Brad Pitt fights space pirates on the moon in first clip from Ad Astra

As if reading our minds, 20th Century Fox released the Ad Astra scene we've all been salivating over from the trailers: that epic lunar rover sequence. On par with the chariot race from Ben-Hur or any of the train heists from classic Western films, the clip finds Major Roy McBride (played by Brad Pitt) coming into conflict with pirates...wait for it...on the moon. At the moment, we can't think of anything more badass than that, can you?

With a nice bit of sci-fi world-building, the scene begins with Roy landing on a massive moon base that functions as a sort of waystation akin to an airport or train terminal. From there, he space-suits up to take a peaceful drive on the moon, which leads to a beautifully-shot moment of the Earth from a great distance, making us feel like puny little ants from up there. But the majestic tranquility of the cosmos is wholly shattered when Roy and his party are mercilessly attacked by the above-mentioned space-faring scallywags.

Feast your eyes on the awesomeness below:

Directed and co-written by James Gray (The Lost City of Z), the ambitious genre film follows Pitt's character as he searches the solar system for his long lost father, Clifford McBride (played by Tommy Lee Jones), who may or may not be planning to detonate an anti-matter bomb, which could literally end the entire universe. Having enjoyed its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last weekend, Ad Astra received a mostly positive reception from critics and currently holds an 87 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. Some even likened the movie to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (just in space) in their reviews. 

Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, Ruth Negga, John Ortiz, Natasha Lyonne, and Jamie Kennedy comprise the rest of the ensemble cast.

Ad Astra lands on the lunar surface of movie theaters everywhere Friday, Sep. 20.