Rocky, Grace and a wonderful movie

 

Rocky by unknown posted by Weir

Spoilers: This post assumes you have watched it

Over the weekend I watched Project hail Mary with Grace and Rocky. Among many other themes it's a movie about the importance of friendship.

The type of friendship that crosses geographic location and cultural differences. I have not read the book, which probably explains more than could fit into a movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It's wonderful and uplifting.

There's humor throughout. One really cares about both characters and it focuses on empathy and compassion of two different species that despite their incredible differences learn to deeply care about eachother.

I was surprised at how much emotion it evoked. Everyone teared up at the sacrifices they made and were willing to make for eachother. I also enjoyed that rocky initiated the effort to communicate. Initially by imitating until they both had rudimentary simple speech. The effort Rocky put in to communicate and invent an environment that made a human comfortable are incredible.

Yet. Both species had common reference points; they're social, have mates, children and culture. A foundation that allows them to relate and communicate. It's clear that Eridians are much more emotionally intelligent because they had to be due to their regenerative sleep habits.

I won't get into the science except that there are some great ideas that aren't plausible. Astrophages are based on Bacteriophages which do exist. I don't see how a species can travel interstellarly  without discovering radiation or relativity. But it moves the story forward.

The scene where the ships tango in the beginning was hilarious. Overall a wonderful movie that reminds us about what compassion and empathy actually mean.