Project Hail Mary
I saw somebody post a warning yesterday about the trailer for Project Hail Mary, warning of a major spoiler. I think I know what it is, because I read the book. And be assured I’m not going to blow it here.
But it did make me wonder why the studio would do that. Apologies to anyone who hasn’t caught up with the original Matrix yet, but it’d be like a trailer cutting away to giant human battery packs and, well, you knowt.
The hell of it is that you could cut a really amazing trailer for the movie without ever giving away The Spoiler. It’s a high-concept, high-action thriller with lots of stuff blowing up on a small scale and a nicely meta threat (the death of the Sun) to frame everything.
If you haven’t read the book I’d strongly advise you to do so, because it is a fucking cracker. I had it in my stack o’ shame for a couple of years, having insta-bought it after reading The Martian. It’s a great read that does take a surprising turn about a third of the way through. But it’s a great turn that sets up the rest of the story.
I loved it, but never reviewed it because I couldn't avoid the spoiler trap. I guess movie guys just don’t give a shit.
I havent read this (audible has been pushing it for what feels like two years every time i logged in to listen to my book) but i do know about it, and saw the trailer and thought once again "why do they have to summarise the whole bloody movie in a trailer? The art of the trailer has been lost.
Looks like good sciency fun. Will check it out once it hits streaming. I guess we should be grateful that the movie industry hasn't yet just turned over the making of trailers to Large Language Models onthe metric 'good enough'.