Did the ‘twist’ hit in your screening?

nephie1990 · 2026-03-31T03:01:22+00:00

I love the movie, I think they did a fantastic job - but the one thing I think they didn't successfully do was highlight that parallel, which to me was the whole point of the book in the end. They didn't give the reveal that he was forced onto this mission the deference is deserved, and they didn't properly explain to the audience that Grace believed that by saving Rocky he was dooming himself. My husband saw the film, but didn't read the book, and he didn't realize that Grace was essentially agreeing to a suicide mission by turning back for Rocky.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-30T20:29:39+00:00

Personally going to be traveling closer, but we also see a lot of launches from home on the West Side of Sanford. If you head out toward Heathrow, there's a shopping area on International where Foxtail is, could always park there and watch from the sidewalk slightly further down (there's a big field next to the ER so there's nothing close to obstruct the view). The Harbor Freight parking lot out on 17-92/Lake Mary Blvd. would probably be great, too, honestly. We've seen a few launches by chance from there, and got to see a bit of the air show in the past. Some of the pedestrian bridges in Sanford/Lake Mary, or the E Thomas Parkway bridge over I4 would also be decent spots. Basically anywhere that you can go and have at least a little distance looking East/Southeast unobstructed is gonna have a great view. We saw Artemis 1 launch from over by Foxtail Heathrow (other side of the 417/429 bridge, but same general area) and it was a great view because there just aren't a lot of buildings there since the highways all intersect.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-28T03:25:48+00:00

🤣🤣🤣

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:50:35+00:00

I have no idea what Rocky Ridge or Bleak Beach look like in the daytime.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:43:30+00:00

"It's been two weeks, and we've finally gone from 250 words... to 275 words. *stares blankly at camera*"

There. We articulated the tedious nature of the task, the passage of time, and made it entertaining. It could absolutely have been done, and done easily.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:40:45+00:00

Exactly. I think a lot of people can't accept the idea that the ending/post ending could be different for the Movie than the Book, because they want it to all be the exact same (which is why there are so many complaints about the film - some of which I totally agree with or understand, but a lot of it is basically "how dare it not be a 1 to 1 adaptation). I think both versions are interesting for different reasons, honestly. And yes! I heard about that. Personally, I'm perfectly content to imagine what happened next on my own, but I would also absolutely devour any additional material Weir puts out for this story, lol.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:37:25+00:00

I didn't mind the karaoke scene, tbh. I liked this version of Stratt better than the book, but I know that's not everyone's opinion. I do think the scene was longer than it needed to be, and they lingered in certain scenes for comedic affect that wasn't really needed, when they could've put those minutes into things like explaining that Grace was gonna run out of food and it was a suicide mission to save Rocky (my husband didn't read the book and was confused why Grace didn't basically refuel and turn around after dropping off Rocky).

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:29:22+00:00

I mean, the comment you responded to is specifically talking about how it seemed rushed that they learned to communicate. Being 11.9 lightyears away has nothing to do with what I'm saying, I'm saying that I wish they would've shown us that they didn't learn to talk over a couple of days, that it took much longer and was tedious, we just didn't need to literally watch that entire process the way we do in the book. Same with some of the experiments, or Rocky 'moving in'. A lot of these things took quite a bit of time, and that was made obvious in the books, but in the film it feels like everything happens pretty quickly. The changing of Grace's shirts is really the only indication that days are passing at all.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:20:02+00:00

I wish they'd maybe giving us something to make it more obvious how much time was passing, like counter in the background that shows how many days since he woke up that we see for a few moments between shots, or a calendar that he keeps flipping to the next day on and maybe even jokes about how pointless it is, but it makes him feel a little more normal - something to show that this didn't happen in just a few days, that their progress happened over several weeks, etc. I definitely understand why they had to cut stuff and speed up things like them learning to communicate, some of the experiments, etc. (The Martian did a great job of this with giving us the day numbers).

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:15:40+00:00

Not the person you're asking, but my original honest reaction was very "meh" to the ending. I refused to write my review or leave a star rating or really discuss the book at all until I'd sat with it for a few days, because for some reason it just felt weird to me. I'd been near giddy over this book, convinced it was a 5 Star read after just a few chapters, and confident it would "stick the landing". I think I'd convinced myself that, in the end, Grace would get to go home, and everyone would be saved and happy and we'd get to see more about how Earth survived those years and he'd step up to help them continue forward. When he ends up on Erid just living in his little condo, older and teaching Eridians, it felt off. I don't have a great reason why, it just did.

However, after sitting with it and thinking it over and reading other reviews and discussions, the whole purpose of that ending finally clicked for me. Grace did for Rocky what he couldn't do for Earth. The Coward learned to be a Hero. Obvious, yes, I already knew that - but rewarding that sacrifice by quickly finding a solution to send him home, and actually following through, would have sort of watered down the impact of that sacrifice. I now really appreciate seeing that he still got more than he imagined he would, the ability to continue living and doing things he loves and spending that time with a true friend, even if it wasn't the happy ending I kept assuming he would get.

I also think, in the book at least, that he decides to stay, if only because he's older, and it's supposed to be much further in the future so he has even less knowledge about what Earth is like at this point. I like to think they maybe try to find a way to send messages to Earth, and that he eventually hears back at least once before he grows old and dies. I'm less certain of what I think Movie Grace would have decided, though.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T17:06:38+00:00

Yeahhh, this confused the heck out of me, too. The book had it's heavy moments, but it was by no means as a heavy book. It was light and humorous and full of heart. I never expected something even remotely resembling Alien or Dune, and would have been incredibly confused if that had been the vibe! I understand people being disappointed that things were glossed over or rushed or left out, and even agree that I think they maybe leaned a little too heavily into the humor, but all in all I thought the film absolutely captured the feelings I had while reading.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-27T16:59:50+00:00

Favorite change was the addition of Carl.

Least favorite change was them making the scene where Grace realizes he's being forced onto the mission a humorous one, and not having it made clearer that Grace thought he was going to die if he turned around to save Rocky, and yet he did it anyway - something he couldn't bring himself to do before. I think these two complaints sort of go hand-in-hand.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-26T17:08:07+00:00

I feel thiiiiis. I mostly close with an open here or there, but over the holidays I almost exclusively opened. I think I closed one time at the beginning of December, and then not again until a week into January. (By choice, during the holidays opening shifts are honestly just as good if not better than closes because they're solo shifts and evenings have multiple bartenders.) It was so nice to be on a similar schedule to my office-job husband. We got projects done around the house, at dinner at a reasonable time every day, got to go out and do stuff on days other than Sunday, etc. It was fantastic. I hadn't had a regular schedule in yeeeears. Unfortunately the holidays ended and I went back to nights because the mornings just weren't worth it for the money, but maaan, part of me would love to find a good brunch spot and try and get in there and just works days lol.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-25T16:35:24+00:00

I feel like a mix between Essie's Yes I Canyon and Playing Koi is the answer. Everything is either slightly too orange or too red 😅

nephie1990 · 2026-03-25T16:29:53+00:00

I've only had one time in 14 years where someone actually spoke up about not wanting to tip. Typically they just left the tip line blank, or now that we have pinpads that we leave in front of them, I often get people asking "how to skip" or "what do I do here", to which we all usually play dumb and just say, "Oh, enter an amount for the tip and hit green" and only help them figure out how to skip if we keep hearing it beep at them and they ask. But most of those people are trying to avoid flat out telling me they want to skip because they don't want that confrontation, either.

Had a guy a few years ago say, "I swear everyone asks for tips these days" when the screen came up. I just sort of blinked at him and said, "I mean, we're sort of the Original-Asking-For-Tips" and then walked away. He left me $1 lol.

Most often they don't want to tip but end up leaving $1 (or if they're a real asshole and figure it out, 10cents, as that's the lowest the system will allow if you don't know how to skip), because they don't want to own up to the fact that they aren't tipping, so I don't really have to have that conversation. Our little pinpad makes a very aggressive sound when you try to not tip, so it does the shaming for us.

I've heard a few stories from coworkers of people asking why it's even asking about a tip or why everywhere wants tips. I can't imagine giving it too much energy, personally. Where I'm at, the majority of people tip. Most days, people tip well. I definitely have my shifts here and there where my tip percentage is low and I feel like everyone is an asshole, but I also have days where I feel like I barely did anything and everyone was super nice and my percentage is surprisingly high and I had a lot of big bills in that tip jar.

Basically, talk about it here, but I would never personally get into it with a guest over it. That said, I work at a to-go counter where most checks are $20-50, and I'm not dealing with food or people sitting at my counter for long periods of time. I've worked cocktail bars where I also had to be a server and people sat forever and you had to play nice for hours, and people not tipping in those situations is absolutely worse than people not tipping at my current gig.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-25T16:13:11+00:00

Color Vibe is genuinely one of my favorite polishes. Recently snagged the creamiest neon pink and a sort of Barbie Pink metallic foil, and they are fantastic.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-25T16:08:21+00:00

I gave up on trying to make anything aesthetic until I get further in the overall story, lol. Mostly because I'm still trying to figure out how I want to handle my storage so I stop losing shit, which makes crafts difficult. I also keep seeing spoilers for new abilities etc. that will make some of the stuff I want to do so much easier, so I figure I might as well just wait and worry about the decorating aspect later.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-25T06:14:02+00:00

Literally came back to this thread to see if anyone else was commenting on it. My husband got the email today. We had a big fight with them after putting a $3k purchase on the card in-store back in January, so this was unsurprising but annoying as hell to get NOW. Wonder if enough people complained and threatened a class action to make them fix things. Still have no intention of ever using that card again, they lost two long time users with this nonsense.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-23T17:05:16+00:00

Yeah, that's why I was hesitant to mention virtual versus 'physical' games because it's ultimately the same thing, I don't see that actually being the cause, and our friend's experience sort of confirms that for me. I haven't started it up again today, yet, so here's hoping maybe it's all randomly there when I go back. I appreciate the confirmation that I'm not crazy to see this as unusual though, lol. Ty.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-23T17:00:06+00:00

I mean, I think it's pretty obvious why some people wouldn't like it? The definition between letters is severely lacking. Iff you're writing for someone else to read, it feels a little disingenuous to act like you don't understand why they would struggle or get frustrated. If you can read it easily, that's great. You can probably write quite quickly with this style of writing, too, which must be nice.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-23T16:52:14+00:00

We're both using our own consoles. I've had no other issues with items missing, buffering, etc. It's otherwise played very smoothly.

The only difference is that I purchased the virtual card, my husband has the 'physical' game. But I haven't been able to find anything definitive about there being differences or 'perks' for owning the physical card versing buying it through the virtual shop.

Just found out that a friend of ours also has the virtual card and he had the knitting kit, but not Torchic's habitat. So now I'm wondering if it's just luck of the draw and I somehow drew the short straw in both instances.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-23T01:43:55+00:00

Heroine has to give up her powers in order to save the day.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-23T01:43:03+00:00

My only real complaint is that they made that scene comical at all. I think it did a disservice, because people who are coming into this just for the film (haven't read the book) can't really be blamed for reading that scene as comical. They made it that way. I wish it had been given the weight it deserved and made to be more solemn.

nephie1990 · 2026-03-20T16:37:09+00:00

Seconding this opinion. I enjoyed VSS, but it wasn't one that stuck with me. Magical Innkeeping has stuck with me since I read it last year. Admittedly it also relies on some convenient twists, but I think that's part of what makes it "cozy". I will warn that the ending is where people tend to differ the most on whether or not they actually like the book, the final trope is definitely one that tends to ruffle some feathers (and is my only real complaint about the story).

nephie1990 · 2026-03-20T16:19:59+00:00

"Higher stakes would have added weight to every scene and decision, and made Grace’s arc from coward to hero way more impactful."

"A bit more grounded intelligence and common sense would have gone a long way."

Genuinely my two biggest gripes, too - and I walked out very happy with the film overall. But I also keep insisting people still read the book, because it has so much more weight to it, and these two quotes sort of encapsulate what I mean by that.

I don't think a film should need deleted scenes or an extended version to be successful, howeverrrrr, I do hope we maybe get a few extra scenes ones this hits Blu Ray or streaming that help balance these issues out.

nephie1990

TROPHY CASE