You're watching a $248 million film and not a single green or blue screen was used. The alien is a handmade puppet. The cockpit physically rotates to simulate gravity. I looked at the production tech behind this 95% score, and the engineering is wild.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directing their first live-action movie in 12 years, built the entire Hail Mary spacecraft as a real set at Shepperton Studios in England. Not a miniature. Not a digital model. A full-size ship interior you can walk through. Production designer Charlie Wood studied the International Space Station, Russia's Mir station, and the Boeing 747 cockpit to get the look right. He deliberately made the panels mismatched, because real spacecraft are assembled from parts made by different companies. Nothing matches perfectly. That's what makes it feel real.
The cockpit is only about 8 feet wide. It sits on a mechanical platform that can tilt, spin, and shake, so when the ship changes direction or enters different gravity conditions, the whole set moves. Chairs end up on walls. Ladders flip direction. Gosling was suspended inside a spinning ring so he could float and move through the ship for real, reacting to actual hardware around him. No guessing where a wall might be added later.
Then there's Rocky. He's the alien co-lead, and he's not CGI. Neal Scanlan, the creature designer who built the Porgs for Star Wars, spent a full year on this character. Over 300 designs before they landed on the final look. Rocky is a thin, hollow shell, 3D-printed from a digital sculpture, then hand-painted in see-through layers so light passes through him like skin. His arms pop off and swap out depending on the scene: one set has a closed fist for walking, another has tiny motorized fingers strong enough to pick up objects. Five puppeteers (nicknamed the "Rockyteers") operated him in every scene. James Ortiz, an award-winning puppet designer from New York theater, voiced Rocky and controlled him on set. When Scanlan met him, he told Ortiz, "You're Frank Oz, and I'm making Yoda for you." Every reaction Gosling gives to the alien is to something physically in front of him.
Greig Fraser, who won the Oscar for shooting Dune, filmed the space scenes in the larger IMAX format (that taller image you see in IMAX theaters) and the Earth flashbacks in regular widescreen. Then the team did something unusual: they took the digital footage and printed it onto real film strips, twice, using two different types of film stock. Then they scanned those strips back into digital. It sounds redundant, but it adds a texture and warmth that you can only get from physical film. Fraser used the same technique on Dune and The Batman.
Drew Goddard spent six years writing this screenplay. His last adaptation of Andy Weir's novel, The Martian, earned him an Oscar nomination. He described the challenge this way: a screenplay gets about 5% of a novel's word count. The lead is alone for most of the runtime. When he finally gets a co-star, that co-star doesn't speak English, communicates through sounds closer to whale song, and has no face. Goddard called it a screenwriter's nightmare, then said that difficulty was the whole point. He and the directors fought studio pushback to keep Weir's original ending intact.
95% from 212 critics. 98% from over 2,500 audience ratings. And the lead isn't a superhero, a cop, or a soldier. He's just an ordinary middle school science teacher.
They should sell the Kpop Demon Hunters Criterion at target and walmart so that kids beg their parents to buy it for them then when they get home they realise they don’t have anything to play it with and bluray player sales skyrocket
The kpop industry told EJAE her voice was not good enough for 10+ years & then dropped her without letting her debut. She almost quit music. She switched to songwriting & they told her she wasn’t good enough again. Yesterday, kpop’s first ever Grammy win was achieved by EJAE. She opened the door & broke through an industry that no other kpop artist has been able to reach. Her resilience & perseverance are truly inspiring & her hard work & dedication are why she has been able to succeed the way she has.
The kpop industry & fanbase may never appreciate EJAE & what she’s done for them, but history will forever include her name ✨
@JDVance Sorry but you were the only baby ever worth choosing crack over. Every time your mom neglected you was justified. Sorry. Amy Adams sucked in that movie too, sorry. Nothing you touch ever goes right. You should try some of Elon’s medicine sometime. Sorry.
Ryan Coogler talks about approaching his 'X-Files' TV reboot:
"I was talking to a writer ... and she said how she sees movies is you're looking at the most important moment in a character's life, and with TV you're looking at the most important journey in a character's life ... that hit me pretty hard ... I'm a movie person ... and I'm learning to be a television person right now"
🎙️ WGA Pod