Lots of people who read books and then watch the movie know that, a lot of the time, the movie is often different from the book. Whether that be timing and where characters come in, or the whole ending being different. Today, we are going to talk about what huge differences to expect when watching and reading Project Hail Mary.
First, let’s get some background on the author of the book, Andy Weir. Andy Weir is an amazing author who writes other books you might be familiar with such as The Martian (published in 2011). The book was adapted into a movie where the main character Mark Watney is played by Matt Damon. He’s also written the novel Artemis (published in 2017), and short story “The Egg” (published in 2009). Project Hail Mary and The Martian have both been adapted into major motion pictures, which make them his most popular stories to date.
“What is Project Hail Mary?”
Project Hail Mary is a novel about a man named Ryland Grace who gets chosen because of a paper he wrote in college about life not needing water to evolve. His paper went unnoticed for years until, after his workday as a middle school science teacher, he is approached by a woman named Eva Stratt, who questions him about the paper. She tells him about how he might be able to help save the world from the tiny black dots (Taumoeba) slowly eating away at the sun.
Dr. Grace becomes a leading scientist to help get three astronauts up into space on a suicide mission in order to save the sun when something terrible happens. An explosion occurs during a test and two members from a crew of three die. They had a backup team, so a replacement engineer was quickly found. However, there was no one to take over for the scientist role.
The two crew members, Stratt and some other officials, tried to convince Grace to go into space as an astronaut, but he refused until Eva Stratt was forced to do something she wasn’t proud of. After years of being in space alone, Ryland comes across an alien spaceship where– out of 23 crew members– only one remains. Over time, the alien (now called Rocky) and Dr. Grace grow close to the point where Ryland makes a major sacrifice to ensure Rocky’s safety.
What are the Differences
There are many differences, but the movie is very true to the way the book was written.
Some changes are:
1. Carl, a character in the movie, doesn’t exist in the book. Carl replaces most of Ryland’s internal monologue because it would be quite boring if Ryland was just silent or muttering to himself the whole time.
2. Ryland’s awakening is less drawn out in the movie than it is in the book. In the book, the memories are shown to us in small increments, while in the movie they are shown at once.
3. Stratt is given more human emotions during the movie. In the movie, Eva Stratt shows more human emotions like guilt, while in the book she’s a very analytical person who doesn’t tend to show remorse. She tends to show how much power she has in the operation by making decisions that are more morally grey and makes her seem like she’s only there to do a job, not to save humanity.
4. Ryland and Rocky’s language barrier is shortened. Ryland easily fixed the language barrier by recording Rocky’s sounds and putting them into what is essentially text-to-speech.
5. The Taumoeba story is oversimplified in the movie. In the book, Taumoeba is a very dangerous and unpredictable organism. That is talked about a lot in the book and explained over a period of time. In the movie, that isn’t shown much besides at the end of the movie.
As someone who doesn’t watch movies and likes to read more, both the movie and book are such amazing texts. The movie stays true to the book in so many ways and the only changes made are so the movie isn’t 4 hours long. The movie is just as good as the book; of course some people are going to prefer one over the other, but both are spectacular.
Cover Image credit: https://www.severnaparkvoice.com/stories/project-hail-mary-is-a-hopeful-sci-fi-blockbusterby-audrey-ruppertfilm-critic,69077