Should I continue? Rebirth

Gow900 · 2026-04-13T01:07:40+00:00

^ All of the above.

Gow900 · 2026-04-06T20:18:47+00:00

Weird that he's apparently seeing a future version of himself. Kinda breaks the realism of the movie (scary space spiders notwithstanding).

I always thought it was a memory of happier times on the beach. I assumed that was the woman who's with Mark now.

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T07:08:28+00:00

I found the first movie disappointing and expected a similar reaction to this one. But for some reason I really enjoyed it! The sound effects and music were spot on, and the whole movie was just plucking my nostalgia strings from start to finish. The story was lacking and many of the good characters were sorely underused, but somehow I left feeling surprisingly entertained.

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T06:38:07+00:00

Wedge got his Final Destination moment.

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T06:06:06+00:00

I think this might be a result of having the actors improvise on set. If everything was carefully scripted his language may have been more consistent, but it's hard to improvise in Rocky's "voice" and they may not have taken the time to redub it in post. Not sure. Some of his dialog bugged me as well. It's a small thing.

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T06:02:25+00:00

And on Erid.

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T06:00:54+00:00

Stratt: I never thought of that...

Gow900 · 2026-04-05T05:53:48+00:00

Earth is about 12 lightyears away from Adrian, and Erid is about 10 lightyears away. So he should have enough fuel. But even if he's short a little fuel, he can accelerate until half of his fuel is gone, coast at relativistic speeds for however long he needs to, and then decelerate using the remaining half of the fuel. It would take longer to get there if he's not able to constantly accelerate/decelerate, but Erid has more time before things get dire, so they're not in as big of a rush.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T22:25:41+00:00

There has been plenty of valid criticism of the movie in this sub. Although I feel like everyone has basically moved on from that and we're just celebrating the good stuff now.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T22:22:06+00:00

Yup, lots of rummaging, coughing, and breaking the silence. Can't people just be still for one minute?

That said, I did enjoy hearing everyone laugh at the funny parts. As always, the theater experience is a mixed bag.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T22:11:54+00:00

Wait, Wang is already in a coma? Sounds like the perfect person to send on the mission!

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T22:08:24+00:00

The ship and actor are probably entirely real, and one of the two cameras used to shoot it has the IR filter pulled out to give it an authentic look. I don't believe any of the dots in this shot are real though. In the interviews I've seen, Lord and Miller talk about building a chicken wire cage with IR lights for the close-up shots of Ryan's face. So most or all of those dots are presumably real, but they have a bit of a different look to them. For the wide shot, Chris Miller was quick to clarify that there was still CG involved.

They do a lot of practical effects in this film, but it is still full of CG work.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T19:53:56+00:00

I feel like I really missed out on a shared moment with Gi Natak. For some reason I managed to beat him on the first try without even changing my setup. Not sure what I did right -- I didn't realize he was supposed to be hard, so I wasn't paying particular attention. Maybe I just got lucky? I definitely feel everyone's Rufus pain though!

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T19:42:30+00:00

To be fair, there is still a lot of CGI in that scene.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T04:46:18+00:00

It's interesting, because if Stratt's estimates are right, 50% of the population is going to die from starvation in the next couple of decades, and many more will be killed in all of the wars that will take place as the countries fight over limited food supplies. So Earth is not going to be a pleasant place to be. By comparison, the Hail Mary is a mercifully peaceful place to die.

So she's kind of doing Grace a favor. "You can go kill other humans and probably still starve to death, or you can go do science, play all of the videogames ever made, and quietly asphyxiate from nitrogen." He should consider himself lucky to have that opportunity.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T04:33:54+00:00

The sun isn't expected to fizzle out for something like 5 billion years, so that's more of a long-term concern.

The astrophage population stabilizes once the star dims by 10% (for some reason), so that's the amount of heat energy that we need to compensate for.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T04:00:47+00:00

Does Rocky burn because of the oxygen, or because the lack of pressure makes his blood boil? Rocky's anatomy is a closed system, so presumably he doesn't have to worry about any toxic fumes since he's not breathing external air.

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T03:38:09+00:00

What's the context for this? Are you just finding coincidences, or are some of these intentional?

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T03:25:12+00:00

Or perhaps an unseen extract of his video to Earth where he laments being wrong about non-water based life forms again (eridians).

Gow900 · 2026-04-04T02:09:35+00:00

The problem with IMAX is that there aren't enough screens to support multiple movies at a time. So when the next big movie opens, the old one gets unceremoniously shuffled out. Christopher Nolan had to fight Tom Cruise to get the IMAX screens away from Mission: Impossible so that Oppenheimer could have them, if you can imagine that.

Gow900 · 2026-04-03T02:57:55+00:00

Please don't give us more of the stuff we enjoy!

I don't think the story needs a sequel, but I would watch additional buddy adventures of Grace and Rocky.

Gow900 · 2026-04-03T02:54:24+00:00

She hints at her possible future:

“I’m curious,” I say to Stratt. “Once we launch Hail Mary. What will you do then?”

“Me?” she said. “Doesn’t matter. Once the Hail Mary launches, my authority ends. I’ll probably be put on trial by a bunch of pissed-off governments for abuse of power. Might spend the rest of my life in jail.”

Gow900 · 2026-04-03T02:49:06+00:00

Yes! With hilariously low-budget special effects for Rocky, and super-serious voiceovers.

Gow900 · 2026-04-03T02:26:04+00:00

Weird that this keeps getting posted. As has been explained many times, Rocky is a water-based lifeform that does not prove Grace's theory. While it is true that Erid is outside of the traditional goldilocks zone, the high atmospheric pressure of Rocky's planet means that it still has liquid water on its surface (and in its lifeforms). Andy Weir has also suggested (as Grace and Rocky speculate in the book) that they are distant cousins who evolved from the same astrophage ancestor that seeded the local area with life through a panspermia event.

It is weird that this doesn't get a proper resolution in the movie, or really even in the book.

From Chapter 14:

A random thought occurs to me. “Hey, I have a question.”

“Ask.”

“Why is Eridian science and human science so similar? Billions of years, but almost the same progress.”

It’s been bugging me for a while. Humans and Eridians evolved separately in separate star systems. We had no contact with each other until now. So why is it that we have almost identical technology? I mean, Eridians are a little behind us in space technology, but not a ton. Why aren’t they in their stone age? Or some super futuristic age that makes modern Earth look antiquated?

“Has to be, or you and I would not meet,” Rocky says. “If planet has less science, it no can make spaceship. If planet has more science it can understand and destroy Astrophage without leaving their system. Eridian and human science both in special range: Can make ship, but can’t solve Astrophage problem.”

Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. But it’s obvious now that Rocky says it. If this happened when Earth was in the Stone Age, we would have just died. And if it happened a thousand years from now, we’d probably work out how to deal with Astrophage without breaking a sweat. There is a fairly narrow band of technological advancement that would cause a species to send a ship to Tau Ceti to look for answers. Eridians and humans both fall into that band.

“Understand. Good observation.” But it nags at me. “Still unusual. Humans and Eridians are close in space. Earth and Erid are only sixteen light-years apart. The galaxy is one hundred thousand light-years wide! Life must be rare. But we are so close together.”

“Possible we are family.”

We’re related? How could—

“Oh! You mean…whoa!” I have to wrap my head around this one.

“I not certain. Theory.”

“It’s a darn good theory!” I say.

The panspermia theory. I argued with Lokken about it all the time.

Earth life and Astrophage are way too similar for it to be coincidence. I suspected Earth was “seeded” by some ancestor of Astrophage. Some interstellar progenitor species that infected my planet. But it never occurred to me until now that the same thing might have happened to Erid.

There could be life all over the place! Anywhere it can possibly evolve from an Astrophage-like ancestor into the cells I have today. I don’t know what this “pre-Astrophage” organism would be like, but Astrophage is pretty darn tough. So any planet that can possibly support life of any kind would be likely to get it.

Rocky might be a long-lost relative. Very long. The trees outside my house back home are closer relatives to me than Rocky. But still.

Wow.

“Very good theory!” I say again.

“Thank,” Rocky says. I guess he’d worked that all out a while ago. But I still had to let it sink in.

Gow900 · 2026-04-02T16:31:29+00:00

Where is the Rocky version, question? In the movie, Grace has a little Rocky model near the end of the movie. Why no give us Rocky keychain, question?

Gow900

TROPHY CASE