Re: Unexpected surprises of Project Hail Mary
This post is a response to Vividly’s Unexpected surprises of Project Hail Mary post. That post contains spoilers but this post (mostly) won’t.
I check the Bear Blog discover feed most mornings, and the most recent post when I woke up this morning resonated hard.
I watched Project Hail Mary (PHM) at the cinema, and I went in almost 100% blind.
I had a vague notion of the name PHM as a film that had just come out, but I had not seen any trailers, any press releases or interviews. A friend came over for our biannual catch up1 and she told us about this film. She said it was a sci fi, but so much more, and that my girlfriend would definitely like it. She summarised the plot as a teacher who gets called up to save the earth, as there was a mystery virus in the sky that only he knew how to stop.
Nice and vague, but enough of a hook. So Mrs Quack and I went to our local cinema, which screens films a good month after release2. As an aside, I had a mare getting back from work that day, arrived late, and couldn’t eat my takeaway rotisserie chicken and potatoes because I didn’t have a fork. Eating it cold when I got home that night was amazing.
Anyone that has seen PHM will appreciate our surprise at the film knowing only what we had been told. Our lack of awareness made some of the scenes hit so much harder. In a way, I don’t know whether these scenes would have been better to read or watch first, but either way, I am so glad that we went in blind. It is a really good film, and a really good story.
If you are reading this and have somehow avoided learning anything about PHM, do not look anything up. Stop reading this and go and watch (or read) PHM. It will be worth it.
Quack
biannual as in twice a year, not once every two years. Are there different words for that? Biweekly and fortnightly exist…↩
Screening new films on release week is hard for small cinemas, as they are expensive and have minimum showing requirements. I wish this would change, support your local cinema.↩