SF Cinema in the Age of Trump: Project Hail Mary, part 1

I LOVE to analyse books, film and TV, it's definitely a thing I enjoy, and thus I bring you this post.

... I've just realised that that title makes it sound as if I'm starting a series now. Well, I suppose I could, if the occasion presents itself again!

Why am I really writing this now? I went to see Project Hail Mary recently and it got me thinking about why this film has had the reception it has:

I feel that these are some overheated takes. These people's minds seem cooked, as if their takes went in the microwave and came out at the temperature of the sun. I have even seen attempts to argue that this is the best SF film of the century, which... I know attention is what we're all mining these days, but seriously? I think this kind of fawning has a lot to do with the current Trumpian moment we're in, rather than the inherent merits of the film or source material novel. 

What is Project Hail Mary? As per Wikipedia:

Project Hail Mary is a 2021 hard science fiction novel by American writer Andy Weir. It centers on school teacher and former biologist Ryland Grace, who wakes up aboard a spacecraft, afflicted with amnesia.

Before I delve into my take on the film further, I want to be clear that I did enjoy this film. My enjoyment was helped considerably by the fact that one of the people I attended the showing with fell asleep no fewer than THRICE during, and I was watching to see if they would roll over onto the shoulder of the friend next to me. I was crying out for some REAL drama, the REAL possibility of some kind of conflict, and that is because this film is essentially what I call a Disney sci-fi.

What does THAT mean? This is a frictionless movie. Everything gets solved tidily and smoothly at every point, the stakes of almost every dangerous situation feel totally unbelievable and there's no messy emotion to complicate anything, really. I had a visceral sense that this film is the way the tech bros who bestride us want us to see the world, as reducible to a series of engineering problems that a hyper-competent white male scientist can sketch out on a whiteboard, tap into a computer, or muse aloud over and absolutely everyone else is a walk-on bit part in the journey of this Rugged Genius Individual. 

Dr. Ryland Grace is a hunky high-school teacher and molecular biology PhD, who is KICKED OUT of mainstream science for daring to posit that life exists in the universe that doesn't require water to survive. The Government comes a-knocking at his door in the form of central casting German Eva because somehow only HE can possibly save the world, despite her being shown to have convened experts from all over the world to help solve the problem of why the sun is dimming. Let's start here.

With characteristic Trump pettiness, the film makes a point of showing Grace being bitter in conversation with Eva about his apparent rejection and subsequent ejection from Science with a capital S. It's heavily implied from what he says that he's a high-school science teacher both because he was too maverick for Big Science and because Big Science effectively blackballed him for it. 

Anyone who has paid attention to the rise of the grifters and con artists that surround the Trump administration (including Trump himself) should note the parallels here to all the right-wingers of the last few years who claim to have been 'cancelled' for 'speaking out' (or however they want to phrase it). This part struck me because it was so discordant with the general buddy-comedy/hero's quest tone being established overall. It carries the tenor of the conspiracy theorist's claim about the world as well, that some kind of unorthodox information that could SAVE US ALL is being withheld by deceitful and shadowy elites. Let's not forget that it was QAnon and its spin-off/successor conspiracy theories that helped Trump into office not once but twice, and continue to keep him relevant.

Grace comes across as both bitter and insecure through the exchange about his 'cancellation' from Science. The film is at pains to portray him throughout as a very down-to-earth, maybe even folksy kinda guy, and this part just kept making me think of Mark Zuckerberg wearing hoodies and Google et al installing play areas in their offices. I felt very clearly that this moment was perhaps the character (and author?) going 'mask off', because of course, scientific research and research scientists (as opposed to software engineers/computer scientists and their ilk) do not necessarily move fast and break things, nor do they necessarily go straight to 'solutionising'. People like Andy Weir, the author of Project Hail Mary, tend to be techno-optimists because they have invested their lives in developing tech solutions. The system as it is has worked for them, and therefore they are incapable of grasping why (for example), the rest of us might not want solutions to our existing crises that reproduce the problems that helped spawn said crises in the first place.

I have friends who are chemists, for example, and they tend to be extremely cautious, detail-oriented and consensus-focused in their approach to life. They tend to want to see proper evidence for big claims, they don't tend to sermonise about areas of science that they aren't specialists in, and they certainly don't frame themselves as mavericks. Oh, and unsurprisingly, they rarely tend to be rich or famous.

Andy Weir started working as a programmer at 15, dropped out of a computer science degree to work for various software companies, started writing SF in his twenties and lives in California. He has described himself as 'fiscally conservative and politically liberal', which aligns neatly with the long history of Silicon Valley technolibertarianism and is what I'd expect someone who's got lucky to say. He worked as a software developer (one of the best-paid jobs you can get, even now with the threat of AI looming!) at huge companies from 1987 onwards (before the 2008 financial crisis), managed to avoid the kind of student debt that cripples young Americans nowadays and he is both rich AND famous because he has had films made of 2 of his bestselling books, with even his garbage novella Artemis (one of the worst books I've ever read!) now having been optioned.

What I'm saying is that that Grace rant felt SINISTER, because it felt clearly like a rich, right-wing libertarian's framing. The notion that there is a Big Science out there with the organisation and control to force a man into teaching high school because he disagrees with other scientists is ludicrous. Firstly, because the scientific method is built on peer review (which welcomes disagreement), trying to disprove assumptions and iterative development. Teamwork and consensus is necessary, because you need a team of scientists to perform different functions in a project, you can't just dictate to AI to do your assays for you. I'd like to see AI run clinical trials.

Secondly, the idea that there even IS a scientific establishment in the post-pandemic world is just hilariously out of touch. The world where healthcare workers get threatened at work? Where the far right enthusiastically embrace, fund and boost all manner of 'mavericks' who will help them sell supplements/continue extracting fossil fuels/continue benefiting from surveillance capitalism/avoid regulation (delete as appropriate) like Zach Bush, Andrew Huberman, Christine Northrup, RFK Jr., (the list goes on and on and ON)? RFK Jr. is IN THE GOVERNMENT and Trump has been, and remains on, a mission to discredit and defund scientific agencies wherever he can. 

Ironically given his name, Grace didn't seem gracious about the fact that despite his ostensible cancellation, the government had still come to him to save the world because he is of course the most qualified as a hot, straight white American guy. Just like how Trump and the tech bros become enraged at any notion that they should face consequences or accountability for what their tech does! All their BS about trying to increase transparency or free speech or whatever has vanished now, because with Trump in post, they have a president in their pocket and they don't need to pretend any more. I would bet money that Andy Weir was, if not pro-Trump, certainly neutral, and probably thought DOGE etc. was a good idea because it reflects how technolibertarians see themselves and the world (you are poor because you're stupid and/or feckless; I am rich because I'm smart and hardworking and didn't fall for the con of higher education and I consider myself socially liberal because I like psychedelics and dislike regulation that might mean I have to pay more taxes). The mask is OFF. 

This out-of-touch framing of how science works continues in the fact that even though we are shown the scientists from all over the world who have been summoned to work on the problem of the sun dimming, Grace never works with them. He is always shown working alone, which is of course how programmers work, but not how any non-computer-science scientists that I've ever seen work. He is the Great White Hope of the world, flanked by a security officer, who acts as a token black friend for him. This role is later filled by Rocky, the alien. We are told *spoiler alert* that he was chosen to replace one of the 3 original astronauts chosen for the mission to Tau Ceti after the latter's death during the test launch precisely because he has no friends, family or romantic partners. 

That's right... Ryland Grace, the Hot Rugged Genius Individual is an incel and that makes him MORE QUALIFIED FOR SPACE. Ryan Gosling might be too handsome for the incels who memed Trump into the White House to project themselves onto him, but the film certainly is making space for them with the way that Grace never has an equal. There's the children he teaches, the scientific establishment he has to take over from, the black security officer who helps him with his science experiments and the aliens who need his superior knowledge to save them. Thinking about power dynamics, arguably, Eva is the one character 'superior' to him, as she's a senior Government agent and is able to drug him and put him on the ship whilst he's unconscious, but the film repeatedly emphasises that she's dependent on him to participate in the scientific research to get the mission going. 

 To return to the incel aspect, I would argue that incels are conspiracy theorists based on their beliefs about women. A characteristic feature of conspiracy theorists is a deep anxiety about the world and the need for easy, black-and-white solutions for this anxiety that allow them to 'do' (spotting patterns, searching for clues, boosting messages, solving riddles etc.) rather than have to feel and accept that the world is an uncertain and ever-changing place. The wonderful podcast Conspirituality has consistently tracked how the pandemic pushed many wellness grifters towards conspirituality, with several of them also being drawn in following personal traumas and tragedies in their lives. 

Incel logic seems to be that women are both threatening and desirable, and this can go to some weird places with the looksmaxxing community, where it feels like there's a concerted effort to hide homo/bisexuality among some of these young men. The choice of a female character as Grace's 'boss' is interesting, because her status arguably shuts down the threat of a romantic relationship (which would arguably be true if she was a male boss too). However, she is shown having to constantly cajole and reassure Grace and this fits in with the fundamentally misogynistic logic of incels. Women are there for men's purposes, and she's there to be a muse/catalyst who he may or may not be attracted to, but can rise above. It felt as if the film was saying 'He could have her if he wanted to... but he's a man going his own way'.

What was it that Trump so memorably called himself? A very stable genius? As Ryland Grace is also a very stable genius, he does not let small things like human emotion slow him down. His brief moments of self-doubt about his ability to perform are assuaged with pep talks and occasionally, threats. The discovery that he is the last crew member alive on the ship is speedily 'resolved' by him gathering the effects of his 2 deceased crew members with their corpses and then ejecting them out of the airlock. Yes, he has amnesia at the time, but it's pretty clinical, nonetheless. He is shown feeling panic sometimes, due to his amnesia, which always passes very quickly and then he's somehow shown doing physics and engineering despite being a molecular biologist. Truly, the scorn this film has for expertise is really something.

Complex feelings like anger or grief are simply not allowed to permeate - presumably these are 'negative' as they get in the way of solutionising through every challenge that occurs. Much like how taking the DOGE chainsaw didn't solve anything for anyone, because doing doesn't always outweigh feeling. 

I found myself trying to summon tears during a section where Rocky saves Grace's life, at the possible expense of his own. I then had a startling moment of clarity. 'Don't do that,' my self told me. 'The risk is not real. Rocky will not die, this film isn't brave enough to go there. It doesn't deserve your emotional investment.' The film feels at times cowardly and even glib in its desire to gloss over big feelings. It becomes very clear quite quickly that the desire to keep a feelgood tone wherever possible is going to forestall any real threat of death or danger. MORE IN PART 2!