When Ad Astra came out years ago, I was dismissive. I remember liking the moon sequence, but being underwhelmed aside from that. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with me. Randomly rewatching it a few weeks ago, I was blown away by it. The fact that it was basically James Gray’s version of Apocalypse Now in space finally clicked with me (Apocalypse Now is one of my favorite films of all time). That alone made me want to write about this movie, even though the film wasn’t exactly relevant. Until recently. First, Robert Duvall passed away, which adds to Apocalypse Now comparison. And when Gray was at Cannes this year, he brought up that he would love to make a director’s cut of Ad Astra, which would be twelve minutes shorter and a very different movie. So after watching the film five times (one of which with the director’s commentary), I felt it was time to write about my latest cinematic obsession.
Apocalypse Now…in Space!
Ad Astra owes a lot to Apocalypse Now, which James Gray admits to in his commentary (more on that commentary later), though he speaks just as much about the source novel for that film, Heart of Darkness. The comparison is easy enough if you’ve seen both films. A soldier is sent on a secret mission to take out a commanding officer who went too far, literally and figuratively, and has lost control. In Apocalypse, the setting is Vietnam, with Col. Kurtz deep in the jungle, acting like a mad king. The soldier, Captain Willard, is on a purely military mission, though his own journey to Kurtz makes him question everything.
Ad Astra is a much more personal story with astronaut Roy McBride on a mission to stop his father, Cliff McBride, whose brutal attempts to keep his own mission alive have caused dangerous power surges that are wreaking havoc on the entire universe. Unlike in Apocalypse, Roy is ordered to stand down early on due to the personal nature of it all. But Roy defies orders and makes his way to his father.
This is the biggest difference. Both films delve into what the mission is doing to the protagonist, but Apocalypse Now is much more existential and more concerned with pointing out the absurdity and insanity of war, especially the Vietnam War. Ad Astra isn’t too interested in making statements about space travel in general aside from some commentary about attempting to make the moon just like Earth, which is missing the point of space exploration. Instead, it’s much more about the inner turmoil of Roy. His missing father has dominated his life, resulting in a failed relationship and a constant numbness that makes him oddly suitable for life in space.
Willard is a man so conditioned by war that it’s become the only thing he can relate to, and Roy has become conditioned by space travel in much the same way.
By the end of Apocalypse Now, Willard seems like a shell of a man. The war and mission has gutted him, but at least he survives. It’s fairly nihilistic. Ad Astra, on the other hand, shows that Roy has had a breakthrough in the end. He is able to rebuild his relationship now that he’s confronted his father. The numbness is gone, and he can finally live a life that is truly his own. It’s a surprising and refreshingly uplifting ending.
Beyond that admittedly important difference, there are a lot of one to one comparisons between the two films. There’s the basic man on a mission to stop a lone madman, but the debriefing scene is similar, as well, with multiple people being very vague with Roy as they talk about the mission. I think of John Ortiz as the Jerry Zeismer of Ad Astra. (I’ll include a picture below to explain that idiotically specific comparison.) Ortiz talks more than Jerry, but he still exudes the same oddly congenial tone while discussing secretive shit and a mission that ultimately ends with Roy’s father being killed.
Roy’s trip to the moon covers two segments of Apocalypse: the USO show and the attack on the village. When Roy first gets to the moon, we see the Americanification of it with plenty of vendors (there’s even an Applebee’s!) and kids taking pictures with people in alien costumes all while the moon is essentially a warzone. It’s this insane element of “normal” life in an abnormal world. The “Ride of the Valkyries” moment isn’t so much an exact comparison aside from both being the heaviest action set pieces of both films. Though both moments solely exist because the main character is hitching a ride with them. And both moments are arguably the most memorable sequences in both films.
The sequence with the animal research ship is the dead giveaway that this is a version of Apocalypse. It covers multiple comparison points. The crazed primate is the tiger from Apocalypse. Both moments accentuate the truth of “Never get off the boat.” The other moment it mimics is the stopping of the fishing boat. In both moments, the protagonist argues with the captain of the ship to not stop, but gives in. The dark moment when Willard kills the wounded fishermen is also covered with Roy trying to patch up the clearly dead captain with duct tape (“We’d cut ‘em in half with a machine gun and give ‘em a band-aid.”). Although Roy is much more compassionate in this regard than Willard.
The Mars segment is similar to the bridge in Apocalypse Now in that both sequences feel the most, well, apocalyptic. There’s the strange coloring of Mars and the bunker aesthetics of it all, and the continuing surges have everyone feeling a bit crazed.
And finally there’s the Kurtz / Tommy Lee Jones parallels. Both have gone too far, literally and figuratively. Jones is alone, having killed every crew member who eventually wanted to abandon their hopeless mission of finding intelligent human life. He was the only one willing to give up his life on Earth in this pursuit. Kurtz also gave up on everything to create his small kingdom, and he killed anyone who challenged him (“You’re lookin’ at the heads.”). Both men also accepted, and even asked for their deaths. By encountering the soldier tasked with killing them, Kurtz and Jones both have a realization that the only thing that will stop them is death. Once again, Jones’s death is a kind of wake up call for Roy, freeing him from this life. Kurtz’s death frees Willard literally, but there isn’t much hope with his end.
Aside from the specific plot points, there are plenty of other similar aspects. The narration is the big one, though I find the Ad Astra narration largely unnecessary. A lot of it is just stating stuff the film has already conveyed. Not to mention, the Donald Sutherland character allows for Roy to get a lot of his thoughts out there, negating the need for voice-over, at least for that segment. The narration in Apocalypse is vital and often entertaining, by comparison.
Both protagonists are death-bringers. Lance technically survives in Apocalypse, but that dude is never going to be the same. And Roy gets everyone killed everywhere he goes. The Cepheus crew seem to be nearly suicidal when they attack him. It’s just another aspect to amp up how lonely these characters are.
Most importantly, both movies are beautiful, thought-provoking, and entertaining. It took me a while, but I finally realized how great Ad Astra is, and I now consider it a worthy companion to Apocalypse Now.
The Lack of Duvall
One glaring omission from this comparison is Robert Duvall’s Kilgore. There isn’t a similar character in Ad Astra, and that’s for the best. Duvall shows up and takes over that film for twenty minutes. He’s an example of a type of soldier in that war. A force of nature that the war can’t touch. He’s annoying, hilarious, and somehow still likeable despite his invincible status and love of war.
There’s simply no way to recapture such a character and performance in any film. And with Ad Astra, such a character would derail the film rather than add to it. Willard is the main character of Apocalypse, but that movie is just as interested in the absurdity of war as it is with his inner turmoil. Ad Astra is all about Roy’s journey, and any side quest with a crazy space man would feel out of place.
And Duvall has no equal, so why bother?
Director’s Cut?
James Gray has spoken about this multiple times, but I’m starting to cool on this prospect. At first, I liked the idea of him doing a director’s cut because it could mean that the narration would be cut back or excised entirely, which I might like. But after listening to his commentary and seeing some behind-the-scenes stuff, I’m not sure what the changes would be.
I still want him to make his cut of the film, especially since its creation doesn’t negate the theatrical cut that I already love. I’m not sure what happened with the film being “taken away” from Gray, but he was involved with the blu-ray special features, so I’m not sure how true that is. I guess his commentary and everything is just him playing ball? So I’m not sure how much stock I can put into anything he said on that. I am interested in his claim that he would make a shorter movie, especially since Ad Astra isn’t that long, especially by space epic standards. Anyway, I checked out all the blu-ray shit, so I’m still going to write a little bit about it.
In the commentary, Gray claims the narration is “essential,” and that he was part of the decision to add it. He also claims plenty of people worked on it, including Charlie Kaufman. The treatment of the narration, and whether it would survive at all, is the most interesting part of the prospect of a director’s cut for me. He also talks about how any movie is like a wild horse that eventually gets away from you, so maybe that’s his diplomatic way of saying the studio took the film away from him in editing.
The deleted scenes don’t offer much. One features a brief flash forward with Pitt and Liv Tyler with a young child. That’s not ground-breaking, since the ending implies they get back together already.
In one of the behind-the-scenes featurettes, it looks like Gray filmed a rave scene on Mars with people half-naked and whatnot. Maybe Gray shouldn’t get a shot at that director’s cut.
Seriously, though, the possibility of a director’s cut is the final comparison to Apocalypse Now, which has three total cuts. I usually prefer director’s cuts, but I’ve always been a much bigger fan of the theatrical cut of Apocalypse Now, and I think that would end up being the case with Ad Astra, as well. Especially if Gray wants to include a half hour scene with Pitt hanging out at a French space station having dinner and discussing politics.