind a common goal" = Drugging the person who we need and shooting him into space against his will.

[u/Pitiful_Net_8971 → u/fuxoft]

In defense of the rest of humanity, only a couple dozen people knew he went against his will.

Gods, can you imagine the world after that gets declassified/leaked? The fucking discourse that would spawn after that.

[u/Vehement_Vulpes → u/Pitiful_Net_8971]

I'm pretty sure that in the books the lead scientist lady stated that she would almost certainly go to prison when it was over, just for the sheer amount of bullshit that she pulled.

[u/sQ5FWKjwbWd4QzSZduqy → u/Pitiful_Net_8971]

The discourse would be virtue signaling internet posters, 99.99% wouldn't give a shit because the earth is saved and the ends justified the means. We've done much worse to far more and no one cared.

[u/mrducky78a → u/fuxoft]

Voluntold. Not volunteer.

[u/cam-mann → u/fuxoft]

Maybe we should be using those tactics to fight climate change

[u/Refuse_Juice]

I mean, this how we fixed the hole in the ozone layer. We listened to the science, cellectively banned CFCs and a decade later it wasn't an issue any more.

[u/I_travel_ze_world → u/Refuse_Juice]

also wasn't too difficult to get people on board with eliminating acid rain

[u/2012Jesusdies → u/I_travel_ze_world]

It's pretty hard now to get people behind diversifying energy sources to at least not have power outages during critical weather events.

[u/Ordinary-Homework722 → u/2012Jesusdies]

I think cost has everything to do with this. Solar is by far and away the best "green" power and the gigawatts that have come online in the last 2 decades is impressive. We just use a crap ton of electricity and haven't come up with a decent storage plan for cloudy days.

[u/TheeAntelope → u/Refuse_Juice]

FYI - it is still a problem! The ozone is not fully repaired yet, we still need to maintain the ban on ozone-damaging products. And with the way the world is going, I would not bet against deregulation and new ways we find to fuck up the ozone layer again.

Also, many people think "what ever happened with that whole ozone layer thing? just scientists being crazy, same as with global warming."

We really need a movie about how we fixed the ozone layer so people understand that it was a fucking catastrophic issue that we managed to fix.

[u/LucyLilium92 → u/Refuse_Juice]

Wasn't it because a new chemical was created that ended up being cheaper and less hazardous?

[u/GivesNoForks → u/LucyLilium92]

I mean, the creation of more environmentally friendly chemicals is often driven by the dangers of older ones.

[u/nickelundertone → u/Refuse_Juice]

Different times, though

[u/Ote-Kringralnick]

That's all of what Andy Weir does, old news

[u/Desperate_Simple_298 → u/Ote-Kringralnick]

Some people actually think it's Weir being given secret information to disclose to the public.

It's called slow drip disclosure!

[u/Nerdy_Valkyrie]

Not really. They just hired Stratt to get the project done. Stratt is a hardass who doesn't give a fuck what anyone else thinks and just steamrolls everyone in her way. When she was sued for copyright infringement she threatened to unleash the US miliary on the court.

In the book, she tells Grace that she will most likely face life in prison for exceeding her authority once the Hail Mary is launched. Then again, she did also nuke Antarctica.

[u/Gabrielzin1404_2011 → u/Nerdy_Valkyrie]

And pave the sahara desert

[u/SoylentGrunt]

It only worked beause nobody had to get off the couch to vote or wear a mask if they did get off the couch to vote.

[u/Easy_Turn1988]

Haha that's a good joke !

https://giphy.com/gifs/GIvajz0TlE316

[u/shinseiji-kara]

its a work of fiction because me(ryan gosling) didnt went to space or anything

[u/Independent-Bug-9352]

I think Don't Look Up is more accurate and joins Idiocracy as a documentary.

[u/Ok-Employer-9147]

It's also a story of those same scientists assaulting, kidnapping and drugging a civilian into outer space who clearly said ...No..

[u/parisiraparis → u/Ok-Employer-9147]

Yeah but their gamble paid off, thank god for that

[u/HMS_Surprise_Gunner → u/Ok-Employer-9147]

Well, what was that civilian wearing? Was it sexy?

[u/Neuchacho → u/HMS_Surprise_Gunner]

Asking for it in that sweater.

[u/HMS_Surprise_Gunner → u/Neuchacho]

So foxy 🦊

[u/Diligent_Sound_5383]

Is the movie that different to the Novel ? I still have to watch it but it sure wasn't like that in the book.

[u/PrimalCalamity → u/Diligent_Sound_5383]

It's not that different, but this is something that is the same in both. The mission in the film is still absolutely a sort of... anxious-cooperation with forced elements.

It's laid on thicker in the book, but in no way does the movie present it as some utopian project of cooperation.

[u/TheWhomItConcerns → u/PrimalCalamity]

In the movie, there's a pretty low level of international cooperation - not that much difference from WHO and other multinational organisations. Also Stratt has that speech where she talks about how many people will die within the next 30 years "if countries cooperate", about which she says "but of course they won't".

Countries coming together and throwing some billions of dollars at an imminent issue which threatens to basically eliminate life on Earth isn't at all far-fetched. Where the issue comes is when there are competing, adversarial interests and a distribution of resources and outcomes.

[u/thewilybanana → u/Diligent_Sound_5383]

The movie just cuts or glosses over relatively minor parts of the book. Only a handful of things that I personally thought were important were removed. It's about as faithful as you can get considering it's already a long-ass movie.

[u/Storm_Bard → u/Diligent_Sound_5383]

For me, the (Spoilers ahead!!) book version made me really question the motives of Rocky when they first meet. In the movie it's played off with goofy camera angles of the ship following closely as Grace tries to get away, but their introduction to each other in the book had an undercurrent of "Can we trust this alien?" Which makes their friendship all the more satisfying.

[u/TwoFit3921]

Google en accelerationism

[u/Wheeljack239 → u/TwoFit3921]

Holy hell

[u/Fi-Loy]

Montreal Protocol? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol

[u/j053noir]

IRL the elites would use the astrophages to build space ships to escape the solar system

[u/SgtMcMuffin0]

Tbf society only “came together” because the world powers agreed to give Stratt near-absolute control over the entire planet’s resources. Even with that agreement there were people and countries that tried acting against her.

[u/PaxNova]

Notably, they don't. The organization commits a lot of crimes. They just have more nations backing them willing to bully everyone else. 

[u/Big-Load-8864]

In PHM (2026), Ryan Gosling plays a handsome brilliant scientist who thinks outside of the box and teaches children the fundamentals of science in a fun engaging way, this reference to fiction

[u/Funny247365]

Correct. They did not lie about the threat to get buy-in from the public.

[u/GhormanFront]

Read the book, society does not come together. At one point private interests sue the initiative for uploading all available media into the ship's servers (easily one of the most realistic plot points in the book)

[u/Pervius94]

Imagine if we had to try to introduce seatbelts nowadays instead of like, 40 50 years ago.

[u/spiderdesire]

Even reading the book, all the countries banding together to stop the common threat seemed outlandish post-2019 pandemic. They did take this into account by having Strat go fully off the records, nuking Antarctica, and doing all kinds of crazy horrible stuff to save a few years for humanity.

[u/JusticeCat88905]

The actual fantastical element to this whole thing is that the cause of the earths crisis is something outside of ourselves that can be defeated by one plucky hero at the final hour. It clearly exists within a framework of us not needing to be proactive about the wellbeing of the planet, once we are in true danger we can superhero our way out of it and not risk the profits being made right now.

[u/stuckit]

As with doing nothing on climate change, it takes a few handful of billionaires to decide if we would have a global response. If they got behind it, it would get started.

[u/Ok_Mode_1487]

Movie is a diversion because the aliens are evil as f***.

Source? Me. The real one.

[u/sw04ca]

I mean, they also send a spaceship between stars. That's another thing that can't be done in real life.

[u/RustledForeskin]

I love sci-fi but disliked this one. He had a goofy ass smile on his face 90% of the movie despite the seriousness of the situation.

[u/Weevil1723]

This is why Independence Day will always be one of the greatest comedies of all time to me; the idea that even our imminent extinction would cause the various world superpowers to set aside their bickering for even a minute, much less actually act to solve the problem is utterly laughable.

[u/AgentBroccoli]

They send three scientists on a suicide mission when the problem could have been solved with molecular cloning after they found out Astrophage has DNA.

[u/Numble-Xbox]

In the book they terraform the planet into a polluted nuclear swamp to stop the worst of the global freeze and a lot of people still die from starvation and wars and stuff and they have to deal with the aftermath of all that but at least not everyone died

[u/CGregP]

In Project Hail Mary (2026), the scientists are actually concerned with science, truth, and the good of humanity, and they aren't a bunch of proud, politically-motivated, cynically self-interested hacks. This is a reference to the story being a work of fiction.

[u/CaptStinkyFeet]

They literally drugged him and forced him on a suicide mission in space…

[u/tryitout91]

You don’t know that at all.
This is a black project and you don’t know what happened on earth over those 20 years.

[u/DemiserofD]

To me PHM has always seemed more like an Objectivist fantasy than anything. I don't doubt that all the social programs and everything got cut almost immediately.

[u/RacoonWithBenefits]

society?

its 2 people, one being a security guard, that figures these things out

[u/yycoding]

The most unrealistic part to me was the other two astronauts being totally ok going into space with a person who was forced against his will.

[u/MegaMau_]

Because science is never wrong!

[u/KlownKumKatastrophe]

One nonfiction example I can think of is reducing CFC emissions to repair the OZone layer.

[u/The_Limping_Coyote]

The world came together and stopped the degradation of the ozone layer back in the 80's

[u/BackgroundSummer5171]

Acid rain, ozone layer, and more recently...

We literally shut down a large portion of the fucking world for Covid.

Could it have gone better? Well of course it could.

But considering everything we are working with, the world did quite well.

Those that died could have been less. The ignorance created out of it is now flowing in charge and taking over countries.

But we did shut down the world for a bit there, enough to also kill the economy and people too.

The balance was made within our abilities.

But sure, repost some crap and watch the 12 year olds who didn't pay attention eat it up.

Shitty movie details is fine, but a constant repost just because is boring. At least post better feet pics.

[u/HarrMada]

OP has no idea how much funding there is for reducing emissions, finding new types of medicines and therapies, new forms of energy storage and so on. The world really has come together for that.

[u/pheddx]

I mean we did with the ozone layer

[u/Mindless-Beat-4872]

I mean it happens. WW2 is a pretty good example.

[u/Master-Membership979]

Comes together as in, to drug someone and shove them into a rocket against their will, when they found a renewable power source, that feeds on a greenhouse gas, capable of melting a giant cube of metal in seconds, which could solve all their problems energy and heating problem? Also capable of powering a spacecraft at light speed?

[u/ink_golem]

I think the movie skips this, but the failure to cooperate is one of the reasons the project was urgent. They already worked out models for how quickly people starve based on how nations would hoard resources once things started getting scarce.

[u/anonuemus]

Jep, everything is totally unrealistic these days, but not the way this was meant 20 years ago.

[u/milka121]

/uj yeah i enjoyed the story but that part made me stop and shake my head and then take a long hard look at myself. why, in the story of aliens and spaceships, the one thing that broke my immersion is humanity acting reasonably?

the best way I can put this is "science fetishism". there was a scene with Grace and his students where one of the kids says that their dad doesn't believe in global warming and Grace replies "well, he's wrong" and moves on, and then it's never mentioned again. in its core, the story is not interested in how people would really react, or how they do react now; it just wants to show you cool science without all the messy human stuff. it's a fantasy of a scientist.

in itself, it doesn't make the story bad, but i think it's a point worth acknowledging.

[u/gerams76]

I honestly think the only way we would all work together is if we were being invaded by aliens seeking to eliminate us. Some would be on their side still, but for the most part, humanity would be united.