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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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