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gohmak posted:That could be a not so personal joke between directors or a dick move by meddling Hollywood producers to add. They really should have just had manning the MMU be Lewis's job to begin with. The way it is in the movie, it presents her as a bad commander. Her last minute switch out adds unnecessary risk to the operation just because she's unable to deal with losing another crew member. But, there isn't really any payoff to having her make that decision. It seems that that only happens for presentation reasons of having the commander physically rescue her stranded crew member.
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Oct 3, 2015 17:10
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:49 |
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Saw this last night and really enjoyed it. I actually really enjoyed the 70's disco musical theme that resonated well with the world cooperation vibe of the story that is wrapped up with the credit sequence. It helps that I'm old as gently caress and have an actual nostalgic connection to that music beyond ironic hipsterism. I have no idea whether this was an element in the book or a stylistic theme chosen by Ridley Scott but it works really well in my opinion. It's beautifully shot. It's Ridley Scott, 'nuff said. I really like the way it's paced with the various interactions between NASA brass, JPL engineers etc. really conveying the sense of a huge team effort. Highly recommended. The sense of relative international harmony in the film makes me a bit sad that the real world is so much less like this. I'm even more sad knowing that NASA has, as far as I understand it, given over doing actual launches anymore and everything launch wise is now farmed out to private sector or other countries? (My father spent a career working for NASA until just a few years ago and this is my understanding of what he told me.) There was some little bit of dialogue that I could have sworn was a sly shout out to dialogue from Alien, like between the "blue collar" crew members (Yaphet Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton) but I can't remember what it was. Some minor beefs: Kristen Wiig is kind of wasted in her role, she doesn't get much dialogue that's any good and any generic competent actor/actress could have probably been cast in that role and been fine. For me the final rescue sequence is a little too Rube Goldberg-y for my taste, too many crazy elements that have to come together just right (this sort of sequence in space movies always seem like that to me and Gravity was a notable example), and seems a bit inconsistent with the rest of the story where the problems and problem solving seem a bit more reasonable. I also felt that the mission commander cutting loose her tether and and free flying to Mark seemed like a much more reasonable plan than his Iron Man plan given that she would actually have real control over her vehicle. After blowing the roof and windows off the ARES launch vehicle and covering it with the parachute, there's a scene of Mark sitting there eating cereal without his helmet, just before the launch. I'd think he'd, uh, simultaneously decompress and suffocate? Although I guess the film already established that plastic wrap and duct tape are sufficient to establish the integrity of a pressurized space proof environment so why not a parachute draped over everything and tied down. I realize this is one of those things like hearing the bomb beeping in the vacuum of space but this little scene kind of bugged me for some reason.
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Oct 3, 2015 17:11
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Zwabu posted:It helps that I'm old as gently caress and have an actual nostalgic connection to that music beyond ironic hipsterism. lol
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Oct 3, 2015 17:32
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Zwabu posted:After blowing the roof and windows off the ARES launch vehicle and covering it with the parachute, there's a scene of Mark sitting there eating cereal without his helmet, just before the launch. I'd think he'd, uh, simultaneously decompress and suffocate? Although I guess the film already established that plastic wrap and duct tape are sufficient to establish the integrity of a pressurized space proof environment so why not a parachute draped over everything and tied down. I realize this is one of those things like hearing the bomb beeping in the vacuum of space but this little scene kind of bugged me for some reason. The cereal scene took place in his rover. The tarp over the mav wasn't to keep the space out. It was to protect mark from all the air hitting him during ascent and also, I think, to maintain the aerodynamics of the spacecraft. Also, the thing with the bomb for me is not so much that you heard it beep in space, but that it had to beep and having a blinking light at all. It's like seeing a bank robbery scene where the robbers use canvas sacks with dollar signs on them.
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Oct 3, 2015 17:33
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Funny little detail when Watley is about to go on his 3000km journey to the Shiparelli crater: He is preparing his things to leave the hab one last time. he walks toward the airlock, has this little  moment, and goes back to grab his helmet. Reminds me of all the times I almost forgot my sunglasses before going to my car.
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Oct 3, 2015 18:15
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I really thought he was going back to turn off the light before he left.
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Oct 3, 2015 18:20
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Cacator posted:Nah they had the sounds of the jets firing in space, the sound of the tether rolling out and stuff like that. There's been two Hollywood space blockbusters that didn't depict sound in space so it was disappointing for this one to do it. Yeah the sound design bummed me out aswell. Theres a scene in the first half of the movie though that I really loved where Watney sits out the storm and in the background you can hear the hab humming.
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Oct 3, 2015 18:37
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Loved it. Loved Sean Bean at the Council of Elrond trying to explain Lord of the Rings. I also thought the ending worked fine. The Iron Man idea allows Watney to be responsible for saving himself at the end. After everything he has done he needs to be rescued? gently caress no. He saves himself.
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Oct 3, 2015 19:10
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I was fine with Lewis strapping into the MMU to save Watney because it makes more sense from a character standpoint (and for all of Andy Weir's strengths he's not a good character writer), but the Iron Man thing was absolutely ridiculous. Also, did Beck use a MMU in the book? I don't remember that being stated outright.
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Oct 3, 2015 19:53
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The only thing I didn't like was that every audible alert on the Hermes sounded like it was an emergency alarm, but everyone played it like it was nothing and I kept waiting for someone to say "What's that alarm?" And it's not a HUGE thing, but Donald Glover played his character like he was in a completely different movie from everyone else.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:14
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Just got back from seeing the Martian, perfect! So good.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:24
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zandert33 posted:I've seen PG-13 movies that have 2 (can't remember which off the top of my head) The American President has two, possibly three (I can't recall if Michael J. Fox's character drops one, but both Michael Douglas and Annette Bening do).
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Oct 3, 2015 22:38
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Are people calling him Watley on purpose as a joke or something? It's Watney. Also the movie was great although I thought Donald Glover was a bit much as Rich Purnell. Everyone else was great though, especially the spaceship crew. I loved the camaraderie they had going.
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Oct 3, 2015 22:44
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Saw this movie earlier today. I read the book first, but actually liked the movie better. Kind of weird because I never liked Matt Damon much (except for Bourne) but he made a great Watney, and it was more enjoyable seeing everything play out on screen then through text. Pleasantly surprised.
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Oct 4, 2015 00:29
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gohmak posted:The bureaucrat head of NASA that continuously hamstrings the real scientists. Right, but then you basically have a revenge of the nerds movie about the pissing off the grumpy old dean. But Jeff Daniels is as much a part of the team as anyone else. That other guy was much closer to the truth when he said the enemy of the film is Mars itself. But we do get that cut directly from Daniels being pessimistic on Earth to the disastrous accident on Mars, implying something like a causal relationship. So the real question here is 'what does Mars represent, to those of us in the audience who will never be there?' reading the film purely literally is a mistake, given that the film begins with Watney being reborn - waking up, gasping for air, cutting the cord from his belly, etc. The cord is also, of course, the communication antenna. So what you get is effectively a redux of the Matrix scene where Neo pulls the wire from his neck, at which point he enters desert of the real' and whatnot. So Watney really is born as an alien - and, as the titles go, we're shown his transition into becoming a human again. That's to say Mars stands in for an apocalyptic future-Earth / exaggerated third-world hellhole. The flipside to all the suits in glass offices is the threat of ecological catastrophe, starvation and so-on. That's why the film's politics are important. As Zizek would note, the film ends with the production of a couple. J. Chastain was, weirdly, punished for having jokingly cut off Watney's radio earlier, as of the entire storm were something she had unwittingly conjured. And, naturally, she learns Watney is alive at the same point that he officially restores communication - so in the same sense that Daniels' pessimism causes the explosion, Chastain's guilt is manifest as this undead thing that haunts everyone. So the film's 'really' about Chastain overcoming her guilt over having put Watney in this impoverished situation. The ambiguity of the film is whether all this is more conducive to a properly Christian interpretation (the whole world has gotten together to perform impossible feats in service of the lowliest dehumanized individual, and this logic should be applied to combatting homelessness everywhere) or whether it's the liberal gradualist film I've outlined earlier (like, okay we've saved this guy and we don't feel guilty anymore. Plus US-China relations improved slightly. Let's get back to collecting rocks). And yeah: though it's important not to dismiss the former elements out of cynicism, it is mostly the latter. After all, doesn't the narrative bear an uncanny resemblance to the saga of Doobie's Dog House?
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Oct 4, 2015 01:54
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Right, but then you basically have a revenge of the nerds movie about the pissing off the grumpy old dean. But Jeff Daniels is as much a part of the team as anyone else. 
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Oct 4, 2015 02:07
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lol Here's my take on the subtext of the film: At one point Watney cuts up a wooden crucifix and burns it for fuel. I'm assuming this has some deeper meaning. Thank you.
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Oct 4, 2015 02:48
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Yaws posted:lol There's no deeper meaning to the movie, it's just a man vs. nature movie in its purest form. It's really great and doesn't bother trying to bog itself down with making you question anything. Everything you need to know is clearly presented and simple. The people trying to find deeper meaning in this movie are terrible.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:00
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I said come in! posted:There's no deeper meaning to the movie, it's just a man vs. nature movie in its purest form. It's really great and doesn't bother trying to bog itself down with making you question anything. Everything you need to know is clearly presented and simple. The people trying to find deeper meaning in this movie are terrible. Are you kidding? This movie is chock full of symbolism.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:10
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I said come in! posted:There's no deeper meaning to the movie, it's just a man vs. nature movie in its purest form. It's really great and doesn't bother trying to bog itself down with making you question anything. Everything you need to know is clearly presented and simple. The people trying to find deeper meaning in this movie are terrible. I don't think it was a coincidence the only wood on the ship was a cross, if could just as easily been anything else.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:14
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I said come in! posted:There's no deeper meaning to the movie, it's just a man vs. nature movie in its purest form. It's really great and doesn't bother trying to bog itself down with making you question anything. Everything you need to know is clearly presented and simple. The people trying to find deeper meaning in this movie are terrible. You're way overthinking this.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:26
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By burning the cross Watney is rejecting religion and accepting science as his salvation. Religion is a farce in this film. The cross burning could also mean Watney is a racist.
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Oct 4, 2015 03:59
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:After all, doesn't the narrative bear an uncanny resemblance to the saga of Doobie's Dog House? What is Doobies Dog House?
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Oct 4, 2015 04:05
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The movie's not spending 2 hours to tell you that, y'know, problems are bad. The point is the overall attitude of extreme pragmatism - deal with the individual problems, one after the other. Watney concludes that it was this pragmatic philosophy that got him home. MAIN VERSION OF THIS POST: Okay but let's unpack 'home'. You mentioned earlier that Watney is a lot less isolated than he could be in a situation like this - he's in constant communication with his fellows - which begs the question of what he's isolated from and what he's returning to. The answer there starts in terms of what the film actually shows us of Earth: 1) Scenes that consist of Problem-Solving, almost always in interior spaces with tinted lighting, consisting of responsible professionals typically under physical stress (typically lack of sleep - this movie was setting landspeed records for number of times people are woken up with "you need to see this" messages) 2) Scenes that consist of Messaging, typically but not always in exterior spaces, like all the folks tuning in for the live public broadcasts of the mission Watney has access to that first space of Problem-Solving just fine, so what he needs to return to is that second space of Messaging. And he's clearly disconnected from it in ways that create problems, e.g. when he says so many space cusses that all his potatoes die. Sanders and Kapoor, and later Henderson, discuss the stakes of this rescue pretty explicitly - what's at risk here is the symbiosis between Problem-Solving and Messaging that they term necessary to keep an endeavor like NASA alive, and the longer we have this man out there cut off from Messaging, the more that symbiosis is endangered. So that's why we need to bring this guy home, why Watney's ultimate fate is to deliver inspirational monologues in a round room forever to a crowd of sharply raised hands, used earlier in the press conference scenes as a symbol of Messaging. Note that when Watney's first touched down, we get a brief fakeout as the camera lingers on this tranquil scene of nature before he ruptures the effect by bringing his Starbucks cup into frame, and then a parade of cadets jog past to pay their nonspecific respects to him. It's a surprisingly cynical take on what "bringing him home" constitutes. Not that the movie posits that there's literally nothing there besides Problem-Solving and Messaging, there are a couple moments of human tenderness between the crew of the Hermes and their loved ones, but Watney can't really get in on any of that. The closest he's got is the note to transmit to his parents, which passes through enough proxies to become Messaging and his endless battery of glib geeky uncle jokes. ALTERNATE VERSION OF THIS POST: Movie was aight
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Oct 4, 2015 04:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Right, but then you basically have a revenge of the nerds movie about the pissing off the grumpy old dean. But Jeff Daniels is as much a part of the team as anyone else. I was wondering how far you'd have to bend this to fit it into your marxist/christian schema.
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Oct 4, 2015 05:55
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The sperg in me got really annoyed at the Ironman Idea, because it forgets that Ironman has two blaster things, one on each palm. Of course he can control it, he's got two sources to balance things out. Doing it with one is just inviting spinning like a goddamned top. My sperg felt better when his first attempt led to him smashing back into the ship at speed like a doofus, though.
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Oct 4, 2015 06:17
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It's not complicated. The Martian is a "let's put on a show to save the orphanage!" movie, where the orphanage happens to be played by Matt Damon. A very important factor in the narrative is that, as Jenny points out, Watney becomes a sort of reality-TV/youtube celebrity meme, and a large part of his success stems from his ability to market himself, doing Mythbusters-styled science tricks and whatnot. Those shots of crowds holding their iphones aloft to livestream CNN off a jumbotron didn't get in there by accident. The posters all reading BRING HIM HOME may as well be referring to the future Blu-Ray edition of the film. The unspoken joke of the film is that Watney's home is very clearly not Earth but Mars, as he is actually living there fairly comfortably except that he'd eventually run out of potatoes and rocket fuel. So, two points: 1) There was ultimately no possible way for Watney to survive on Mars alone, no matter how many problems he solved. He spends the bulk of the film just dying as slowly as possible. 2) Earth is not home. Earth is Starbucks and sleeping in your office. Watney's home is ultimately abandoned. This is sort-of underlined by having a 'Day 1' pop up on his return to NASA. What problems is he solving as a professor? Where's 'home' now?
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Oct 4, 2015 06:33
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Next time they lose somebody on Mars or, like, Europa, or something they're not gonna blow the 30 billion dollars or whatever to go save him. It really is a "let's put on a show to save the orphanage" because in the real life version of that story the orphanage gets sold and turned into condos.
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Oct 4, 2015 07:10
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broken clock opsec posted:Next time they lose somebody on Mars or, like, Europa, or something they're not gonna blow the 30 billion dollars or whatever to go save him. It really is a "let's put on a show to save the orphanage" because in the real life version of that story the orphanage gets sold and turned into condos. Sort of related but here's Nixon's speech in case Neil and Buzz were stranded in 1969: Richard Nixon posted:Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to
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Oct 4, 2015 08:58
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The LM didn't have enough supplies to last until Apollo 12 could be sent. If they did, I would bet that we would have sent a rescue. And don't forget that time we rolled out two space shuttles so we could spend $1 billion launching to save the crew of Atlantis if disaster struck. But how much did it really cost to save Watney? It's not like he used any extra funds to survive on Mars. Anything he did on Mars was a cost already spent by NASA. The actual cost of the rescue is just two things: The failed supply launch and the successful supply launch. Any rocket launch is expensive but with SpaceX already trying to bring launch costs way down how much could it cost in the future when manned Mars missions are happening? You can also consider the staffing costs that NASA spends in overtime to work the problem. Not small but probably not huge either. Real NASA already did similar things to bring Apollo 13 home so no doubt they'd be willing to put in the hours again. The biggest cost I see is the loss of the Ares IV mission. When Watney takes the MAV to escape he has doomed the next mission. So the biggest cost to save him is what NASA had already spent on Ares IV... whatever that was in future dollars. While a substantially bigger amount than the cost of staffer overtime and two small rocket launches they didn't need to get authorization for extra funds. I'm sure the Ares IV crew was more than happy to see their mission used to save their friend (and know that they would have been rescued if the same thing happened to them).
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Oct 4, 2015 13:34
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Saw this last night, it was really fun and entertaining. Glad that glorious China and its 5000 years of civilization was there to save America  It was just a tad eyerolly. Pretty transparent pandering haha.
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Oct 4, 2015 17:12
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Zero One posted:The biggest cost I see is the loss of the Ares IV mission. When Watney takes the MAV to escape he has doomed the next mission. So the biggest cost to save him is what NASA had already spent on Ares IV... whatever that was in future dollars. While a substantially bigger amount than the cost of staffer overtime and two small rocket launches they didn't need to get authorization for extra funds. I'm sure the Ares IV crew was more than happy to see their mission used to save their friend (and know that they would have been rescued if the same thing happened to them). Well the only portion of the Ares IV they lost was the MAV. They more then likely rolled what they could have of IV into V and sent another MAV to mars since the funds for IV were never used for the mission itself, such that the Ares VI mission could accomplish the goals of IV with only the cost of sending another MAV to mars.
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Oct 4, 2015 17:40
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M_Gargantua posted:Well the only portion of the Ares IV they lost was the MAV. They more then likely rolled what they could have of IV into V and sent another MAV to mars since the funds for IV were never used for the mission itself, such that the Ares VI mission could accomplish the goals of IV with only the cost of sending another MAV to mars. Sure. So even less cost to save Watney. How are u posted:Saw this last night, it was really fun and entertaining. It was in the book. I'm sure the author was thinking about those huge Chinese box office dollars when he had to self publish his novel.
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Oct 4, 2015 17:44
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What gets to me is the essential loneliness of Watney. Like, posters above are completely right that Mars is his natural home because he doesn't even make sense as a character outside of it. The only evidence for a human connection we have are his parents. Life on Mars is perfectly fit for him because it allows the endless exercise of his intellect and distancing, childish sense of humor without ever growing up. To me that last scene, surrounded by raised hands and questions that he's failed to ward off with a pat speech on pragmatic problem solving, had the quality of a bad dream.
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Oct 4, 2015 18:04
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I think more dead astronauts is exactly what Nasa needs IRL.
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Oct 4, 2015 18:58
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:So, two points: Earth is just another Mars to Watney, and the "Day 1" superscript stridently makes the case that this Planet-Inhabitant relationship exists for the viewer as well. There's ultimately no possible way to survive on Earth (forever), and we all spend our time dying slowly. The problems Watney faces from Day 1 onward are the sublunary problems that you and I face, and Earth is 'home' to him and us only in the sense that it is where we are currently trying to not die. Mars was the antagonist of the film. Watney's little classroom speech at the end about the dangers 'out there' just serves to highlight that even he, the Conqueror of Mars, falls into complacency once back on Earth and forgets that Earth is just as much his (and our) adversary as Mars was. He doesn't realize it's Day 1 just as his students don't realize it's Day ~10,000 for them.
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Oct 4, 2015 19:40
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Tellah posted:Earth is just another Mars to Watney, and the "Day 1" superscript stridently makes the case that this Planet-Inhabitant relationship exists for the viewer as well. I thought Watney was perfectly self-aware on that point. His whole speech at the end about solving problems and taking things one step at a time seemed intentionally designed to apply to everyday life on Earth. I think this was a pretty straightforward, feel-good movie. Which is okay.
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Oct 4, 2015 19:51
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Zero One posted:But how much did it really cost to save Watney? I'm sure it won't cost much to fix the explosion damage to the Hermes. It's not like that ship would be the most expensive single object ever constructed by humanity, or anything. But seriously, this was a good flick. I did kind of miss how in-depth the book got on all the technical stuff, but they're making a Hollywood movie here and they really can't spare three hours for clever uses of chemistry and heat transfer. Also,  at all of you trying to find a Deep Symbolic Message any more complex than "perseverance and creativity are good" or "people can pull together for a good cause" or "spaceflight is cool".
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Oct 4, 2015 20:51
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Zero One posted:Sure. So even less cost to save Watney. I am glad this is the case, because honestly it really did look like they were pandering to china Ironman style.
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Oct 4, 2015 20:58
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 18:49 |
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Loved the movie. The first half hour is really brutal as Matt Damon gets stabbed and exploded, and has to use his own poo poo to make dirt and grow food. Then just as you think things are turning around for him he's forced to listen to disco music. Best torture porn movie in years. 5 stars.
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Oct 4, 2015 20:59
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