The Force Fed Sci-Fi Movie Podcast

The Force Fed Sci-Fi Movie Podcast


Ad Astra (film)

September 24, 2019

This week, we've decided to do an extra bonus podcast episode by taking a look at the new film Ad Astra. Join us as we go over the Ad Astra plot summary, disscuss the Ad Astra movie cast and the Ad Astra director, give our own Ad Astra rating and review, and more. So strap in and blast off as we travel through space to find out just how good this film is!
Ad Astra Plot Summary
The film takes place in the "near future" according to the opening crawl. We find out that famed astronaut Clifford McBride left Earth 30 years prior on the LIMA project in order to try to find extraterrestrial life by being stationed towards the outer portion of the solar system. Unfortunately, he and his crew were never heard from again.

After surviving a fall off of the international space antenna due to a surge that emanated from somewhere other than Earth, Space Command Major Roy McBride is told by a few of his superiors that they believe his father, Clifford, is still alive and that the surge, which is now repeating itself and threatens to disrupt Earth and its inhabitants, is emanating from the LIMA project stationed at Neptune.

Roy is tasked with traveling to Mars to try to make contact with his father. However, there are concerns being kept from Roy about the mental state of Clifford if indeed he still is alive. Eventually, Roy finds out about these secrets being kept from him and forces himself to confront his father himself, all the while realizing his own emotional state is not in control as he always thought it was. He must not only confront his father in the end, but also confront himself and his own emotional and mental state.
When Does Ad Astra take place?
On our podcast show, Chris guesses that this film takes place at minimum 100 years into the future if not 200. We discuss that technology doesn't to have seemed to advance as much as we might think. We do see the development of energy-based pistols (laser guns) as we experience a fantastic chase scene on the moon, and we also see that the human race can travel to the moon and other planets faster than today which seems to have led to a bit of colonization on the moon and Mars.

However, it is interesting to see that the ships traveling are still rocket-based and powered by fuel burning (it may be a different type of fuel since they can travel faster? but the audience doesn't really know, just our possible speculation). In addition, future-based films usually display a utopian or dystopian society. This society seems like it's the same, or as Chris simply put it on our podcast episode, things are okay (although, inflation has climbed really high as a pillow and a blanket costs $125 on a trip to the moon).

With all of that being said, there are some futuristic elements that the audience experiences in this film, but it doesn't seem like a huge leap in technological advances; therefore, our guess is 100 to 200 years into the future.
Ad Astra Director (and Writer)
James Gray is the director of Ad Astra and was also the main writer. We guess that this film was almost like a pet project, that he really wanted to make this film. Gray supposedly wanted to make one of the most accurate films to depict space travel. He does a great job as we have mentioned on the podcast before that space is a hostile environment, and it is definitely shown that way in Ad Astra.
Ad Astra Movie Cast
Brad Pitt as Roy McBride

Let's just start out by saying, wow! Pitt did a remarkable job with this character who needed to be portrayed as an extremely complicated man. Roy is a major with the Space Command who at first, seems to be someone who is constantly calm with his h...