A couple decades went by, and then we wanted to work together on something in science fiction. After we graduated, we worked together on a project that almost got made but didn’t. We graduated from USC together years ago. What are the origins of this really unique story?Įthan Gross: James and I are friends. Inverse: Totally original sci-fi feels like a rarity in 2019. Yeah, the “hardship” part makes a lot of sense. That’s a heavy premise, even without the psychological trauma and baggage that Roy deals with on an epic journey further into space than almost anyone else in human history. In Ad Astra, Brad Pitt plays Roy McBride, an emotionally distant astronaut who’s tasked with traveling far out into the solar system to find his own father and stop an anti-matter power source that threatens to destroy all of human life. The unspoken part of the name, the ‘per aspera’, is really what a lot of the movie is about.” "The unspoken part of the name, the ‘per aspera’, is really what a lot of the movie is about. “It has a little bit of mysteriousness to it. “I wrote ‘Ad Astra’ as a temporary placeholder name on the file, but we always liked it,” Gross says. While researching this phrase, Gross stumbled upon a more classic Latin phrase: “ad astra per aspera.” It means “to the stars through hardship.” The song, “What It Means to Be Alone,” includes one lyric that Gross was particularly drawn to: “‘Ab ovo,’ the angel sings, ‘Ad astra.’” Literally, this translates to, “The angel sings, ‘From the egg to the stars.” But a more accurate translation of that second line might be, “From the beginning to the end.” (No, not that Deerhunter, but they’re connected too.) In an interview, Gross tells Inverse that he first heard the words “ad astra” a decade earlier while listening to a song by the progressive rock band The Dear Hunter. That’s because the title, which was originally just a placeholder, is part of a longer song lyric that inspired Ethan Gross ( Fringe) when he was writing Ad Astra with director James Gray. The weirdest thing about Ad Astra may be its title, a trimmed Latin phrase that hints at the movie’s interplanetary scope while also hiding a deeper meaning.
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