Ad Astra

[Brian in Mesa]

Ad Astra

Release date: September 20, 2019
Studio: 20th Century Fox, New Regency
Director: James Gray
MPAA Rating: N/A
Screenwriters: James Gray, Ethan Gross
Genre: Sci-Fi

Starring: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Jamie Kennedy, Donald Sutherland

Plot Summary: Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones to star in James Gray’s "Ad Astra." The sci-fi epic will feature Jones as the father of Pitt’s character who, 20 years ago, left his son on a mission to Neptune in the search for extraterrestrial life. Pitt’s character, named Roy McBride, then sets out two decades later to find out what happened to his dad.

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[oaken1]

this one looks interesting

 

[UncleChris]

The wife and I found it dull , contrived, slow-moving, and sometimes just plain dumb, often ignoring science completely.

Nice special effects is the only real positive on this. R/T gives it 83% from critics, 41% from audiences. We were definitely with the latter.

 

[Chaplin]

Hmm, I saw it in IMAX last night, which was nice. The space shots were very well done and I wish they would have spent more time on the moon scenes. But it was very slow and definitely is part of the Interstellar slow-burn space drama genre. I thought it was well done, but contrived and dumb? Not sure I agree with that.

 

[UncleChris]

Hmm, I saw it in IMAX last night, which was nice. The space shots were very well done and I wish they would have spent more time on the moon scenes. But it was very slow and definitely is part of the Interstellar slow-burn space drama genre. I thought it was well done, but contrived and dumb? Not sure I agree with that.

Moon pirates? Killer monkees? Contrived and dumb... and unnecessary.

IMHO, of course.

 

[UncleChris]

Moon pirates? Killer monkees? Contrived and dumb... and unnecessary.

IMHO, of course.

Edit: I like Pitt & I was excited to see this movie.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Watched it on HBO last night. I really enjoyed it. Thought it was really well done and Brad Pitt was fantastic. Visually I found it stunning.

Moon pirates? Killer monkees? Contrived and dumb... and unnecessary.

IMHO, of course.

I had no problem with the "pirates". Pirates have been around since the beginning of time and are still around today. As humanity eventually spreads across the solar system I'm sure there will ultimately be bad people in space as well.

Monkeys? Those were clearly Baboons. Baboons are very aggressive and dangerous. I'm also guessing that they were experimented on while on that Bio Research Station so I'm sure they were not fond of humans. However I agree that the scene with the Baboons was way over the top for the most part and really unnecessary.

 

[UncleChris]

Watched it on HBO last night. I really enjoyed it. Thought it was really well done and Brad Pitt was fantastic. Visually I found it stunning.





I had no problem with the "pirates". Pirates have been around since the beginning of time and are still around today. As humanity eventually spreads across the solar system I'm sure there will ultimately be bad people in space as well.

Monkeys? Those were clearly Baboons. Baboons are very aggressive and dangerous. I'm also guessing that they were experimented on while on that Bio Research Station so I'm sure they were not fond of humans. However I agree that the scene with the Baboons was way over the top for the most part and really unnecessary.

They were trying (and succeeded) to get their effect just right, but the reason the pirates didn't work for me is the logistics of where they were getting their food, O2, fuel etc. As precious as those would be on the moon, one raid and they would be annhilated. And how did they get there? Again, logistics of cost, doing it in secret, etc.

 

[Southpaw]

Watched it on HBO last night. Would like my time back. Horrible. It seemed to me that the scenes were shot and some poor editor was forced to piece them together and make a movie.
Just a bunch of cameos laced together.

Rotten Tomatoes = 88 % . WTH?

 

[Cheesewater]

Watched it on HBO last night. Would like my time back. Horrible. It seemed to me that the scenes were shot and some poor editor was forced to piece them together and make a movie.
Just a bunch of cameos laced together.

Rotten Tomatoes = 88 % . WTH?

Yeah I always smell something fishy when a movie gets 84% on the Tomatometer but has an audience score of 40%.

I didn't really dig it much either. Not knowing anything about the story, I saw the shades of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now right away. The scientific plot holes bugged me the usual amount. Pitt was uneven, though that might be the editing as indicated above.

 

[Southpaw]

Yeah I always smell something fishy when a movie gets 84% on the Tomatometer but has an audience score of 40%.

I didn't really dig it much either. Not knowing anything about the story, I saw the shades of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now right away. The scientific plot holes bugged me the usual amount. Pitt was uneven, though that might be the editing as indicated above.

Thought the same thing with Apocalypse Now (redux with much more Colonel Kurtz) and some 2001 Space Odyssey sprinkled in.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Watched it on HBO last night. Would like my time back. Horrible. It seemed to me that the scenes were shot and some poor editor was forced to piece them together and make a movie.
Just a bunch of cameos laced together.

Rotten Tomatoes = 88 % . WTH?

It's definitely not for everyone. If you are expecting a Sci-Fi movie like Star Wars you will be disappointed.

I would call it more of an artsy film similar to a "2001: A Space Odyssey" where you will be forced to think and understand the symbolism being portrayed in the film.

 

[jf-08]

Moon pirates? Killer monkees? Contrived and dumb... and unnecessary.

IMHO, of course.

Watched it on HBO last night. I really enjoyed it. Thought it was really well done and Brad Pitt was fantastic. Visually I found it stunning.

I had no problem with the "pirates". Pirates have been around since the beginning of time and are still around today. As humanity eventually spreads across the solar system I'm sure there will ultimately be bad people in space as well.

Monkeys? Those were clearly Baboons. Baboons are very aggressive and dangerous. I'm also guessing that they were experimented on while on that Bio Research Station so I'm sure they were not fond of humans. However I agree that the scene with the Baboons was way over the top for the most part and really unnecessary.

They were trying (and succeeded) to get their effect just right, but the reason the pirates didn't work for me is the logistics of where they were getting their food, O2, fuel etc. As precious as those would be on the moon, one raid and they would be annhilated. And how did they get there? Again, logistics of cost, doing it in secret, etc.

We watched this last weekend. It was a cool visual movie, but it left us rolling our eyes.

We thought the pirates and the baboons were contrived. It's like they had to force some adventure but those scenes seemed really out of place.

Pirates - there are two important hubs on the moon - and the pirates run freely? No agency came to deal with them prior? What did the pirates really want? Where do they live?

Baboons - It just so happens that an SOS was sent out when our hero's ship is flying by. How did they get out their cages?

Other plot holes:

Why did Roy have to go to Mars anyway? Couldn't he just have broadcasted from earth or sent an encrypted message to the Mars antenna?

I could go on and one - shooting a gun in a rocket, fire extinguisher killing people, ion engines stopping on command, orbit ring inconsistencies around Neptune, the gaining access to the ship as it was blasting off on Mars....

 

[Southpaw]

Rewatched The Martian last night. So much better.

 

[MadCardDisease]

We watched this last weekend. It was a cool visual movie, but it left us rolling our eyes.

We thought the pirates and the baboons were contrived. It's like they had to force some adventure but those scenes seemed really out of place.

Pirates - there are two important hubs on the moon - and the pirates run freely? No agency came to deal with them prior? What did the pirates really want? Where do they live?

Baboons - It just so happens that an SOS was sent out when our hero's ship is flying by. How did they get out their cages?

Other plot holes:

Why did Roy have to go to Mars anyway? Couldn't he just have broadcasted from earth or sent an encrypted message to the Mars antenna?

I could go on and one - shooting a gun in a rocket, fire extinguisher killing people, ion engines stopping on command, orbit ring inconsistencies around Neptune, the gaining access to the ship as it was blasting off on Mars....

All valid points. The whole scene where he swam through a Martian lake to somehow stowaway on a spaceship was pretty ridiculous.

However I found Ad Astra to be more about Roy's character and how he evolved throughout the movie than about spaceships and silly space pirates/baboons.

If you take away those silly scenes and plot holes and concentrate on Pitt's character it is really a great performance IMO.

Spoiler

For me it appeared that Roy had basically become his father early in the film or was well on his way to becoming just like him. As Roy proceeds deeper into space, he slowly starts to come to grips with his true emotions. When he finally makes it to Mars, Roy ends up changing that last message sent to his father and symbolically starts to confront the emotions he has suppressed about his father leaving him early in his life.

I found Roy in the end telling his father "we're all we've got." the crux of the movie. It was Roy's "Ah Ha Moment" to find himself.

For me it was like "Apocalypse Now" in space. Roy traveling to Neptune to find his delusional father mirroring Willard traveling up river to find a mad Kurtz.

 

[Cheesebeef]

All valid points. The whole scene where he swam through a Martian lake to somehow stowaway on a spaceship was pretty ridiculous.

However I found Ad Astra to be more about Roy's character and how he evolved throughout the movie than about spaceships and silly space pirates/baboons.

If you take away those silly scenes and plot holes and concentrate on Pitt's character it is really a great performance IMO.

Spoiler

For me it appeared that Roy had basically become his father early in the film or was well on his way to becoming just like him. As Roy proceeds deeper into space, he slowly starts to come to grips with his true emotions. When he finally makes it to Mars, Roy ends up changing that last message sent to his father and symbolically starts to confront the emotions he has suppressed about his father leaving him early in his life.

I found Roy in the end telling his father "we're all we've got." the crux of the movie. It was Roy's "Ah Ha Moment" to find himself.

For me it was like "Apocalypse Now" in space. Roy traveling to Neptune to find his delusional father mirroring Willard traveling up river to find a mad Kurtz.

With you 100.