A routine moon patrol turns very ugly very quickly. Gif : Disney/Fox

A new sneak peek at Ad Astra is all about Brad Pitt heading to the moon to help with a pesky problem, before having to deal with space daddy issues.




James Gray’s Ad Astra centers around an astronaut named Roy McBride (Pitt) who’s tasked with a critical and personal mission: He’s sent into deep space to find his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who’s traveled further into deep space than any human before him...and may be putting the entire galaxy at risk. But before that happens, Roy heads to the international moon base—which, hilariously and rather grimly, is just full of stores and ads—where he ends up helping security thwart some pirates who’ve been taking hostages and stealing cargo. Naturally, things go very wrong, very quickly:

The clip is full of space action, and it’s clear that Gray is following through on his commitment to make this film look and feel as realistic as possible. Similar to shows like Firefly, Ad Astra tries to honor the “guns and lasers aren’t loud in space” thing, and the whole action scene is tense and evocative.


But even with the intensity of the action going on here, I can’t help but chuckle a bit at the idea of moon pirates. I keep singing that Futurama jingle, albeit a little altered: “We’re pirates on the moon.” Yes, I know, piracy is a very serious problem. But also, c’mon: they’re mooooooon pirates. That’s just fun to say, tense clip or otherwise.



Ad Astra arrives in theaters on September 20.

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