Project Hail Mary (the movie, not the novel, which I haven’t read) is a movie about people trying to save planet Earth from a nefarious interstellar substance.
Related to the "angry millennials" bit, it's interesting how many activists started turning against police bodycam videos and calling them "copaganda" when it turned out that a good chunk of the time they actually exonerated officers rather than jamming them up.
It was like anything that indicated that we didn't live in a dystopian hellscape was anathema.
Hey, I enjoyed this. Your juxtaposition really works for cultural analysis.
Adding to this - perhaps a better metaphor than "vibe shift" would be a "rising from the ruins." The moral arc of deconstruction that has been sweeping through our institutions from the 2010s onward didn't really have positive culture as its aim. It arcs from de-legitimization to removal.
What we are seeing are cultural figures who can't be touched by that tidal wave. Genuine folks that are hard to de-legitimize, like Bargatze and Theo Golden.
I don't mean to be persnickety about the metaphor, but it tells a story.
Thanks, Samuel, for this insightful piece. As a fellow Millennial, I feel you... It's nigh time for some positive vibes, and we're seeing evidence of that sentiment ripple throughout pop culture. I've got a piece out next week that draws on PHM and another recent film, Remarkably Bright Creatures. Like you, I celebrate these films' optimism, but, sadly, I can't yet wholly escape our generation's cynicism... In both stories, the redemptive agent is non-human. Rocky the Alien's self-sacrificial courage is what ultimately spurs Grace on to his own self-gift; and Marcellus the Octopus (in RBC) is the "character" that serves to redeem the human characters' dysfunction. It's interesting, I think, that, in these two popular films, we seem ready to admit our need of grace, and of salvation, but aren't quite ready to admit (or submit to) the need of a human Savior. In other words, we've become so accustomed to blaming humans for the world's problems, that we can't seem to imagine a solution that derives from Man (or much less the God-Man).
Literally, just watched this movie yesterday. Love your analysis. It gives me lots of hope. I see the common thread with everything you mention is that it takes individual humans, with all their bruises and foibles, to genuinely make a difference. That makes me feel so much better aout the AI age.
Related to the "angry millennials" bit, it's interesting how many activists started turning against police bodycam videos and calling them "copaganda" when it turned out that a good chunk of the time they actually exonerated officers rather than jamming them up.
It was like anything that indicated that we didn't live in a dystopian hellscape was anathema.
"Project Hail Mary is a movie for people who care about saving the world but don’t care about assigning blame before they do it."
Yeah, I think that hits home in a big way. Well said.
Great piece!
Hey, I enjoyed this. Your juxtaposition really works for cultural analysis.
Adding to this - perhaps a better metaphor than "vibe shift" would be a "rising from the ruins." The moral arc of deconstruction that has been sweeping through our institutions from the 2010s onward didn't really have positive culture as its aim. It arcs from de-legitimization to removal.
What we are seeing are cultural figures who can't be touched by that tidal wave. Genuine folks that are hard to de-legitimize, like Bargatze and Theo Golden.
I don't mean to be persnickety about the metaphor, but it tells a story.
Thanks, Samuel, for this insightful piece. As a fellow Millennial, I feel you... It's nigh time for some positive vibes, and we're seeing evidence of that sentiment ripple throughout pop culture. I've got a piece out next week that draws on PHM and another recent film, Remarkably Bright Creatures. Like you, I celebrate these films' optimism, but, sadly, I can't yet wholly escape our generation's cynicism... In both stories, the redemptive agent is non-human. Rocky the Alien's self-sacrificial courage is what ultimately spurs Grace on to his own self-gift; and Marcellus the Octopus (in RBC) is the "character" that serves to redeem the human characters' dysfunction. It's interesting, I think, that, in these two popular films, we seem ready to admit our need of grace, and of salvation, but aren't quite ready to admit (or submit to) the need of a human Savior. In other words, we've become so accustomed to blaming humans for the world's problems, that we can't seem to imagine a solution that derives from Man (or much less the God-Man).
I haven't seen the movie, but I found your thoughts about its cultural context interesting.
Literally, just watched this movie yesterday. Love your analysis. It gives me lots of hope. I see the common thread with everything you mention is that it takes individual humans, with all their bruises and foibles, to genuinely make a difference. That makes me feel so much better aout the AI age.