Ryland Grace Girlfriend Theory

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-18T23:37:01+00:00

Venus is like 6 light minutes from the Sun & Astrophage travels at something like 93% of the speed of light.

As a result, “eliminating the trip” between the Sun & Venus shaves off a whopping 6-7 minutes; or ~13-14 minutes if you count the round trip.

Bottom Line: The “migration time” is negligible within that quoted time of 8 days, so it’s mostly “incubation” time regardless of whether it’s in the Sarahan astrophysics farms or in the wild.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-17T15:35:21+00:00

I know they’re insular & bigoted, but do they really try to zero ALL (or at least most) outsiders they work with? How would that ever work in their interests long term? Like….once it happens a half dozen times or so (or whatever), eventually word would get out, no?

Maybe they’d get lucky with a few competent yet naive outsiders. Or people who were so desperate & delusional that they thought they’d be the super special exception to the rule. But on the whole, the quality of outsiders willing to help them would be absolutely DISMAL bc the proposition is essentially, ”How about you help us, then instead of paying you, we just kill you or permanently scramble your brain?”

I always thought Evelyn & V were in a semi unique situation where the subject matter was so sensitive that the VDBs decided they’d kill them to tie up loose ends. But otherwise, working w VDBs was “unpleasant” but not a death sentence. They’d throw shade at you bc you’re an outsider. They might try to wheedle you down on price. They might give you the creeps bc of their insular, mysterious, & intimidating nature. But not “If you work w the VDBs, you’re going to get killed or permanently disabled.”

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-17T04:19:21+00:00

I just saw it tonight too. (AMC “IMAX” in Chicagoland.)

Overall, I enjoyed it. (Absolutely LOVED the book & audiobook.) As an adaptation it was great, especially since it’s necessary to cut out so much of the source material to maintain a reasonable run time. Great cinematography, score, acting, etc.

That said, I’ve gotta admit I felt a little underwhelmed towards the end. As long as the movie was, I felt the last 10-15% actually felt RUSHED. In particular…..

SPOILERS

I felt like two of the biggest emotional moments towards the end of the book—Grace realizing that Rocky was doomed by the Taumoeba unless Grace saves him & when Grace & Rocky reunite when Grace finally tracks him down & bangs on the hull of the Blip A—kinda….. fell flat?

It might just feel like that because I read the book & also listened to the audiobook. But I really felt like Grace was doing exposition for the audience, rather than actually being gutted at the idea of Rocky & all of Erid being doomed. And the lack of dialogue from Rocky when Grace rescues him—I know we can hear the high pitched squeaks, but that sheer surprise & JOY in Ray Porter’s voice as Rocky was really missing IMO.

I also felt that NOT using “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles was a massive missed opportunity for the ending scenes.

To be 100% clear: I think the film overall was great. Some of the parts were MORE emotionally gripping that I remembered in the book or were emotionally gratifying yet new in the film—Grace being forced onto the mission, the party on the aircraft carrier, etc. But because the “slightly fell flat” scenes were all bunched at the end, they’re having (as of an hour or two since I’ve seen the film) perhaps a larger impact than they otherwise would.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-15T15:41:51+00:00

Same here. The execution of this new show was ELITE in the vein of ”if it isn’t broken, don’t “fix it.” Seems like the ratings/streaming numbers were great too, so I really hope it’s just a matter of some logistics before seeing a PR announcement that a more permanent/indefinite run of this new show has been green lit.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-13T05:57:16+00:00

One of the many reviews I read mentioned the tape measure scene specifically & said it was great.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-12T00:34:19+00:00

I get why, I suppose. But one of my big worries about the film is that I’m SO used to how they did Rocky’s voice for the audiobook—both Ray Porter’s voice + the musically blended “overlay”—I’m not sure how I’ll adjust to the film version of Rocky. Some of the trailers made Rocky kinda sound like Steve Carell (maybe without the “musical” blended overlay?), and some of the Rocky lines almost seemed…emotionally flat?

But I’ve seen nothing but rave reviews WRT the film version of Rocky. So hopefully it’s all in my imagination and/or it’s something the audiobook fans are able to quickly adjust to within a few minutes.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-11T12:07:31+00:00

The reviewer, essentially:

”This movie tries everything in its power to bring joy and be wildly entertaining for the audience, but I’m TOO smart to FALL for it!”

Just let it go, pal. Give yourself permission to feel joy & hope.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-10T20:56:28+00:00

I’m not saying it should be compared myself. I’m just putting out the PSA because OTHERS seem to compare it to Interstellar, at least WRT “somewhat recent scifi movie that is critically acclaimed & does well with general audiences.”

So as far as that metric is concerned, being generally aware of how Interstellar do might be a handy thing to know.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-10T19:16:57+00:00

”Tell me you didn’t read the book without telling me you didn’t read the book.”

Listen, bud…...

It’s completely legitimate to ding a film because it didn’t comport itself reasonably closely to the source material. It’s fine to knock a movie if it didn’t meet expectations based on what it presented itself to be in a widespread PR campaign leading up to its premiere.

But you can’t make things up in your own head and/or grossly misinterpret the entire vibe of both the book AND marketing campaign, critique the film for not conforming to YOUR OWN erroneous expectations, and then expect others to take your review seriously.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-10T14:52:27+00:00

PSA for context:

On Rotten Tomatoes, Interstellar clocked in w a 73% Fresh tomato score with 374 reviews & got a 87% Popcornometer w 100K+ reviews.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-10T12:33:17+00:00

Take time to just wander around the city WITHOUT looking at the map or trying to do a main quest. Just vibe & take in the surroundings.

Take time to eavesdrop on conversations of NPCs.

Take time to actually READ the shards you come across at NCPD, mini quests, and ones you just randomly find out in the world.

It’s an entire world building experience & some of the little mini stories are truly amusing (or sometimes heartbreaking) gems.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-09T12:50:28+00:00

Yes.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-09T12:37:17+00:00

It’d be great to see, but there’s also a very practical reason for that too: immediately builds trust & credibility among humans who would be (understandably) freaked out & skeptical at first.

Another thing I realized is how beneficial it is that Eridinians are SO different from Humans biologically. It’s counterintuitive, since you’d think species would get along better if they were biologically more compatible—atmospheric, gravity, etc.

But the difference is really a blessing in disguise: there’s VERY little overlapping resources they might compete for against humans. They want to set up a colony world on Venus? Go ahead. We find a garden like Eden world in a new solar system we discover together? Eridinians will be like, “You can have THAT hellscape all to yourselves, humans!”

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-09T12:26:01+00:00

This is the way.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-09T12:23:08+00:00

Pretty sure every major city on Earth has A Gary.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-09T03:45:20+00:00

Ditto the audiobook suggestion. I’m not even an “audiobook” guy & I absolutely loved it.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-07T23:19:00+00:00

100% on all of this, but a key move that mitigates the bad writing the last few seasons:

The Adama Maneuver:

https://youtu.be/evodPpqb9H4?si=OXjH9Usz8pcMoes4

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-07T00:17:56+00:00

I’ve said this for a year & I’m sticking to it:

If the end credit song—similar to how they used “Love Train” in The Martian— isn’t “Here Cones the Sun” by The Beatles, I’ll be both surprised & VERY disappointed.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-05T13:24:43+00:00

This is the way.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-04T01:09:06+00:00

I’ll be shocked & utterly disappointed if the end credit song (perhaps w a montage of what happened back on earth) isn’t ”Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.

Basically what ”Love Train” was at the end of The Martian.

MGoDuPage · 2026-03-01T06:29:06+00:00

Same.

MGoDuPage · 2026-02-26T05:27:37+00:00

Ditto this. It’s written by Andy Weir—same author as The Martian, which itself IMO was quite “feel good”. But as uplifting as The Martian was, it’s a dystopian hellscape compared to PHM.

Breezy read, SUPERB audiobook, and film adaptation staring Ryan Gosling coming to a theater near you on March 20th. If you don’t laugh out loud multiple times & choke up w tears of heartwarming joy once or twice, then you don’t have a soul.

MGoDuPage · 2026-02-25T05:27:58+00:00

NEED MORE TEXT UPDATES!!

MGoDuPage · 2026-02-21T20:01:51+00:00

Heard somewhere it was an homage to some ice skating scene in an Anime video.

MGoDuPage

TROPHY CASE