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I was once again too tired to make a post yesterday, but Julia came over and we went to see Ad Astra, which I found quite remarkable in some ways. In the opening scene, a man plummets down from an orbital station to earth; the entire film looked pretty spectacular but that scene in particular was moving in a way that I can’t quite describe. It did an excellent job of portraying not only the vast loneliness and beauty of space, which are well-known at this point; but the banality of human efforts to understand it as well, with very believable depictions of commercial space travel (incl. the all-too-familiar overpriced amenities of the airlines, now also covering interplanetary travel – a hot towel for $125! – and even an Applebee’s on the landing terminal of the moon) and bureaucratic alienation. I found the film’s overall mood to be at once discomfiting in a sobering manner, yet also cautiously optimistic as well, and affirming of human interests and relationships. It reminded me in a positive way of how I felt after I watched Arrival.

Anyways, between yesterday and today, I worked on implementing the rudimentary foundation for actions involving the multitool, starting with the simplest function, which is digging. Well, when I say “simplest”, that’s what I thought at the time since it would involve no interaction with the environment other than choosing a spot clear of other objects: the actual animation turned out to be remarkably complex and involved, if not the most difficult one I’ve had to do so far outright. To be honest, I’m still not satisfied with the one I ended up with – something about the motion looks wrong, like the weight and angle is off somehow – and the sound design is really shit as well but I can’t tell yet if I want to work on it more and refine it now, or move onto the other functions and get those done before coming back and refining each of them post-scriptum. We’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow, I suppose…