What better time to see Ad Astra than now, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, when we still have made but a pittance of progress beyond our landing on the Moon in 1969?
In the "near future" of Ad Astra, we're established on the Moon and Mars - not well established, by any means, but good enough - and the story concerns Roy McBride's (Brad Pitt) trip to Neptune to find out what happened to his father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones). Clifford was the first man to reach Jupiter and then Saturn, but he got hung up around Neptune, and most people don't know if he's dead or alive.
Roy thinks he's alive, and he's right, which leads to the bigger story: is it worth leaving Earth, permanently, in the quest to find some alien intelligence, that Clifford is sure must be out there? Clifford's so sure that he begs Roy to let him float away in space, to die, rather than return to Earth with Roy. In the decisive scene, Roy lets his father go, and Roy returns to Earth. Because, having discovered there's likely no other intelligence out there, Roy wants to return to his home.
It's not the ending I wanted, but the movie was nonetheless powerful, and the ending was emotionally satisfying. Indeed, Ad Astra was so good a movie, so different in the combination of individual personality and grand scale, that I'd say it's the 2001 of our 21st century, at least so far.
As to what I would have rather seen at the end: that would have been Roy refusing to let his father go, bringing Clifford back to Earth, where Roy could have unpacked, savored, and assessed his father's immense knowledge gathered over thirty years at the furtherest our species has ventured from Planet Earth. Yes, Roy speaks of great stores of knowledge in the records his father kept, but there's nothing like actually talking to the person who made and kept the records to get the deepest and fullest picture of what he (or she) learned.
Nonetheless - great acting Brad Pitt, great movie by James Gray, see it.
2 comments:
Brad Pitt is almost always good, as is Tommy Lee Jones. I differ, however, in my opinion of the movie. I thought it was terrible. Not only for the message, but also the lack of scientific rigour (I'd have to watch it again to recall what it was that alerted me to that, and I don't want to).
So after not even leaving the Solar System, Tommy Lee's character decides there's no intelligent life outside in the WHOLE UNIVERSE? Nah. Sorry, don't buy it.
The scene where Tommy Lee begs Brad to let him go was almost a duplicate of the scene in War of the Worlds, where Tom Cruise's son is begging Tom to let him go. I didn't buy it then, and I didn't buy it now.
Of course, people's opinions will always differ on movies, but 2001 was--if flawed in many ways--a very influential genre movie; not only on genre film, but on movies in general. This movie just isn't in that category.
There's my two cents' worth of opinion.
Hey Steve - that's what the comments are for, to offer your opinions, so thanks for that! But we do indeed differ on at least two fundamental aspects of the movie. First, I'm if anything a philosopher not a scientist, so I don't care that much about strict scientific rigor in a movie like this, which deals with such important philosophic questions. And, second, given the distance Clifford has traveled, and the sacrifices he's made, it's reasonable to think that, having come up empty on his quest/obsession to find evidence of intelligence in the universe other than ours, he'd despair. Logically, of course, the universe is about as vast from Neptune as it is from Earth in terms of the unknown. But Clifford's despair was emotional, of the heart and soul, and not based on logic.
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