My Astrophotography in the Movie Project Hail Mary

https://rpastro.square.site/s/stories/phm

141•wallflower•3d ago

Comments

inaros•2d ago

Dont waste your money. Terrible movie. Demeanor oscillates between unfunny jokes at adolescent or bro style like in Deadpool level...or even worst, child level Disney interactions. Directors dont understand SciFi and clearly dont like Scifi.

Ryan Gosling is no actor capable of carrying a movie by himself, and visually there is nothing worth of IMAX. You will get more wonders in a regular made for TV Andor or Star Trek episode.

Despite 12 posts here in the last few days, (nice try Amazon), one thing continues to be true: Almost anything from Amazon Studios is shite. It is amazing the level of reviews they managed to pull off on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes.

Just download the torrent and you will see there is nothing here...and you will thank me for the time and money saved.

kdaker•1d ago

OP, who seem like an accomplished astrophotographer is sharing a proud moment involving his work. All you can say is how bad the movie is? You can share this in on a post about the movie itself. Btw beautiful photographs OP.

inaros•1d ago

Its seems the post is part of a coordinated pump on the movie here by Amazon Studios. As you can see, if you look at the amount of related post coordinated with the release. And never seen for any other movie...

dcminter•1h ago

Even if promotional (which I doubt even if other posts are), this ticks the 'is interesting and not shallow' box for me.

dwringer•1h ago

People have been talking about the book on here since it came out; I see no reason to believe people aren't genuinely interested in it. I loved it, personally.

jebarker•35m ago

> Its seems the post is part of a coordinated pump on the movie here by Amazon Studios

Is there any evidence for this?

quietbritishjim•1h ago

I don't see any reason to suggest the HN submitter is the same as the article author, especially considering the high volume of submitted articles by the submitter.

kvgr•1h ago

Why are some people so narrow minded? Different style, get over it. Not everything SciFi must be "true scifi like Star Trek". This rant reminds me of Big Bang theory.

izzydata•58m ago

Star Trek is true scifi? I always considered it to be soft scifi due to it being more about social issues in space rather than the more hard scifi about the fictional science. At least the book of Project Hail Mary is closer to hard scifi than Star Trek as they spend a lot of time describing the science. The movie rightfully skips most of this tedium in favor of a beautiful spectacle.

This is the first time I've heard of the idea of "true" scifi though.

ceejayoz•51m ago

Star Trek is largely fantasy.

ceejayoz•1h ago

I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Consider the possibility that your opinions are not universal.

inaros•1h ago

I heard children loved the rock...

Now go to IMDB:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/reviews/?rating=1&ref_...

sort by worst review and you will see the comments and reviews make a lot of sense...If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated...

ceejayoz•53m ago

> sort by worst review

This is about the worst methodology you could possibly use here.

> If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated…

100% of online reviews should be treated as manipulated.

throw0101d•43m ago

> sort by worst review

Now go to IMDb again:

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_ra...

and look at the score distribution.

Sharlin•1h ago

As another data point, a local well-respected popular astronomy magazine was quite impressed by the movie, relative to Hollywood standards anyway. Translated link: https://www-avaruus-fi.translate.goog/uutiset/tahtiharrastus...

ggambetta•1h ago

That's just, like, your opinion, man. I loved the book and I loved the movie.

kevinsync•1h ago

I don’t even know what to say here -- you’re entitled to your opinion obviously, and I disagree with it deeply, and the spirit of HN is to avoid personal attacks and reply with curiosity, but you kinda laid it out very plainly above. Where’s your imagination gone? Your connection to child-like wonder? Empathy for your fellow man?

Project Hail Mary isn’t Arrival, it’s ET mixed with Castaway. It’s about friendship and loneliness and the fragility of the human experience and the triumph of the human spirit!

Normally I’d just say “you didn’t get it, it wasn’t for you” but given the insufferable and total dismissal above, I’d wager it actually IS for you LOL but you chose not to receive the message.

Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days, I get that. I’d just encourage people to soften a bit and appreciate things for what they are (not what we want them to be)

johnbarron•56m ago

>> It’s about friendship and loneliness and the fragility of the human experience and the triumph of the human spirit!

So is every Disney movie and that is what this but with the crappy Amazon Studios take on it.

>> Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days,

Do you believe a movie can objectively be considered good or bad? If you do you then believe some are better critics than others, the same some way some are better Coders than others or better Basketball players than others?

kevinsync•27m ago

You're asking the wrong person lol. I can give you a list of "objectively bad" movies that I think are incredible for a variety of defensible reasons.

Just off the top of my head as I briefly scan shit sitting on the shelves of my office:

- Joe Dirt

- Death Wish 3

- Thrashin

- Hackers

- Mortal Kombat

- Uncle Buck

- The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

- Tapeheads

- Prayer of the Rollerboys

- Weekend at Bernie's

Not exactly Fellini, and some are barely even Andy Sidaris if we're being honest, but every movie in that list is amazing for different reasons. An objective critique of any of them (especially in context with "film", as a shapeless, vague concept) misses the point and the spirit of each and every one. But I am an uncultured heathen, so ...

funkychicken•5m ago

Uncle Buck is on your list of objectively bad movies?!?!?

vintagedave•42m ago

Deadpool's humour was violent and crude. I don't remember anything like that at all in Project Hail Mary.

It was a buddy film, and an American one, so had that culture in its humour, sure. But it was light-hearted and quite fun.

poulpy123•1h ago

nice !

0x38B•1h ago

Me and my brother just saw the movie tonight and we stayed for the credits. I thought the images were beautiful.

Tommix11•27m ago

I loved that they changed the ending. I did not like the ending in the book.

embedding-shape•23m ago

About to see the movie in two days, read the book ages ago and remember I wasn't too fond of the book ending either, so now I got a bit more excited :)

minitech•18m ago

What changed about the ending?

throw0101d•1h ago

Somewhat related, nature photographer/youtuber Danni Connor had her recording of a red squirrel used in the movie Dune (Part 1) for the sound of the desert mouse (muad'dib). Her interviewing with (Oscar-winning) sound designer Mark Mangini on it:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtfzjehDg74

* transcript: https://otter.ai/u/PA9dbWFA7BgPgLZN9CSo1WFAjXk

* https://www.iflscience.com/wildlife-photographers-viral-squi...

* https://markmangini.com/Mark_Mangini/Blog/Entries/2021/11/7_...

Story of her 'adopting' the squirrels:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tDlh62AVPo

The name of the squirrel is "Baby Pear"; her viral tweet:

* https://twitter.com/DaniConnorWild/status/127534941750838476...

j_bum•1h ago

Incredible work, OP. What a proud feeling you must have. Congrats!!

My wife and I saw the movie this weekend, we thought it was great. I adored the book, yet I recognize a book can’t be perfectly translated to the screen.

I thought the directors did a good enough job at translating the sci-fi into something the masses would enjoy.

Kudos to you

superchink•44m ago

Would you recommend reading the book first?

zyberzero•34m ago

Not the parent, but I've seen the movie and read the book. I think there are a few gaps in the movie that's explained by the book, but there are some artistic freedom as well between the book and the film.

I would recommend reading the book first at least.

aczerepinski•26m ago

Book is better but they’re both good. I don’t think order matters.

geerlingguy•4m ago

I agree; the movie is more of a relationship/self-reflection/friendship story, with some pop science and space stuff mixed in to keep it interesting.

The book is more of a true sci-fi novel, with the relationship stuff keeping it interesting.

I liked both a lot, and think both could be enjoyed fully with or without the other, in either order.

alistairSH•20m ago

As a general rule, always read the book first. In this case, that holds true - there was too much in the book to cover completely in the movie. It's a pretty quick read as well - you could probably bang it out in a long afternoon, if you were inclined.

That said, I never read Harry Potter and can't imagine going back and reading it now. So, YMMV.

elictronic•1m ago

I don’t think it does here. This has been one of the times where I enjoyed the movie more than the book. I liked the character in the book, in the movie I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

gukov•18m ago

The audiobook version is amazing, if that’s your thing.

shubhamjain•1h ago

Amazing! Kudos to Hollywood, for going to this length to license the work, credit the author, involve him in the project. To respect realism as a goal for its own, even though "no one will notice" and a similar image might be "just a prompt away." I know how common is the latter these days.

tomasphan•1h ago

I doubt that good looking IMAX quality astrophotography is just a prompt away.

inaros•1h ago

I dont think people realize how bad this movie is, how there is no actual SciFi on it, and how manipulated the reviews are.

You have been warned: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/reviews/?rating=1&ref_...

Its a kids movie with Deadpool level jokes on it...

austinthetaco•1h ago

This is hn not reddit. This feels like a wildly out of place and inappropriate comment for this kind of discussion.

johnbarron•51m ago

The movie got 12 posts here on HN, pumped by Amazon Studios within the day of release but suddenly it cant be discussed?

austinthetaco•43m ago

If you have some proof of astroturfing you should write a blog and then share on hn, it might make for a very good post here. otherwise it feels wildly inappropriate (not to mention incredibly unlikely that they would spend marketing money on astroturfing here of all places). Andy Weir has written some books that are incredibly successful in the tech industry circles with Hail Mary being the current most popular if not slightly under The Martian, chances are there's just going to be a lot of talk about it. But even if there is astroturfing, telling people to not watch the movie in a thread where someone is showing off their space photography is inappropriate and misplaced.

inaros•30m ago

The author of the great Astrophotography is not the OP of the HN post.

And that is already one starting and possible isolated indicator of astroturfing, ....when the movie related posts got no traction, they went looking for related subjects...

dahart•25m ago

That proves nothing. You are making assumptions. Did you look at the submission history of the poster?

HN runs on user-submitted posts. People submit things they find interesting, and things they believe others will find interesting.

dahart•32m ago

Those handful of 1-star reviews seem the same as the 1-star reviews on all movies, including all of the good movies you probably liked: “boring”, “overhyped”, “doesn’t live up to the book”, etc.. Are they manipulated? Go ahead and name a movie you like without looking at the reviews first, if you dare, and then let’s check the reviews.

I liked the movie and loved the book. Did you read the book? You seeing to be ignoring opinions from real people in this thread. What if the good reviews are as genuine as the bad ones? All I can conclude from bad reviews is that some people have different taste than me, and occasionally some people are in a bad mood when they watch something and it spoils the experience.

What is an example of actual SciFi? What do you mean about there not being any?

double07zip•1h ago

This is amazing. Your photos are art!

DorkyPup•57m ago

This is incredible and wonderful news, huge congratulations! As someone who works at the intersection of design and engineering, the detail about delivering "starless versions" so the credit typography doesn't compete with the bright stars is exactly the kind of invisible technical problem-solving I love reading about on here.

On a personal note, I find it very refreshing to hear that a major studio opted for real captured photography. Love that they specifically wanted the authenticity of real narrowband data and that speaks to the production team's vision. Enjoy the premiere night, feel incredibly proud. I was already planning on watching the movie this weekend (it releases here on the 26th) and now I'm doubly excited because I know this neat little tidbit.

I'm pretty sure this "Dad did something crazy" moment is going to be a core memory for your kids. Congrats!

vintagedave•47m ago

I'm curious how the starless versions are created. From the steps at the end, I couldn't see a 'this is how stars are removed' step. Maybe it's part of stacking (but most stars would remain present?) or the calibration process treating stars as noise?

roblh•37m ago

I feel like the stars are probably pretty easy to mask out since they’re very bright relative to the rest of the image. Once you have the mask, each one is small enough that you could probably fill it with the values from adjacent pixels. Kinda like sensor mapping to hide dead pixels. That’s just a guess though, I’m sure there’s more to it than that.

ferreyadinarta•51m ago

Wow, congratulations!!

gwbennett•23m ago

Great, great work! Congratulations and Bravo Zulu! Looking forward to seeing the movie this weekend.

hectdev•16m ago

As an amateur astrophotographer, I am both so envious and so happy for you. What a wonderful recognition of your talent and dedication to the craft. Kudos!

manyaoman•2m ago

Those shots are stunning. Too bad I rarely pay attention to the credits. I always assumed a lot of effort goes into them though, and this post seems to confirm it.

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