The disturbing detail about Grace’s ending that Project Hail Mary completely missed out

There’s one pretty shocking detail about Grace’s ending from the Project Hail Mary book that the film completely missed out, and it’s so gross.

If you’ve only watched the film, you might not have even questioned it. Ryland Grace ends up living on Rocky’s planet, Erid, safe inside a specially built habitat. He’s teaching, exploring, and actually seems quite happy.

But there’s one very obvious question the film doesn’t really answer.

What is he actually eating?

So in the book, this is explained, and it’s a bit grim. At first, Grace survives by eating Taumoeba, the same micro-organism he and Rocky discover that can eat Astrophage. It keeps him alive, but it’s not exactly ideal long-term. So naturally, the Eridians look for a better solution.

And this is where things get a bit… weird. The Eridian scientists take a sample of Grace’s own muscle tissue, replicate it, and turn it into food. So, he ends up eating what he calls “me burgers.”

Baiscally, they’re burgers made from his own cloned human cells. Technically, it’s not harming him, since the tissue is grown separately, but still… it’s hard to ignore the fact that it’s essentially a form of cannibalism.

And it’s as uncomfortable as it sounds.

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It’s actually quite important to the story

via Amazon MGM

One of the big themes in Project Hail Mary is problem-solving. Every challenge has a scientific solution, no matter how strange it might be. And this is a perfect example of that.

Grace can’t eat Eridian food. He can’t survive long-term on Taumoeba alone. So, the solution is to literally grow food from his own body. It’s gross, sure, but it fits the logic of the story.

In the film, though, this is completely skipped over. We see Grace settled on Erid, but there’s no real explanation of how he’s surviving day to day. It’s just sort of left out.

So, while the film keeps most of the big ideas from the book, this is one moment that didn’t make it to the screen. Another detail that wasn’t explained was what actually happened to Grace’s crew members and why they died.

Anyway, the details of the me burgers definitely make the ending a bit more unsettling.

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