Project Hail Mary took its time coming come, allowing people to experience the IMAX grandeur for months. It’s been on Prime and MGM+ for a bit but now it’s on physical media.
The 4K UHD is the IMAX version with the space scenes in full frame. The widescreen flashbacks still bleed light into the letterbox bars.
This space epic showcases great depths of black in deep space and the corners of Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling)’s ship, as well as the tube where Grace and Rocky meet and his astrophage experiments in the lab.
When they reach Tau Ceti-3, the green glows brightly in contrast and even tints the light on Grace. His silhouette against the planet is deep.
Space debris whizzes by in the rear speakers but most of the space sound is a subtle rumble. The Air Force transport in the flashbacks rumbles too. The explosion on Earth obeys the rules of sound distance.
Of five deleted scenes, three are early solitary scenes with more examples of Grace figuring things out. The other two are Rocky scenes. And since they were deleted, they’re presented before the film process discussed in the commentary so we’re seeing the raw look.
An eight min featurette is on creating Rocky. We get to watch them puppet him and a little bit of the animated version, and see James Ortiz on set
Lord and Miller’s commentary explain technical and creative choices throughout the movie.