Ad Astra (2019)

kaid

kaid

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Pharazon2 said:
5.5/10 Some of the visuals are awesome, but as somebody said above there's a lot of pointless plot in this. Also a lot of plot that I think doesn't make much sense. I can appreciate the point they were making, but I feel like they could have cut out some of the useless plot points to enhance that aspect. And some of the science seemed ridiculous.

Wtf how was the space station at Neptune creating these power surges so far away, lolol! Just cause they had some antimatter and did something with it it can generate more damaging energy than the sun from that far away… right.. hilarious to think about when Neptune to Earth distance is like 30 times the distance of Earth to Sun.

Monkey part was pointless. In fact the whole mutiny part was pretty pointless too. There was this effort to build up how cool Pitt's character is under pressure, but I'm not sure what for.

Moon chase was kind of cool but added nothing. They used it as a vehicle to ramp up the tension / intrigue but it didn't add to the plot at all in the end.

Lol @ using the explosion as propulsion to get back from freaking Neptune at the end. Really? I mean sure you could theoretically use the force as propulsion, but the idea that you could use an uncontrolled explosion to give you the force vector you need to get all the way back from Neptune to Earth or wherever seems ridiculous.
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It looked like they had something that was actually generating antimatter on that station and with the damage from the mutiny it was starting to go out of control where it kept generating more and then random bursts of EMP would flare out and it was just going to keep getting worse until the whole thing blew up to kingdome come. Also why nuking it was a viable option blow it up and disperse it and stop it from making more antimatter while you still can. As for the vector he still had some fuel and vector control just not enough to make it back to earth. So he used the kick from the explosion to enhance what control he had to get him going the right direction. Getting up to speed probably was not the biggest ? it is how did they slow him down enough to catch up to him/stop the ship because he did not have the fuel for breaking.
 
Scoresby

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kaid said:
It looked like they had something that was actually generating antimatter on that station and with the damage from the mutiny it was starting to go out of control where it kept generating more and then random bursts of EMP would flare out and it was just going to keep getting worse until the whole thing blew up to kingdome come. Also why nuking it was a viable option blow it up and disperse it and stop it from making more antimatter while you still can. As for the vector he still had some fuel and vector control just not enough to make it back to earth. So he used the kick from the explosion to enhance what control he had to get him going the right direction. Getting up to speed probably was not the biggest ? it is how did they slow him down enough to catch up to him/stop the ship because he did not have the fuel for breaking.
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An EMP would decrease in strength from the source following inverse square rules (~1/d^2). The energy from an explosion accordingly by inverse cube (~1/d^3). Point being, neptune -> earth (especially considering these orbit the sun) is a gigantic number. One could go-along that the output was getting more severe if this was more of a gamma-ray burst scenario (with a narrow beam and focused energy density), yet we see the same events affecting Mars and Earth so this wouldn't be the case. It's a stretch.
 
Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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Locnar said:
well I loved Sunshine, Witch, and It Comes at Night.

So I take it I'm going to love this too?
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Sunshine is just amazing... for like an hour or so. And then it takes this hard left into space slasher flick and ugh.
 
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Locnar

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So I saw it, the first scenes on the giant earth/space ladder and the moon scenes were cool. Rest mediocre. I was also distracted by the fact they placed a black female in EVERY group and EVERY scene. Was too on the nose.
 
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Aychamo BanBan

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I was curious if anyone can explain what was up with the visual effects of this movie? I couldn't put my finger on it. They were amazing, and yet looked off. Almost like too smoothed out, or amazing CGI but obviously not practical effects.
 
spronk

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Locnar said:
I was also distracted by the fact they placed a black female in EVERY group and EVERY scene. Was too on the nose.
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they all started off white but you forget to put sunscreen on one day in space and your skin turns black. its just science

Falxy-US said:
I was curious if anyone can explain what was up with the visual effects of this movie? I couldn't put my finger on it.
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the director really, really loved 2001 and made most of the space scenes pay homage to that visual style. It doesn't really make sense, we are all used to more modern Star Trek / MCU / etc style space panels, rockets, screens, etc but the movie has a 60s aesthetic for a lot of it, and that just bugs us in our brain like if we see a car from the 1960s out in the street we stop and stare.
 
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agripa

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Hated the voice narration.

This would have been better if the dad was dead and the ship was just deralict. As Tommy Lee Jones added nothing the movie. Christ even making him an appiration that was caused by being out in space for so long would have been better./SPOILER]
 
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Fight

Fight

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It is a 6/10 for me.

This movie got the hard parts right and the easy parts wrong.

Hard Parts
-Get Brad Pitt do your movie
-Get great performances out of everyone involved
-Have set pieces on Earth 30,000 feet in the air, the craters of the Moon, Mars bases, space stations, multiple crafts, and even Neptune. Nail every single one of them and have them look amazing.
-The movie is shot beautifully.
-Create a dystopian future that is grounded in our reality, but feels very real and plausible.

Easy Parts
-Tell a story worth telling. Don't start your project, unless you have a compelling story to tell.
 
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zzeris

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This reminds me of Gravity with a lacking plot, no suspense, and most of the good sucked out of it. Just like Gravity, the visuals and acting were the best part.
 
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Szlia

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Tsar Bomba said:
Don't know why but it reminded me of The Element of Crime.
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Both have a fever dream kind of feel. It's not as extreme in Ad Astra as in Trier's movie, but there is a number of movies where it's cranked to 11. My Winnipeg, Hard to be a God, The Hourglass Sanatorium...
 
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Sanrith Descartes

Sanrith Descartes

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ohkcrlho said:
That is exactly what I think about Sunshine. Such a shame
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I wish Danny Boyke would revisit the film with a "director's cut" where Cillian Murphy wakes up from a nightmare about a space serial killer and the movie finishes up as a cool scifi movie.
 
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Bondurant

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When I just got out of the theater it was a solid 8/10, great near-fiction flick with nice cinematography, ambiances (FFA commercial Moon, eerie end-of-the-world Mars) minus some stuff a nice after show meal would deal with.

Then the next day I'm like "I really liked Brad Pitt's character development but the end kinda felt rushed and got a happy ending for some random reason". And now I'm like "Ad Astra was good but I'd better rewatch Interstellar, Sunshine and a lot of other sci-fi movies than dealing again with Brad Pitt being emotionless and exploding monkeys".

I think Ad Astra has wacky setup, very good character development, bad development and awesome cinematography. I'm really torn if I really liked it or if it was just some random "muh father figure search" I can relate in some way. Maybe the nerd in me was too rustled about the no-alien ending, maybe the whole estanged father-son story hit me home. I do'nt know, really. This movie made me think a lot about personal stuff. But the only thing I really think about right now is I'd really love to be a moon drive-by pirate.
 
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Fight

Fight

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It would have made more sense for when he got back to earth for government to just "disappear" him and say his vessel burned up re-entering the atmosphere.
 
kaid

kaid

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Fight said:
It would have made more sense for when he got back to earth for government to just "disappear" him and say his vessel burned up re-entering the atmosphere.
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He basically was a useful "hero" in a similar way to his dad. Their government was clearly willing to overlook things like mutiny if it sells their story. This guy went out and stoped a catastrophe that could have destroyed earth. Having him on a tight leash as a poster boy for how awesome your government is has a lot of utility.
 
Bondurant

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Fight said:
Easy Parts
-Tell a story worth telling. Don't start your project, unless you have a compelling story to tell.
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It's a valid point, story holds until the last part which felt rushed and forced to a good conclusion. Having a "good" ending is okay but when you spend 2/3 of the movie showing corruption and warfare at every level, you just can't escape it with the main character at peace with himself.
 
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