The Martian

[DaveYanakov]

If you watched Apollo 13 and got excited by the scene where the engineers dumped a box of parts on the table and had to figure out how to connect this to that using these parts or they all die.

If you wanted a movie that was just two hours of that scene.

If you want a movie that perfectly encapsulates the feeling you get when you brick something important because you missed a loose wire.



I know that there is an audience for this movie here besides just me

[FlowerChild]

Looks right up my alley as well :)

[Taleric]

I did hear a friend mention the book but the film trailer was a welcome surprise. Looks like he gets communications "quick" so do we will not get to see his lone entertainment value as much as Tom Hanks. Can't wait for it though :)

[Battlecat]

The book is absolutely superb. I have high hopes for the movie as well.

[Larmantine]

All aboard the hype train! I'm mainly excited for this because of Ridley Scott. So far I haven't seen a film from him that I didn't enjoy. Haven't seen them all though.

[magikeh]

Astronauts, survive or die and duct tape. I am excited!

[Daisjun]

If you can't wait for the movie, by all means read the book. Has something for everyone. Sci-fi, survival and it's actually pretty hilarious.

[DaveYanakov]

Holy shite, the hype didn't do this movie justice. I can't remember anything that inspiring and here I thought I was excited about the space program before today.

[SterlingRed]

Oh I'm totally the target audience of this thing. Want to go see it so bad. Just have to figure out how to convince my wife to let me go or to come...

[FlowerChild]

Holy shite, the hype didn't do this movie justice. I can't remember anything that inspiring and here I thought I was excited about the space program before today.

Can you answer me a quick question (planning on seeing it myself):

Did they correct the part from the book early on where he starts spouting some mumbo-jumbo about the number of oxygen atoms in a molecule of H20 bearing some weird mystical relationship to the volume of liquid it produces when combined with Hydrogen?

Chemistry was definitely never one of my primary areas of intenterst, but even with my limited knowledge of it, the resulting "wtf?" from that part almost blew the book for me somewhere within the first 20 pages or so. I guess I'm wondering how intoxicated I'll need to get beforehand to enjoy the movie ;)

EDIT: That bit bugs me so much that I just looked up the exact passage again, which occurs on page 24 of the printed book:

Anyways, the reserve oxygen would only be enough to make 100 liters of water (50 liters of 02 makes 100 liters of molecules that only have one O each)

I had such a strong "huh?" reaction to that one that it totally blew suspension of disbelief for me. I went running to the internet to try and figure out what chem class I must have slept through that would explain a direct correlation between number of atoms and volume like that, only to confirm that, no, that's just complete bullshit :)

[DaveYanakov]

The movie glossed over it, focusing on how much water the plants would need and the rough chemical process instead. I don't recall any mention of reserve oxygen at all aside from whether or not the oxygenator would break down being a minor issue.

[FlowerChild]

The movie glossed over it, focusing on how much water the plants would need and the rough chemical process instead. I don't recall any mention of reserve oxygen at all aside from whether or not the oxygenator would break down being a minor issue.

Cool, thanks. Sober viewing it is then :)

I've mentioned it before, but what passes as "hard" scifi these days tends to drive me a bit bonkers (Gravity & Interstellar being big examples). I have no objection to soft scifi at all, but when a movie or book starts throwing around scientific "facts" that actually make no sense whatsoever it really grates on my nerves. Far better to just stfu when you don't really know what you're talking about than to resort to disinformation IMO.

[jorgebonafe]

I'm surprised to hear about this. It's not like the production of water with hydrogen and oxygen is complicated, that's high school stuff... It boggles the mind that the author wouldn't do proper research, specially considering the whole concept of the book...

[dawnraider]

Glad to hear the movie was good, I definitely plan on seeing that myself, I just need to make time for me to be able to go.

[FlowerChild]

I'm surprised to hear about this. It's not like the production of water with hydrogen and oxygen is complicated, that's high school stuff... It boggles the mind that the author wouldn't do proper research, specially considering the whole concept of the book...

Even more surprising was that stuff like that slipped through given what I found out about how it was written after I looked into it a bit:

Turns out it was written as an online novel released in parts, and was then scientifically "vetted" by the community of people reading it as bits were put out. How what is effectively crowd-sourcing failed to pick up on those kinds of things is beyond me, because yes, that's definitely high school chemistry.

As far as I know the novel is still available for free online for anyone that cares to read it on the cheap. Don't get me wrong, it's a good novel and I quite enjoyed it, but unfortunately the above oversight occurs very early on and almost put me off it entirely.

I'm still very much looking forward to seeing the movie though as I love some of the promotional material I've seen for it, especially after Dave confirmed the above didn't make it into the film ;)

Loved this video in particular:

[Gilberreke]

I just saw cinemas around here are finally playing it on Thursday. FRIGGING FINALLY. Ugh, I hate the waiting game. Flower, can't you mod that one?

I only have one issue going in. The guy to direct this is this guy?


I mean, I love Ridley Scott, but not sure I trust him with hard sci-fi :p

[FlowerChild]

I mean, I love Ridley Scott, but not sure I trust him with hard sci-fi :p

Lol at the comic, because yeah...running straight ahead of a large moving object seems to be reserved for birds, small rodents, and movie characters ;)

I have a hard time speaking ill of Ridley Scott regardless, although he lost a whole lot of points with me when he took what was likely my all time favorite movie back then, taped a paper towel roll to a horse's head, and created a "director's cut" version that I thought was lesser to the original. I give him points for revisionist film-making before Lucas really popularized the concept though :)

[Gilberreke]

I love Ridley Scott, don't get me wrong :). BTW, if you like Ridley Scott, HR Giger, Salvador Dali, Moebius, etc, you HAVE to check out this documentary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27s_Dune

I just watched it and it's glorious, best thing I saw all year. Bit hard to find though. I can't stress enough to any sci-fi fans how important Jodorowsky's Dune was though. It gave us Alien, Blade Runner, large parts of Star Wars, parts of Terminator, etc.

[kazerima]

Just saw it myself last night with a friend and rather enjoyed it.
Less silly shenanigans than gravity had and a more solid premise than interstellar.
(magic black hole planets and time traveling space gods?)
Did a good job of maintaining the feel of Apollo 13 and the pressure for time was always present but not urgent, well reflecting they fact they were dealing with relatively long periods of time.
While watching the one blowout scene in particular I actually had a few flashbacks to Better Than Wolves, just when you've finally got that farm going... poof, welcome back where you started.
Speaking of that in particular, I actually liked how they screwed up several times. This happens, a lot. Every time a launch goes off there's always something that goes wrong once it gets off the ground no matter how many inspections are made. You either decide it's worth the risk of launching or wait until it's fixed and launching is slightly less risky. You fail, you fuck up, and you find answers anyway.
While I wasn't outright "WOW"ed by it, The Martian was a pretty solid modern contender in the space survival genre.

[DaveYanakov]

One thing for sure and certain, I am completely reinvigorated to get back into KSP

[MoRmEnGiL]

Watched it yesterday. One of the worst films I've watched the last few years. My god my brain hurt at the stupidity of the writing and acting in this film. The dialogues (or monologues) were so bad I thought I wanted to leave the theater..

To me it screamed "made to appeal to teens that our marketing department shows have a liking on science-y videos on youtube that contain hardly anything scientific"

Did I mention the horrible dialogue and generally bad writing? Add to that extremely out of place "jokes" every five seconds to make sure the mood is lightened (completely ruined). Horrible acting. And the icing on the cake, Sean Bean is in this movie for more than one minute and doesn't even die :P

I hated it with a passion. I expect much more from Scott, even now, at the lowest point of his career..

[FlowerChild]

Watched it yesterday. One of the worst films I've watched the last few years. My god my brain hurt at the stupidity of the writing and acting in this film. The dialogues (or monologues) were so bad I thought I wanted to leave the theater..

Oh boy, now I'm torn. Given our mutual love of Fury Road, it's hard for me not to take this seriously :)

[Equitis1024]

To me it screamed "made to appeal to teens that our marketing department shows have a liking on science-y videos on youtube that contain hardly anything scientific"

Did I mention the horrible dialogue and generally bad writing? Add to that extremely out of place "jokes" every five seconds to make sure the mood is lightened (completely ruined). Horrible acting. And the icing on the cake, Sean Bean is in this movie for more than one minute and doesn't even die :P

I went to see it the other day while in a good mood and with no particular expectations, so I enjoyed watching the movie as fairly mindless entertainment. However, I definitely shared most of the above reactions to it. If I had been hoping for seriousness and hard sci-fi I would have hated the thing, since what you actually get is the typical propagandistic science-y stuff that Morm described.

[MoRmEnGiL]

While the actual science of the film is grounded in reality, you cannot take the facts seriously because of the way they are presented. It does have one or two inaccuracies or liberties, but that is not the problem. It has a completely inappropriate tone for the subject matter. Maybe the book is this way too, I haven't read it, but I was utterly disappointed and couldn't enjoy the movie at all.

The moment

Spoiler

Show

The phrase "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of it" hit us

my remaining suspension of disbelief was shattered like glassware in a shop with a raging bull, and every 10 mins or so me and my brother were spontaneously looking at each other and rolling our eyes.

Oh boy, now I'm torn. Given our mutual love of Fury Road, it's hard for me not to take this seriously :)

If you dial expectations way down, you might enjoy it as mindless entertainment. Or if you are good at blocking parts of the movie and focusing on others. I went to watch it with expectations fairly high, because it is supposedly hard scifi which I am a big fan of, and because Ridley gorram Scott.. And I got a kick in the groin. :p

After I went home I had to rewatch all of Chris Hadfield's youtube videos on the ISS to calm down and remind myself how people act when they are not directed by a stupid script..

[William the tuba]

Maybe the book is this way too, I haven't read it, but I was utterly disappointed and couldn't enjoy the movie at all.

The book is that way, and it's deliberate. See this interview

"There are a bunch of severe psychological effects that would happen to someone being isolated for almost two years. And also the anxiety and stress of being on the verge of death from various problems for so long—most people would not be able to handle that. The loneliness, the isolation, the anxiety, and stress—I mean, it would take an enormous psychological toll. And I didn’t deal with any of that. I just said like, 'Nope, that’s not how Mark Watney rolls.' So he has almost superhuman ability to deal with stress and solitude.

For me, the movie was enjoyable, but it doesn't explain the science anywhere near as in-depth as the book does, probably for pacing reasons and time constraints.