What if 2001: a space odyssey were written by idiots?
This is a review of the _Ad Astra_ movie from my Facebook post in 2019.
It is rambling and conversational because it is made of up messages of a paragraph at the time as I carried on an FB conversation about the movie.
Spoiler alert: I do not have a high opinion of the film.
That is what happened in the new space movie: Ad Astra.
It is the single stupidest, dumbest, absolutely brainless space movie ever made and I am including The Green Slime and Santa Claus vs. the Martians. It is a giant cold mess. If it were a hot mess it would have been better.
There is NOTHING that works in this new film. They don't understand simple Newtonian physics. They don't understand simple military structures. They KNOW NOTHING.
It took all my self-control to not yell at the screen.
EVERYTHING was wrong.
Stay home. Read a book.
OK. We soon learn that Brad Pitt's father was obsessed with SETI (never named that in the movie). And for some reason the space agency (NASA or some descendant) sent him and a bunch of people off to Neptune to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Why Neptune? Maybe they thought that being farther away from the sun will make their instruments work better. Maybe. No one seemed to question it in the film - so I will go along with this. But it will take them 16 years to get there.
ANYWAY here we are 30 years or so after the mission and suddenly a really big "feedback" or "pulse" of "energy" or something is washing over Earth from Neptune and Brad must be recruited by his old mentor, Donald Sutherland. Whenever Donald Sutherland (a fine actor) shows up in a modern SF movie I am immediately suspicious. [ 2020 aside from the author: I loved Sutherland in The Hunger Games]
Anyway Donald explains that there must be a secret mission (because of some internecine intrigue or politics or something - I am willing to MacGuffin it). But Brad has to go to Neptune to stop his father (Tommy Lee Jones).
BUT first we must sorta sneak to the Moon - hop a rocket to Mars. Then somehow get Brad on a mission to Neptune. The mechanics of this are a little fuzzy but - again - ready to go along for the ride.
BUT on the Moon it's a lot like the old west but with moon-buggies instead of horses. And some random claim-jumpers try to stop Brad from getting to the rocket. People die (not Brad) and they get to the rocket and take off for Mars.
NOW if going to Mars is moderately routine - then WHY THE FUCK is the rocket on the MOON? Wouldn't it be better to keep the interplanetary part of the rocket in orbit around the moon and then Mars. And use shuttles to do the hops to and from orbit. Has 50 years of Star Trek taught us nothing???
So a lot of plot-like things happen to and on Mars and for some reason (probably that ill-defined political intrigue alluded to earlier) Brad has been scrubbed from the Neptune mission. So he can't take the rocket.
Except, of course, he must. BECAUSE OF DADDY. So he sneaks into the rocket as it is blasting off (again, from the gravity well - not orbit. Idiots). Since he is NOT ALLOWED on the rocket he fights with the three legitimate crew and KILLS THEM ALL.
"Sorry - my bad".
So now he is on a solo mission to Neptune to find Daddy. At least he does not have to deal with a killer computer.
We learn that it will take him 79 days to get from Mars to Neptune. After having taken only 19 days to get from the moon to Mars.
Wait a minute. His father, Tommy, took 16 YEARS to go to Neptune from Earth. It will take Brad 98 days. I can see the rocket tech might have gotten better - but 60 times better. With rockets? I am not sure about that.
OK I will give in on the bullshit science - BUT if it only takes 4 months to get to Neptune why the fuck have they not relieved those poor souls who have been on the Lima (????) mission for 30 years. How cruel is Terra anyway?
And why did they not try to stay in touch with them? The speed of light is pretty fast. Even at the longest distance Earth and Neptune are only 2.9 billion miles. Communication is only about 8.6 hours round trip.
Well, of course, the reason is Brad's dad - Tommy Lee Jones. He is obsessed with his SETI plans and, of course, had to kill the rest of the crew. (I think he killed them. I am not sure about this.)
Maybe it was to preserve the food supply. There was no discussion at all as to how even ONE PERSON could have survived for 30 years without food. The rocket would have had to be 100s of times its size to just SYNTHESIZE, RECYCYLE, or what ever the food requirements. I didn't get it.
Finally we have the big emotional confrontation.
SPOILER ALERT
Tommy Lee Jones never gave a shit about his son (Brad), nor his wife (Miss Not Appearing in this Picture). And can't communicate with Terrans so we wants to communicate with ETs. He saw the movie too many times. It's all Spielberg's fault. (that was for another Brad - I miss you).
Anyway the big reveal is that he has spent 14/16/30 whatever years looking for ETs and got bupkis. Look - here are the pictures - no aliens.
WAIT A MINUTE. Space is big. Really big. You wouldn't believe how mind-boggling... a few lifetimes searching for aliens via pictures is still pretty short. Maybe they don't want to be found by you, Tommy, since you're such an asshole.
WTF!!!!
Another annoyance: in the trip from Mars to Neptune means a sfx fly-by of Jupiter and Saturn - because sfx.
Isn't that a little unbelievable that they would line up just right for Brad's trip. But let's face: it the idiot writers don't understand about orbits, the speed of light, or any other pesky detail.
I don't know why the critics love this movie.
Morons. Fucking Morons.