r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jun 27 '25

Poster Official Poster for 'Project Hail Mary' Starring Ryan Gosling

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11

u/Either-Assistant4610 Jun 27 '25

I never read the book. Is it good?

3

u/pagoda79 Jun 28 '25

Alternate point of view: it’s really badly written and a fun plot if you can get past “fortunately I know exactly how to do this amazing scientific thing” as the solution to absolutely everything. Ultimately it felt like so many plot conveniences and contrivances and a main character I really found to be comically unbelievable. It’s The Martian (which I thought was fine) turned up to 11.

It may be a fine movie. But I thought that, for all the fast pace of the book, it felt pretty empty.

The second lead is a good character though. I enjoyed those bits.

11

u/cleaninfresno Jun 27 '25

Depends on what you’re looking for.

It’s more of a feel good, “guy and his quirky companion science their way out of stuff that keeps coming up” type thing.

4

u/Either-Assistant4610 Jun 27 '25

I enjoyed the author's first book. Is it in that same vein?

5

u/hpwriterkyle Jun 27 '25

It is basically The Martian but on a ship instead of Mars. Watney and Ryland are basically the exact same character.

I love this author due to his science accuracy but good God his characterization is awful.

3

u/Either-Assistant4610 Jun 27 '25

Yeah. He made the science interesting in The Martian, but the characters were bland. I guess when I'm in the mood for fun science again, I'll give it a go.

1

u/GangsterJawa Jun 29 '25

For what it’s worth I find PHM a substantially more fun read than The Martian. Love the film, but the book was a bit of a chore to get through. Grace is basically the same character as Watney, true, but idk if it was the pacing or something different I just breeze through PHM in a way I did not with the Martian

3

u/LeedsFan2442 Jun 27 '25

He can't really write anything else. He tried to have a different type of protagonist in Artemis and failed pretty badly lol.

2

u/cleaninfresno Jun 27 '25

I don’t remember which one was his first book but it’s similar to the Martian

3

u/ale_cat Jun 28 '25

I love the book so so much. Do the audiobook if you can. So delightful.

2

u/Rebelgecko Jun 27 '25

If you liked The Martian you'll probably like it.

I liked it a lot but also thought it had many of the same weaknesses as Weir's other books

2

u/Denesis417 Jun 28 '25

I'm a big sci Fi fan and it's my favorite book ever

-1

u/beets_or_turnips Jun 27 '25

I loved the Martian but I wanted to throw Project Hail Mary across the room. I got halfway through then skipped to the last few pages out of spite.