Project Nail Mary - Project Hail Mary as Competency Porn

A short fun video exploring the concept of Competency Porn, think like the Pitt but in space. Had lots of fun setting up skits and gags. The unedited version did well at a local film group. Had some great discussions after showing it off.

Intro joke skit with HH messaging with Weir and title card

Andy Weir is the master of "competency porn” What is this idea of competency porn and how many more times can I say it before being punished? Competency Porn is a term first popularized by John Rogers, screenwriter for the TNT show Leverage, and is any media that portrays competency and intelligence. For Weir, it is accessible science in science fiction that you devour and feel like you accomplished something more than just reading a mediocre action/science fiction/space adventure. These bursts of soft core science encourage you to seek the hard core stuff–at least it did for me. Real science, or realistic science gives readers another way to connect with the story at hand–its real–tangible—it could maybe happen in their world. Even more so, these scientific elements automatically elevate a story to prestige since there are very real properties and theories in it. This takes, let’s face it, a relatively mid story, albeit fun, and makes it seem AMAZING. I mean look at a decade ago, NASA had Weir talk about science fiction as a blueprint for reality of future missions after the meteoric success of The Martian.

When we look at Weir within the sci-fi genre, he isn’t as hard science as Alaistair Reynolds, or as bold and imaginative as Charles Sheffield, and not as literary as Ursula Le Guin or Octavia Butler. He is the master of highly consumable, fun, and not implausible science fiction.

Weir’s characters are not only highly intelligent, their smarts feel accessible to average readers. Mark Whatney in the Martian is an astronaut and botanist, let’s face it despite being very rigorous fields feel way less scary to the ordinary person than physics and chemistry. The same goes for our main character, Ryland Grace in Project Hail Mary. Grace is a science teacher and former Molecular Biologist. Very qualified and smart, but feels like your neighbor.

[inside dryer] Andy Weir isn't just a master of thrusting science into bestsellers, he knows exactly what Hollywood wants: high stakes, no politics, pure adrenaline. That’s what we're getting with Weir’s next adaptation with the directors behind 21 Jump Street and starring Bryan Gozzling–wait one of those is wrong–starring Ryan Gosling–can you imagine. [imagine and shrug]. Now how would Ryland Grace engineer a way out of here…?

Project Hail Mary is the Martian but even higher stakes and more fun. Both followed the Hollywood call for zero political drama–everyone got along. The thing I liked most about this book, aside from the adorable sidekick, was the mystery woven in through the flashback framing device utilized by Weir. We aren’t just in space alone, we are back on Earth facing the very real stakes of a dark future to come. We fall in love with more of humanity. We get clues that help us, help Grace along the way. Weir celebrates the collective knowledge of humanity. We can’t do this alone, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. The book encourages readers to observe, gather evidence, and hypothesize. To use a little science as we have fun reading. The book follows porn logic. Every problem is solvable with a little pounding and there’s a guaranteed happy ending.

[Bell Ringing sound and Alex shouting I got a big sausage pizza for you. Where do you want to take it? ]

When I first started reading this book, my immediate thought was it felt like I was already watching the movie. No, it's not Hyperphantasia, it's the fact Weir creates scenarios that hook you right away. We open with our MC, Ryland Grace waking up from a coma with no memory of who is, when he is, or where he is. We open with high stakes and plenty of existential dread. Grace quickly unravels that he is all alone. His crewmates, friends, are dead. He has no memory. The sun he is orbiting is not his own. Terrifying, right?

Grace soon remembers why he is orbiting a whole other star system–he needs to save his own planet from an invasion of space mold critters, called Astrophage, that are slowly consuming Earth’s sun. His mission is to find a way of eliminating them. On Earth, the world's foremost scientists and engineers learn that these little villains can be used as a fuel source and they had three astronauts who were genetically resistant to long term damage from comas travel to another star to find answers. Tau Ceti, the star he is now orbiting, is the only nearby start that doesn’t have the Astrophage issue. He also learns that there was never going to be enough fuel to get back home. This mission was always going to end on Tau Ceti with information about how to save Earth being sent back home. He was always going to die on this mission. Horrifying, right?

Solo missions are definitely less popular as a category. People prefer to see people having fun with friends. It’s more entertaining when we can come together in service of a mission. It’s on this dangerous and exciting adventure we meet a rocky side kick, called Rocky. He is an extraterrestrial life form whose home sun is also dying at the hands of these pesky Astrophages. Just like Grace, Rocky is alone, his crewmates dead, from what we later learn is radiation poisoning.

Together, the pair become fast friends with renewed faith in actually accomplishing the mission AND getting home. Together they discover that there is a natural predator to the Astrophage in the Ceti system, amoeba-like creatures that eat the astrophage. The pair name these Taumoeba and figure out a way to breed them on each of their home planetary systems. To accomplish this seemingly impossible task, the dynamic duo utilize all of Earth’s collective knowledge saved on terabytes of data Grace has on the ship as well as Rocky’s civilization’s collective knowledge. His species is able to live for hundreds of years and have perfect memory so can store all their knowledge within their own minds. In addition to solving the crucial problem of saving each of their own planets, Rocky has enough astrophages to get Grace home as well. Everyone is happy, right?

Wrong, on their way back to their respective planets Grace sees that Rocky’s ship is in trouble. He sends Taumoeba and information on how to breed them back to Earth and risks ever returning home to save his friend. They live happily ever after together on Rocky’s planet, Erid where Grace teaches little rocky aliens, and they learn that Earth has eliminated their astrophage problem through observation of the sun seeing that it returned to its full luminosity.

Science and best buddies save the day!

[money shot of Taumoeba] Ugh, Taumoeba get everywhere

Now that that’s cleaned up, where were we? That’s right, the wrap up. That sounded like a movie, right? Well, that was the book. Again, that’s why Weir succeeds at crafting stories already made for Hollywood. But these aren’t just any stories for Hollywood. No, these make you think, but not too hard. Just in the right balance of rigor and intelligence to rescue readers and soon to be viewers from the crushing weight of incompetence that too often surrounds us.

It’s porn. Fantasy. It is based in reality but not wholly real, but feels like it can be real. We feel like we are learning something even if we aren’t. We consume it all at once like a group of astrophage, because it is a place we want to be. We find escape within. We want to be in a world where everyone on the planet works together to save humanity. We want to be in a world where intelligence is celebrated and sought after. We want to follow along with our implausible hero as he saves the day because he is taking us to this more perfect reality. We are stimulated and desperately seeking that escape.

Competency Porn is the opposite of second screen movies. I wouldn’t call it an antidote, but it is a salve. It soothes us and gets us going in a better direction. Second screen movies that expect us to not pay attention are not a good future. While Competence Porn like this isn’t deep or full of meaning, it does make readers and viewers alike pay attention while reading or watching. It may motivate us to explore more of the topics presented in it. We need more books and films like this that inspire moviegoers to do more after or think a little during. It is nothing out of our grasp. It is fun and silly enough to keep you engaged while also having small tidbits to keep you mentally fed.

Competency Porn like Project Hail Mary isn’t literary. It doesn’t make you think too deeply, but it does encourage you to think in other ways. If our only other option are movies that feel like they were meant for a tik tok feed or that repeat basic plot points a dozen times then I’d rather have a little porn in my life. What about you?

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