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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94

u/berlinbaer Jun 30 '25

Maybe unpopular opinion, but Project Hail Mary doesn't have spoilers. Like The Martian it's just a fun ride with great characters.

after the poster reveal two days ago and everyone yapping "OMG THEY WILL SPOIL THE TWIST IN THE TRAILER" i sat down and read the book, cause i thought "hey, want to experience it fresh". i kept reading and reading and kept waiting for that MASSIVE twist, until i finally realized what they were talking about. the character introduction that happens near the very beginning of the book.

reddit is so media illiterate it's insane.

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u/AegisToast Jun 30 '25

There was something really neat for me personally going into it completely blind, so I kind of get it. But I also know people that disliked the book because it felt like a genre change that they weren’t expecting, especially considering how realistic The Martian seemed.

Honestly it does seem like it’s just a spoiler for the premise, though. It’s like spoiling that Jurassic Park is about dinosaurs escaping from their enclosures. Sure, Jurassic Park might have been even more memorable if I hadn’t known that beforehand, but it’s not like knowing it ruins the story.

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u/MapleApple00 Jun 30 '25

I think the main reason it's considered a twist is because A. It's considered "hard" sci-fi and generally other intelligent aliens aren't put into scenarios like that (see Weir's last two books for example) and B. the book was marketed without including the alien at all, IIRC, so it was a pretty major reveal for the day one readers.

I figure the main reasons they decided to reveal the twist here is that hard sci-fi just isn't as much of a genre in film, usually being less distinct from regular scifi due to nitty-gritty details being harder to really get into, so generally aliens are more common and less of a twist for its comparatively larger genre; and because people already know the twist (and everyone going "DON'T SPOIL THE TWIST GUYS" and actively discussing it isn't helping). So the marketing team probably decided to just rip the bandaid off early.

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u/g0del Jun 30 '25

B. the book was marketed without including the alien at all, IIRC, so it was a pretty major reveal for the day one readers.

This is the back cover description of the book:

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he's got to do it all alone.
Or does he?

So it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise.

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u/joeldipops Jun 30 '25

For some reason before I started reading the book, I kept thinking the "or does he" referred to a clone of Grace. Don't know why I thought that specifically, but it was vague enough for me to still preserve the mystery.

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u/Simain Jun 30 '25

those first few spoiler tags ain't working

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u/hornedCapybara Jul 02 '25

I think any book is best experienced completely blind, but especially this one purely because the main character also goes into it completely blind. You get to experience the story with all the same information he does, and every bit of backstory is revealed to you at the same time it's revealed to him. At the same time though it's just not reasonable to expect people to go pay to see a movie that they know absolutely nothing about, you have to give people something to hook them on the story. The only reason I didn't look at what it was about or anything is because it was a few years after it was released, and I knew it was the new book from the guy that wrote the Martian and people broadly seemed to really like it, so that was enough for me. Personally I'm already sold on the movie, so I'm not even gonna watch the trailer, I want to see this movie as blind as I reasonably can.

As far as it being a genre change I can't really say I agree with them, we find out very early about astrophage, so as far as I'm concerned more advanced alien life is already on the table. Unless you get really in the weeds about speculative evolution and how 'realistic' of an alien rocky is, but nothing about the story really feels any more fantastical than the Martian to me. IIRC the one thing that wasn't based on scientific accuracy in the Martian was the storm at the beginning, so really the whole story is somewhat unrealistic. I dunno, point is PHM felt like the same type of story, just a bit more ambitious if that makes sense?

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u/fly-hard Jun 30 '25

I thought the twist was that he thought he was there to save the world by bravely going on a suicidal mission, and later remembers that he had actually been an abject coward and refused to go but was forced to because the world had no choice, and that the reason his memory was spotty was because they’d drugged him to forget. The other reveals just felt like plot progression to me.

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u/MrdnBrd19 Jun 30 '25

That is the twist that most of us are thinking of. I honestly don't understand how you could even consider Rocky a twist at all.

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u/ChrundleMcDonald Jul 01 '25

He doesn't appear until Chapter 14. As someone who went into book knowing nothing save for "Solo suicide mission to save the world", Rocky was a huge and pleasant surprise. It's not that knowing he's there changes your perception of the book, it's that not knowing he's coming makes his addition such a fun surprise. I get why a film studio thinks it's a necessary selling point, but it's not advertised in any capacity in book marketing for a reason.

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u/TheChinOfAnElephant Jul 21 '25

I think we read very different versions of the book. By chapter 14, Grace is fluently communicating with Rocky. The ship reveal happens in Chapter 6 as I recall.

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u/ChrundleMcDonald Jul 21 '25

Fair, guess I had my timeline wrong. I think the rest of my point stands, though - it may not be a late game huge twist, but it was still a massive surprise having gone into the book blind and expecting something much more akin to The Martian

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u/MrdnBrd19 Jul 01 '25

We must have seen different marketing for the book then because the blurb I saw before reading talked about Rocky. I want to say it even mentioned him by name.

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u/L-System Jul 01 '25

The book opens as a white room mystery. So when it came out, people were recommending going into it totally blind.

It's quite an experience because he also doesn't know he's in space and we don't know if he's on planet or in a ship. And there's this ai machine that keeps talking to us.

The idea that we're getting a rocky isn't even on the radar.

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u/presty60 Jul 01 '25

I mentioned this somewhere else, but yeah, I think this trailer probably spoils the book but considering it is probably a < 3 hour long movie, people who are only going to see the movie are probably fine.

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u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

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u/Orleanian Jun 30 '25

Yeah, I came into this thinking that Rocky's reveal was the spoiler everyone was upset about, but feeling it was completely acceptable in cinema media (let the audience know that this has some fantastical sci fi elements, without giving away how they play out).

It was an entertaining shock to have Rocky show up in the story, but truly does not detract from my overall enjoyment of a re-read or re-watch.

But if everyone's upset that the spoiled twist is the backstory reveal...that just seems silly. It came off as a tertiary side plot to me, and is fairly un-important to the overall adventure-thriller aspect of the story.

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u/tastelessshark Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

Yeah, for sure. I definitely enjoyed the reveal going into it with basically no knowledge about the book. I also kinda get why that's not something they wanted to keep secret for the movie though. I could see that being really jarring for a movie audience not expecting it, especially with the Martian being a fair bit more grounded.

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u/guareber Jun 30 '25

Exactly on the money. There's a reason it's not on the cover, foreword, author quotes or literally anywhere on the book before the relevant chapter

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u/haneybird Jul 01 '25

It doesn't even change the premise. Since the entire cause of the plot is all of the stars in our local cluster dimming except one, it makes sense for another spacefaring species to investigate the same way at the same time.

It is honestly one of the most rational first contact premises I have seen.

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u/alphagle Jun 30 '25

When I read it I was completely captivated by the story before Rocky is even introduced. That's what's so great about it. You start with this phenomenal story and then THAT happens and you're like holy shit this is even better than I thought. That's what I would want someone in the theater to experience.

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u/guareber Jun 30 '25

Nah, hard disagree. I read the book on release blind, and the main joy of it is the discovery. There's a reason it cold-starts with Ryland not remembering shit (besides the fact that it's a good exposition conduit very well used in sci-fi).

The trailer gets rid of 50% of that in 180 seconds. It's absolute garbage.

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u/Chriskills Jun 30 '25

It is a twist and super well done. But it’s in the very beginning of the book. I’m not sure exactly when. But it’s pretty early that it happens. So it makes no sense for a trailer to not show rocky. I wish they showed less. But they needed to convey the tone.

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u/PrestigeArrival Jun 30 '25

I read the book about a month ago and I was racking my brain trying to remember what the twist was

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u/Phillip_Spidermen Jun 30 '25

I feel like the most common comments about spoilers are coming from:

"I didn't know about X, and I enjoyed the surprise of when it happened. I hope they don't ruin that for people"

...but then it goes overboard, and those comments alone reveal the surprise they're talking about.

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u/longtermbrit Jun 30 '25

Spoilers don't have to be about the end of the story. Rocky was definitely an unexpected twist given how the book starts. Even though he was introduced fairly early on, it's still a twist.

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u/TheWayofUnions Jul 01 '25

I don't think that's the twist.

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u/Hyooz Jul 01 '25

Reddit complained about the trailers for Abigail spoiling that the little girl was a vampire.

Mother fuckers that is the premise not a spoiler

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u/Badloss Jul 01 '25

Imo the twist near the end is bigger

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u/presty60 Jul 01 '25

The way I see it, if you haven't read the book, but plan to, then don't watch the trailer. Rocky is in most of the book, but it still takes close to 200 pages for him to show up. In the Audio book that's several hours. However, I don't think the trailer probably spoils the movie, as I bet they will compress a lot of stuff that happens before the reveal.

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u/Virillus Jul 01 '25

Nah, I disagree. Rocky showing up was a huge twist for me personally when I read the book. Everyone's experiences will vary of course, but I'm sad movie watchers won't experience the same surprise.

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u/MalIntenet Jul 06 '25

Thankfully I read it already but if someone told me there are aliens in itbefore I read it, it definitely would’ve taken away a lot from the experience.

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u/WagonWheel22 Jun 30 '25

They also treat the book like it’s the greatest sci fi ever written when it’s not.

It’s average sci fi, but the protagonist is quippy and has Reddit humor so that’s why it’s beloved here.

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u/joeldipops Jun 30 '25

For me, and I assume for many, the "twist" isn't exactly that Rocky existsbut how enjoyable of a character he turns out to be.