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I didn't have a problem with Watney's internal dialogue but I also read him as significantly younger than Matt Damon. He's the lowest ranking member of the crew after all. It still works if you see him as a man child back in his 30s who following a midlife crisis buckled up and became an astronaut. All the geekiness is more of a coping mechanism to deal with the solitude of being marooned on Mars and knowing that there's a fair chance that he'll die alone. I've learned not to say "Nobody talks like that!" because unless "that" is period slang somebody invariably talks like it.
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# ¿ Sep 27, 2015 20:44 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 00:37 |
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There are, by my count, two "fucks", a bunch of "fucks" that are creatively censored, and a lot of "shits". I just saw this. It was a great movie, and stayed pretty true to the spirit of the book. The big difference is in the end, where instead of the explosive decompression assisted deceleration going off without a hitch Watney pokes a hole in his suit for thrust and Lewis catches him in a tethered Manned Manuvering Unit. The cast was great, with my favorite "settings" being with Watney on Mars and the crew of the Hermes (Chastain and Pena are fantastic). Surprisingly I liked Mindy Park, despite having doubts about her over an apparently Korean character being cast with some random white chick. She's played a lot like Felicity from Arrow before the writing went to poo poo and she morphed into hot CW female lead #215. Things I didn't like: Kristen Wiig as Annie Montrose was hit and miss. She gets some good bits, especially when she gets to be snarky or curse, but for large stretches she is just a Worried Teary Eyed Female to contrast with the senior dudes at NASA. All of the Mission Control cheering scenes (there are at least 3 or 4 of them) aren't necessary, and most should have been cut. It's pretty weird contrasting the professionalism of the Hermes crew (who still get to have fun and joke around) with the unprofessionalism of Johnson Mission Control. Still, these are minor flaws in a movie that was otherwise pretty drat good.
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# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 06:47 |
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gohmak posted:
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# ¿ Oct 2, 2015 21:05 |
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The main question of the film, given that it's a fairly clear example of utopian sci-fi, is what sort of utopia it's promoting.
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# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 05:37 |
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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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Just a small quibble, but the MAV is not a scientific exploration vehicle but rather just a one use spacecraft designed with the sole goal of getting a six man crew out of Mars gravity and docked with the Hermes. The modifications are made because the MAV is designed to reach an orbiting Hermes and not one that is conducting an extremely high speed pass The film is absolutely an ode to NASA, though. Watney being left behind for dead on Mars is due to conditions completely out of control of his crew mates or Mission Control (in fact this is mentioned as why the author chose an unrealistic dust storm as the initial disaster over anything that involves a human component). What follows is over two hours of the brilliant astronauts, scientists and engineers at NASA, finding clever ways to keep Watney alive and bring him back alive. Plus, there's the fact that not only has NASA landed a manned mission to Mars by 2035, this is the third such mission.
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# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 18:03 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 00:37 |
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MikeJF posted:I imagine that it's more reliable than an automated landing if you happen to have a pilot in orbit. So the first one was thrown there by a rocket and then later missions the Hermes drops off the next mission's MAV.
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# ¿ Oct 9, 2015 17:00 |