Grace Rocky Save Adaptations

Let me hop on this bandwagon real quick. Matter of fact, let me drive the wagon. Move over Andy Weir - these are my characters now. They live in my brain, where I'll keep them forever and they will nerd out and eat meburgers and talk about fisting each other.

Fist bumping each other. You get it, you've seen the movie. But I read the book. Buckle up for another comparison article! (Spoilers for both, of course).

Project Hail Mary2026

The Art of the Axe

We all know book-to-film adaptations are notorious for shaving off a lot of the juicy, fatty bits of plot that aren't essential to the beating heart of the narrative, which is why I was nervous to see the film at first. The voice of Ryland Grace in the novel is witty, endearing, funny, and unfiltered, to the point that he can explain complex theories of relativity and astro-physical processes without triggering my “I don't get this I'm skipping ahead” habit. 

Yes, the book is 'science-y'. Yes, it would probably have helped to brush up on my periodic table or watch a ‘space for dummies’ video on YouTube first. But Andy does a great job of either dumbing it down or metaphor-izing the concepts so that the reader can pick it up in stride, or gather the appropriate contextual clues in order to end up at the same conclusion as a more advanced reader.

Here's where I think the movie does a great job: they cut pretty much all of that out. As much as I did really love it, a lot of the novel involves Grace explaining the math he's doing and why he's doing it. He hardly ever talks out loud until Rocky's in the picture, and even then, a lot of what they talk about is also related to problem-solving mechanics and so on. As an audience, we don't need to listen to that. Watching Ryan Gosling scribble nonsense on a whiteboard gets across the basic message of what was happening to Grace in the film - this dude is trying to solve a massive problem that (thank god) he's genius enough to figure out.

We don't need to see him measure and time a pen rolling off a table a bunch times in order to calculate how much gravity he's in. We don't need to see him breed 86 variants of Taomoeba, or take a bunch of images of space looking for Rocky's immobile ship. 

"Thing is, nothing affects gravity. You can't increase or decrease it. Earth's gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second. Period. And I'm experiencing more than that. There's only one possible explanation. I'm not on Earth." - Grace

Let me be perfectly clear. I LOVED the novel, but I loved the film too. I think they axed an okay amount of stuff. I actually think the book could be seen as a more detailed log of Grace's experiences on the Hail Mary. It might be fun for anyone who's seen the film to read the book, but imagine it as exclusive access to his private diary.

Big Things They Left Out

Speeding Up Global Warming

In the novel, Stratt brings in a climate scientist to assess the toll that a radical cooling of the atmosphere will have on humanity. Basically, within however many years, the earth will cool to a catastrophic degree. This ruins food chains, destroys ecosystems, and inevitably kills nearly all the human population. However. Stratt comes up with the brilliant idea to speed up global warming to counter the cooling effect, giving the Hail Mary mission more time to be completed and humanity a better chance at survival. 

They do this by nuking massive glaciers in Antartica to release the trapped methane into the atmosphere. I don't know why, and it's kind of terrible, but the irony of it really scratches an itch in my brain. You have to understand, I know this plot point is super dark and terrifying and sad. But it's also insanely badass.

"Humanity has been accidentally causing global warming for a century. Let's see what we can do when we really set our minds to it."  - Stratt

Destroying the Sahara Desert

Grace discovers that Astrophage (which he named, by the way) can be bred via mitosis and requires both sunlight and a CO2 atmosphere (this is mentioned in the film). This is a HUGE discovery, because Astrophage is an incredibly efficient fuel source that can be used to power the Hail Mary craft at the necessary speed, plus protect it from radiation. However. The team needs to breed 2,000 metric tons of Astrophage to use as fuel, which leads them to covering the majority of the Sahara desert with a massive solar-panel farm. This in itself creates insane environmental strain, but Stratt acknowledges that it's a lesser evil compared to what they will face if the sun continues to dim.

Little Things They Left Out

• When Grace initially wakes up suffering from amnesia, he remembers that he's single, lives alone, but enjoys spending time with kids. He panics for a very brief moment before remembering it's because he's a school teacher
• Grace feels very deep emotions about the deaths of his crew mates and cries upon discovering them, even though he doesn't remember who they are or anything about them for a while
• Grace is constantly nerding out, and more often than not keeps a very level head, unless he hasn't slept in hours. He's more ecstatic about making contact with aliens rather than afraid
• Grace learns Rocky's language throughout the novel, to the point he doesn't even need to use the translator anymore
• Rocky had already been alone in space for 46 years before Grace showed up, meaning he probably started his journey before Grace was even born
• Eridians do not have genders and are hermaphroditic
• In the novel, the reason why the decision for Grace to turn back and save Rocky is so hard is because even if Rocky gave him more fuel to return home, Grace would run out of food. Grace goes back to rescue Rocky, knowing (or thinking) that he would eventually starve to death
• On Erid, Eridian scientists manufacture food for Grace grown from his own muscle tissue. Every day he eats what he calls a “Meburger”.
• Grace is around 60 years old in the final chapter. It's pretty clear that he probably wouldn't survive the journey back to Earth. Rocky informs him that Eridian scientists received data that the Sun is back to it's regular brightness. This is the only confirmation for Grace that his mission succeeded

“Once again I’m struck by melancholy. I want to spend the rest of my life studying Eridian biology! But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.” - Grace

Why They Got It Right

The heart of the novel, as in the film, is the persistence of hope and the importance of friendship. Even more than friendship, I'd say collaboration. Community. Working together for a common goal, protecting all of humanity - all of the universe - despite, well, everything. 

Nothing is ever hopeless unless you surrender all hope. The film preserves the importance of Grace's character, his empathy, his genius, and his quiet heroism, hand in hand with an interstellar bromance. It stayed loyal to Andy Weir and his masterpiece of a novel, and was incredible for of it.

“You will miss me, question? I will miss you. You are friend.”

“Yeah. I’m going to miss you.” I take another swig of vodka. “You're my friend. Heck, you’re my best friend.”

- Rocky & Grace

There's definitely stuff I forgot. Let me know if you've read the book, or if you had any strong feelings about the changes! 

P.s. In the novel the guy who creates the 'beetle' probes (and appropriately names them after The Beatles) is a professor at UBC. He's super eccentric and weird in the book. Either way - Vancouver shout out! 

Thanks for reading!

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