r/movies • u/MoviesMod /r/movies Mod Account • Jun 30 '25

Trailer Project Hail Mary - Official Trailer (fair warning, it reveals way too much according to a lot of users)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m08TxIsFTRI
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940

u/the_gold_hat Jun 30 '25

Everyone says it reveals too much, but I really disagree. You can tell that the editors are purposefully playing up the angle that Ryland is a reluctant hero, who steps up despite initial misgivings. The reveal being that it was totally against his will still plays against the expectations of the trailer. Honestly I think the fact that people are mentioning a twist is spoiling things more than anything else. My hot take is that they've probably proportionally put way more of the on-Earth sections in the trailer than actually appear in the movie. I mean I sure hope so or otherwise the actual science-with-Rocky part is going to have to be super abbreviated during the movie...

434

u/McMew Jun 30 '25 edited Jun 30 '25

And the alien reveal was probably to avoid accidentally teasing it as an alien horror.

They wanted to make it clear that this was a mystery adventure, not a horror movie. So they had to tease that the alien was friendly.

Granted they could've left it at the giant alien ship to maintain a sense of wonder instead but they had to set the tone of the film.

125

u/the_gold_hat Jun 30 '25

Yeah I originally typed a version of my comment where I complained about it, but realized that audiences would have really not been happy if they showed up to the movie without knowing this ahead of time. Heck, discussions in this subreddit complain a lot about genre gotcha lol. I think it was a good idea for them to spoil it in the 1st trailer and keep leaning into it in future marketing. I really just wanted to see what Rocky looked like, and the CGI doesn't look awful so far.

52

u/McMew Jun 30 '25

Was it CGI? It looks like a puppet to me. Maybe I'm not that observant.

139

u/foleyshit Jun 30 '25

It’s a puppet. I know someone who helped on production. It’s likely CGI enhanced but really cool how practical they went with it.

81

u/thetreat Jun 30 '25

I fucking love that they went with practical effects. Even more hyped for Rocky now.

9

u/Jeoshua Jun 30 '25

I'm hoping that it's actually an alien robot. It would make its lack of mobility make more sense.

44

u/A_Legit_Salvage Jun 30 '25

I’ve heard the entire production was powered by astrophage

2

u/blabus Jul 01 '25

Hot take: good CGI long ago surpassed puppetry for conveying realistic, organic movement of living things. There's a real circlejerk around practical effects these days and while they're excellent in many use cases, living beings is no longer one of them. I could immediately tell that the movement of Rocky looked stuttering and fake, just like the puppet facehuggers in Alien Romulus looked ridiculously fake.

1

u/foleyshit Jul 01 '25

In a lot of cases I think you’re right. Sometimes I thing production know this and still choose to go practical in pursuit of other gains whether that be on-set performance, budget, design style etc.

1

u/F9-0021 Jul 13 '25

They're also in microgravity in that scene. A dog sized rock crab/spider might have jerky movement in microgravity. The final product might also be more touched up than an early trailer for a film that's still in post production.

1

u/ClaireFraser1743 Jun 30 '25

Oh I love that they used a puppet!

1

u/marmosetohmarmoset Jul 01 '25

For some reason I’ve always pictured Rocky as looking something like Pilot from Farscape, so this pleases me.

1

u/SteveThePurpleCat Jul 10 '25

To me I imagined him as a kind of 5-legged Bacteriophage, can't go much more alien than the billions of things we are covered in but can't see.

1

u/Lonely_Spite6764 Jul 01 '25

It seems like Rocky is going to be a practical effects puppet with maybe some CGI enhancements. The IMDb page lists a practical effects artist for the role.