Hope and the determination to save yourself (and the world) (Project Hail Mary: 1)

Posted on 2026-05-02 by [lily]

This is the 1st post in a series about the book/movie Project Hail Mary (next)

Have you seen Project Hail Mary yet?

If not, and it's still in theatres, go watch it! Like literally right now, or today, or this weekend.

Go see it! It's quickly become one of my favorite movies of all time :D

Watch it blind. Don't look up anything just go into it blind.

Definitely don't read this post before watching the movie

This is a short set of blog posts on the movie, because I've been obsessed with it and need an outlet.

Project Hail Mary is so fucking good.

Anyway this is pretty incoherent because I'm distracted but also trying to write about something I haven't fully crystalized in my head yet.

This is a very incoherent blog post, sorry.

Hope

I watched Project Hail Mary during my residential program as one of our weekend outings.

I had just come off of a very difficult week and a very difficutlt day the day before, and was struggling with having a will to live.

Struggling with the weight of having to keep going.

I was struggling so much when I walked into that movie theatre.

I walked out of that theatre with a clear sense of hope and will to live. The first time I had felt that in some time.

I walked out of that theatre with the strength and hope to keep going.

Why hope? Why strength?

Because I just spent two and a half hours watching a person, an alien, a woman, and the rest of humanity fight to save themselves.

Fight to save their lives and the rest of their species from the astrophage.

From Ryland Grace trying to save his own life in space.

From Eva Stratt willing to sacrifice her life to save the lives of the other humans.

From the rest of the team willing to give up their lives for Project Hail Mary to save humanity.

From Rocky spending years in space alone trying to figure out how to save his species.

Everyone was fighting so hard to save themselves and save the people they cared about.

Everyone was fighting so hard.

It gives me strength to see people fight so hard, to see someone else also struggle to save themselves.

Why?

I'm struggling to find the words to describe why this movie was so powerful to me.

Maybe it was this animatic that crystalized it for me

The combination of The Cave and Project Hail Mary was an excellent combination and it hit hard.

Maybe that's what this blog post is, just tying those two ideas together for myself.

Being able to share that animatic because it's excellent.

Sharing the fact that this movie just means a lot to me. Not just because it's an excellent movie but because it gave me hope.

Hoping that someone else will watch this movie and find the same sense of hope that I did.

Finding the strength to keep going, even when it seems hopeless.

Even when the odds are stacked against you.

Even when it seems like a hail mary to just keep going.

Even when you're alone and can't remember who you even are anymore.

Project Hail Mary means a lot to me, as a sci-fi nerd, as someone fighting desperately to save herself, as someone who seems to be alone in a desperate fight.

It just means a lot to me and I wanted to share.




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