Ridley Scott’s The Martian
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Soldato
Funny that it was cut from the film, but it was in the trailer.
Got round to seeing it on Friday, paid extra for a bigger more comfy seat. Really good film, the best I've seen for a long time. Great balance of humour and tension, superbly scripted, believable characters well acted. I liked that there were no contrived conflicts, the only antagonist was Mars and bad luck, and the film was about solving problems as they arose. It's been a while since I've seen a film that has done that, let alone done it well.
It was like Apollo 13 in space.
Caporegime
Yeah, that is quite random casting. I wasn't convinced... Broad Yorkshire accent in the NASA control room...
Soldato
Permabanned
it was ok, solid viewing 8/10 would watch again but not a third time.
Watched it yesterday in 3D, I did read the book. I'd say 7.5/10. A good solid enjoyable film but I'm not sure I want to go back and watch it again at the cinema (unless it was Imax, but then the "Walk" seems to be locked into the Imax screen now)
I think its departures from the book were necessary and well done. I felt the emotions he went through, maybe it could have done with a little more to show how alone he was and for how long. Matt was a good choice, Sean Bean was quite fun in the reference to the Council of Elrond
I think its departures from the book were necessary and well done. I felt the emotions he went through, maybe it could have done with a little more to show how alone he was and for how long. Matt was a good choice, Sean Bean was quite fun in the reference to the Council of Elrond
Soldato
For those not taking Sean Beans accent on a scientist seriously, go to YouTube and search for Fred Hoyle.
Soldato
to be fair he isnt a rocket scientist - he is the hermes mission director
was funny about LOTR - especially "why would you know what that is"
was funny about LOTR - especially "why would you know what that is"
Caporegime
I'm not doubting that a Yorkshireman can do science, more that a Yorkshireman could become a mission director at NASA.
Caporegime
Okay, I have now listened through the audio book over the weekend. Great book. Here is what I thought about the changes from the book:-
The best thing about the movie compared to the book is how it managed to translate the humour from the book across to the big screen. The book had me laugh out loud more than a few times. The film/Matt Damon conveyed that to the screen in abundance which was important.
The movie gets a solid 8 out of 10 despite the changes.
1 – The Pirate Ninjas. That was mentioned in just 1 chapter I recall and nothing more than explaining to the reader the units of energy needed to simplfy tihngs. IMO, unnessary and would be pointless to be kept in. It adds nothing to the movie. We know he got the maths done right and that's all we needed to know.
2 – The rover rolling over. It was merely another chapter of him overcoming a challenge that did not add anything really. Nothing was broken, his journey/arrival time wasn't changed that much and he still made it in good time.
3 – Broken the Pathfinder/Morse Code. This one is quite major in the book as after that he was on his own until he reached the MAV 4, he was alone and could not seek NASA's help. I can see why people like to have that in but I think it would be weird to have kept that in since he was already alone for half the movie, they spent some screen time for him to get the Pathfinder, only to take that away would be a bit silly and annoy the audience.
4 – The Ironman move. In the book they managed to get to him all tethered. I guess they did the Ironman thing for effect/humour.
5 – The Storm. This was a massive challenge I thought but he overcome that relative ease in the book. Managed to figured it out and solve the problem rather quickly. I think by that point in the movie I just want to see him get to the MAV, the next problem is the launch and the weight of the MAV into orbit. The minute he set off his journey, any delay on the way there seems like one delay too many on screen.
2 – The rover rolling over. It was merely another chapter of him overcoming a challenge that did not add anything really. Nothing was broken, his journey/arrival time wasn't changed that much and he still made it in good time.
3 – Broken the Pathfinder/Morse Code. This one is quite major in the book as after that he was on his own until he reached the MAV 4, he was alone and could not seek NASA's help. I can see why people like to have that in but I think it would be weird to have kept that in since he was already alone for half the movie, they spent some screen time for him to get the Pathfinder, only to take that away would be a bit silly and annoy the audience.
4 – The Ironman move. In the book they managed to get to him all tethered. I guess they did the Ironman thing for effect/humour.
5 – The Storm. This was a massive challenge I thought but he overcome that relative ease in the book. Managed to figured it out and solve the problem rather quickly. I think by that point in the movie I just want to see him get to the MAV, the next problem is the launch and the weight of the MAV into orbit. The minute he set off his journey, any delay on the way there seems like one delay too many on screen.
The best thing about the movie compared to the book is how it managed to translate the humour from the book across to the big screen. The book had me laugh out loud more than a few times. The film/Matt Damon conveyed that to the screen in abundance which was important.
The movie gets a solid 8 out of 10 despite the changes.
Just back from seeing this now, was a really good book adaptation I felt, though there were a few things that were a little odd. Generally an excellent film, a solid 9/10 for me 
It was odd seeing him making modifications (specifically the hole in the top) to the rover when no reason was given in the film, having read the book I knew why, even if it was combined into the lead rover and not the trailer as per the book, but it confused my mother who I took to see it.
Man of Honour
Why does he do that to the Rover?
All in all I thought it was a good movie, from a non-book reader.
All in all I thought it was a good movie, from a non-book reader.
Caporegime
he needed the space for life support equipment like the oxygenator
In the book this happens
NASA gave him the plans to mod his Rover for the trip to MAV 4, he had to do the following
1 – take out the oxygenator from the HAB and install it to the Rover.
2 – carry all his water provision, instead of the water reclaimer, this is to save power as he needed every joules from the battery to get as much distances from a single charge, same reason why he used the plutonium as a heat source.
3 – create enough space on the rover to carry 27 solar panels.
4 – attach the second rover together as a trailer for more space.
In addition, he also created a bedroom using some HAB canvas, a space where he wanted to be able to stand up in vertically inside without his EVA suit. This also became his workshop once he got to the MAV.
But in the modding process, when he was drilling, he had lean his drill against the wrong piece of bench which was attached to the Pathfinder and it shorted it and fried all the circuitry in the pathfinder. At that point in the book NASA didn't tell him how to get all the power he needs for the trip or any more plans so he actually figured out all the modding to the Rover himself, from heating, to water to oxygen. After the pathfinder was broken, he could only send messages back to earth using rocks to make Morse code so NASA saw the messages via satellite imagery. He would then only send short messages like "hurt back, better now".
Also, in the book he actually put the Plutonium back in the ground after the Pathfinder trip (4km from the HAB), he had to go retrieve that again for the trip to MAV4. The book also goes into little things like how he had to cook all his potatoes before he leaves for the trip as he needed to conserve power and even the microwave is energy wasted. So he cooked them and store them outside the rover, since Mars is so cold it is basically a freezer.
Then there is also the "Martian coffee", which is a caffeine pill in hot water, after he ran out of real coffee.
1 – take out the oxygenator from the HAB and install it to the Rover.
2 – carry all his water provision, instead of the water reclaimer, this is to save power as he needed every joules from the battery to get as much distances from a single charge, same reason why he used the plutonium as a heat source.
3 – create enough space on the rover to carry 27 solar panels.
4 – attach the second rover together as a trailer for more space.
In addition, he also created a bedroom using some HAB canvas, a space where he wanted to be able to stand up in vertically inside without his EVA suit. This also became his workshop once he got to the MAV.
But in the modding process, when he was drilling, he had lean his drill against the wrong piece of bench which was attached to the Pathfinder and it shorted it and fried all the circuitry in the pathfinder. At that point in the book NASA didn't tell him how to get all the power he needs for the trip or any more plans so he actually figured out all the modding to the Rover himself, from heating, to water to oxygen. After the pathfinder was broken, he could only send messages back to earth using rocks to make Morse code so NASA saw the messages via satellite imagery. He would then only send short messages like "hurt back, better now".
Also, in the book he actually put the Plutonium back in the ground after the Pathfinder trip (4km from the HAB), he had to go retrieve that again for the trip to MAV4. The book also goes into little things like how he had to cook all his potatoes before he leaves for the trip as he needed to conserve power and even the microwave is energy wasted. So he cooked them and store them outside the rover, since Mars is so cold it is basically a freezer.
Then there is also the "Martian coffee", which is a caffeine pill in hot water, after he ran out of real coffee.
I guess you could say they left out quite a lot from the book, but none of that I think takes away from the core of the movie or changes how good the movie is.
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I wasn't so impressed to be honest. It was a solid movie experience despite some annoyances which began when it decided to become a NASA promotional recruitment video for aspiring high school kids. It went from a movie about science based thinking and problem solving (a glorified version of it,) to one about telling us logic = bad, Bruce Willis-esque hero = good. Only instead of Bruce Willis, we got Sean Bean? 
It felt like two completely different sci-fi movies in one. Like the first half was excellent, it was logical, the movie painted a really intriguing problem and made you think and anticipate where it was going based on the surgical, logical steps it had very nicely presented to us. Glorified scientific method in motion. Then a scene happened that changed the entire movie; when Matt Damon started to flip out about the director of NASA not telling the crew he was still alive. It actually started before that with Sean Beans oddly out of place character, but none-the-less, it took me by surprise.
It was a sudden change of personality because upto that point he'd been an almost perfect description of an astronaut (a Chris Hadfield screenplay) Logical, risk assessing, science based mission focussed man. I mean OK he's stranded and under enormous stress but we're talking about trained frontier pioneering astronauts that know the risks and rely on procedure and Houston based teams to help them every step of the way. So his sudden tantrum was more suited to a movie about space marines in Battlestar Galactica. Sean Beans' character's reaction to the director of NASA about his perfectly logical and understandable decision not to inform the crew about Damon being alive, was completely and utterly bizarre. I literally mouthed "W.T.F" as I watched, I just couldn't fathom where the hell it came from.
But that's where the biggest problems about the movie started. It was mostly the earth based cast that started to turn the movie into a Bruce Willis Armageddon venture - care-free and completely unrealistic. It threw all those carefully well-paced and logical early steps out of the window and decided the gung-ho direction was better.
Even the depiction of NASA was utterly weird. Where were the scientists? This institution houses the worlds greatest scientific minds, but we dont ever see it, we only hear of it. Instead we got the director of NASA whose character was immediately made out to be a sort of bad guy despite his actions being perfectly reasonable. We got some pointless media woman who served no purpose, Sean Bean (weird casting) whose character's behaviour made no sense, and some random smart kid who came up with the most unoriginal "genius moment" in sci-fi movie history - the same sling-shot move NASA has been employing since the 1960's apollo missions.
Now I know this is a rant against the movie, and it wasn't as bad as I've probably made it out to be, and it would have been fine if it started the way it ended, I'd have gone along with the ride and probably enjoyed it more! But it was just the sudden knee-jerk change of direction that threw me completely off and I just found it difficult to get back on board for the rest of it.
It was a sudden change of personality because upto that point he'd been an almost perfect description of an astronaut (a Chris Hadfield screenplay
) Logical, risk assessing, science based mission focussed man. I mean OK he's stranded and under enormous stress but we're talking about trained frontier pioneering astronauts that know the risks and rely on procedure and Houston based teams to help them every step of the way. So his sudden tantrum was more suited to a movie about space marines in Battlestar Galactica. Sean Beans' character's reaction to the director of NASA about his perfectly logical and understandable decision not to inform the crew about Damon being alive, was completely and utterly bizarre. I literally mouthed "W.T.F" as I watched, I just couldn't fathom where the hell it came from.But that's where the biggest problems about the movie started. It was mostly the earth based cast that started to turn the movie into a Bruce Willis Armageddon venture - care-free and completely unrealistic. It threw all those carefully well-paced and logical early steps out of the window and decided the gung-ho direction was better.
Even the depiction of NASA was utterly weird. Where were the scientists? This institution houses the worlds greatest scientific minds, but we dont ever see it, we only hear of it. Instead we got the director of NASA whose character was immediately made out to be a sort of bad guy despite his actions being perfectly reasonable. We got some pointless media woman who served no purpose, Sean Bean (weird casting) whose character's behaviour made no sense, and some random smart kid who came up with the most unoriginal "genius moment" in sci-fi movie history - the same sling-shot move NASA has been employing since the 1960's apollo missions.
Now I know this is a rant against the movie, and it wasn't as bad as I've probably made it out to be, and it would have been fine if it started the way it ended, I'd have gone along with the ride and probably enjoyed it more! But it was just the sudden knee-jerk change of direction that threw me completely off and I just found it difficult to get back on board for the rest of it.
Caporegime
Well I suppose they both did the whole "guy we thought was dead is still alive on the surface of Mars bit" but otherwise no, not at all. Did you also find Ted 2 and Avengers similar because they both feature a fight scene set in New York?
Man of Honour
Honestly, they're basically the same movie.
Soldato
- Joined
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My brother and I treated ourselves to a Byron burger and a trip to the cinema to see this. I've read the book and my brother hasn't, and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Teensy gripes...
Other than a great adaptation, and one to add to the bluray collection - hopefully with loads of deleted scenes to add back in.
Teensy gripes...
Annie's character was a bit muted for me in the film however, in the book she's a foul mouthed riot.
The dumbing down of the science stuff and losing Watney's monologue in favour of say Kapoor doing the explanations once he'd done it was a bit weak but I can see why they'd do it that way to keep the pace and not baffle 90% of the audience.
The dumbing down of the science stuff and losing Watney's monologue in favour of say Kapoor doing the explanations once he'd done it was a bit weak but I can see why they'd do it that way to keep the pace and not baffle 90% of the audience.
Other than a great adaptation, and one to add to the bluray collection - hopefully with loads of deleted scenes to add back in.