Late last year I saw “Ad Astra” in the theater and I was unimpressed. Blogged about it HERE. I watched it again tonight on HBO and, wow, does it still suck. All of my complaints remain in full effect.
I have a challenge for Hollywood: make a near-future Space Movie where:
1) The tone is hopeful and optimistic, not dismal
2) The science at least *tries* to replicate that of the real world, so that it doesn’t promptly yank you right out of the story
3) The characters aren’t miserable, horrible people.
You know, a “space movie” that people might actually want to see.
Ideas:
A) Someone making a bank full of cash with space tourism
B) Someone making a banking industry full of cash with space mining/industrialization.
C) Someone changing the world with space based solar power, either vast SPS or by paving the lunar surface with PV arrays
D) Someone fundamentally exploding the ecological paradigm by building kilometer-scale O’Neill space habitats in GEO and beyond
E) A manned exploration mission to Titan or Neptune or Pluto or some such.
F) The United States Space Force kicking ChiCom ass in GEO, on the Lunar surface, wherever
G) Musk 2.0 developing a FTL propulsion system
I have effectively non-existent hopes of seeing a major Hollywood movie along these lines. Even if a screenplay for a fundamentally optimistic story like these came along, I feel fairly confident that it would be tainted by turning the main characters either into complete friggen’ idiots, or by making everyone utterly miserable and screwed up… which seems to be the default for Hollywood, because the place seems to be infested with people who are fundamentally miserable and screwed up. The kind of people who celebrate rioting and looting, then retreat behind their gated communities.
Prove me wrong, Hollywood. I ᚠᚪᛣᚳᛁᚾᚷ dare you.