Argh. The wifey and I spent the weekend unfortunately watching a spate of sub-par movies off of the DVR (thanks, COVID, for killing the movie theatre business). A few of them weren’t half-bad; they had solid premises, but some last-minute improbable plot shenanigans left us wondering if they’d lost their shooting scripts well into the productions. And a few of them showcased some very big name stars in their rosters; one would think such known commodities would think twice about attaching themselves to such curious oddities. Still, sitting through a bad movie has a universal way of making even the most uninformed viewer ask, “How did this get made?”
In short, how did a movie as derailed as Ad Astra get off the drawing board?
For the record, I’ve never been a big fan of films written and directed by the same person. (I’m even less of a fan of stars writing, directing, and acting in vanity projects.) While I respect auteurs, I think practically all stories have weaknesses; and the closer one is to preserving the story the less likely they are to seeing any shortcomings. Mostly, I say this because I consider myself, at first, a writer; and I’ve experienced firsthand the phenomenon of someone I’ve asked to proofread my story uncovering something – a narrative blip that troubles the plot, if even a small way – that requires further attention. As much as any author might hate to admit it, constructive criticism is a necessary part of the creative process; divorcing one’s ego in order to improve the piece gets harder and harder the more committed the auteur remains to ‘preserving the story.’
Ad Astra’s writer/director James Gray certainly isn’t a household name. (I realize he co-wrote the script, but my criticism regarding writing/directing remains the same.) A review of his record via IMDB.com shows that he strongly favors such a role; indeed, of the six feature-length productions to his name prior to Ad Astra, Gray had been heavily involved in writing all of them (one was adapted from a novel). All of these motion pictures seem to have solid critical reception, but dare I suggest that there’s no blockbuster nor awards-burning-sensation in the mix? While box office returns and statues do not necessarily underscore ‘quality,’ they do speak to how well audiences embraced a film … and I’m not seeing any hugs one way or the other.
Perhaps even a bit stranger (at least to this old dog), of these six productions before Ad Astra there’s nothing even remotely like Science Fiction in the mix. As a storyteller, Gray clearly had mapped out a career in character/crime dramas – one even with a distinct period setting – so one might wonder how a studio head decided it was time to send this director into outer space? Forgive me for pointing out that there’s a demonstrated need for directors to stick to their strengths. After all, Marvel didn’t hire Woody Allen to write and direct Iron Man (2008), did they? It would’ve been a markedly different film, and it probably wouldn’t have made Phase I possible.
However, when you look at Ad Astra’s story a bit more closely, it does make sense why Gray told the tale he did: it’s a very non-traditional Science Fiction film – one that relies less on the typical SciFi visuals and more on the human interest side of storytelling.
World-renowned astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is sent by SPACECOM into the Final Frontier when it appears that his astronaut father H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) not only survived what was believed to have disastrous space mission but also now threatens the survival of mankind. Essentially, this pits son against the father in more ways than one as Roy realizes he’s lived his life under a dark shadow perhaps from the beginning.
Personal dramas and Science Fiction can be a difficult mix, mainly because audiences can be already taxed with comprehending future technology and world building when presented with the potentially burdensome psychology of family dynamics. While I’m not arguing that Ad Astra bit off more than it could chew (though it did), the film’s script could’ve benefitted from paring down Jones’ mythic backstory as well as the younger McBride’s: stories that focus on singular greatness have to invest more time in how said greatness was achieved only then to fall apart – a fall so great here that the entire universe is at stake – and writer/director Gray may’ve benefitted from having an average father/son pairing instead of the God/GodPlus presented here. There’s just too much at stake psychologically, and the film’s 120-minute run time requires Roy’s omnipresent narration to fill in far too much weight.
Take away Clifford’s vaunted reputation. Make him more of a commoner who happened upon an incredible career. As a consequence, SPACECOM could be expecting great things from Roy, and perhaps he’s fallen short. Instead of living a life trying to surpass dear ol’ dad’s stellar reputation (which happened far too easily anyway), Roy could be a commoner just trying to be his own person under the weight of what Cliff luckily stumbled into. Then when confronted with the truth of his father’s massive failure, his hero’s journey could one to redeem the family name instead of securing its rank of godhood amongst the star-faring elite (as gets presented here).
As screenwriter Gray’s story is crafted, Ad Astra has no villain, giving Pitt and Jones very little to do visually as their respective conflicts are entirely internal, leaving director Gray with not all that much interesting to put up on the silver screen. As a consequence, the feature felt padded with action sequences here and there that have little to do with the central struggle – pirates on the moon, the conspiracy surrounding Clifford’s LIMA Project, Roy’s memories of a failed marriage, etc. – and the audience is never really given any reason to care about dad and son’s reconciliation whether it’s bound to happen or not. They’re already legends, and despite what you may think about Earthlings as a species I only see the already-disenfranchised, self-destructive loons truly interested in tearing apart their legends. Regular folks? We just wanna live. And we’ve long ago made peace with the idea that nobody’s perfect.
As a consequence of the disconnection from Gray’s characters as designed, I found myself instead being sidelined by questions that really distracted me from the central threads. If space exploration is so commercial and widespread, why haven’t we made any other attempt to find out what happened with the LIMA Project? Why would we have so cavalierly equipped it with a power source capable of destroying life as we know it? Why was there a dog running around the subterranean levels of our Mars installation? Was that a dream sequence? And why was there a dream sequence with a dog running around our Mars installation? Who in the name of Sam Hill could relax in a room where flowers were projected as big as elephants? Why is Brad Pitt only whispering? Did he strain his voice? Does space travel make you whisper constantly? And how did not one but two members of the McBride family with deep, deep, deep nihilistic tendencies slip through SPACECOM’s pre-employment hiring process?
Naturally, this led me to question how a film as misguided and poorly conceived as Ad Astra ever got made in the first place.
When one asks a question like this, readers love to point out that there is a vast number of films – especially Science Fiction films – that have been made; but Ad Astra was never meant to be Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. To the contrary, Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt, arguably one of Hollywood’s best know faces. IMDB.com reports the film had a budget near $100 million. And the feature is peppered with a host of familiar faces (Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, Natasha Lyonne in a bizarrely useless cameo-style role), all of whose participation underscores the reality that somebody somewhere had big plans and no doubt big rewards expected.
Still, it’s impossible to escape that, in the end, it’s a lifeless vehicle, one that drearily explores Pitt’s ill-founded daddy issues and moseys from plot point to plot point with no sense of urgency despite the scripted presentation of impending doom. It’s painfully dry and impressively empty … and I have to wonder how this debacle ever got greenlit in the first place.
-- EZ
In short, how did a movie as derailed as Ad Astra get off the drawing board?
For the record, I’ve never been a big fan of films written and directed by the same person. (I’m even less of a fan of stars writing, directing, and acting in vanity projects.) While I respect auteurs, I think practically all stories have weaknesses; and the closer one is to preserving the story the less likely they are to seeing any shortcomings. Mostly, I say this because I consider myself, at first, a writer; and I’ve experienced firsthand the phenomenon of someone I’ve asked to proofread my story uncovering something – a narrative blip that troubles the plot, if even a small way – that requires further attention. As much as any author might hate to admit it, constructive criticism is a necessary part of the creative process; divorcing one’s ego in order to improve the piece gets harder and harder the more committed the auteur remains to ‘preserving the story.’
Ad Astra’s writer/director James Gray certainly isn’t a household name. (I realize he co-wrote the script, but my criticism regarding writing/directing remains the same.) A review of his record via IMDB.com shows that he strongly favors such a role; indeed, of the six feature-length productions to his name prior to Ad Astra, Gray had been heavily involved in writing all of them (one was adapted from a novel). All of these motion pictures seem to have solid critical reception, but dare I suggest that there’s no blockbuster nor awards-burning-sensation in the mix? While box office returns and statues do not necessarily underscore ‘quality,’ they do speak to how well audiences embraced a film … and I’m not seeing any hugs one way or the other.
Perhaps even a bit stranger (at least to this old dog), of these six productions before Ad Astra there’s nothing even remotely like Science Fiction in the mix. As a storyteller, Gray clearly had mapped out a career in character/crime dramas – one even with a distinct period setting – so one might wonder how a studio head decided it was time to send this director into outer space? Forgive me for pointing out that there’s a demonstrated need for directors to stick to their strengths. After all, Marvel didn’t hire Woody Allen to write and direct Iron Man (2008), did they? It would’ve been a markedly different film, and it probably wouldn’t have made Phase I possible.
However, when you look at Ad Astra’s story a bit more closely, it does make sense why Gray told the tale he did: it’s a very non-traditional Science Fiction film – one that relies less on the typical SciFi visuals and more on the human interest side of storytelling.
World-renowned astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is sent by SPACECOM into the Final Frontier when it appears that his astronaut father H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) not only survived what was believed to have disastrous space mission but also now threatens the survival of mankind. Essentially, this pits son against the father in more ways than one as Roy realizes he’s lived his life under a dark shadow perhaps from the beginning.
Personal dramas and Science Fiction can be a difficult mix, mainly because audiences can be already taxed with comprehending future technology and world building when presented with the potentially burdensome psychology of family dynamics. While I’m not arguing that Ad Astra bit off more than it could chew (though it did), the film’s script could’ve benefitted from paring down Jones’ mythic backstory as well as the younger McBride’s: stories that focus on singular greatness have to invest more time in how said greatness was achieved only then to fall apart – a fall so great here that the entire universe is at stake – and writer/director Gray may’ve benefitted from having an average father/son pairing instead of the God/GodPlus presented here. There’s just too much at stake psychologically, and the film’s 120-minute run time requires Roy’s omnipresent narration to fill in far too much weight.
Take away Clifford’s vaunted reputation. Make him more of a commoner who happened upon an incredible career. As a consequence, SPACECOM could be expecting great things from Roy, and perhaps he’s fallen short. Instead of living a life trying to surpass dear ol’ dad’s stellar reputation (which happened far too easily anyway), Roy could be a commoner just trying to be his own person under the weight of what Cliff luckily stumbled into. Then when confronted with the truth of his father’s massive failure, his hero’s journey could one to redeem the family name instead of securing its rank of godhood amongst the star-faring elite (as gets presented here).
As screenwriter Gray’s story is crafted, Ad Astra has no villain, giving Pitt and Jones very little to do visually as their respective conflicts are entirely internal, leaving director Gray with not all that much interesting to put up on the silver screen. As a consequence, the feature felt padded with action sequences here and there that have little to do with the central struggle – pirates on the moon, the conspiracy surrounding Clifford’s LIMA Project, Roy’s memories of a failed marriage, etc. – and the audience is never really given any reason to care about dad and son’s reconciliation whether it’s bound to happen or not. They’re already legends, and despite what you may think about Earthlings as a species I only see the already-disenfranchised, self-destructive loons truly interested in tearing apart their legends. Regular folks? We just wanna live. And we’ve long ago made peace with the idea that nobody’s perfect.
As a consequence of the disconnection from Gray’s characters as designed, I found myself instead being sidelined by questions that really distracted me from the central threads. If space exploration is so commercial and widespread, why haven’t we made any other attempt to find out what happened with the LIMA Project? Why would we have so cavalierly equipped it with a power source capable of destroying life as we know it? Why was there a dog running around the subterranean levels of our Mars installation? Was that a dream sequence? And why was there a dream sequence with a dog running around our Mars installation? Who in the name of Sam Hill could relax in a room where flowers were projected as big as elephants? Why is Brad Pitt only whispering? Did he strain his voice? Does space travel make you whisper constantly? And how did not one but two members of the McBride family with deep, deep, deep nihilistic tendencies slip through SPACECOM’s pre-employment hiring process?
Naturally, this led me to question how a film as misguided and poorly conceived as Ad Astra ever got made in the first place.
When one asks a question like this, readers love to point out that there is a vast number of films – especially Science Fiction films – that have been made; but Ad Astra was never meant to be Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space. To the contrary, Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt, arguably one of Hollywood’s best know faces. IMDB.com reports the film had a budget near $100 million. And the feature is peppered with a host of familiar faces (Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, Natasha Lyonne in a bizarrely useless cameo-style role), all of whose participation underscores the reality that somebody somewhere had big plans and no doubt big rewards expected.
Still, it’s impossible to escape that, in the end, it’s a lifeless vehicle, one that drearily explores Pitt’s ill-founded daddy issues and moseys from plot point to plot point with no sense of urgency despite the scripted presentation of impending doom. It’s painfully dry and impressively empty … and I have to wonder how this debacle ever got greenlit in the first place.
-- EZ
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