Sci-fi is one of the most popular genres in entertainment but it’s just an umbrella. Within the world of overall sci-fi there are a lot of different kinds of science fiction, including something called hard science fiction. It’s a genre that’s characterized by the details of things, specifically a heavy focus on scientific accuracy, scenarios that while still fiction are at least realistic or theoretically possible, as well as deep technical detail. It’s the science in science fiction and while that might sound daunting, what’s interesting about hard sci-fi is that it’s really just the framework for the larger story. You get a lot of facts and figures, but you get entertainment as well. Right now, an exciting new hard sci-fi movie is heading into theaters with the upcoming Project Hail Mary and while that movie is getting a lot of buzz, there’s another brilliant hard sci-fi movie that just landed on a new streaming home for free — you just probably forgot the movie existed.
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The movie in question is 2019’s Ad Astra. Starring Brad Pit, the film follows an astronaut Roy McBride (Pitt) who goes into space to look for his father, also an astronaut (Tommy Lee Jones) who was lost while on a mission to search for intelligent life nearly three decades earlier. The film was very well received by critics, but audiences at the time weren’t as warm on it. However, with the film now available to stream for free on Tubi — and with hard sci-fi gaining a bit more popularity — now is a perfect time to revisit what is not just one of Pitt’s best performances, but a deeply moving film.
Ad Astra Is About Much More than Space and Science
While science is a major part of Ad Astra — the situation that sparks McBride’s mission involves cosmic rays originating near Neptune that threaten life on Earth — it’s actually a story about being human. Not only is the mission personal for McBride as the origin location for the cosmic rays is near where his father’s mission was lost, but McBride is dealing with his own concerns. He’s estranged from his wife, he’s lonely, and there is, of course, the relationship he had with his father. The science is a huge part of the story and space is what ties father and son together, but it’s the story of human relationships that is really at the core.
It’s a core story that is delivered beautifully. Ad Astra is a stunning film with incredible production values so it looks wonderful, but the actors all deliver excellent performances. Jones as Clifford McBride, Roy’s father, is frustrating and heartbreaking and enraging in equal measure (particularly in his final scenes with Pitt’s Roy). As for Pitt, he delivers a nuanced performance that is easily one of the actor’s best ever. Both actors convey a great deal of emotion and it heightens the stakes and makes the story much more approachable than merely being a science forward space epic.
Unfortunately, Ad Astra didn’t do particularly well at the theaters and many people have forgotten the movie even exists. However, it is truly a masterpiece of the hard sci-fi subgenre and really deserves another chance now that’s it is free to stream on Tubi.
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