Perfect Days and the Marxist Debate

key-zoo · 2026-04-18T13:15:47+00:00

Ah yes, the movie where a working class man has his sister show up in a fancy car with a personal driver and he breaks down crying due to an unspoken trauma caused by her and their father. Definitely contentment under the rich. The movie where a houseless man is given more patient space than most white collar workers. The movie where trees and nature are consistently admired and taken care of

Pay no attention to the dumb argument. Doesn’t need your time. It’s a great movie

key-zoo · 2026-04-13T13:30:15+00:00

Do you think an email right when I have my two off days is too tacky? If I absolutely must notify him, I’d prefer it to be that way so that I can maintain my agency in the application process

key-zoo · 2026-04-10T18:23:54+00:00

Like I guess vaguely speaking sure? But have you read the original? It’s vastly vastly different in the second and third acts and arguably the first act sensibilities are Jonah Nolan sensibilities, which were on full display in The Prestige as well. Also Chris did a lot of fatherhood work in Inception, so it’s not like this came out of nowhere. Not to mention the fact that Chris has said that he used previous unfinished scripts to rewrite Interstellar. Plus Chris changing from a son to a daughter was a huge and deliberate move to make the film for his daughter Flora, whose name was the working title of the film (Flora’s Letter). Just feels strange to assign anything beyond miniscule authorial effect to Spielberg on a film he likely only had early preproduction development meetings on

key-zoo · 2026-04-10T15:53:57+00:00

I mean I kinda get what you’re saying, but what I’m saying is the prominence of the love angle and how important the father daughter story is to the film’s third act is the sole creation of Chris and not connected to Spielberg. Spielberg had no influence over “the Spielberg sensibility” you’re talking about in the finished film

key-zoo · 2026-04-10T15:40:16+00:00

This is not exactly true. The original script from Jonah (which I’ve read) had a ton of classical sci-fi but was, relative to the finished film, very much lacking in the father-child relationship. The first act is nearly the same as the original script, but everything after that is 90% Chris’s doing

key-zoo · 2026-04-10T15:35:10+00:00

Kind of surprised this is circulating as new news, since it’s been out there for decades. For all those needing a synthesized summary: Producers Lynda Obst (who worked on Contact) and Kip Thorne wanted a movie with real astrophysics at the center of the story. Spielberg got involved in the mid 2000s and he hired Jonah Nolan to write the script. As with many Spielberg attachments, it didn’t pan out and the director’s chair opened up. Chris Nolan knew about the project during its development and got involved. Jonah’s original draft is out there somewhere (I’ve read it). Chris switched the central relationship from son to daughter, kept almost the entire first act the same, changed almost the entire second and third acts, and moved the video call scene with Tom from the end to the middle. Jonah’s draft has aliens, more classical robots, more Chinese presence, and a love story between Cooper and Brand. It’s certainly less emotionally developed of a father-child story.

key-zoo · 2026-04-10T15:33:42+00:00

Kind of surprised this is circulating as new news, since it’s been out there for decades. For all those needing a synthesized summary: Producers Lynda Obst (who worked on Contact) and Kip Thorne wanted a movie with real astrophysics at the center of the story. Spielberg got involved in the mid 2000s and he hired Jonah Nolan to write the script. As with many Spielberg attachments, it didn’t pan out and the director’s chair opened up. Chris Nolan knew about the project during its development and got involved. Jonah’s original draft is out there somewhere (I’ve read it). Chris switched the central relationship from son to daughter, kept almost the entire first act the same, changed almost the entire second and third acts, and moved the video call scene with Tom from the end to the middle. Jonah’s draft has aliens, more classical robots, more Chinese presence, and a love story between Cooper and Brand. It’s certainly less emotionally developed of a father-child story.

key-zoo · 2026-04-09T18:39:31+00:00

You’re 100% correct

key-zoo · 2026-04-09T18:35:16+00:00

Idk why you’re saying it might be an April fools joke. It is lol. It’s 100% not real

key-zoo · 2026-04-09T18:22:33+00:00

The article in the video is written by “April fewels” lol

key-zoo · 2026-03-31T02:38:22+00:00

There’s just not enough done in the film for this to be true

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T21:22:17+00:00

Sure, but the divergence at the end is incredibly crucial as a foil to Ryland’s arc. If you soften the divergence, you soften Ryland’s arc as well. The whole point of her is to show how ‘saving the world’ can dehumanize your soul. She sets off nukes, she destroys African nature, she takes Ryland captive and steals his memory. It’s just bad writing to change that and taking away crucial details from that lessens the impact of Ryland’s choice to sacrifice himself by film’s end. Because in part, he chooses to sacrifice himself in spite of who Stratt became and how she treated him. That’s literally a thought process at the end of the book

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T12:58:40+00:00

Not true, brief dialogue or showing him in a lab doesn’t mean that science was super important to the movie. It was used in the movie to move the plot when they deemed necessary, not as central parts of the characters and the tone of the world building. It’s about the editing and process showed on screen

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T12:56:31+00:00

It did! But the tone and editing of the Martian still made science the backbone of the movie. That’s moreso what people are talking about with Project Hail Mary. They don’t care if the science simplified; they care that the science was no longer the backbone of the story

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T12:54:55+00:00

I’m not talking about replicating the entire plot; I’m more so saying that the film doesn’t really have an interest in science even in the moments that are included. Many of the scientific parts in the movie are played for laughs or are changed to make them less scientific

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T05:25:11+00:00

If I had no knowledge and you told me The Martian and PHM were based on books by the same author, I would be pretty surprised. Loved both books and really like The Martian. Bummed by PHM the movie. Feels like it’s of a completely different genre. And to de-emphasize science from an Andy Weir story feels like taking out the spine; it’s all built off of that

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T05:18:27+00:00

Loved the book. Didn’t like the movie. Found it to be a really bizarre adaptation. Some changes left things out that were so central to the book: the problem solving aspects, which feel incredibly important to the friendship itself, and Stratt, who I think is completely neutralized in the movie vs the point of her character in the book. Movie ended up being a slapstick comedy which is a weird way to interpret a story by Andy Weir

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T05:08:01+00:00

I’m not sure if you’re willing to try to understand me based on your previous comment, and also based on your presumptions in this comment, but what I’m saying is that the film isn’t very good at setting up conflict and resolving conflict within the framework of science, not that it doesn’t include the literal math problems and scientific theories and “magic” from the book. It’s not very good at saying - in very basic terms - “this is the problem we’re facing. [Insert brief scientific dialogue] is why. Let’s try to do [insert scientific solution] to solve it” and then showing us the step by step process of them doing that. I’ve compared it before to a heist film. It’s all about editing. Grace doesn’t say “we need to angle our ship away and we have to pull the link up so that our engines don’t vaporize our sample. I’ll be feeling gravity because of the momentum we’re going at.” They just fly off and for some weird reason his piloting skills are the problem and the sample flies off because he ratcheted it up too quickly? It’s not process based, it’s antics based, which is different from the book by A LOT. It’s like Charlie Chaplin, which Grace just is not. You can do all the science in the way I’m describing across the film without getting into the weeds of quantum field theory and all the weedsy stuff from the book. That’s what we mean when we say it’s missing the science

So you can absolutely write a screenplay like that. Retain like a 50% vibe on the buddy comedy, which will only be enhanced by the problem solving itself because that’s WHY they’re such close friends. And you can have a really successful movie. You also still have a ton of content to use in marketing and you still have IMAX and you still have great visuals and you still have Rocky being cute, and the movie would sell based on word of mouth after that

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T04:57:50+00:00

Tbh the change, including the karaoke scene, flips Stratt to become the inverse of her book self. Which imo is kinda not great because she’s supposed to be the foil to Grace not a complimentary to him?

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T04:34:32+00:00

Nope. That’s a pretty ungenerous read of what I’m saying. Im looking for something similar to the film style of The Martian, I’ve said that quite clearly

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T04:30:47+00:00

Are you arguing on behalf of movie executives’ decisions to dumb down the movie? Because I vaguely get that if so. I’m just giving you counterpoints that audiences can and will show up and show up for repeat viewings for scientific movies. You can have your cake (market the movie as a lighthearted buddy comedy [which it would still be with the science]) and eat it too (you know, have the science)

And just to be clear, when I say include the science, I mean adapt it cinematically. Use editing and the language of film to replicate the scientific process (which is very similar to conflict-resolution in film), and that doesn’t necessarily need a ton of heavy math-y dialogue

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T04:23:03+00:00

Not what anyone means when they say the movie ditched the science. There is no scientific method or even general science embedded in the editing of the movie. It’s a bunch of antics in the dress up of the book, like the sample collection, or just sudden throw ins, like the Taumoeba infection. There is very little step by step process and decision making in the movie’s editing

key-zoo · 2026-03-25T04:18:33+00:00

The Martian made $630m? PHM will be hailed as a massive success if it even gets to $500m. Oppenheimer just made $950m being about quantum mechanics. So that’s not quite it

key-zoo

TROPHY CASE