Niedawno mieliśmy okazję obejrzeć film „Projekt Hail Mary” podczas jednego z naszych szkolnych wyjść kinowych. W powszechnej opinii obraz Andy’ego Weira był świetną rozrywką. W swojej recenzji Ania Żurek próbuje dociekać, dlaczego „Projekt Hail Mary” uchodzi za jedno z najbardziej dopracowanych dzieł współczesnego science fiction. W artykule, który ukazuje się w letnim numerze gazetki szkolnej w języku angielskim AimHigh Magazine, przyglądamy się temu, jak autor połączył fascynującą fabułę z rzetelną wiedzą naukową. Zapraszamy do lektury (oraz do obejrzenia filmu)!
=======================
The Science Behind the Sci-fi „Project Hail Mary” Movie
We all love a good sci-fi novel every now and then. But too often, those books are way too ridiculous and make zero sense. It’s so refreshing to read a book that has been written with care and every aspect of the story is thought through. And that’s what ,,Project Hail Mary” is, an amazing, captivating story that’s fun and engaging but also very intelligent and logical. You can feel that the author cares about his profession and that both writing books and physics are his passions. It’s incredible that he manages to combine those two worlds and as a result, we, the audience, get a 10/10 story. Now ,,Project Hail Mary” has been adapted into a film, and let’s just say it really does justice to the book. Aside from Ryan Gosling’s outstanding performance and amazingly written side characters, this film is also amazing because of how scientifically accurate it is.
The author of the book, Andy Weir, is very dedicated when it comes to bringing logical and optimistic stories to life. And ,,Project Hail Mary” isn’t his first successful sci-fi novel; some of his most famous books are ,,The Martian”, which you may know from its film adaptation starring Matt Damon and ,,Artemis”; we all know how amazing those stories are. But today let’s focus on ,,Project Hail Mary”.
When creating his character, whom our protagonist calls Rocky, Andy Weir made sure his existence made sense. Rocky, an alien made from, well, rocks, kinda resembles a crab, which is inspired by the theory – Carcinisation, which is the evolutionary process where basically most crustaceans evolve into crabs. Apparently, the anatomy of a crab- a flat, shelled body with many limbs is very efficient and practical; it’s the ideal body type. Rocky isn’t made from organic cells like we humans, so he doesn’t have various organ systems, for example, he doesn’t have any eyes; instead of sight, he uses echolocation to see. But instead of using one organ to hear, he uses his whole body; every part of his carapace can hear. And thanks to that, he has a constant input from his 360-degree environment, and as a result, his brain doesn’t have to remember what, for example, is behind him, like our brains do. If he lost the environment’s input, he wouldn’t remember the layout of, for example, a room, as we would. So this creature has many advantages, but, as is always the case in nature, it is balanced by flaws.
All this sounds a bit insane, doesn’t it? But believe it or not, Andy Weir thought of everything to justify the existence of a creature like that. He made sure that the planet rocky comes from is compatible with his evolution. This planet, Erid, is very close to its star – a full rotation around its star a year only takes 46 days, so life forming there would be very unlikely. In order to make it realistic, the author made the planet’s magnetic field 25 times stronger than Earth’s, which means Erid rotates very fast; it takes only 6 hours. All that allows for water on Erid, because the planets pressure allows water to not evaporate, the higher the pressure, the higher the boiling point. The oceans are 200 degrees Celsius, and the air is equally hot. In order to maintain an atmosphere on a planet this close to the sun, it has to be made of really heavy molecules, so Erid has an atmosphere made of ammonia. Incredible right? Andy Weir is known for creating whole spreadsheets of scientific facts concerning his creations to make sure he doesn’t mess anything up while writing the story.
I won’t reveal more of the plot because I highly recommend that everyone read the book or at least watch the new movie, because it’s just as amazing.
,,Project Hail Mary’’ is definitely scientifically self-consistent, but aside from that, it has an amazing story with great characters and plot twists. One of the best sci-fi books out there.
Ania Żurek (4b)
