I mean, never say never, but I think Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones are both highly talented actors, and I don’t see either of them as miscast. They’re just being served thin gruel to work with.
I’m not saying they aren’t talented, so I’m not sure why you’d bring that up. They’re both immensely talented. And I don’t agree with your assessment of the script. A solar system-based Heart of Darkness with a father/son relationship at its finale isn’t “thin gruel”. It’s a great concept for a script and if anything, it’s over-ambitious. The director had some real talent for visuals, as well. I don’t remember specifically what we talked about on the podcast, but I’m guessing a lot of the talk was about how Brad Pitt doesn’t really have the gravitas for an emotionally repressed character (the most praise he’s gotten as an actor was playing the exact opposite in Twelve Monkeys), and Tommy Lee Jones didn’t seem to care to bring the gravitas that he does have (cf. No Country for Old Men).
I’m not about to re-watch Ad Astra to confirm, but I’d say miscasting was a pretty big part of its problem. And that doesn’t have to be a slur against the actors’ talent!
-Tom
I don’t think it’s a bad concept. I do think it’s terribly written across the board, and I think swapping in Theron and Day-Lewis would achieve similarly poor results based on that script.
Two years later, I basically remember:
- Neptune looked awesome, but the action was dumb
- Natasha Lyonne was great as the cynical front desk person on Mars. Should’ve had a lot more of that
- The moon gun battle could’ve been way cooler
- I thought the director was ‘subversive’, but when I listened to the DGA interview episode I realized many elements in the film were sincere attempts at impressive moments and decisions
I wasn’t wild about this when I left the theater, but there’s some melancholy aspect to it that kept it bouncing around in my head. I still haven’t gone back and revisited the film itself, but I do occasionally listen to the score.
I can’t say that it’s a good movie, but I think it means something that it’s remained in my thoughts to the degree that it has.
I had to look this up. It came out during a spate of Meaningful Sci-Fi movies like Robert Pattinson raising a baby in space and, uh, other stuff I forget. I don’t know the writer/director and the poster looks like one of those movies that calls out lady astronauts for leaving their families in a way that dude astronauts don’t get called out. Which is a minor pet peeve, but I can get past it. But I didn’t get around to seeing it.
Did you like Proxima? What made you bring it up in relation to Ad Astra?
Right, I got that from your post when I read it and replied to it. l guess we’re done here?
-Tom
I do need to rewatch this movie, considering my only screening was one of those tiny monitors embedded in the headrest of the seat in front of me during a flight. And I did like the movie! Though I probably missed a fair amount, both sights and sounds. They’re good for passing time, those inflight movies, but not great for actually absorbing what you watch.
I actually am coming around on the idea of the movie being miscast. You know how basically the only person who came out of the Star Wars prequels looking good (despite a lot of genuinely excellent actors being in them) was Christopher Lee, and that’s presumably because he had a long career of being the bright light in a sea of trashy horror? Maybe the problem was not casting people with enough experience selling terrible scripts.
It was OK. I only mentioned it because it also deals with issues of parenthood and separation through the medium of astronauts, but in a very different way of course.
Yeah, this was my biggest issue with the film. I mean, the story it has to tell is a worthwhile one, but you can’t shake the feeling throughout that they wouldn’t do it with a father. Of course, it also feels weird to criticise it on those grounds because it suggests we should only have stories about dude astronauts.
Ya, i think you should. The visuals and sound are worth seeing on something that can do them a little bit of justice. As for the movie, I’ll echo the sentiment here, i thought there was some really good things there, and it’s a movie that haunted me for a bit, but one that ultimately fell way short of the mark.
I say haunt, but that’s not the right word. I was thinking of resonate, but that’s not it either. Dwell? I dunno. The movie left an impression on me, despite all its shortcomings, so that’s something more than interstellar, or gravity, or “star-lords of the flies” aka Voyagers.
I sort of want to re-watch it too.
Space elevator, moon pirates, feral space monkey, scenes on Mars having a red tint because they are on Mars. Neptune being all dark and spooky. Crazy Tommy Lee.
Ugh… I’m going to have to rewatch this now. In my mind, it’s taken on a sort of… hm… “campy” isn’t the right word…maybe stylized, dreamlike shading that diminish the more concrete issues I had with it in the moment.
Maybe Brad Pitt plus the frequent listens to the soundtrack have blurred it a bit in my mind with The Tree of Life.
Ha ha, you’re going to rewatch Ad Astra.
-Tom, similarly tempted
Hey all right! Let’s all rewatch Ad Astra!
I wouldn’t have brought this thread back to life if it was going to result in people re-watching Ad Astra. I’m very sorry.
It’s now intrigued me enough to watch it myself…for the first time. You Monster!
you monster!
I am now going to recommend Ad Astra to all my friends!
-Tom
I forgot about the feral space monkeys.
I’m in!
He also forgot dune buggying across the moon - with a gunfight! And snowboarding (spaceboarding?) across the rocks in space around Neptune! This might be the best movie ever made.