The Martian - It has the look of a big hit

skizzerflake

skizzerflake

Audioholic Field Marshall
We saw The Martian last night, and, as popcorn movies, go, I thought it was really quite good. The theater was busy and the audience even applauded a couple times, so I’d say that it’s going to be a big hit. The story is fictional, taken from the novel of the same name (by Andy Weir) and directed by one of my favorite makers of blockbusters, Ridley Scott. While I have not liked all of Scott’s movies, some of them, notably Blade Runner, Alien, Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus, are all time favorites of mine, so I went with high hopes that Scott, as old as he is, still had the stuff to make another big one.

In case you have been hiding under the proverbial rock and have not seen a trailer, the story is about a Mars expedition in the not-too-distant future that goes bad. Matt Damon, the James Stewart of our era, plays Mark Watney, part of a team of astronauts on a Mars expedition. Unfortunately, he is blasted out of sight when a major malfunction happens on part of the installation during a storm, causing a large explosion. Thinking that Watney is dead and gone, the rest of the crew flees back to their ship and prepares for an emergency return to Earth. Only after they have left does Watney return to consciousness, dig himself out of the Martian sand, make his way back to the installation and realize that he’s really in a bad situation. He has no communication with Earth, not enough food and water to survive until the next expedition arrives four years in the future, and nobody even knows that he’s alive. His funeral has been broadcast on the media and the returning spacecraft can’t be turned around. Even if NASA knew that he was alive and got right on top of a rescue, it would still take too long. It’s obvious to Watney that he has to “science the sh*t out of this”. The first task is to communicate and let the world know that he is still alive, then to find a way to stretch a month’s worth of food into years.

This movie is a sort of Apollo13 on steroids….the situation is worse, the distance home is much greater and nobody knows that you are alive. Like Apollo 13, it’s also a movie that lends it self to that theme of all those eccentric technical experts in NASA pitching in, setting aside their differences, and finding a way to make the sort of innovation that turns copper wire and dried beans into lemonade…the great American talent for improvising in a crisis. NASA seems very dry and bureaucratic until they shift into this mindset. Then everybody is on their side. The story plays out, like most NASA missions, in the public forum. Everybody in the world soon knows about this and is rooting for Watney. If Watney gets back, everybody is a hero; if he doesn’t, NASA looks callous and inept. The Chinese government wants to get in on the rescue.

This is one of those movies that’s just made for Matt Damon. As I mentioned, as an actor, he is like the James Stewart of our era. When he plays an everyman, a nice guy who tries hard and just wants the simple things, he’s hard to beat in that role. Watney was made for Damon. The rest of the cast, notably Jessica Chasten, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean and Kate Mara, are as good as they need to be, but this isn’t that much of an actor’s film. What it IS, is a gadget and effects film. The Martian landscape seems believable, the sets and props all have that crystal-clear spacecraft look and the big scenes of lift-offs, passing space vehicles, etc, are all really done well. It is a visually excellent movie and since it’s those outer space visuals that make the story work, that spells success in my book. Dialog is dense, full of techie jargon, orbital mechanics, and space craft system talk…. a lot of that “the camiflex has to interface with the blubloggon cortex” sort of talk. I don’t know whether any of it was technically correct or just made up, but it goes past you so quick that it won’t really matter whether the math is right. Both I and the audience seemed to enjoy the movie, suspense takes you right up to the end, and the FX are excellent. If you’re looking for a right-stuff sort of adventure, this is just fine.


 
rojo

rojo

Audioholic Samurai
skizzerflake said:
... I don’t know whether any of it was technically correct or just made up, but it goes past you so quick that it won’t really matter whether the math is right.
The math is right for the most part as far as I've heard. NPR has been featuring several interviews on this flick lately. One of the interviewees was the author of the book, Andy Weir, himself. Andy, an IT tech by day, posted a chapter at a time on his blog, inviting criticism and suggestions by readers. He never actually set out to write a book. But a book is what Andy has now, one that has been crowd sourced and peer reviewed by geeks who often fixed his math, explained the technology, and basically helped him to make the story as plausible as possible. This was Andy's goal.

The only time artistic license requires suspension of disbelief is for the dust storm in the beginning. Since the Martian atmosphere is so thin, a 150 mile per hour wind storm in reality would have all the impact of a gentle breeze. A couple of NASA-ish engineers interviewed on NPR (I tuned in too late to hear the proper introductions) expressed this same criticism, suggesting that a solar flare and bombardment of the electronics by radiation would be a more likely danger actual astronauts would face on a mission such as this.

Be that as it may, all the other math and engineering is correct in the book, and Weir confirms that the movie follows the book faithfully. I'm highly interested in seeing this film.

Sent from my LG-VS980 using Forum Fiend OSP v1.3.3.
 
skizzerflake

skizzerflake

Audioholic Field Marshall
Interesting. I didn't know the background of the story and Weir. I know enough to know that the spacecraft/orbital science seemed conceptually correct, but there were a lot of words in the NASA dialog, so I didn't want to say that I thought it had full rigor. The storm didn't seem right since Martian atmosphere is so thin, but it was important to the plot setup, so I was mainly saying to myself...."it's a movie". I was thinking that the other way they might have set it up (without extraterrestrials) would be an earthquake, but then Mars seems to be tectonically dead too. In either event, they needed some device at the movie's beginning to explain how Watney got lost and why the crew left without him and the storm worked in that respect.
 
Speedskater

Speedskater

Audioholic General
I saw a preview showing two weeks ago. The story line continually contradicts it's self. Like at some points, NASA has money to burn (a Earth to Mars ship big enough for 100 but only 6 are aboard) but at other times they don't have money to do simple things. At one point wind is the big problem, but at 2 other times because of the thin atmosphere, wind is no problem. At some points Watney is brilliant but at other times, he's dumb as a rock. If you were stranded on a desert island, wouldn't you write S O S in the sand? If your mission failed, do you really think that the next mission in 4 years would go as scheduled?
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
I saw a preview showing two weeks ago. The story line continually contradicts it's self. Like at some points, NASA has money to burn (a Earth to Mars ship big enough for 100 but only 6 are aboard) but at other times they don't have money to do simple things.
Let me tell you about this little thing called politics and government funding...:)
 
ImcLoud

ImcLoud

Audioholic Ninja
It was OK, I watched that and black mass last night, black mass was good, For us that are less than an hour from southy, its kind of like hearing the same old story over again with different faces and better production values, no new info, but an entertaining cast and the story as old as it is, is still interesting...

As for martian, it was entertaining, triggered emotion on a few occasions but nothing overwhelming, the story was cool, I feel like I wanted more suspense and action than was there, not that it was advertised that way, just kind of felt like a 2+ hour film that would have been more entertaining if I read it and was able to make it more exciting myself...

BOTH worth watching if anyone cares, lol...
 
mtrycrafts

mtrycrafts

Seriously, I have no life.
I saw a preview showing two weeks ago. The story line continually contradicts it's self. Like at some points, NASA has money to burn (a Earth to Mars ship big enough for 100 but only 6 are aboard) but at other times they don't have money to do simple things. At one point wind is the big problem, but at 2 other times because of the thin atmosphere, wind is no problem. At some points Watney is brilliant but at other times, he's dumb as a rock. If you were stranded on a desert island, wouldn't you write S O S in the sand? If your mission failed, do you really think that the next mission in 4 years would go as scheduled?
I didn't see it yet but that storm bothers me a lot with that thin atmosphere. They could have thought up a better causal factor like a meteor shower?
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
Just saw it yesterday, what can I about new rendition of Cast away on Mars?
It's certainly not bad movie and has it's moments, but it's a one time fling - Watch it for two hours, get mildly entrained, return the DVD and move on.
Overall score: 7/10
 
3db

3db

Audioholic Slumlord
OoooooooKkkkkkkkkkkkk.. After reading the posts here, I will be not buying this flick on BluRay...
 
L

Locoweed

Audioholic Intern
Watched it tonight. Pretty decent flic. I'll give it a 8.
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
Watched it tonight. Pretty good movie and Matt Damon did a good job. I wouldn't call it the best movie I've watched lately, but definitely worth watching.
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
^^How was the 3D?
Didn't watch it in 3D. I've still been trying to find a good 3D emitter for the PJ, but haven't found one at a price I want to pay on ebay. I think I've only used the 3D on the TV's once so far. I may revisit 3D, but on the TV it didn't really interest me all that much. It seemed too small, if you can call a 64" TV too small, to get a good effect. To be fair, my new seating position puts me about 14+ ft away from the TV and I haven't even tried 3D on the TV downstairs.
 
DTS

DTS

Senior Audioholic
Kind of screwed up on this one. Held out for the 4k version, but realized last night that the Oppo didnt care for the disc, or, what disc. ended up watching the bluray. Guess I didnt think that one through very well :rolleyes:
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
Kind of screwed up on this one. Held out for the 4k version, but realized last night that the Oppo didnt care for the disc, or, what disc. ended up watching the bluray. Guess I didnt think that one through very well :rolleyes:
Yup, as you found out Oppo hasn't released a 4K player yet. Plans are in the works for one, but it doesn't appear they're in any rush.

If you're itching to play that 4K disc, I've had pretty good luck with the Sony BD players. Actually using a Sony upstairs and replaced the Oppo 103D with a Sony 5500 downstairs.
 
Irvrobinson

Irvrobinson

Audioholic Spartan
I just saw The Martian for the first time. Not bad. The NASA Pleiades supercomputer in the movie is real, BTW.

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/hecc/resources/pleiades.html

Sort of small for a supercomputer by 2016 standards, but something like 5 PFLOPs nonetheless, and better than your average laptop computer. I can't help but love a dual-plane hypercube FDR InfiniBand cluster interconnect too.
 
newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top