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Technofiction review of

The Martian (2015)

by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright October 2015

Summary

Yay! The Martian breaks the years-long drought in science fiction films that are based on science. It is also a story-breaker, too, this is about problem solving, not good guys and bad guys.

There are some internal consistency problems, but compared to Ridley Scott's previous effort, Prometheus, this one is a sparkling gem. Congratulations to him in particular for getting this one so much righter.

Details

The basic story is that there is a small science expedition that has just come to Mars. It gets hit with a freak storm and hastily abandons the base. In the process one of the crew, Mark Watney, is left behind and presumed dead by the rest of the crew. They head back for earth. But Mark isn't dead, and the rest of the movie is about him being clever and scientific to save himself until a rescue can be mounted. That will happen years later so a lot of cleverness and patience are called for.

The characters are well portrayed and the settings on Mars and in the returning spaceship are fun to see, so all-in-all this is a worthwhile view.

That said, here are some internal inconsistencies I noticed:

o The biggest and baddest one comes right at the beginning. Ridley Scott has a weakness for astronauts getting surprised by deadly storms while they are out wandering around on alien planet surfaces. Sadly, he's not alone in this. Interstellar had this happen as well. For me this plot device feels like the one in 1930's through 50's detective movies where the hero could get clubbed on the head and go unconscious to end an act. My feeling: [sigh]. In the case of these storms, any kind of weather satellite orbiting the planet would pick this up hours before it got to the astronauts and they would simply get inside. In this case, making the inconsistency worse, the Martian atmosphere is not thick enough to blow heavy objects around. It can blow dust around, and blow it around fast, but not rocks, antennas or spaceships.

Thinking about it... describing this opening crisis in a way that would be more compatible with real-Mars conditions is this: that the base is located on top of a Martian dust dune -- they got a great view that way -- and this humongous storm is eroding the dust out from under all the base structures. The antenna tips over on Watney and the ship is about to topple because the dust under them is being rapidly eaten away.

o Another cliche early on is having to get the bullet... whoops, antenna! out of your body for it to heal. In this case it is being used to indicate personal discipline and resourcefulness, so I forgive. But it is a cliche.

o In deeply freezing cold, duct tape is not going to be as flexible or sticky as it is at room temperature. At one point Watney is using Mars-cold duct tape to seal his broken helmet.

o There is so little redundancy, so little backup, for this expedition. There is, for instance, no base station or satellite orbiting above Mars that Watney can try to contact.

 

These are some inconsistencies I noted.

Conclusion

The Martian is fun to watch. I recommend it as a refreshing, new, and different story-style of movie. It has a lot of fun clever stuff in it. But it does have its inconsistencies.

 

-- The End --

 

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