It’s meant to be a riff on Apocalypse Now, Pitt’s journey being a mirror for society’s. It does play fast and loose w a lot of the ‘hard’ sci-fi elements. The space travel, in particular, makes 0 sense.

That said, if you look at the whole thing as a metaphor, it’s quite brilliant imo. Grey is making a movie about fathers and sons, using the cinematic language of his ‘fathers’ - Kubrick and Coppola. Like other Gen X filmmakers, Grey is deeply indebted to these flawed men w insane, grand visions. It’s really sophisticated in that light.