The Martian

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kyleb

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I did the search thing and didn't find a thread on this movie. There is a long thread on the (excellent) book.

Anyway, we found a sitter for our 5 year old on Saturday night and had a nice night out at the movies, where we saw The Martian.

What a great movie. Very rarely do good books turn into good movies, but they captured the spirit of the book very well, within the limitations of a 2 hour movie. What really struck me (an engineer with a lifelong love of flight) was how effectively they captured the can-do attitude of determined, capable people. Oh, and they did an outstanding job with the soundtrack. The closing montage in particular brought a tear of joy (or inspiration) to my eye, as did a couple of other points in the movie. The last time a movie did that was the really patriotic scene in "The Right Stuff" showing the 7 Mercury astronauts in spacesuits walking together through a tunnel with the theme song amped up.

Go see it if you get the chance.
 
I agree that it was a great movie. I was slightly disappointed they left out some of the funny dialogue during Mark's video journals. I especially wish they had included the space pirate and nuclear generator side story. I also think they should have included more of his mishaps and his ingenuity on getting out of said mishaps.
 
ARFlyer said:
I agree that it was a great movie. I was slightly disappointed they left out some of the funny dialogue during Mark's video journals. I especially wish they had included the space pirate and nuclear generator side story. I also think they should have included more of his mishaps and his ingenuity on getting out of said mishaps.
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I certainly missed some of the book's humor, but I'm not sure what they could have cut from the movie to add that the humor (Look: (.V.) Boobs) back and still keep the movie to less-than-epic length. Audiences today won't sit through Lawrence of Arabia or GWTW length movies.

One thing I was looking forward to was the scene where Annie (NASA's spokesperson) went off on the NASA administrator. Didn't make the movie. :-(
 
I thought the book was outstanding. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I really want to. It probably won't be as good as the book, but at least I can experience the story again.
 
I had read the book, and Karen and I enjoyed the movie.

Overall, I think I preferred Gravity, but both are above average filmmaking.

As an aside, we saw it in 3D and I think that added nothing to it.

As a further aside, we rarely go out to movies, usually waiting for them to come to Netflix. In fact, Gravity may have been our last theater outing.
 
I enjoyed the movie, will have to pick up the movie.

My only complaint was the zero G scenes were clunky.
 
I enjoyed the movie. Pretty funny at times too.
 
kyleb said:
Audiences today won't sit through Lawrence of Arabia or GWTW length movies.
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Which is sad. I like good epic movies. I showed some friends The Great Escape to which they got up about half way through because of boredom. The asked that I rent a more recent and exciting movie next time.....:mad2:
 
ARFlyer said:
Which is sad. I like good epic movies. I showed some friends The Great Escape to which they got up about half way through because of boredom. The asked that I rent a more recent and exciting movie next time.....:mad2:
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A buddy and I were talking about great books which translated to great movies the other day, and The Great Escape came up. Both of us really enjoyed that movie and the book. We commiserated about the fact that nobody makes epic movies today. It is all special effects, thin plot, and 1:58 of seat time so they can run a movie every 2.75 hours.
 
kyleb said:
A buddy and I were talking about great books which translated to great movies the other day, and The Great Escape came up. Both of us really enjoyed that movie and the book. We commiserated about the fact that nobody makes epic movies today. It is all special effects, thin plot, and 1:58 of seat time so they can run a movie every 2.75 hours.
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I think the longest movie I have seen in recent years has either been Interstellar or Avatar. The longest classic movie I've seen is either Das Boot or Battle of Britain. Tora Tora Tora is also a good sit. All great movies.
 
Saw the film. It was entertaining. As always with these kind of films, as an engineer, I just need to cringe and suspend any relative understanding of physics and engineering. The CGI work was excellent.
 
ARFlyer said:
I think the longest movie I have seen in recent years has either been Interstellar or Avatar. The longest classic movie I've seen is either Das Boot or Battle of Britain. Tora Tora Tora is also a good sit. All great movies.
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The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Dr Zhivago, and Once Upon a Time in the West are all great but lengthy (3 hours or more) movies. Not sure any of them would survive the cutting room <relatively> intact these days.
 
Agree, great book. I learned of the book watching an interview of the author, Andy Weil. Pretty good interview. It's about an hour long if anyone is interested. He was a guest on the podcast 'Triangulation', part of the TWiT network by Leo Laporte.

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ARFlyer said:
Which is sad. I like good epic movies. I showed some friends The Great Escape to which they got up about half way through because of boredom. The asked that I rent a more recent and exciting movie next time.....:mad2:
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You can show them the beginning of Chicken Run next time. I busted a gut laughing but my wife who never remembers movies she's seen before didn't get the parody.

I thought the Martian wasn't bad and the pace was good. I found Interstellar tedious and generally a let down at the end.

I ended up watching much of the second half of the Martian again. I was setting up in the projection room to show Toy Story of Terror after the IMAX guys were showing Martian.
 
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ARFlyer said:
Which is sad. I like good epic movies. I showed some friends The Great Escape to which they got up about half way through because of boredom. The asked that I rent a more recent and exciting movie next time.....:mad2:
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The Great Escape is one of mine and my son's favorite "testosterone" movies. It was on PBS recently and not only did we watch it, we followed it with the History Channel documentary.

I was gifted the "Martian" book a while ago. I want to read it before seeing the movie.
 
Read the book by Paul Brickhill. While there are a few licenses taken much of the movie is true to the actual events.
 
Another long movie that is a classic is "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". A cast of the world's greatest comedians and one of the best flying sequences ever with Frank Tallman flying a Beech 18. I'll still sit down on a winter day and watch it every couple of years. Don
 
ARFlyer said:
I agree that it was a great movie. I was slightly disappointed they left out some of the funny dialogue during Mark's video journals. I especially wish they had included the space pirate and nuclear generator side story. I also think they should have included more of his mishaps and his ingenuity on getting out of said mishaps.
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:confused: they had those in the movie!
 
I love the book, the movie was good, I think maybe I was expecting bit too much from it though. Some of the acting seemed a bit forced to me, but overall I think they captured a lot of the tone from the book.

I think I was most disappointed at the humor they left out of the movie. Though they did include a good amount of it in the videos they released on YouTube. Worth watching if you haven't seen them.

Ares 3: Farewell

Ares 3: The Right Stuff - Has some of the aforementioned humor in it

Our Greatest Adventure - Guest appearance by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Leave Your Mark - UnderArmour apparently was a sponsor for the movie

Bring Him Home - Sends shivers up my spine every time I watch it.

Chem Cam - Released after the movie actually, another video journal, I'm guessing a deleted scene from the movie?
 
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yakdriver said:
Another long movie that is a classic is "Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World". A cast of the world's greatest comedians and one of the best flying sequences ever with Frank Tallman flying a Beech 18. I'll still sit down on a winter day and watch it every couple of years. Don
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YES! especially when you read how they set up the shoot, the wing Clearence on each wing tip ( three feet) as he went thru the billboard and how pieces of the fake bill board got stuck in the intakes and almost brought him down! great great flying, great movie. Wasn't he later killed in the filming of "flight of the Phoenix" ?
 
No, Tallman wasn't killed doing a movie. He was ferrying an Aztec and flew VFR into IMC and CFITed into the Santa Ana mountains.

It was Paul Mantz (Tallman's partner) who was killed in Flight of the Phoenix, flying the "reconstructed" aircraft from the movie.
 
My rankings of the latest space movies:

1) Interstellar
2) Martian
3) Gravity

Interstellar was a great mind-blowing movie even better than inception.

The Martian was fantastic because I felt like it was completely realistic as well as quite a bit of humor.

I thought gravity was ridiculous and stupid.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
My rankings of the latest space movies:

1) Interstellar
2) Martian
3) Gravity

Interstellar was a great mind-blowing movie even better than inception.

The Martian was fantastic because I felt like it was completely realistic as well as quite a bit of humor.

I thought gravity was ridiculous and stupid.
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Gravity wouldn't even make my #3. Otherwise I think its a draw between Interstellar and The Martian for my #1.
 
FastEddieB said:
I had read the book, and Karen and I enjoyed the movie.

Overall, I think I preferred Gravity, but both are above average filmmaking.

As an aside, we saw it in 3D and I think that added nothing to it.

As a further aside, we rarely go out to movies, usually waiting for them to come to Netflix. In fact, Gravity may have been our last theater outing.
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I saw Gravity in both 3D and non-3D on the same day, and I agree that 3D doesn't add much.
 
Seanaldinho said:
I enjoyed the movie, will have to pick up the movie.

My only complaint was the zero G scenes were clunky.
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I was surprised that they pulled off the zero G scenes as well as they did.
 
The Martian was pretty awesome. A combination of Castaway and Apollo 13, but better.
 
docmirror said:
Saw the film. It was entertaining. As always with these kind of films, as an engineer, I just need to cringe and suspend any relative understanding of physics and engineering. The CGI work was excellent.
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After seeing the movie yesterday, I went to the Wikipedia Article to see what they had to say about scientific aspects of the film. It confirmed my suspicion that Mars' atmosphere is too thin for a storm to be as forceful as it was portrayed. Not simulating the reduced gravity of Mars was a conscious decision, as the director felt that it was less worthwhile to put on screen than the zero gravity sequences.
 
FastEddieB said:
I was actually talking about The Martian, though I see that was not at all clear.

I thought the 3D did work for Gravity, not so much for The Martian.
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Yes, I understood that. I was just using my experience with Gravity to explain why I agree with your observation about The Martian.
 
I did not read the book but I saw the movie. Found it to be so-so but still far better than Gravity and Interstellar.
 
Palmpilot said:
After seeing the movie yesterday, I went to the Wikipedia Article to see what they had to say about scientific aspects of the film. It confirmed my suspicion that Mars' atmosphere is too thin for a storm to be as forceful as it was portrayed. Not simulating the reduced gravity of Mars was a conscious decision, as the director felt that it was less worthwhile to put on screen than the zero gravity sequences.
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If you watch any of the interviews with Andy Weir he says that the initial storm was just made up. He felt kind of bad about it, but he needed to strand Watley on Mars somehow.

On Mars it would take a few days for you to notice you're in a storm, because what you would notice is that the output of your solar cells would start dropping. Which in fact happens latter in the book.

The rest of book is all science based. Weir even calculated all the orbits required to pull off the rescue, and knows the exact time and date of each event in the book
 
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Martian good. Some science gaffs including that Martian soil is now known to contain a toxin that would preclude the food growing depicted, and plastic flapping inward during the wind storms even with significant air pressure behind it. Also his joke that he hadn't taken a shower in a year right after Hollywood added a gratuitous butt shot scene of him toweling off not just a few minutes before, because they always have to add a butt shot.

Interstellar haven't seen it.

Gravity was utter crap where some kids wanted to play with their CGI engine and ignore physics altogether. And the story? Total junk.
 
denverpilot said:
Martian good. Some science gaffs including that Martian soil is now known to contain a toxin that would preclude the food growing depicted, and plastic flapping inward during the wind storms even with significant air pressure behind it. Also his joke that he hadn't taken a shower in a year right after Hollywood added a gratuitous butt shot scene of him toweling off not just a few minutes before, because they always have to add a butt shot.

Interstellar haven't seen it.

Gravity was utter crap where some kids wanted to play with their CGI engine and ignore physics altogether. And the story? Total junk.
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The book explained the shower thing. In the Hab, he was able to create a bathtub and get clean. Once he started the cross country trek in the rover, not so much. So he hadn't had a bath or shower in months prior to his rescue.
 
denverpilot said:
Gravity was utter crap where some kids wanted to play with their CGI engine and ignore physics altogether. And the story? Total junk.
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I was rather amused that for the amount of money spent making that movie, India sent an actual spacecraft to Mars!
 
The film was a great gift, along with Interstellar.
Helps people start thinking in the right direction. UP!
 
Captain said:
Agree, great book. I learned of the book watching an interview of the author, Andy Weil. Pretty good interview. It's about an hour long if anyone is interested. He was a guest on the podcast 'Triangulation', part of the TWiT network by Leo Laporte.



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Leo kinda looks like Jabba. Haha.
 
He has put on some weight in the last decade. Super nice guy though who's built an impressive business model on top of podcasting.
 
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