The Martian - Grading & Discussion

[ManOnTheWave]

Solid A from me. Really enjoyed it last night. Really the only thing I did not like was Watney's use of "science" as a verb. And that was really just from the trailer. In the context of the movie, it works because of the character's sense of humor.

All in all, I liked it more than Interstellar, which I thought was great, and Gravity, which had its moments both good and bad.

 

[Miss Chicken]

A friend of mine thinks that the movie is unrealistic because she believes if an astronaut was stranded on Mars there would not be any attempt at a rescue mission.

 

[Tulin]

"A-" has been the lowest anyone has voted so far. People love this movie almost unanimously. When was the last time that happened?

Whoops - sorry - I was the B+.



I only gave it that because it was slightly too long and there were too many "We're three quarters there but then something happens and we have to use bailing wire and spit to fix it......and WE MADE IT but, uh oh, now SOMETHING ELSE has gone wrong.....wait a minute, if we just......" to the point where it was almost distracting.


Otherwise, along with Fury Road, one of THE BEST films I've seen this year!


And PLEASE tell me that wasn't Damon in the skinny back view coming out of the shower. That was ALL kinds of YUCK!!!!

 

[Mach5]

A friend of mine thinks that the movie is unrealistic because she believes if an astronaut was stranded on Mars there would not be any attempt at a rescue mission.

She obviously missed the whole point then. Jeff Daniels' character was the embodiment of the "realistic" she was talking about. It was there, in the movie, and the heroes of this movie chose to defy it. Because drama and stuff.

 

[Starkers]

An excellent film adapted from an excellent book. See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

It’s not quite perfect, which is why I gave it an A, it still felt a smidgen too long and during the whole resupply mission/Chinese space agency/Rich Purnell’s plan/ Hermes bits it did seem like Damon was conspicuous by his absence but I’m being picky. Wonderful direction, great effects and a really top draw cast, including another great performance from Michael Pena (who was the best thing about Ant Man in many ways).

I know NASA astronauts often fly on multiple missions, but it still seemed odd that Martinez got to go back to Mars via another Hermes flight!

 

[Mach5]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

 

[Tulin]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

Which doesn't bode well for the next instalment(s).

[Sir Ridley] "Is it pudding time yet? [/Sir Ridley]

 

[Mach5]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

Which doesn't bode well for the next instalment(s).

Damon Lindelof isn't writing the sequel, so there's still hope.

 

[Starkers]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

He was interviewed for the radio on the Kermode and Mayo show the other week and it was put to him that the one thing he'd never done was an out and out comedy.

At which point he said that he had. Thelma and Louise...

 

[Mach5]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

He was interviewed for the radio on the Kermode and Mayo show the other week and it was put to him that the one thing he'd never done was an out and out comedy.

At which point he said that he had. Thelma and Louise...

I doubt he was being serious.

He made "A Good Year", though. A rom-com, which I honestly loved.

 

[Trekker4747]

And PLEASE tell me that wasn't Damon in the skinny back view coming out of the shower. That was ALL kinds of YUCK!!!!

Damon was willing to lose weight to show the malnourished Watney (though I suspect the wouldn't have lost weight so drastically) but a body-double was used instead. Notice when we see skinny Watney's body we never see his head and face and when we see Watney's face we don't see his body.

 

[Christopher]

^I'm surprised they didn't go the Captain America Skinny-Steve route and use digital effects to alter Damon's proportions or put his head on the double's body.

 

[Owain Taggart]

So, apparently some people think "The Martian" is inspired by real events. Because at some point in the last 20-years or so we not only sent multiple manned missions to Mars, but one of them was plagued with numerous problems; including a stranded astronaut, and this all happened without making national news enough to be notrworthily memorable.

That's hilarious, considering if there were a manned mission, being that it's a significant achievement, we'd all have heard of it. It wouldn't be kept secret. Having a guy stranded out on Mars wouldn't be insignificant either.

 

[sidious618]

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

And he'd be correct! *drops the mic*

 

[Shaka Zulu]

An excellent film adapted from an excellent book. See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

It’s not quite perfect, which is why I gave it an A, it still felt a smidgen too long and during the whole resupply mission/Chinese space agency/Rich Purnell’s plan/ Hermes bits it did seem like Damon was conspicuous by his absence but I’m being picky. Wonderful direction, great effects and a really top draw cast, including another great performance from Michael Pena (who was the best thing about Ant Man in many ways).

I know NASA astronauts often fly on multiple missions, but it still seemed odd that Martinez got to go back to Mars via another Hermes flight!

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

See Ridley, this is what you can do with a script that makes sense!

Sadly, he still believes Prometheus was brilliant.

Which doesn't bode well for the next instalment(s).

[Sir Ridley] "Is it pudding time yet? [/Sir Ridley]

As I showed in the link that I posted before, Prometheus does make sense when you analyse it logically, and not when you use previous horror/science fiction movies and TV shows to judge it. The people on board the ship weren't Starfleet officers that had been on a million billion gazilon planets doing exploratory surveys before, they were the first human beings to explore sentient life on another planet. Therefore, they were bound to make mistakes on first contact with an alien life form.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Solid film, often brilliant, but except for a few moments (like Whatney counting potatoes while listening to the wind *shudders*) I didn't connect to the characters as much as I would have liked to. I would have also liked a better sense of separation, not only in terms of Whatney's isolation, but in how the people back on Earth and Hermes felt trying to communicate with him.

Maybe I'll feel different on a second viewing though.

 

[Mach5]

Prometheus does make sense when you analyse it logically

No.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

It does, but the unfortunate logical conclusion is that everyone hired for the trip were idiots

 

[Tulin]

Solid film, often brilliant, but except for a few moments (like Whatney counting potatoes while listening to the wind *shudders*)

Weird.

Why was that not a good moment?

I personally thought that was one of the scariest moments of the film - it gave that sense of COMPLETE isolation, of being on an ALIEN world where even the wind could turn against you and kill you. It was creepy as all hell and VERY alien.

What a strange criticism.

 

[Tulin]

Prometheus does make sense when you analyse it logically

No.

Disco Cylon Fett knows of what he speaks.

"Prometheus" was like the Playboy Mansion. Everything looks very pretty but it's filled with idiots.