A Review of “Ad Astra”: Apocalypse Now In Outer Space
Keith’s note: “Ad Astra” should really have used the entire phrase “Ad Astra Per Aspera” – “through hardships to the stars” – as its title. Brad Pitt certainly endures more than his fair share of hardships during his Homeric trek across the solar system to find and then confront his father.
Under secret orders, Brad Pitt (Major Roy McBride) begins his quest across the solar system in search of his famous astronaut father H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). The elder McBride, once thought to have died many years ago, is still alive and is up to some dangerous stuff in the outer solar system that is wreaking havoc on Earth. And Earth wants him to knock it off.
As I watched this saga unfold Roy McBride’s inner motivations and misgivings immediately reminded me of what Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) went through as he sought out the mysterious Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in his remote lair in the classic film “Apocalypse Now”. Roy McBride’s travels toward his singular destination were equally challenging internally as well as physically.
I recall reading about the toll that the filming of “Apocalypse Now” took on Martin Sheen since the film literally rested upon his shoulders. The same is true about “Ad Astra” and Brad Pitt. In my opinion Pitt carries this film as well as Sheen carried his. I am equating two films here for a purpose: these stories could easily have been set in each other’s locations and worked. Their respective backdrops serve to heighten the physical risks so as to amplify the internal turmoil.
In the past few years we’ve had a series of space films that were widely received and embraced: “Gravity”, “The Martian”, “Interstellar” and now “Ad Astra”. The first three films were inspirational – and aspirational. In the end you experience the triumph of the main characters as they over come adversity set against stunning extraterrestrial backdrops. And you may wish you were there with them.
In “Ad Astra” its hard to figure out what will happen next which often makes for a good movie. For Roy McBride to overcome his challenges means a potentially lethal confrontation along the way with his father as either a potential military target or rescue mission or both. When it is all over its hard to see who – if anyone – has won. But life is more like “Ad Astra” than the other space movies – there is not always a grand, feel-good finale. But the ending is sublime and satisfying.
As for the technical execution of the film – its is splendid in every frame. You rarely stop to question the reality of it all. Some of the vistas just take your breath away. Alas, as a former NASA space biologist who worked on Spacelab missions in the 1980s and 1990s there is one sequence that just had me thinking back to safety reviews where some of the worst case scenarios actually happened. I’d be astonished if anyone would do this sort of research. But it serves a plot purpose, so …
The film’s trailers show gun fights between lunar rovers on a Moon covered with lots of commercial signs and Starbucks. Very early in the film it becomes clear that the near future is being depicted. Everyone is everywhere in the solar system and they are not getting along. Cold War-esque names for places on various worlds abound. While there is mention of space companies and a ubiquitous military entity called “Space Com” – short for “Space Command” think of the newly formed Space Force with boring uniforms and constant invasive psychological testing. There is no mention of NASA or a civilian space presence.
In my short list of recent space movies, you really want to live in their worlds – where exploration and adventure drive the narrative. The future space civilization of “Ad Astra” is not a place I’d look forward to living in. It’s a future where people seem to make mistakes and not stop to think about how to work together. There is not much in the way of wonder and awe – even when wondrous and awesome scenes are shown. Imagine if the lunar bases depicted in “2001 A Space Odyssey” with Soviet and American sectors continued their mutual suspicions for decades – with space pirates.
But that is the world against which this story is told – and this story works. This is a fine film and it draws you in and holds on to you. At its core it speaks to things that children often grapple with when it comes to their parents and the sacrifices they make to pursue careers of risk and adventure that call for difficult personal decisions – and the effect those decisions have on those who stay behind.
I was disappointed in one aspect. This was just not the film I was expecting to see and, like most space people, one that I needed to see. I’d like to think that we’ll only take the best of what humanity has to offer as we expand out into space. That may well be naive.
Above I noted that the film’s title might have been different since this film depicts a laundry list of reasons why the people in its universe are simply not ready for the stars. They are in constant need of medication and robotic psych screenings. This is not a starfaring race.
There is another famous Latin phrase that comes to mind. “fortuna audaces juvat” which is usually translated as “fortune favors the bold” – a latin proverb most prominently repeated in Virgil’s “Aeneid”. You have no doubt seen this phrase before. Along with ad astra per aspera it is common in the military.
In the end it is being bold – despite hardships – where Roy McBride transcends his challenges.
I haven’t seen “Ad Astra” yet, so I can’t comment on the comparison to “Apocalypse Now.” But it may be worth mentioning that “Apocalypse Now” itself was, in many ways, Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” retold in a different setting. Good plot lines don’t seem to go away.
I’m sure it’s a good movie, but I’m equally sure it won’t get near Flash Gordon.
I’d rather have watched Event Horizon.
Haven’t seen it, but the trailer showing the chase with those lunar rovers and its crummy special effects looks mighty fake and divorced from reality!! The rooster tails aren’t correct and the Apollo 15-17 crews obviously never approach speeds shown in the clip. The LRV was a very bumpy ride as well requiring seat belts.
I saw it today, and enjoyed it. It’s a pretty solemn film – even the action sequences feel more like something out of Gravity or Interstellar than anything else. Very visually striking and beautiful as well.
I would compare it to Gravity more than any other film in terms of theme. The “Ad Astra” title feels ironic, becauseas with Gravity, going into space is kind of used here as synonymous with the character’s estrangement from humanity and regular human interaction. It even has him returning to Earth and (implied) re-uniting with his ex-wife, with his father depicted as someone who sacrificed everything for seeking alien life and the stars and thus ended up as an isolated old man in a failing spaceship around Neptune.
And as the review points out, the view we get of humanity’s presence off-world is a pretty negative one: factions fighting over territory and carrying out raids on the Moon, a Mars base that feels isolated and sparse in its design, and so forth.
The ending was good, though, and I liked the sort of twist:You kind of expect Tommy Lee Jones’ character to be crazy and dangerous when Pitt’s character gets out there, or some other weirdness involving aliens – but it’s not the case. There’s no violent struggle when the younger McBride meets his father again, who is now just an old man in a failing spacecraft accidentally blasting Earth with the antimatter-generated cosmic ray pulses due to a malfunction.
If The Martian was a 10 I give this film a 2. One point for the cast, one point for production values. The Johnny One Note Heart of Darkness story was tiresome. There were plot elements that did not make a lick of sense, the Moon chase, the nonsensical research station ‘adventure’ and the Arch atmosphere on Mars, a goofball ‘conspiracy’ undercurrent. . The science was awful, totally unexplained plot thread about antimatter that is dropped. Astrodynamics that is abysmal , travel times with unexplained propulsion systems , these would have to be one g ships yet they seem to be in free fall most the time, what the heck, that makes no sense. The narrative is slow poke at times. If Gravity was an 8 I would give this a 1.
At best I’ve give the Martian an 8. Giving this a 2… you must be a humanitarian.
Its called autospell. My bad. You could have pointed that out with a simple sentence. But you wanted to be a jerk instead. See ya.
Woooo, correcting spelling errors instead of commenting on the substance…. Don’t care for that. Thumbs down to you, mister.
In the opening scene, Major McBride (Brad Pitt) falls off the International Space Antenna. He is not in orbit but standing on a ridiculously, impossible, tall tower. Any satellites orbiting at the speeds that they do, could crash into this ground obstruction to flight. Fortunately, they have proper Personal Protection Equipment, which includes a pressure suit and parachute in case they fall off the antenna.
The trip to the Moon is on a commercial spacecraft. You see the spaceport terminal and security measures. upon arriving, the sign says.
Welcome to The Moon. There are multiple settlements on the Moon for commercial purposes, I presume. The pirates that chase Maj. McBride do not succeed, but instead they drive off a cliff and land inside some big crater, without much trouble. =) The space vehicles are interesting and represent the expected, advanced state of space propulsion and technology to sustain life. The movie make no distinction between walking or driving on reduced gravity of the Moon. Oh, well that would be too hard to simulate for a movie. With the exception of having “too much Brad Pitt” in it, I liked the movie and will likely see it again. =)
Look up Space elevators. There is theory behind an orbital-height tower.
I did not think it was possible to make a worse space movie than Gravity, altho Interstellar certainly tried. I was wrong. Ad Astra has not only the idiotic science and dumb plot of Gravity, but takes on the “burden” of being a “woke” message film. In case you miss the message when the Mayor of Mars laid her Key Message SJW guilt trip on our Hero, the TV screens on the Ghost Ship Of Neptune drive the point home by running the most improbable video clip imaginable when the airlock opens…
It makes me very sad that 50 years after Armstrong led our nation to one of its greatest triumphs and Kubrick brilliantly showed the sweep of human destiny from Africa to the stars, both achievements are literally aped on multiple levels by Ad Astra to tell a new generation that Space is a Dead End, Get Over The Daddy That Abandoned You and You Gotta Get Woke.
You seem to be harboring a whole lot of biases.
Every movie on some level is a reflection of the values and concerns held by the generation that filmed it. I would certainly like for you to point out to me some other theme I missed. I stand by my conclusion that Ad Astra is the most blatant “message” and even “anti-space” space film since 2013’s Elysium advocated Medicare For All. From a film history standpoint, this is just James Grey’s big-budget version of George Lucas’ early art film THX-1138, set against a lush space backdrop instead of underground parking garages around the USC campus.
I saw a cold, unfeeling (toxically masculine!) Alpha male who only passes his daily psych evals with Alexa by having no empathy and “going with the flow” in an unsympathetic technological society. Finally failing the psych eval by rejecting everything this society had to offer was the hero’s journey in this film, not some tour of deep space. Instead, Extend The Helping Hand On Earth And Care About Others – Reject And Destroy The Technology That Will Kill Us All.
For crying out loud (literally!), instead of spending the rest of his life punished for his actions, our hero finally achieves the ultimate goal of not “Ad Astra” but… a date!
Yea, but you have to admit these new gloomy space movies are a lot more realistic than those crazy optimistic movies from the 1950’s. Take Destination Moon for example. Imagine how crazy it is to think that some industrialist will build his own Moon Rocket, one with fins no less, using his own money and fly it to the Moon…??
Everyone know that is something only the government is able to do.
I like Gravity as alternate universe science fiction it pretty snappy… at least it’s physics handwaving were extremely low probability events, Ad Astra’s were just flat out wrong and goofy. I am surprised no one has compared this to The Martian which was a 1000 times better.
I tried hard to like this movie. I failed. I wanted it to show humanity as a spacefaring civilisation in a positive sense, but everything came over so negative in the end. It was meant to show spaceflight in a realistic manner, but to be honest, I’ve seen better!
The intro says ‘the near future’, but we suddenly have spacecraft that can go from Mars to Neptune in 72 days?? According to my math via Calculator Soup (see https://www.calculatorsoup…. ) that works out at 686km/sec or approx. 2 million km/hr….in the ‘near future’. Nuclear propulsion wouldn’t give this sort of thrust, so what? Vasimr – anti-matter?
The plot was ambiguous and hard to follow in places. It was interesting that the key actor in space wasn’t commercial space companies, or government-run space agencies but the US military. I don’t have a problem with ‘US Space Command’ (or Space Force) per se, but the producers could have at least made an effort to read more about the growing role of commercial space (Pitt does ride what looks to be a SpaceX Crew Dragon – that’s it).
The rocket technology shown in the movie didn’t seem to be reusable – so clearly SLS is ‘the answer’!!!??? Anti-matter blasts out at Neptune wouldn’t necessarily wipe out life on Earth, so the scientific premise was weak.
The best bit was the moon rover battle (even if it was with ‘space pirates’). But really, this movie was a bit of a let-down – very slow, ponderous, and confusing.
I’ll go back to watching ‘The Expanse’ thanks!
Maybe space commerce was not featured was because their space consultant was from Lockheed-Martin.
https://www.lockheedmartin….
Behind the Scenes: Ad Astra
Lockheed Martin IQ: Guy Chriqui
Go to Old Space and you get an Old Space “world view”.
That certainly explains it – had they consulted SpaceX or Blue Origin, it might have been a very different movie.
So is this yet another Hollywood movie where the main driver of the plot is a protagonist with unresolved Daddy issues?
It sure seems like Hollywood has been going to that well a lot in the last few years.
My take:
They watched a bunch of Kubrick but didn’t pay attention in the slightest. A boring Apocalypse Now where Newton’s Laws are ignored more than I’ve seen in the last 20 years, plot holes so wide Mars could be driven through them; Throw away boosters, solar power past Jupiter, baboons in space, throw away characters, Donald Sutherland as an example, moon bandits… it’s a train wreck.
Don’t bother.
Yeah, it was definitely Apocalypse Now in space. A couple of things I didn’t understand:
– Why did Brad Pitt have to travel to Mars to make the transmissions to his father in person? Don’t they have MP3 files and email in the future?
– Why did they have very advanced vehicles for space travel but Apollo-era lunar rovers?
‘Have a little faith baby.. have a little faith…’
I tried and failed to appreciate this movie as a sci-fi drama milestone. Not even close. So many things lacking, and much of what was there is simply not credible. Unresolved storylines abound . Too much ended up on the cutting room floor, as they say.
Any 2-3 episodes of ” The Expanse” are much better than this epic ho-hummer.
Nevermind. I’ve said enough.
Why should I stand under a [deleted] shower and sing it’s praises?
It’s a horrible movie.