Last month, Hail Mary was released to theaters, the second movie made from a book written by Andy Weir – a certified nerd, former software engineer and successful first-time author.
In 2011, when he first wrote the scientifically rigorous novel, The Martian, he sought accurate information from scientists and engineers. It was a self-published hit and then an Amazon success. It became an award-winning film starring Matt Damon. It’s a gripping story about a botanist astronaut unintentionally abandoned on Mars by his crew and left for dead. How he prevails is a good read and even better movie. I had to skim the physics and chemistry, but I got the gist.
I love science fiction; I especially like stories that focus on relationships. By the time I graduated from high school, I had read almost all of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells stories. Jane Austen was for romantics. I liked my 1960’s heroic men, Captain Nemo and Leonard Nimoy’s Spock. And of course, Sidney Poitier in other genres.
Hail Mary has the same vibe as Weir’s first book. Ryan Gosling, stars as a brilliant Ph.D. dropout relegated to teaching middle school science. An astrophysics buff, he knows how to save our dying sun, and is drafted as an astronaut to complete a one-way interstellar mission. OK, wait — give it a chance, because again it’s a story with science, but with a relationship front and center, this time with an alien, his new friend, Rocky.
My oldest daughter, who is not into science (although on Mother’s Day she took me to see the Star Trek reboot premiere), just finished reading Hail Mary and enthusiastically endorsed it as a good story with lots of heart.
I plan to see it ASAP. See you at IMAX.
