On a personal note, I find it very refreshing to hear that a major studio opted for real captured photography. Love that they specifically wanted the authenticity of real narrowband data and that speaks to the production team's vision. Enjoy the premiere night, feel incredibly proud. I was already planning on watching the movie this weekend (it releases here on the 26th) and now I'm doubly excited because I know this neat little tidbit.
I'm pretty sure this "Dad did something crazy" moment is going to be a core memory for your kids. Congrats!
As an example terrestrial telescope mirrors get dusty. You're not going to break down the scope just to clean up the dust as this is a many days operation in most cases. So instead you would take "flats" that were of a pure white background and thus showed the dust in its full, dusty, glory. When you take your actual images, you negate (subtract from the original image) the flat and thus any noise generated by the dust. You can use this same method for removing brighter stars from an image that would otherwise saturate the ccd and wash out the background. Turns out it doesn't work for planes. Ask me how I know!
> Traditionally (pre-ai) you would use another image of the same part of the sky and negate the items that you want to remove from the image.
Why does the technique not work with aircraft? Because they generally fly on fixed routes?
This time-lapse probably better visualizes it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpeM3fxJoQ
Maybe for some close stars parallax might work to remove them over the course of half a year. But no way could the Earth's rotation during a single night move background stars out of a nebulae.
Don't forget that not only does the star need to be removed, but also the diffraction spikes. Those are internal reflections in the lens assembly - not mapped by any star catalog ))
Its done with using dedicated astrophotography software (StarXTerminator). Example: https://astrobackyard.com/starnet-astrophotography/
So these are more artistic photo works than real science photos...
Rod Prazeres the Astrophotographer, has given this interview where he talks about the process: https://www.astronomy.com/observing/the-astrophotography-of-...
I have yet to see a precise technical definition of what "generative AI" means, but StarXTerminator uses a neural network that generates new data to fill in the gaps where non-stellar objects are obscured by stars. And it advertises itself as "AI powered".
But that's very different to saying that no generative AI was used at all in their production. "AI augmented" sounds pretty accurate to me.
Likewise, if someone posted a photo taken with their iPhone where they had used the built-in AI features to (for instance) remove people or objects, and then they claimed that no AI was involved, I would consider that misleading, even if the photo accurately depicts a real scene in other respects.
https://astrobackyard.com/starnet-astrophotography/
“StarNet is a neural network that can remove stars from images in one simple step leaving only the background. More technically, it is a convolutional residual net with encoder-decoder architecture and with L1, Adversarial and Perceptual losses.”
> So these are more artistic photo works than real science photos...
I agree that the claim "no generative AI used" is technically incorrect, but I do feel that the image does not contain any AI-hallucinated content and therefore is an accurate representation of reality. These structures appear in the image exactly as they exist in nature.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtfzjehDg74
* transcript: https://otter.ai/u/PA9dbWFA7BgPgLZN9CSo1WFAjXk
* https://www.iflscience.com/wildlife-photographers-viral-squi...
* https://markmangini.com/Mark_Mangini/Blog/Entries/2021/11/7_...
Story of her 'adopting' the squirrels:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tDlh62AVPo
The name of the squirrel is "Baby Pear"; her viral tweet:
* https://twitter.com/DaniConnorWild/status/127534941750838476...
This gives me hope because as we move to a post AGI world, the only thing preventing a complete dystopia is supply and demand, if the demand for human generated work will stay and grow, we'll be ok. This is not some save the earth, be vegan, "AI is bad" message. If you follow me you know I'm all in on agentic development and try to use AI for everything I can that makes sense, but I do it to free my time to focus on the important things.
If more companies will go for the real thing, and more people like us will celebrate them for it, and vote for it with their pockets, then AI will serve humanity, and not vice versa.
p.s. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, then read the book, then see the movie, I'm going to watch it twice, and re-read the book. Yes, it's not Dune, or Hyperion, or Children of Time, or The Left Hand of Darkness, but it's such an amazing storytelling journey that made me go back reading after a 15 years hiatus.
My wife and I saw the movie this weekend, we thought it was great. I adored the book, yet I recognize a book can’t be perfectly translated to the screen.
I thought the directors did a good enough job at translating the sci-fi into something the masses would enjoy.
Kudos to you
That said, I never read Harry Potter and can't imagine going back and reading it now. So, YMMV.
But I am glad I read the book first, I got much more out of it - it goes a lot more in depth into the science and engineering challenges that occur throughout. Which I appreciated. I'm not sure I would have read the book in the same way if I had seen the movie first.
I tend to prefer movies as a storytelling medium, and enjoyed watching the story unfold that way. I ended up just wanting to know more about things that were implied in the movie but not explained, and the book filled in those gaps well.
So if you want to do both, and want to get something new when you do each, then, having done it that way, I would recommend it.
Edit: reviewing my app history, it took me somewhere between 10-11 hours to read the book, and I do not read fiction especially fast.
Watching the movie first will set the stage for a lot of details that work better in a book than a movie.
By reading the book first, you’ll have a better background and understanding of the context of the plot, the science, and the overall objectives of the mission. There are also several “twists” in the book that were cut from the movie for runtime.
I enjoyed the movie after reading because I got to see the story “come to life”.
But I could also understand the perspective of enjoying the movie first, and then having the story/world expanded 8x with a 16hr book.
You’d could equate “movie -> book” order to watching the LoTR standard editions first, and then watching the extended editions.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by Ray Porter (on Audible) and would recommend that production if you enjoy audio.
I don’t think you can go wrong either way :)
The book is more of a true sci-fi novel, with the relationship stuff keeping it interesting.
I liked both a lot, and think both could be enjoyed fully with or without the other, in either order.
I would recommend reading the book first at least.
I recommended it to a co-worker, who ended up going with the audio book, and found he found it good.
Telescope: William Optics UltraCat 76 Mount: Sky-Watcher Wave 150i Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro
I am currently reading the book.
No one has ever or could ever observe a nebula with zero stars in the frame.
Amazing movie and the end credit visuals WERE incredible!
If by "not real", you mean "you removed the stars so it no longer reflect reality!", then real photograph doesn't exist. For example, OP uses narrow-band filters, and it's common to map H-alpha wavelength, which is red, to green in the images. Does that make it unreal?
In the end, astrophotography is more art than science; the goal is more about producing aesthetically-pleasing images than doing photometry. Photographers must take some artistic license.
“StarNet is a neural network that can remove stars from images in one simple step leaving only the background. More technically, it is a convolutional residual net with encoder-decoder architecture and with L1, Adversarial and Perceptual losses.”
Is there any evidence for this?
Project Hail Mary is produced by Amazon MGM Studios and distributed internationally by Sony Pictures. The film cost $200 million to produce and needs roughly $500 million to break even. Amazon MGM has had a string of expensive flops (Crime 101, Melania, After the Hunt), and there was reported internal pressure for this film to change the narrative.
Amazon MGM's Head of Global Marketing is Sue Kroll, who spent 24 years at Warner Bros. serving as President of Worldwide Marketing and Distribution. Her deputy for international marketing, Charlie Coleman, also came from Warner Bros. Awards head Juli Goodwin spent nearly 20 years at Warner Bros.
This matters because Warner Bros Home Entertainment was caught by the FTC in 2016 paying YouTube influencers (including PewDiePie) thousands of dollars through ad agency Plaid Social Labs. Warner Bros settled with the FTC. Also lets not forget Sony Pictures invented a fake movie critic in 2001, and around the same time, were caught using employees posing as moviegoers in TV commercials for The Patriot. Sony at the end paid $326,000 to Connecticut's AG and $1.5 million in a class-action settlement...
The industry to do this on Reddit and other public forums is openly thriving. There are companies that will, right now, post on Reddit and HN? as "organic users" for paying clients. They describe these services on their own websites:
• Onemotion Group (onemotion.group) openly advertises "real-looking posts, comments, and threads that catch on" with a focus on "organic posts, community replies, and making threads spread naturally."
• Single Grain (singlegrain.com/agency/reddit-marketing-agency) sells "conversation monitoring," "question response systems," and "thoughtful comments and contributions that establish your brand as a helpful community member."
• OutreachBloom describes monitoring subreddits and responding with "helpful" answers using pre-warmed accounts with built-up karma.
Describes services including "engaging communities with compelling content and fostering active, loyal brand advocates across platforms."
I am not claiming Project Hail Mary is being astroturfed. I am pointing out:
1. Both studios behind this film (Amazon MGM and Sony) have documented, FTC-adjudicated histories of deceptive online promotion.
2. The marketing leadership at Amazon MGM comes directly from Warner Bros., where this behavior was institutionally tolerated.
3. An entire commercial industry exists to post as organic users on Reddit, HN, and forums, some of these agencies list Amazon Studios as a client.
4. The financial incentive is massive: a $200M film from a studio desperate to prove its theatrical strategy works.
5. The penalties when caught have been trivial relative to marketing budgets ($326K for Sony, consent decree for Warner Bros.), and there is no ongoing enforcement mechanism for community forum manipulation.
Speaking about that, have you seen the movie yourself?
It was a buddy film, and an American one, so had that culture in its humour, sure. But it was light-hearted and quite fun.
This is the first time I've heard of the idea of "true" scifi though.
Personally I'd classify Dune to be more of a fantasy than Star Trek just because of the style it is written in being very mystical and prophetic.
Consider the possibility that your opinions are not universal.
Critic and audience reactions are generally positive:
> On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 94% of 326 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "A visually dazzling space odyssey that's carried along effortlessly by the gravitational pull of Ryan Gosling at his most winning, Project Hail Mary is a near-miraculous fusion of smarts and heart."[47] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on 55 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[48] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[49]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)#Criti...
Do you believe in the concept of objectivity? Meaning some movies are Objectively better than others, some Reviews are Objectively better than other?
If I bring a bunch of kids and teens to the movie, and at the end they all cant stop talking about how much they loved the rock, should I give an Oscar to Ryan Gosling?
In this context? Absolutely not. One person's favorite movie is another's least.
> If I bring a bunch of kids and teens to the movie, and at the end they all cant stop talking about how much they loved the rock, should I give an Oscar to Ryan Gosling?
It's OK for a movie to not be an Oscar contender.
When it comes to the concept of entertainment? No.
Is the 2003 movie The Room (written/directed/produced by Tommy Wiseau) "objectively" good or bad?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room
If it is "objectively" 'bad' why do (many) people have such a good time watching it? Are they "objectively" happier after watching The Room? Are people "objectively" happier after watching Project Hail Mary?
What is the purpose of "art": in general and/or particular works of it?
You are confusing taste and quality....
If there is no objectivity....then you would have no basis to explain why a film is better or worse than another, A student first iPhone short would be equal to The Godfather. A child banging pots would be indistinguishable from a Symphony.
The moment you say something is good or bad, we can talk about craft, skill, storytelling structure and emotional impact, all of which can be measured and compared and where this movie fails on all parameters...
You can personally dislike something excellent...for example few people can appreciate the genius of Miles Davis, and enjoy something mediocre... Too many to quote here...but Project Hail Mary is one :-)
What is the purpose of "art": in general and/or particular works of it? What makes (a work of) 'art' 'good'?
Is PHM 'good' in its purpose? Is The Room? Was 2023's Barbie? When a child is banging on pots, is he accomplishing his purpose in his 'creative act'? Is Schoenberg's atonal music objectively 'good'?
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJg4XbzSV9Q
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
> I think Michael Bay sometimes sucks (“Pearl Harbor,” “Armageddon,” “Bad Boys II“) but I find it possible to love him for a movie like “Transformers.” It’s goofy fun with a lot of stuff that blows up real good, and it has the grace not only to realize how preposterous it is, but to make that into an asset.
So many things...But anybody at The Juilliard School or Berklee College of Music can tell you if you are good or bad on your musicianship...Anybody at the California School of Cinematic Arts or American Film Institute Conservatory can advise you on your future as a future Director...and anybody at the Pratt Institute can comment on your quality as an Artist.
Why do you dismiss the concept of Quality?
Can anyone else tell us that, or only certain 'gatekeepers'? Who gets to judge the amount of Quality in a thing, or whether something is Good for its Purpose?
> Why do you dismiss the concept of Quality?
"Quality" as in the amount of 'Goodness' something has?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_(philosophy)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good
An Axe is a bad Chair because it does not have the Qualities for (e.g.) sitting, but that is not its Purpose.
Were the folks that made PHM trying to make Art or Entertainment (or a mix of the two)? If PHM was made to be Entertainment, and people were entertained, was it not Good at its desired Purpose? Did 2007's Transformers have the Quality of Entertainment that it set out to have? Roger Ebert seems to have thought so.
This is indeed the case. You can consult many film experts and get very different top ten lists. Some critics may hate The Godfather. Some won't get Citizen Kane. Some love a good popcorn fluff movie and find this year's Oscar contenders pretentious.
It becomes a matter of general consensus. And that consensus appears to be that it's a pretty satisfying movie; https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/project_hail_mary. (High art? No. But that wasn't its goal.)
Those are all attempts at objective measurement. You are using objective frameworks to argue objectivity does not exist. :-)
The fact that critics disagree does not prove there is no objectivity. People disagree about scientific questions too, but that does not mean science is purely subjective. Disagreement just means the question is hard, not that there is no answer...
The whole reason you cited that score is because you believe it points to something real about the film quality. That is an appeal to objectivity whether you realize it or not. :-)
I argue those manipulated reviews [1] are not...
Yes? Consensus is frequently how we handle things that don't have an objective answer. Which restaurant is the best in your city? Who knows? But you can say "a lot of people like restaurant X" just fine.
> The whole reason you cited that score is because you believe it points to something real about the film quality.
Opinions are real. They're just not objective. Objectively, most of the vetted reviewers RT tracks seem to hold positive opinions of the film, as do their (much less trustworthy) regular old users.
If it's a box office flop after a few weeks, that'll be good evidence for your theory. I'll be surprised, though.
Now go to IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/reviews/?rating=1&ref_...
sort by worst review and you will see the comments and reviews make a lot of sense...If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated...
This is about the worst methodology you could possibly use here.
> If you believe like some of commentators this is a 10/10 movie, you also probably believe these reviews are not manipulated…
100% of online reviews should be treated as manipulated.
By the contrary. It is the absolutely best methodology. I am surprised you cant see why.
You should do the same for hotel reviews or amazon products. Its about the CONTENT and nature of the bad review. The best way to judge a movie, hotel, or product is often to read the negative reviews first, because negative reviews reveal the failure modes. A positive review just usually tells you what worked for someone. A negative review tells you what can go wrong, and whether that problem matters to you.
You should always start with the worst reviews because they reveal the real weaknesses. Then you judge whether the criticism comes from an unreasonable person or from somebody thoughtful and fair. If the negative reviewer is intelligent, specific, and or balanced, that review is often more valuable than ten positive ones, because it shows the actual risks and not just the hype.
Use it for movies, books, hotels and amazon products...
You accidentally made my point here.
"Whether that problem matters to you" is a matter of opinion. You apparently find the smattering of negative reviews to match your opinion; that's fine! But they don't match mine, or everyone's.
Opinion-wise, the movie seems to be doing just fine. This weekend we'll get the actual metric that tends to matter, the % drop-off after the first week. That tends to be a pretty good indicator of actual public opinion and word of mouth.
(And frankly, at this point, I tend to assume the negative reviews on Amazon are competitors review bombing. They're no more immune than the positive ones.)
Now go to IMDb again:
* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12042730/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_ra...
and look at the score distribution.
Project Hail Mary isn’t Arrival, it’s ET mixed with Castaway. It’s about friendship and loneliness and the fragility of the human experience and the triumph of the human spirit!
Normally I’d just say “you didn’t get it, it wasn’t for you” but given the insufferable and total dismissal above, I’d wager it actually IS for you LOL but you chose not to receive the message.
Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days, I get that. I’d just encourage people to soften a bit and appreciate things for what they are (not what we want them to be)
So is every Disney movie and that is what this but with the crappy Amazon Studios take on it.
>> Anyways, everybody’s a critic these days,
Do you believe a movie can objectively be considered good or bad? If you do you then believe some are better critics than others, the same some way some are better Coders than others or better Basketball players than others?
Just off the top of my head as I briefly scan shit sitting on the shelves of my office:
- Joe Dirt
- Death Wish 3
- Thrashin
- Hackers
- Mortal Kombat
- Uncle Buck
- The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
- Tapeheads
- Prayer of the Rollerboys
- Weekend at Bernie's
Not exactly Fellini, and some are barely even Andy Sidaris if we're being honest, but every movie in that list is amazing for different reasons. An objective critique of any of them (especially in context with "film", as a shapeless, vague concept) misses the point and the spirit of each and every one. But I am an uncultured heathen, so ...
And that is already one starting and possible isolated indicator of astroturfing, ....when the movie related posts got no traction, they went looking for related subjects...
Even Microsoft astroturfs here...
Satya Nadella, Microsoft FY2019 Q1 earnings call [1]:
“In fact, this morning, I was reading a news article in Hacker News, which is a community where we have been working hard to make sure that Azure is growing in popularity and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we have made a lot of progress..."
[1] - https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2018/10/24/mi...
HN runs on user-submitted posts. People submit things they find interesting, and things they believe others will find interesting.
I can hear the sounds of Kumbaya, My Lord.... this is a more realistic take: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520761
I liked the movie and loved the book. Did you read the book? You seeing to be ignoring opinions from real people in this thread. What if the good reviews are as genuine as the bad ones? All I can conclude from bad reviews is that some people have different taste than me, and occasionally some people are in a bad mood when they watch something and it spoils the experience.
What is an example of actual SciFi? What do you mean about there not being any?
The premise is an interstellar mission, species level extinction risk, first contact, scientific problem solving. The film frames this through cute banter, soft sentiment, and quips that shrinks the movie scale.
So it treats a genuinely huge science fiction premise in a disney type emotional level. The humor feels adolescent and tonally deflates the stakes. Instead of using first contact, isolation, and extinction level danger to create awe or intellectual depth, it turns them into a cute, reassuring buddy experience.
Bust fit Deadpool level jokes, with the first Alien humanity ever encountered? Really?
Plus the direction is bad, the pace is bad and Ryan Gosling I am sorry is no great actor who can talk to a rock for 2 hours and carry on a movie....Also it is not just a bad movie it is also bad Scifi, because it wastes the genre central strength meaning using speculative ideas to confront us with something bigger, stranger or more unsettling than ourselves.
You had everything....extinction of the stars of the universe, first contact, humanity in danger, a regular human trust into the most important project... but instead we ignore the scientific challenges, and logical problem solving who are by the way are a major part of the book.
And this is what I mean by Good Scifi vs Bad Scifi...
They even managed to squeeze some kind of half baked love relationship almost unrelated to the core plot for Ryan Gosling, that is so badly delivered and is so ambiguous... you almost wonder who is partner was, and what any of that had to do with the movie delivery...
They managed to turn an alien into a lovable emotional device. No wonder kids love it...
The humor in this is no way Deadpool level. I'm saying this as a hater of Deadpool because of its depraved jokes. And I just feel lighthearted with the humor in this movie.
This fits exactly your example of seeing the worst reviews and seeing that the review is unreasonable and exaggerated.
God forbid showing the humane side of both tragedies and big stakes missions in an aesthetically pleasing and humorous way.
> So it treats a genuinely huge science fiction premise in a disney type emotional level. The humor feels adolescent and tonally deflates the stakes. Instead of using first contact, isolation, and extinction level danger to create awe or intellectual depth, it turns them into a cute, reassuring buddy experience.
I'd say that's exactly what makes the movie charming for the "masses" and it's OK if you are not into that, but don't make it sound like it is an absolutely terrible movie just because it does not comply to your definition of a good scifi movie.
Again, name any movie you like and go look at the 1-star reviews. You will see the very same rants you’re making here. You can trash any SciFi movie this way because it’s fiction.
So when you said “no actual SciFi” you just meant you thought it was bad sci-fi? The book spends a lot more time on the scientific challenges, so if that’s what you want, maybe you should read it before commenting on this story any further. I can see why they chose to skip that stuff for the movie.
You’re entitled to your opinion. I, and others here and online, disagree with it, and we’re not being paid by Amazon. I don’t know why you keep saying Disney and Deadpool over and over again, especially since those two are very different and this film is very different from either, but some people actually like the film, and it appears to be more people like than dislike. Is that why you’re coming on so strong, because you expected pushback?
You named Dune and 2001. Let’s look at IMDB’s 1-star reviews for them:
(2001) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/reviews/?ref_=tt_ov_ql_...
(Villeneuve’s Dune) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/reviews/?ref_=tt_ov_ql_...
(Lynch’s Dune) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/reviews/?ref_=tt_ov_ql_...
Do the same for products that you like and paid for. I’m certain that an honest application of that test will demonstrate that you’re cherry-picking, made up your mind here for some reason and are unswayed by facts.
Plus film critics are overwhelmingly white and male... https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/11/film-critics-wh...
Very much like HN audience ;-)
If I have 100 reviews saying 10/10, loved the movie, thumbs up!.... I learn nothing. Indian audiences for example always give extreme positive reviews to movies.
If I have a detailed bad review, that tells me why its a bad movie, its not about support for my opinion, its about understanding if the reviewer traveled the same road, to get to the same conclusion.
That said, my family - both kids and adults, with entirely different interests and preferences - enjoyed the hell out of it. That, to me, makes for a good movie, whatever your definition of "objectivity" is. Listen, it's OK not to like something popular, but consider that the downvotes and responses you're getting are not astroturfing, but simply you swimming against the current. Sincerely, - real human.
Having a quick read through the comments I just want to say thank you for the kind words! Please follow my IG (https://www.instagram.com/deepskyjourney) to see more of my photography, and the reddit article if you want to drop a comment with any questions :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProjectHailMary/s/NbRv3sj3fs
Cheers,
Rod Prazeres
FWIW, my friend, who is an avid astrophotographer, runs a site Brahmand [1] that captures breathtaking pics of the dark sky, with notes on how he took the pics.
Awesome stuff: https://www.brahmand.me/photo-gallery/
Recommended for anyone interested in astrophotography.
*Brahmand in Sanskrit means the universe
[1] https://www.brahmand.me/
Maybe because HN is usually geared towards "programmers" rather than "artists", but asking for a (free?) download of full-res versions of a photographers photos is a bit like asking a developer who is publishing commercial desktop software for the source code of the program :)
Maybe at least ask to be able to pay for a high resolution version (not just printed), I know I'd be interested in that too!
Maybe the only way is to screenshot the Project Hail Mary credits when it comes to streaming.
It sure sounds like you value his work at less than a dollar per image. The desktop-background market may not be something he's interested in.
> Maybe the only way is to screenshot the Project Hail Mary credits when it comes to streaming.
...and this may be the reason he's not interested in the desktop background market. You make a single sale, and the image is trivially reproduced. Doing it for pennies is not a winning proposition; prints have better margins.
If you want pretty and free nebula pictures, you can have Generative AI make as many as you like - if you want his work: you'll have to abide by his terms.
Jazz hands
My website is also www.rpastro.com.au :)
Very nice shots. It must be a great feeling to see one's own footage in a feature film!
How long do you do astrophotography?
Congrats on this, not only you got credits on a feature movie, you got one of the good ones. Cloud 9 for you, enjoy!
https://www.instagram.com/dheeranet