In the movie version of PHM, things just… happen. There’s no explanation for why they happen, and the entire point of the book is the process by which such mysteries are solved. It is a book about piecing together truth from first principles. Every single tension and catharsis in that book comes from using what little information grace and rocky can glean with their limited tools to divine the truth, either about grace’s own journey leading up to the launch, or about the problem of the petrova line, or about stopping the taumoeba, or even the last question of how grace can survive on a planet where the entire biosphere is based on mercury and cadmium. The movie neatly severs literally every single mystery by just having the characters divine the answers, apropos of nothing, by simple guesswork. Little evidence, no reasoning, and it just works, and we are expected to clap, because they saved the day. No. It did not “do fine” with “explaining” things.
I agree! And the entire film felt like it had annoying background music in a lame “80’s straight to VHS” movie kinda way. Or a mediocre montage of what could’ve been a fine movie. I think this a choice undercuts moments of work between the two of them that could’ve been used for the tension of figuring things out.
Then again I felt the same way about Fantastic Four: First Steps.
In the movie version of PHM, things just… happen. There’s no explanation for why they happen, and the entire point of the book is the process by which such mysteries are solved. It is a book about piecing together truth from first principles. Every single tension and catharsis in that book comes from using what little information grace and rocky can glean with their limited tools to divine the truth, either about grace’s own journey leading up to the launch, or about the problem of the petrova line, or about stopping the taumoeba, or even the last question of how grace can survive on a planet where the entire biosphere is based on mercury and cadmium. The movie neatly severs literally every single mystery by just having the characters divine the answers, apropos of nothing, by simple guesswork. Little evidence, no reasoning, and it just works, and we are expected to clap, because they saved the day. No. It did not “do fine” with “explaining” things.
I agree! And the entire film felt like it had annoying background music in a lame “80’s straight to VHS” movie kinda way. Or a mediocre montage of what could’ve been a fine movie. I think this a choice undercuts moments of work between the two of them that could’ve been used for the tension of figuring things out.
Then again I felt the same way about Fantastic Four: First Steps.
I literally only listen to soundtrack music,and I could not, if you offered me a billion dollars, pick out any part of the PHM soundtrack.