by Andy Weir, Drew Goddard
Genre Films
In The Martian, based on the novel by Andy Weir, a manned mission to Mars goes wrong and the team leaves the planet, but they left behind botanist and bad-ass Mark Watney. In order to make it until help might come to get him, Mark must survive, alone, on Mars, for years. Fortunately, he’s a scientist. Also fortunately, NASA is also full of scientists who will stop at nothing to get him home.
Elyse: I think I had a whole bottle of wine to myself and I don’t normally drink sooooo…
RHG: So: First thoughts? OMG SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE ALL THE SCIENCE.
CarrieS: First thoughts are that I love it when people’s super-power is that they are smart. I know that the science peeps I’m friends with will nitpick this film for months, but regardless of what percentage of science works and what doesn’t, the IDEA that science is awesome and interesting and will save your life was made crystal clear. For those who do want to know about science details, io9.com has a good article that breaks it down. Plus, damn that movie was fun and exciting and emotionally engaging and funny and gorgeous!
Elyse: I’m drunk. I WANNA FUCK SEBASTIAN STAN IN SSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPAAAACCCCEEEEEEE
RHG: Oh lord. Please enjoy this XKCD web comic.
CarrieS: Get in line, Elyse.
Here’s something I rarely say – I’m going to go see it again this weekend because now I want to see it in 3D
Elyse: I saw it twice. Once with my husband and once with my mom. Rich loves scifi. Mom hates it. Both loved the movie and I think that says something
RHG: Like, pretty much every thing was perfect. The tension, the humor (“I am the greatest botnist on this planet!”) and the visuals (Mars looks SO PRETTY YOU GUYS) and the constant running “okay, this has gone sideways, what’s the next plan? Well, this fucked up so now we’ll do this” and the fact that it was many many very smart people are working together on this one thing- it’s great.
CarrieS: In terms of crossover appeal – I feel like there was enough science and futuristic elements to make the science and science fiction fans happy and it was approachable and exciting enough to keep other people happy. Certainly as someone who loves the IDEA of science more than the ACT of science, I was plenty entertained. For people who have kids – this isn’t a movie that’s marketed for kids but it’s pretty clean. People with kids – it has some f-bombs and a shot of Matt’s naked butt in a non-sexual context. I’m certainly going to take my just-turned-twelve-year old to see it..
RHG: There are two spoken “fucks” and many more implied fucks. (They only get two if they want to keep the PG-13 rating, and the used them VERY VERY well).
Elyse: Do you think that fucking Sebastian Stan is like 1 degree away from fucking Chris Evans?
RHG: Elyse, asking the hard questions.
CarrieS: Shall we discuss representation?
Elyse: Diversity all over the place. Was Kristin Wiig’s character supposed to be Jewish? I couldn’t tell if she was wearing a Star of David or a snowflake on her necklace. BUT SO MUCH DIVERSITY.
CarrieS: One thing I liked is that the science people had different personalities and they weren’t all either totally polished or totally socially inept – they ran the gamut from Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character who was pretty suave, to Danny Glover’s character who was clearly neuroatypical in some way.
I did want to see more women doing the hard math in the NASA scenes – but on the other hand Jessica Chastain was a fucking BADASS. And in terms of raiclacial diversity, and religious diversity, and it not being all about ra-ra-’MuricaAMERICA, that was great, very well done.
Elyse: RICH PARNELL IS A STEELY EYED MISSLE MAN.
RHG: Yeah, the teams at NASA all looked like how I expected NASA teams to look. All types of people in various forms of social aptitude (and, if we’re being honest here, cleanliness).
CarrieS: In the book, they talked more about how the Earth teams went for weeks on, like, two hours of sleep a night and they all got pretty gross — not because of social problems but because they had to work 24/7 almost literally.
Which brings me to ask – of the three of us, I’m the only one who read the book, right?
RHG: Yeah, I was waiting to read it until after I saw the movie.
Elyse: Same because I knew I’d like the book better. But I’m actually listening to the audio book right now on my commute and IT’S SO GOOD. If you like audio books this is really well done.
Okay, so also one thing I liked was I thought Jeff Daniel’s was gonna be the villain–the corporate dude, but they gave his character a lot of depth. He did stuff I personally don’t agree with but made a lot of sense in context. He wasn’t a bad person.
RHG: Nope, the enemy was MARS. And circumstance! Jeff was trying to weigh the life of one astronaut with everything else, and that was his JOB. But then all of these other people work together (TOGETHER YOU GUYS) to bring this kid home.
My theater laughed SO LOUD during the “Council of Elrond” scene. Having Sean Bean have to explain it was pure gold and worth the ticket right there.
Elyse: Whoa I just forgot what I wanted to say.
OH yeah! I thought it was a little hard to believe that Mark was so upbeat the whole time. Like he freaked when the HAB blew up (obvs) but he didn’t have an “OH FUCK I’M GONNA DIE I’M GONNA CRY WHILE LISTENING TO ABBA” moment. I would have lost my shit.
CarrieS: Well, yeah, that’s why we aren’t astronauts.
In terms of book vs. movie, I loved them both, and it sounds like you guys didn’t have any trouble following the movie without the book. I thought the book did a better job with sciencing the shit out of everything because the medium was better suited for it. If you are the kind of person who saw the movie and said, “Why didn’t they talk more about…” then try the book, because it’s very detailed.
On the other hand, the movie had more emotional depth because the acting was so good. Most of the characters are not people who cope with stress by talking about their emotions a lot, but you could see their emotions on screen. But in the movie, Matt Damon kept Book Mark’s ability to use humor and compartmentalization to move from problem to problem, but I also felt like he conveyed more emotion than Book Mark. The scene where he’s listening to the wind on his poor little duct tape tarp and he’s trying not to have a melt down was I thought very powerful for me.
I also loved the Elrond scene but can I just gripe for one second? I am so fucking tired of the cliche where the woman isn’t into the geek references. I fucking know what the Council of Elrond is, OK? Can we not keep having women be the token “I don’t understand this reference?” Drives me nuts.
Elyse: If astronauts looked like Sebastian Stan I’d be an astronaut right fucking now.
RHG: I didn’t find the humor to be beyond the pale at all. That’s how he made it 400 days before seeing another person. I mean, he didn’t have a volleyball with a bloody hand print to talk to, and Pathfinder, WHILE ADORABLE and good little rover, isn’t really a conversationalist.
Elyse: I want to know though, if you grow taters in human poo, don’t you have a higher risk of e-coli? Unless you only use your own poo? I don’t know. I’m channeling some 8th grade science here and I legit have the hiccups.
RHG: I think if you wash and cook the taters well you’d be okay? There’s some question the nitpickers had on TVTropes over whether that would work, anyway, something about the mineral content of martian dirt or something, I don’t know. I do know there were some people who were like “You can’t grow potatoes from potatoes!” and it’s like YES YOU CAN THAT IS HOW THAT WORKS FOR GOD’S SAKE.
Which brings me to this thought: this is a movie where the hero is science and problem solving. And I have some hope that this can help counteract the anti-science and anti-intellectualism that’s been plaguing the discourse on just about everything. We need science. And we need problem-solving skills. We need to develope those. Mark had a gigantic problem- he was stuck on Mars. He solved that problem by breaking it down into smaller manageable problems, and solving those. Food. Water. Power. Heat. And NASA did the same thing- get Pathfinder working. Sort out communications. Work out a plan. Solve the problem in front of you.
We have a lot of problems. And a lot of them are REALLY BIG and need to be broken down and solved bit by bit. One at a time. Move on to the next, and move on to the next. And I have hope that this will be a bit of a solution. It’s possible. We can do this.
Elyse: As a boss it’s hard to find people who can do this– We’re going to have big problems and you can’t get overwhelmed. We’re going to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Was I the only one who looked at the fictional NASA center and the astronaut recruitment center and wanted it to be real so fucking bad?
CarrieS: The io9.com article I linked to above (and hey here’s the link again!) has a lot of fun stuff about NASA culture versus Jet Propulsion Laboratory culture (they thought the movie nailed it in terms of cultural norms but that neither group has such very shiny buildings). Also if you want more info on potato growing on Mars they talk about it a lot in that article.
As far as the focus on problem solving, I couldn’t agree more with what RHG said. Also – it’s not a movie about fighting anyone, although there’s interpersonal conflict, and it’s not a movie about wrecking anything (I’d sympathize if Mark said, “Well, now that I’m off the planet, we’ll have to nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure,” but he doesn’t). It’s this gorgeous ode to teamwork and problem-solving.
It is pretty funny that Matt Damon was also Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan. He’s a special snowflake, that guy.
RHG: America has spent a LOT of money saving Matt Damon.
Are we at a grading point?
Elyse: It was an A for me and I totally am not looking up fanfic where Matt Damon and Sebastian Stan get stuck on Mars together for 400 days. NOPE. OH GOD I’M GONNA FEEL SO SHITTY TOMORROW.
RHG: Yes, bitchery, Sebastian Stan is in this movie. You may have heard.
CarrieS: Totally an A for me. We didn’t mention the visuals but the special effects and cinematography alone were glorious. Also – BEST CREDITS SONG EVER.
BTW, my husband is a biologist and environmental lawyer so I picked his brain for sciencey opinions. He said, sadly, “There wasn’t as much science as I thought there would be. They barely scienced the shit out of ANYTHING.” But then he said that overall he’d still give it an A.
Elyse: I’M GONNA DIP THIS POTATO IN CRUSHED VICODIN AND NO ONE CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
CarrieS: OMG the…I married a science guy and this was so spot on in terms of science personalities… I DIED…the thing where Mark makes the speech about maritime law so he’s a pirate, and then at NASA ASA Mindy tells Vincent that Mark is calling himself a pirate and he’s all, “Oh, well, technically, under maritime law…” AND I DIED.
RHG: Lawyers do that, too.
Yup, A.
Go see this movie. Right now. Please. During the climax, I have never been in a packed theater that was that silent. I don’t think anyone was BREATHING.
CarrieS: It was a shining moment when Mark points out that physicists don’t use the word “fast” in the context they were using it in…and then his daredevil side kicks in…he played that monologue just perfectly.
Elyse: In summary: Science, funny, Matt Damon, space ‘taters, Sebastian Stan.
CarrieS: Also scenery pretty, Jessica Chastain badass, diversity good.
The Martian is in theatres now, and you can find tickets at Fandango and Moviefone (US).
I, too, loved The Martian. I thought it was the perfect combination of science, suspense, humor and corporate culture/playing the [media/congress]. This was especially nice b/c I live in The Netherlands, Europe, and never did it feel like many other disaster-type movies, the whole ‘AMERICA, CENTER OF THE UNIVERSEEEEE’-type of things. Things go wrong, people make mistakes, do weird things, almost break, get back up, decisions are fought over etc. Ridley Scott and his crew made a masterpiece. <3
I've not finished the book so I had only just arrived at the part where the potatoes had started to sprout, but I will definitely finish it.
As I said to my mother and father while recommending the movie: if I had tried to scoot even closer to the edge of my seat, I would've fallen off.
As far as Elyse's insightful comments go: I, too, wish to make sweet savage love to mr. Stan, so I totally understand where you're coming from. He's a babe. (Bucky forever!)
Dear Elyse,
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11506621/1/Million-Miles-Away
http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Chris%20Beck*s*Mark%20Watney/works
HTH. HAND.
Went to see this last night and loved it so much I’m googling the s**t out of it this morning. We happened to take a trip to Houston last winter and spent the day at NASA (the level 9 VIP tour is totes worth the $90, you get to see a lot of little bits that reappear in the movie, like the way they use full scale replicas on Earth to try to recreate and solve problems that are occurring in space in real time), and now I’m geeking out because SCIENCE! Such a great movie, and so refreshing to have a plot that doesn’t revolve around a nefarious bad guy (maybe the Chinese, secretly sabotaging rocket development to prevent NASA from getting their new probe launched first?) who’s evil just for the sake of being evil. Mars is harsh and unfeeling enough to be the bad guy all on its own. I think the audiobook is in my future!
I read the book before seeing the movie; both are great and my quibbles with the movie adaptation are minor. I know they couldn’t fit in all the science from the book into the movie, and they downplayed or took out some of the problems he did have, because movies are time-limited. But they could have added in some voiceover explanation about his soil creation (and I think it was wrong that he used the frozen poop because all the microbes would be dead?).
Altogether an awesome movie and even more awesome book. And even with the additional science in the book, it’s still accessible to non-science people, explanations are pretty clear.
I have pimped this book to everyone who would listen. And a few who wouldn’t! Currently in he process of twisting my husband’s arm to go with me tonight to see the movie.
Oh, it was so good. I have been harassing my husband since first seeing the trailer about how we would be seeing the hello out of this. And we did, and it was amazing.
This sounds so totally my thing I was all a-squee just reading the review. I shall have to sort out babysitting etc for going to see it with DH (a major exercise in planning for us).
Science. Yes, totally my thing.
Loved the book (our whole family passed it around and read it) and was so happy that the movie was just as good! There is a great trailer I think they made just for promotional purposes where they show them doing psych evaluations of the crew before the mission – Parts are hilarious, and Jessica Chastain is even more of a badass than she is in the movie! Highly recommend it and the movie!
Did anyone else expect / hope that Sean Bean would say “Winter is Coming”? Cause, during the Council of Elrond convo… I held my breath – just in case.
I think you incorrectly captioned Donald Glover as Danny Glover
I read The Martian shortly after it came out. After a lot of “Listen to this” moments, my husband said that he’d like to read it. (And my husband only rarely reads fiction.) We ended up listening to the audio book on a long drive, and both enjoyed it. My husband described it as ‘porn for engineers.’ While I don’t typically watch movies, we’re both looking forward to seeing this. Thanks for the review.
I also have been pimping the hell out of the book, and cannot WAIT to see the movie, except I have to wait because I want to go with the husband and our mutual schedule is terminally f***ed.
Re: diversity, I have read and must agree that the Indian part should have been cast Indian, and the Korean part should have been cast Korean. However I love Chiwetel Ejiofor so anytime he is on screen it’s a good day for me. (Y’all can have your Sebastian Stan. I will take Mr. Ejiofor, please and thank you.)
Glad to hear it’s a solid thumbs up from the Bitchery. YAY SCIENCE!
Oh and by the way. For those who liked The Martian, book or movie, may I recommend EXO by Steven Gould?
It is about a teenage girl who teleports into orbit and creates a livable habitat there. In orbit. To save her grandmother. GIRL POWER. Also a lot of science.
I love SF. I have read _The Martian_ and consider it an excellent book – and moreover, good, classical Science Fiction (the kind with the emphasis on Science, think Clarke and Asimov) updated for the 21 century. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but am certainly planning to!
Book lover here and soon-to-be movie lover when we go next week. Science guy loved the book, too, which never happens, and I am encouraged by all the good movie noise here. I had doubts about Matt Damon, but you have reassured me that this casting works well. Must now google Sebastian Stan.
Oh, God, I loved this movie, and I know nothing, but NOTHING, about science or space. Possibly Ridley Scott’s best movie. Really made by the cast – what a star turn by Matt Damon, and the rest of the cast is impeccable. It’s definitely “Castaway” on Mars, but then, I loved “Castaway”, too. Matt Damon is probably the only actor other than Tom Hanks who could carry a movie (mostly) by himself. Can’t recommend this highly enough.
A+ in my fam of nerds
We are so happy
OK, I’m a total geek. I read AND listened to the book and now I’ve seen the movie. Oh, I so CRUSH on smart guys! When I thought about it before I saw the movie Matt Damon is perfect for the role–smart and funny without being a smart aleck about it. He’s low key which this role so requires. Only someone with a lot of inner resources could survive that long by himself. Damon makes you believe that this guy could survive the loneliness using humor, creating his journal, and using his brains.
I don’t think it will happen but I want a campaign for this movie to get LOTS of Academy Awards so that they make more smart, great movies like this.
chacha1, I’d read and enjoyed other Jumper books by Gould but hadn’t seen this title. Thanks for mentioning EXO.
Saw this today, and yes, great movie. I hope it does good things for space programs of all sorts.
Pretty sure that’s not Matt Damon’s butt, though. I remember seeing him, I think it was on Inside the Actor’s Studio and he talked about an early role where he was playing an addict, and he lost a bunch of weight in a really short time so he could play the addict wasting away. If I remember right, he actually permanently damaged his health when he did that, and I think he said he wouldn’t do that again. So when they showed the scenes with skinny Mark Watney I was looking to see if they were maybe using a body double for those parts, and I think they were. Really well edited, though.
I loved this story so much. I hope it inspires people, I really do.
Let me start out by saying that I loved the book and I think they did a really good job on the adaptation, the casting, and the art direction, and Matt Damon was terrific. My only two small quibbles are that they changed my favorite line from the book (right after they find out he’s alive and are musing about what he must be thinking) and I thought that they made Glover’s character into inappropriately goofy comic relief. I don’t care how much of a nerdy geek you are, if you are called into a meeting with the head honchos, you don’t act like that. But overall, an A from me, too.
I’m crying just from the trailer. Growing up in Houston, all things NASA hit me in the feels. I would sob though this movie.
I just saw it last night with my housemates, and three out of four of us loved it. I don’t think man vs. nature plots aren’t really the forth roommate’s thing.
One thing I was thinking about — it feels like I’m seeing more popular stories that let their characters be smart and funny within the context of sincere, optimistic stories (The Martian, Hamilton, Parks & Rec, etc.). Fingers crossed it becomes a trend since it’s my favorite kind of story.
Is Elyse OK? How hung over is she? I have actual Vicodin. I could also Fed-Ex a potato.
I am so excited about this. I’ve read the book, listened to the audio book, made everyone I know read it, and basically made a pest of myself.
And I loved the moved. Yeah, they cut a lot, but I think they kept the spirit and that’s good enough for me.
@chacha1: I heard (but I can’t remember where), that the producers had a Bollywood actor lined up for the role of Kapoor, but something happened and he had to drop out. And then Ejiofor said he was available and they were all “what, say no to him?” So, it was less not casting an Indian actor and more “WE”RE ABLE TO GET CHIEWETAL!”
Looks like I am going to be the lone wolf here (don’t lynch me, please!). I merely liked the movie. In fact I am a little surprised by how much critics are liking this movie. Because really, at the end of the day, its a pretty basic narrative. Jurassic World was funnier, had more character development, was more suspenseful and had better chemistry between the characters and yet I don’t know that the praise for that film was as effusive as I’ve seen for The Martian. I think what does save it is the fine cast that they have – they do bring a degree of professionalism to an otherwise pretty straight forward suspense flick. I mean, I think science is sexy too but I’m not sure that really makes up for the relatively ordinariness of the plot. However, my 9 year old and 15 year old sons LOVED it and for that I think it hit its mark. The teenager is even reading the book now (to quote Mark Whatney … yay!). It is actually a pretty good family film which can be difficult for our family to find since our boys are so far apart in age (but Jurassic World did that too). And it is an enjoyable film, sure but I’m not going to rave about it.
And the book … sorry, again, in the minority here, but I am reading the book for my book group and am finding it as boring as hell. Jeez. You know how when your English teacher in high school is telling you to show not tell when writing a story. Yeah, well this book does a lot of telling which is really, really boring. There is zilch character development, and because we have to sit through all the minute detail of how he solves EVERY SINGLE problem, including all the calculations, you just want them to leave him on Mars. I guess the “science” is interesting for some but then its supposed to be literature not an engineering textbook. And emotional arc?? Zilch. Yay!
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Just to give a different point of view. But its still an enjoyable movie and has some great songs in it. But if you want to watch a space movie about someone alone in space that has better character development, more suspense and better storyline then watch MOON.
I tried to be somewhat vague to avoid spoilers…
For me, the book was an A+ and the movie an A/A-. I think they did a great job with the adaptation, but I still missed a lot of the humor (they cut one of my favorite lines at the end!), some of the sciency stuff, and some of the nail biting scenes. The trek in the rover was way more pedestrian on screen than in the book, for instance. The only time I was on the edge of my seat was at the end when Chastain and Stan were outside. My other (minor) quibbles were having a blond woman play Mindy Park (and the reduction of her role) and the epilogue (which I thought was mostly unnecessary).
It goes without saying that onscreen homes/workplaces bear little resemblance to real life. I’m not a NASA employee but I used to work in the NASA HQ building; sorry to say that it looked pretty much like other government buildings–maybe even not as nice as some given its age and all the funding cuts they’ve had. It resembled the onscreen version as much as government med labs look like CSI sets. Maybe by the time there are manned Mars missions it would be more gussied up, tho. And Chastain’s house was likewise pretty sharp for someone at her pay grade unless she was retired and pulling in private sector money.
Reading over my comments before hitting the submit button, I think I came across as more negative than I meant to. The movie was great, the 2.5 hours flew by, and the Council of Elrond scene alone was worth the price of admission. 🙂
can’t wait to go see it
@Joy “…they make more smart, great movies like this.”
Yes, totally this! Had the same conversation with dh after seeing it this weekend. Would love more smart movies!
The book is on my tbr list, but as a former science nerd, I was just overjoyed to see science and problem-solving represented positively and in a (to me) relatable manner for non-science folks.
As to the accuracy, I thought NPR had an interesting story on that recently: http://www.wbur.org/npr/444446982/how-the-martian-became-a-science-love-story
Jacqui — you are not alone in your thoughts about the book. I rated it a mediocre, sometimes tedious novel on a far from original subject. I’ll wait to see the movie on DVD.
I’m with you on the book, Jacqui – Mark Watney annoyed the bejeezus out of me and I wished they’d leave him on Mars. I liked it enough to keep turning the pages, but I had many issues with it.
I haven’t yet seen the movie, but I do remember thinking it might translate well to screen, so I’ll go with an open mind and a hope that Matt Damon makes Watney more likable than he was in the book.
@Jacqui- I’ll agree with the lack of character development; the book was good, but not great. What I did love, however, was all of the calculations. Frankly, as an engineer, if I’m going to read a book that talks about math and science then I want to see the calculations. Engineers need engineering fiction, too, after all!
I enjoyed the movie a lot. But the criticisms…yeah, I agree with all of those. Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park) is my second favorite part of Halt and Catch Fire, but I wasn’t pleased to see her in that role. I had heard the same rumor about the Indian actor originally cast for Kapoor dropping out 2 weeks prior to filming, so maybe there’s truth to that? The rover scenes were definitely toothless. Even the screwdriver scenes were disappointing (and frankly, something I wanted to talk about with my dad, so I was disappointed that got cut).
I also thought the book was a lot funnier than the movie. There was just a little too much tension in Matt Damon’s delivery, I think. The book talked about how he was best suited to being marooned on Mars, due to his sense of humor, but you really lost that in the movie, I think.
The epilogue was kind of nice, though.
Great review, and mostly agree. Just want to point out, since you discuss the diversity and representation in the film, that two of the book’s Asian characters — Venkat Kapoor and Mindy Park — are played by non-Asians in the movie (Chiwetel Ejiofor, now called “Vincent” Kapoor, and Mackenzie Davis). I guess the story is that the Bollywood actor slated for Kapoor dropped out and had to be replaced, which I suppose makes the character’s recasting understandable (although they seriously couldn’t find ANY OTHER Bollywood actor — or British or American actor of Indian heritage — to jump in?). So that’s a missed opportunity to give two Asian roles to talented Asian actors and increase Asian representation onscreen. Great movie otherwise, though.
Okay. I’ve finally seen the movie (went with my husband – a chemist). I really enjoyed the movie and found it tense and interesting. I thought the Space Pirate thing was hilarious.
I agree about the character development. Watney was pretty much the same guy at then end as he was at the start. The only person that showed any change was Teddy (but even that was more about circumstance than about character). It would have been a much more satisfying story if there had been a character arc too.
I still loved it though. It’s nice to see the variety of scientists depicted there. I didn’t know about the Bollywood actor, but DH and I did wonder why they’d chosen someone who doesn’t look remotely Indian to play a guy whose last name was Kapoor.
On the other hand, Chiwetel Ejiofor was great. Isn’t he always?
When my kids are older, I’ll probably make them watch it. Then I’ll make them watch Sunshine.
For the record, I got the Council of Elrond joke. DH needed it explained. I’m the geek in the family, despite him being the one that still works in science.