Talk:Ad Astra (film)

Release date
Regarding this film's release date, I restored it after removed it with the personal claim that it will not be released at that time. The editor removed it again, but restored the details. Wikipedia is based on verifiability, and this is the most current reliably-sourced information that we know. For example, for The Rhythm Section, it looked like it would possibly be released this month, but it was postponed, and sources wrote about it. We need to do the same here and wait for sources to notice this, especially since the distributor made a firm and specific announcement. It was not a nebulous "sometime next year" statement. Let's keep it until we see what sources write. In the meantime, we could even include commentary from sources about a lack of marketing, if they exist. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:07, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

JFL43 got blocked, and I just noticed the page history of the constant removals. (I did not think to look before.) Hopefully my comment above will contextualize why the content should stay. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is an article just today (Feb 28) about it being released. This is what I mean by waiting on sources to notice release details. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is commentary about a potential delay. We can expand the "Release" section to reflect this current information. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 17:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC)


 * It will be released on Thursday September 19 here in New Zealand.

Just watched it today at Cineworld in the UK so that release date is most definitely wrong Jellinator (talk) 15:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Harry Harrison?
Is this based on the Harrison short story of the same name?
 * Kortoso (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

I think it must be based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, perhaps by way of Coppola's Apocalypse Now? The Company (ivory traders, US Army, Spacecom) dispatches an expedition to the edge of the solar system (up the Congo, up the River) into the heart of darkness to find out what's become of their star employee (Kurtz, in both the Congo and Viet Nam, Clifford McBride here). Everyone speaks reverently of this hero, but it's clear he has gone off the rails and no one is willing to say how or why.... The purpose of the expedition is to recover or retrieve Kurtz and/or kill him. In the novel and in Apocalypse Now and in Ad Astra, it is never clear until the very end which option shall be taken. Ad Astra veers from this somewhat -- we never get the sense Roy might join his father; Roy does rescue his father (and the project's databanks) from the Lima vessel, but he dies anyway -- sort of like they writer wanted to have ALL possible endings rolled into one. So there you go. 70.27.171.169 (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Not "Underground Lake"
Describing the water under the rocket as an "underground lake" is not accurate; it is not there for some other reason or as a convenience to the plot. ALL interplanetary rockets have a large reservoir of water directly under the rocket engines. The water is coolant, to cool the launchpad itself so the whole thing doesn't get burned up by the rocket.

Look at footage of any launch from the Kennedy Space Center. See all those white clouds around the rocket's base? That's steam - the result of the coolant water being vaporized. 96.252.83.132 (talk) 14:14, 21 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Just FYI, the water isn't precisely there as a coolant (it does convert heavily to steam due to the heat, but that's a side issue). It's to suppress the propagation of powerful acoustic waves generated by the rocket exhaust. The launch pad is able to suffer the heat of the exhaust much more than it can withstand the mechanical vibrations. Consider the gantries at the pads. They aren't fed any water at all, and they are bathed in hot exhaust, yet they aren't trashed. The Russian space program doesn't use water at all. Instead, the Russians have their pads situated over enormous dry pits.
 * And really, I don't know what that water was supposed to be for in the movie, but one thing I do know is that, on a planet where water is hard to come by, I wouldn't waste a cavern full of the stuff every time a rocket is launched. The acoustical problem also shouldn't be near as big a problem on Mars; the atmospheric density near the ground is 1% that on Earth near Sea Level. Transmission of mechanical wave energy will be very much less efficient than on Earth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.145.220.11 (talk • contribs)

It was literally referred to as an "underground lake" by Ruth Negga's character 82.33.183.17 (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC notice
There is a request for comment whose outcome may affect this article: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film. Nardog (talk) 16:30, 21 September 2019 (UTC)