How Ryan Gosling's 'Project Hail Mary' made a rock spider lovable

How does Project Hail Mary make this rock alien so lovable

On paper, Rocky sounds less adorable and more flat-out bizarre. As author Andy Weir describes him in his novel

Rocky is basically a cross between a boulder and a spider. Five limbs, a symmetrical, pentagon-shaped body, no face

Oh, and he's about the size of a labrador. If I encountered a dog-sized rock spider in a vacuum, you know I'd flee the scene screaming

Yet by the end of Project Hail Mary, both the film and the novel, all you want to do is give Rocky a big old hug. So how does Project Hail Mary make that massive

jump from scary rock spider to extraterrestrial friend we would die for? Like with many great

sci-fi movies that have come before it, it's all about making the unknowable knowable and making

the alien familiar. And how do you make the alien familiar and create a great human-alien film

Let's break it down into three separate tactics. Appearance, culture and behavior, and craft

Part 1. Appearance. When I ask you to think of a friendly movie alien, what comes to mind

E.T., obviously. Stitch from Lilo and Stitch. Paul from Paul if you like your aliens to be stoners

You guys partake? The little guys from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, even if we only meet them briefly at the very end

Now, what do these creatures have in common? They all have physical characteristics that are familiar to humans

E.T., the Close Encounters extraterrestrials, and Paul each have warped humanoid proportions

They also walk on their hind legs like humans. Stitch is dog-like by comparison, with fur that just makes you want to give them a big cuddle

In all of these cases, physical familiarity, either with our own bodies or qualities of a trusted pet like a dog

act as a shortcut to our own familiarity with and sympathy for an alien

That's not all. The biggest asset for these examples is their distinct, exaggerated faces

Human brains are hardwired to spot face-like patterns, a phenomenon known as facial pareidolia

It's why people see faces in burnt toast or lunar craters. Scientists hypothesize that this facial pattern seeking evolved from our need to quickly recognize friends or foes That extends to movie aliens too If we see that they have a facial structure similar to ours and that their facial expressions are friendly we more likely to view them as friends Obviously there are several exceptions to this idea that movie aliens have to have

recognizable features in order for them to establish a meaningful connection with human

characters. If that were a rule, all alien designs would be boring as hell. Some 21st century

examples of friendly aliens with less familiar features include the heptapods from Arrival

the Creepers from Mickey 17, and of course, Rocky and the Iridians from Project Hail Mary

Each design draws on elements of the natural world. The heptapods are reminiscent of cephalopods

like squid and optopi, the creepers are a cross between pillbugs and bison, and Rocky recalls

arthropods like spiders. Yet these inspirations are still bizarre enough to keep us at arm's length

from the aliens. All three of these movies play up our initial reaction to these unfamiliar

exteriors, introducing these aliens as potential threats before revealing their kinder intentions

How do we get to know these intentions? Through a greater understanding of the aliens and their

cultures. Part 2. Culture and Behavior. Movie aliens' appearances are the first stepping stone

to our understanding of them, but that understanding would go nowhere if we had no alien behavior or

broader culture to latch onto. Sometimes that behavior draws on familiar patterns. Stitch's

rampages in Lilo and Stitch feel like a pet gone rogue, tying into his disguise as a dog

Rocky, playing with a measuring tape in Project Hail Mary, reminded me of how my cat played

with yarn. Like with recognizable physical features, these moments draw on our knowledge

of what we might find cute or endearing in order to stir up empathy

But sci-fi movies don't just rely on cuteness to get us up close and personal with aliens

They also highlight aspects of their otherworldly cultures, like the science of Project Hail

Hail Mary's Iridians and the language of Arrival's heptapods. There's a reason so many great alien contact movies focus on scientists

From contact and close encounters to Arrival and Project Hail Mary, they're all about people trying to understand and maybe even work with the mysterious other

Often aspects of these cultures are aspirational especially from a tech standpoint Who wouldn want the wormhole traveling tech from Contact or the Iridian impressive building capabilities in Project Hail Mary But there an extra level to this aspiration

the focus on sharing this tech with people who may need it. In most of the examples I've laid out

there is a lack of selfishness from alien civilizations towards humans. They want to help us

which can lead to a greater partnership in the future. In Arrival, the Heptapods gift humans

their non-linear language with the knowledge that many years down the line, humans will repay the favor and help them back. In Project Hail Mary, Grace and Rocky recognize

that it will take the two of them working together to save their planets from astrophage

That's the real power of a hopeful first contact movie. In getting to know the other

we learn more about ourselves and our capacity for goodness. That self-reflection is what truly

hooks us on an alien-human friendship movie, but there's still one hurdle to overcome before an

Alien movie can truly become great, and that is execution. Part 3. Craft. You can have the perfect

human meets alien story on paper, but it will all fall apart if you can't nail the alien itself

In some movies, that's not a huge problem. The aliens in Close Encounters don't show up until

the very end, and we never see the physical forms of the aliens in contact. Yet those films are

expert at building atmosphere and mystery around the aliens, and on examining what their presence

means for humanity. But what if you need a full alien on screen for good chunks of the movie

Chances are, you're gonna want to use a puppet. Puppets are all over sci-fi film history, from the

many puppets of the Alien franchise to the worm guys of Men in Black. And of course, E.T. set a

gold standard, combining the work of puppeteers and human actors in suits with groundbreaking

animatronic technology. When we say movie magic, this is what we're talking about, a tactile

creature that is able to interact with the actors. Their physical presence allows a greater connection

with the human performer, which is crucial when your film is built on selling the relationship between human and alien

Project Hail Mary continues this tradition of using practical puppetry to deepen the relationship

between Grace and Rocky. It's so important for that core relationship in the movie for Ryan to have a scene partner someone with whom to bounce things off of And that meant getting a real puppet that we could really photograph and a great team of puppeteers led by James Ortiz

that could be spontaneous with Ryan, that could respond to his improvisational ideas

that could offer ideas to Ryan so that he would not know what was gonna happen next

What's really hard when you're playing that to a tennis ball is no one is like stirring the pot

There are not as many surprises. An example of one of the genuine moments

between Gosling and Ortiz and his team of puppeteers comes during Grace and Rocky's first meeting

The first time they, Grace and Rocky really meet and Rocky starts imitating the movements that Grace makes

What we basically did is we set up this shot where we were behind Rocky and through the glass

we could see Ryan and we had the puppeteers the foreground and Ryan in the deep background and then we had something in Ryan's ear, a little

earwig and we would pitch things for him to do and he would come up with his own things to do

and we left it to the puppet team to try and copy whatever it was that Ryan was doing and so we

would be like okay do a little dance or do a little do the macarena or do like draw out a gun and

every time he would do that then the puppeteers had to figure out how they were going to like copy

what he did and it felt like as we were shooting it like it was movie magic. You're like this is

I can't believe we're capturing this thing and it's really happening. And you can see the joy through the glass on Ryan's face as he watches the little alien puppet trying to do whatever it is he's doing

And I think there's something so magical and special about that. These improvisational moments imbue Project Hail Mary's science fiction with a splash of reality

adding a finishing touch to all the painstaking groundwork the film laid about Aridion's physiology and culture

The result is an on-screen friendship without an inch of fakeness, as well as another great

addition to the canon of hopeful human-alien films. What's your favorite human-alien friendship in film

Let us know in the comments, and tune in next week for another installment of How It Hits