4 min readApr 7, 2026 01:12 PM IST First published on: Apr 7, 2026 at 01:12 PM ISTWhenever alien life makes contact with Earth — as documented by folks in Hollywood — they always seem to end up in America. Precisely why an alien civilisation that has mastered interstellar travel is unable to navigate to any other spot on our planet is never quite explained in these accounts. This tunnel vision of our extraterrestrial visitors lets the United States hog a lot of starry action.Back in 1982, for instance, an American kid got to pedal his bicycle into the night sky (ET), though perhaps that was not such a novelty. A bicycle ride on our roads, even today, can feel like an excursion on the lunar surface. Handling so much planetary traffic also meant the US could institute a secret agency of men (and women) who made black suits and sunglasses look unimaginably cool (Men in Black). And when visiting aliens turned hostile, it became America’s job to defend the world. In one instance, on July 4, 1996, the President himself flew a jet after giving a rousing speech (Independence Day).AdvertisementIn more recent years, Hollywood has acknowledged that the endeavour to defend our planet from otherworldly attacks could benefit from a bit of collaboration. When kaijus emerged from a rift in the ocean bed, deep beneath the Pacific, nations joined hands to create an elite squad (Pacific Rim). That the Chinese and the Russian members perished almost instantly was a tad unfortunate. Still, it signalled that an extinction-level threat could encourage bickering humans to band together — a premise that Alan Moore, too, explored in the graphic novel Watchmen (also adapted by Hollywood).Also Read | From page to screen, from a character to Ryan Gosling: The shifting tones of ‘Project Hail Mary’Project Hail Mary draws from this noble tradition of depicting an Earth that faces ruin, and must marshal all its resources, borders be damned.In the movie, Ryan Gosling’s Ryland Grace occupies the centrestage. The Sun is dimming, and he is at the sharp end of the spear humanity has hurled at the problem. It is a hefty throw, sending him nearly 12 light-years away, off to a distant galaxy to find a fix that’ll save life on Earth. While it is, yet again, an American who is meant to be our saviour, there are allusions to plurality in the background. Eva Stratt, the enigmatic leader of the mission, is European. Grace’s crew members include a Chinese and a Russian astronaut; though regrettably — and one cannot help but see a pattern here — they are dead before you’ve taken the first bite of popcorn. There is even a Sikh officer who pops up in a couple of scenes, looking a bit lost, as if he expected to feature in the blockbuster Hindi movie playing in the adjoining theatre but wandered into the wrong screen.AdvertisementIn the book, the writer Andy Weir had the luxury to build a scaffolding that supported Grace’s galactic adventure. Pages were devoted to constructing the global alliance of scientists and militaries that made Project Hail Mary possible. A movie doesn’t allow such indulgences, but it does convey the idea in one sequence. Grace and a government agent, Carl, fool around at a hardware store before assuring the cashier of their credit-worthiness. They are working with the government, they claim. Which one, the cashier asks. Carl answers with a sombre face: “All of them”.In a movie about extraterrestrial microbes feeding on the sun, and a space-faring human being befriending a faceless, but endearing, alien to save two civilisations, this statement is the one that feels most implausible today.The writer is a lawyer