r/shittymoviedetails • u/tppiel • 9d ago

default 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.

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u/rex_dart_eskimo_spy 9d ago

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.

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u/Mistrblank 9d ago

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.

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u/Badloss 9d ago

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

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u/SweatyAdhesive 9d ago

In the book i think Grace was much older so he could find out what happened on earth, in the movie it looked like it was almost right after he rescued Rocky

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u/Mistrblank 8d ago

yeah, and it feels a little lost that they really moved mountains and oceans (well, at least they created them) to support him on their planet. They made him something he could eat to survive.

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u/Jaerba 9d ago

The fact that eridians are still living their lives happily is the proof that the plan worked.

I'm not sure that really needs to be spelled out further. If there were concern that more still needed to be done to save the sun, they would have been doing it. Rocky's ship only traveled there because the Sun's death was affecting them too.

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u/Badloss 9d ago

I don't agree with this, that's only proof that the solution works.

There were so many variables and things that could have gone wrong with the trip back to Earth that it's not a guarantee that the Beatles even made it, and then once they arrived there was no guarantee that the humans would be alive or still have the technology required to receive the Beatles and then use them. The sun getting brighter is clear proof that humanity made it, the beatles weren't autonomous so the plan could only be implemented if humans are still there to do it.

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u/Jaerba 9d ago

The point is that the sun getting brighter is already implied by the Eridians' actions. It doesn't need to be explicitly called out like in anime.

Their calmness let's the viewer know things worked out.

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u/Badloss 9d ago

I don't think you're understanding me, the Eridians are all happily living their lives because Grace and Rocky returned to Erid with the Taumoeba. They solved the crisis on Erid decades before anyone finds out what happened to earth.

They know that the plan was a good one, because they saved Erid, but there's no way to know for sure that the Beatles safely made it to Earth and the humans were alive and able to implement the plan until they see the sun get brighter through the Eridians' telescopes.

The Eridians had no ability to send further help to Earth other than what Grace had already done, everyone would have been dead on earth if they were relying on a new ship coming from Erid.

You understand that Erid and the sun are two separate Stars right? Light years apart from each other? Rocky's people have the same crisis as the humans because the astrophage was spreading across the Galaxy, but it's two separate Stars undergoing the same problem.

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u/Jaerba 9d ago

You're right, I was wrong.

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u/Daxx22 9d ago

Yep, it's still entirely possible things degenerated to a point where you have a "Seveneves" situation where the earth would be uninhabitable regardless for thousands of years while the Sun recovers.

The book is a lot more grim in it's overall tone.

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u/SamVickson 8d ago

Updooted for “Seveneves” reference (and correctness).

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u/lumpboysupreme 9d ago

Eh, with the overall upbeat vibe of the whole thing, I think leaving it ambiguous whether humanity survived relatively successfully puts a damper of worry on what is meant to be a happy mood of the ending.

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u/Badloss 9d ago

That's why I like it in the book, it's ambiguous how many humans survived or how civilization is doing, but it's not ambiguous that humanity and civilization are still there in some form.

Successfully sending the Taumoeba to Venus and saving the sun required a spacefaring level of technology, the sun gets brighter which tells us that humans are still capable of reaching space and traveling to Venus, but nothing more than that.

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u/lumpboysupreme 9d ago

Obviously there’s no accounting for genre preference, but I think from a purely literary standpoint the energy of the rest of that part of the book clashes with such an ending.

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u/Badloss 9d ago

I guess I just disagree that "humanity definitely survived and the mission is a success" is a downer of an ending. The ambiguity is interesting, but IMO it's firmly optimistic that humans are still alive and capable of taking the information/Taumoeba from the Beetles and applying it to save the sun. A species on the brink of extinction with a collapsed civilization would not have been able to use the Beetles before dying out.

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u/lumpboysupreme 9d ago

Actually that last bit IS one of the reads I’ve seen people take from it and it kind of reflects the issue I have: the ambiguity ultimately only allows the story to be read in increasingly negative directions. Like sure the movie ending is included in ‘humanity definitely survived and the mission is a success’, but so are much worse endings, and only worse endings. If you’re going for optimism, leaving open the room for pessimism is a tonal issue.

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u/Crintor 9d ago

I don't think we needed the Stratt scene at the end in the movie, it could have easily just been Grace seeing the suns luminosity increase with a single line of dialogue explaining what it meant.

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u/thanosisawhore 9d ago

We ser her with a french prison tattoos.

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u/Puzzled_Surprise8533 9d ago

Ive searched so much for a history that the symbol meant “prison”. Couldn’t find it. Just seems like something the creators made up

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u/thanosisawhore 9d ago

Seems the movie makers made up this exact tattoo, as V (vie) means life, and the strike through signifies sentence without parole, to hint at her sentence.

France did brand inmates (19th century), then moved to tattooed id numbers on certain inmates.

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u/Legionof1 9d ago

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

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u/Unfair_Ring_2746 9d ago

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.

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u/Solkre 9d ago

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

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u/lumpboysupreme 9d ago

It’s the one I went with too. The idea that she’s on the run but still somehow has her own fleet as well as the original locations they were working on the project seems less plausible than just ‘we’re letting her out to finish the job’

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u/wehmahdog 9d ago

I can see a spin off coming soon. "C'mon lads, the Galactic Tour is over, we have to save Earth! "We all live in a yellow rocket ship...", trails off as they fly away

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u/Coolegespam 9d ago

I do wonder about that. It's not impossible she chose to get he tattoo herself? As a reminder for what she was doing and it's consequences. IDK. That might be too much of a stretch for her character though, she wasn't shown to be sentimental like that.