Ad Astra

Stupidity: When Roy finally gets to the Lima project in the shuttle but can't dock, he just lets it drift away - he could have at least tethered it to the station to use it for his return trip.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: There is no way to know the reason why he did this. It's plausible, or even likely, that the pod was out of fuel. Not only that, but it could not dock with Lima because it was damaged, so it's likely that the damage played into the decision as well.

wizard_of_gore ★

More for Ad Astra

Mistakes

Factual error: From the continuity of the movie it appears that the response from LIMA came within a few minutes of the transmission from Mars. This would be impossible. Even if Mars and Neptune were on the same side of the Solar System, in a straight line, they would be 4 light-hours apart, meaning the replay could not be received less than 8 hours after transmission. There's no implication that they kept Brad Pitt sitting in a room for 8 hours waiting for a reply.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: IIRC, there was a communication sent from earlier. It's very possible they resumed 8 hours later, even if it was the next day. And, judging by the auditors sentiment to LIMAs response (discretion), there is a chance that LIMA did not respond favorably, nor ever would have a chance hear the "emotional" version of the communication sent that day.

Suggested correction: The objective of sending McBride to Mars was for him to transmit a number of appeals to his father on a familial level. Although McBride didn't know it, his messages were intended to catch his father off-guard, making him believe his son was en route to Neptune, but actually clearing the way for a nuclear strike against the LIMA. Unfortunately, the movie fails to make it clear that the younger McBride is transmitting several sequential messages over an extended period of time before his father finally responds. This is more a matter of bad pacing and editing than it is a factual error.

Charles Austin Miller

It was shown that the message the father answered was exactly the one in which the son rejected the script and began to speak from the heart. And this was the same message after which the father immediately answered, while the son was still in the room.

No, Roy McBride sent more than one message, and it even shows time pass between messages. His father's reply to an earlier message only arrived coincidentally as Roy went off-script on a subsequent message.

Charles Austin Miller

More mistakes in Ad Astra

Quotes

Roy McBride: Can I have a blanket and pillow?
Flight Attendant: Certainly, that will be $125.

More quotes from Ad Astra

Trivia

Trivia: The tear Brad Pitt sheds when talking to his father towards the end is real. He told the director: "You gotta replace my tear, that's not how it works in zero-gravity", but the director preferred the genuine tear over a CGI replacement.

More trivia for Ad Astra

Questions

Question: How did the monkeys get onto the space ship and why were they so aggressive?

Answer: On the way from the Moon to Mars, the Cepheus interplanetary vessel receives an automated distress signal from a Norwegian bio-medical space station (that studies and conducts experiments on Earth animals in the deep-space environment). Apparently, a couple of very powerful and temperamental adult baboons escaped from their cages and killed everyone aboard the space station, feeding on their bodies. When the Cepheus answers the distress signal and arrives at the space station, the baboons attack and try to eat Captain Tanner and Roy McBride, also.

Charles Austin Miller

More questions & answers from Ad Astra

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.