about your question about storms on mars and how are we ever going to go< 1 we will never go to mars, we would have to have magic levels of technology to tarraform mars.2: lets say we do develop the technology to go, said storms wouldn't be an issue like in the movie the atmosphere on Mars is so thin that even a strong wind wouldn't make that much of a difference a wind storm even at 60 mph would seem more like a breeze because the density of martial air is only 1% of that of earths so a 60 mph wind would feel like a breezy 6 mph
About the science of it.... well, as they confirmed in the movie, Mars has almost no atmosphere, so the storm at the beginning that caused the movie could never actually happen without atmosphere, so....... 😉
@@houseofaction Well Elon wants to go to Mars and I'm not really inclined to be against the man. Going there isnt the same as terraforming it though, and nobody has claimed terraforming. The atmosphere is less dense, as has been said, so storms, while they certainly do happen, are not as intense as depicted here. Even in this movie the storm wasnt a threat to their base- it was the threat of tipping over their ride home that was the problem. Is the science accurate- I'm told the science is pretty good except for the fact that it turns out there's something poisonous in the soil so its not actually possible to grow stuff as he did. No idea if the contamination could be cleansed with the right facilities or not.
The director originally wanted Damon to break down crying earlier in the movie, but they said it felt to forced. However, when he heard the crew through his headset, at the end, Damon just started crying on his own. He said he realized, as a character and through his own humanity, that hearing these voices after being alone for so long got him emotional. So, they kept it in the movie.
Anyone who gets chills from the science in the movie simply HAS to read the book! It really takes you into the puzzle-solving of finding the resources in Mark's environment to keep him alive and there's like twice as much science stuff as there is in the movie. Overall the movie is very well made and faithful to the book, it's just condenced to work much better in movie format. The science is supposedly as accurate as possible except for that Martian atmosphere is so thin that the storm which sets the movie's premise would be impossible. Andy Weir who wrote the book is like an engineer or something and I think he's worked with NASA, which is why he knows all the science and technology that create the environment of the story.
Ditto! I have the Audiobook as I have a fair commute daily. The voice acting is Superb! 1) Yes they had to change a few things for the screen. 2) Watney- "Ductape works anywhere, It should be Worshipped!" 3) At the end a kid met him in the park and asked him if he woulsd go back to Mars. Watney - "You F-n Kidding me?" I've replayed it several times!
@@1wwtom Make sure to listen to the Bray-read audiobook, not the Matt Damon one. The first is the one with a great performance by the reader, doing multiple accents throughout.
While much should be theoretically possible, the execution shown in the film is often not possible in this form. In the Martian soil, for example, there are toxic salts that would have to be washed out before agriculture could be practiced. Or the tent shown in the movie would be dark to grow potato plants. The whole Mars station shown has no visible radiation protection. The propulsion used to leave the surface at the end would not be strong enough to overcome the gravity of Mars. Etc. etc.
When the crew called Rich Purnell a "steely-eyed missile man" that was the highest compliment one can get in NASA. Basically it is given to an astronaut or engineer who figures out how to solve a big problem quickly while under extreme stress.
"Do storms like that really happen on Mars?" wellllllll . . . No. Not at all, or rather, not THAT way. It's MUCH thinner atmosphere, so even a huge storm is pretty trivial. TBH, that's probably the biggest stretch in both the book and the movie, is how severe that storm was. (That and "Iron Man"). That said, the amount of science fact remaining in the rest of the story makes us forgive that one big whopper, especially since it's such a great setup for the rest of the difficulties Watney tackles in the rest of the story. I love this story, even with the stormy unreality at the beginning. Glad you got to enjoy it too! Thank you for the reaction!
Such a great movie. Watching Matt Damon break down when he says "Thanks for coming back for me", never fails to make me blubber. The science stuff is fascinating, but the characters rule. So well written, so well acted. Another crown jewel for Ridley Scott.
One of the all time best "realistic" science fiction movies (other than the wind on Mars). They didn't need to invent space monsters to further the plot or raise the stakes. Just one man trying to science the shit out of this.
Once the Hermes headed back to Earth it would be practically impossible to turn around and go back to Mars, other than how it was done in the movie, that is. The ship is in a ballistic orbit around the sun that happens to intersect the orbit of Earth at the same time that Earth is at that point in its orbit. It would take a lot of computational power to calculate the new orbit back to Mars and potentially a very large amount of fuel to get into the new orbit. Even if the fuel was available, depending on the relative positions of the Hermes and Mars it might even take longer than the Purnell Maneuver. Then there's the issue of needing enough fuel to get them into the proper orbit to return to Earth and to slow down when they get to Earth. Orbital mechanics is hard.🙂
The computations aren't a problem. Might be hard to do on the ship, but it could easily be done on Earth and uploaded. The real problem is the amount of fuel it would take - there's no way the ship would be designed with that large of a fuel reserve. Frankly, even they way they did it in the movie seems a little bit sketchy to me as far as available extra fuel goes. They probably would have needed to pick up extra fuel along with the other supplies they got while passing the Earth, and unless the ship was designed for refueling in space that's not really practical, either. You are also right that even with a huge fuel reserve the Purnell Maneuver might be faster than trying to change course and head back to Mars directly.
@@hkpew It probably wouldn't be "turning back" per se, they'd probably boost into a higher orbit, outside Mars', and wait for Mars to pass them and then try to catch up as they got closer to the Sun. At least the Purnell Maneuver takes advantage of the gravity slingshot from Earth and perhaps from Mars (they're just doing a fly-by) hopefully leaving enough fuel for braking. I also assume Purnell also calculated their second return trajectory and hopefully accounted for fuel requirements. I guess to figure it out we'd need to know the original orientation of Earth and Mars. Can KSP simulate our solar system?
The problem isn't that orbital mechanics is hard (plenty of computational power available, with a bit of help from a source or two on Earth) ... it's that orbital mechanics is _absolutely_ *unforgiving!* The equations produce what you want - or they *don't!* There is no 'bending the equations' to *force* the results to be what you want! P.S. - way back 'in the day', Isaac Asimov wrote a story about an astronaut facing a drastic problem, and trying to make it all work out so that both he *and* a stow-away kid could survive until arrival or rescue or *something* ... but "The Cold Equations" didn't work out that way ... so depressing; it's the only Asimov story I only read once!
@@hkpew well the Hermes is using a vasmir (plasma thruster) so fuel usages is quite low, as it’s a low thrust but constant (basically a high tech ion engine like dawn space craft)
So to answer your question about the scientific accuracy, Andy Weir wrote the novel originally as a serialized piece of fiction on his website. Various readers of a scientific bent helped him iron out a lot of the inaccuracies or mistakes he made with a few notable plot related exceptions. The biggest one is the sandstorm that sets everything in motion. Mars does have massive sandstorms like the one shown, but not nearly that forceful. While the wind speeds can be pretty high, he actual force is akin to a light breeze since Mars’ atmosphere is much much thinner than Earth’s is, around half of one percent the pressure. There is just no way it could lift the dish or tip over the MAV, but then we’d have no story. The other big gimme is radiation. Mars doesn’t have a strong magnetic field to deflect solar and cosmic radiation like we do and proper radiation shielding for something like that is a few cm of lead, 50 cm of water or, a full meter of rock. There is no way the thin material of he space suits or the hab could have protected Mark for as long as he was on Mars. As Weir put it, you’d have so much cancer, your cancer would have cancer. Other than that, the hydrogen burning, the way potato growing is described in the book (before we knew how full of perchlorate salts Mars soil is), and the vast majority of his solutions should actually work. Also, the Iron Man thing is mentioned but not executed in the novel, it just makes it look cooler in the movie.
@@bigdream_dreambig They're bad. However, it's not really all that bad, as the perchlorates can be basically "washed out" of the soil. It's a tad more complex than just pouring water on it, but it CAN be done. It just needs to be planned for. Edit to add: Also, the perchlorates can be used to make rocket fuel - sort of. Solid rocket engines, such as those on the space shuttle, are made of potassium perchlorate or ammonium perchlorate.
I do not know why anything even semi-permanent structures are tolerable above-ground! They keep showing everything as domes on the surface of mars in SF, but why not go into a lava tube or excavate even for soil/regolith cover! I also assume that commercial efforts will send regolith-processing printing robots for initial structures (landing pads, some walls or onion-domes, etc.) The way this book was written is also interesting if you ever want to look it up, it was chapter at a time with commentary from fans, I believe. (Though it was Andy Weir's friends at that point, I assume!)
Here to say that space nerds of a certain age teared up a bit when Pathfinder was introduced as a key to saving Mark. That probe was the stuff of dreams and lasted so little time.
"Of a certain age", lol. I'm 23 and didn't learn about Pathfinder until a few years ago and that is the only scene that manages to make me emotional for some reason. The scene, the music, a lone human digging up a human technological relic to save themselves on another planet. It's perfect to me. Easily my favorite science fiction movie. Pathfinder might only be a machine but I have a soft spot for all the probes and rovers we send out into space.
I just finished Andy Weir’s book Project Hail Mary. He wrote the Martian. It’s good and is being made into a movie as well. The Martian is one of my fav’s.
An old Sci-Fi drama people often forget about, but is really good is "Enemy Mine". It's from the mid 80s, and it is about two beings who are on opposite sides of a interstellar war stranded on a planet together. Great, great movie.
You know the story of why the climax takes place how and where it does? Apparently the studio execs didn't think people would understand the expression Enemy Mine so they had them put an actual mine in to the story.
Louis Gosset Jr. did a fantastic job playing the alien, and made the movie work. They don't give out Academy Awards for actors in such movies, but he deserved one. It did not do well in theaters and was considered a financial flop, but like John Carter on Mars, Enemy Mine is a much better movie than the critics implied. Perhaps they did not like the rather negative portrayal of humanity in the film, but after 67 years of observing my species, I think the portrayal was spot on!
The best part about this movie is, it's actually scientifically plausible. The biggest liberty both the movie and book take is the wind storm that kicks it off. Mars's atmosphere is like 1% as dense as earth's, so even 100mph winds in that kind of air pressure wouldn't so much as tip you over. But Weir needed an inciting incident and, again, it's the biggest creative liberty he takes. It's nuts how good both movie and book are
The author admitted to cheating on one thing. The chemistry for making the water is correct, it's just to be able to make enough water in time would create enough heat to melt the habitat 😯
It is called "Sol" (from the Latin word for Sun) because if we think of a day, automatically we think in 24 hours. But each planet has its own day length so in planetary sciences it is preferred the term "sol" as the apparent interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the same point in the sky as seen by an observer. A Martian sol is 24 hours and 40 minutes. On Pluto, a sol takes 153.5 hours. It is almost used exclusively on Mars because is the only other world we are planning to visit in a close future. Maybe will be use it more often in other planets if we get to visit them...
This is really my go-to answer for Quentin Tarantino's concern about getting too old to make good films. Ridley Scott was in his late 70s when he made this, and it's one of his best films. It's the ultimate man-vs-nature, problem-solving film, and shows the value of a good understanding of science.
Last I checked the writer of The Expanse loved this movie so much they made it canon in their universe where they even named a ship the Mark Watney after the character.
This and Castaway are to me neck and neck for the whole 'lost on an island' type thing. Although it's hard to forget 'Alive!' (based on a true story and would be an interesting one to see a reaction to these days)
34:20 I like how they use the music for some additional jokes. He just told us that he's freezing to death, that the plutonium reactor is really dangerous, and now he has loaded it into his cabin, is comfortably warm and listens to "Hot stuff".
I'm kind of embarrassed to say that, according to my UA-cam history, I've watched this video about 60 times in the 11 months since you uploaded it. It's one of my favorite movies and definitely my favorite of your reactions. I like how you insert yourself into the dialog, such as the scene where the woman is reviewing satellite imagery and you shout "Enhance! Zoom! Enhance!" and again when she calls her supervisor to report what she says and you imitate her and say, "Someone is moving the rover around." That cracks me up every time. Other times you seem to be doing his math along side him, or listening carefully to his explanation of a chemical process and verifying each step in your head, as if you're agreeing with his plan. You're not just *watching* the movie, you're *participating* in it. Anyway, I watched it again last night and thought I need to let you know how much I enjoy it.
2:45 Windspeed on Mars can get up to hundreds of kph, but the air pressure is so low it'd have the force of a slight breeze. The only part of the movie that isn’t 'real science' is the first five minutes. Everything else is real world math at work. Thats why its so good.
This is one of the best SciFi movies about space travel. It was one of the most realistic ones out there and Mr. Weir did a great job and Ridley Scott is a master.
One thing that I do miss from the book is an explanation for why/how he’s good at, like, everything despite just saying he’s a botanist in the movie. In the book, he’s a botanist but he’s also basically the crew’s handyman and can do a little bit of everything. The book also explains how he’s able to grow the potatoes: they had brought Earth soil with them to experiment with, and the reason he couldn’t grow more potatoes after his accident is that the necessary bacteria in the Earth soil was dead.
Orbital mechanics: the crew was too far away to turn around the second they left Mark. It's impossible to maneuver like that without insane amounts of propellant that no vehicle has.
KSP players will agree. Spaceship isn't like car, it's more like a bullet. You can't just turn around in the middle of the flight without previous planning.
So my brother actually does work at JPL. He thinks this movie is closest to that actual environment of what its like to work there. Engineers too often get represented as stuffy humorless nerds cramped in a lab somewhere. There are some relatively minor problems with some of the science, but overall nothing too major. Most of it is relatively accurate. You were asking why they didn't turn around. There are lots of factors. Not limited to fuel, momentum and the fact that planets are moving. The fact that planets move is the biggest factor. Its why anything we send to Mars has to be sent in a certain window of time, Otherwise Mars is too far away or moving away from us. If we launch something to Mars we are ahead of Mars and launch ahead of it so it intercepts where it will be months later. This would apply coming back too. So Mars would be moving away from the ship at a very high velocity. So they just wouldn't have near enough fuel to reverse momentum and then gain enough velocity to not just match Mar's velocity but overtake it. When they slingshoted around Earth, they would not have done a complete 180. They came from Mars being in one spot, which it was no longer at, and slingshot to another spot where Mars would be in 7 months. Its why the calculations were so complex. Its not a simple point A to point B. Also, I rewatched this while isolating during lockdown. I was going stircrazy then, but still had some people around me. It made the isolation factor of the movie hit so much harder that time I watched it.
Orbital mechanics are truly weird. They make it so that *every* planet's nearest neighbor (defined as the planet it's closest to for more time than any of the other planets) is Mercury. Thanks orbital mechanics! It's all explained here, if you care: ua-cam.com/video/GDgbVIqGADQ/v-deo.html
They also had to run the calculations due to the Hermes being under constant thrust, instead of a thrust-drift-thrust maneuver. IIRC the writer had to write his own program to calculate the first optimal transfer maneuver so he could calculate the crew being on the ground during Thanksgiving. He then had to use the same engine to calculate the Hermes' maneuver to rescue Mark while performing the flyby of Earth.
This is a really great movie, and almost all the science in it is spot-on accurate... Almost... The main issue is the storm at the beginning, which was threatening to tip over the MAV. In reality, the atmospheric density on Mars is only 1% that of Earth, so even a 400mph tornado on Mars would be no stronger than a gentle 4mph breeze on Earth, and would barely move a sheet of paper, let along blow over a spacecraft...
My favorite performance is Jeff Daniels' NASA administrator. I love ethical villains. The scene where donald glover explains to him the maneuver and doesn't know who the administrator of NASA is... Jeff Daniels's character introducing himself to his subordinate is my favorite line. His annoyance with not being recognized is just so well executed.
"Can he even lift that stuff?" Martian gravity is a little more than one third of that on Earth. Because of that, everything on Mars (Watney included) weighs about one third of what it would here. Plus it costs a ton of money to put things into orbit (like thousands of dollars per pound), let alone fly them to another planet, so everything on that vehicle would have been built to weigh as little as possible. If anything, the film probably has Watney straining _too much_ when he's shoving the nose cone aside. But it doesn't look very dramatic if Matt Damon just casually shoves a huge chunk of spacecraft aside.
Nah, Mark's been there 500+ Sols...his muscles have adapted to low gravity. Therefore, they're gonna strain under a load that would normally cause them strain.
As noted elsewhere, the atmosphere on Mars is thin enough that even a 200 m.p.h. wind would feel like a light breeze. The visibility would suck, though. Author Andy Weir acknowledged that he fudged the strength of the storm winds, at the beginning, because he literally could not think of any other way to strand Watney. Another fun fact is that Weir is friends with Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, the authors of the series, The Expanse. Apparently, the three of them have informally agreed that the events of The Martian exist as canon in the future setting of The Expanse. The TV series based on The Expanse acknowledged this by naming a Martian botanical garden (IIRC) after Mark Watney. 😊
As others have said, storms of that size can occur on Mars, there can be these HUGE dust storms, but due to the thickness (or thinness in this case) of the atmosphere, it would have very little force behind it.
One of the few times the movie closely matches the source material in all the good ways. And for the record no, storms like that don't happen on Mars. Even the writer Andy Wier was clear on the fact that he had to create a more severe storm to get his story off the ground. So fear not JM, future martian colonist will not have F5 style winds to contend with. Andy Wier specifically wrote Mark to be someone who was a person who had the ability to keep the team motivated with his humor, that's why he was so amusing in this story. Also, his reply to being told to watch his language was to write "LOOK BOOBIES" and then created text boobs with parentheses and periods. Absolutely loved this book, the only thing they did that I didn't care for was change the Kapur character to an American, and they down played Mindy Park's empathy. She was very mousey and was always crying about what it must be like to be Mark there all alone. She was one of my favorite characters in the book Just a note Jen you should read his newest novel Project Hail Mary if you like Mark Wateny you'll love Ryland Grace. His book Artemis is also good, but admittedly Andy doesn't do quite as good a job writing a female lead. She's still good, but well... just read it and decide for yourself. One big thing they got wrong though, he could only use his own waste to grow the potatoes because it has bacteria from his own intestines. Using others could potentially caused serious illness. Man this was a fun watch, thanks JM for another awesome reaction vid. This is one of the best sic fic stories in years because it's not that confused sci fantasy stuff, Andy Wier put actual science back in sciences fiction again.
19:40 "Project Elrond" - and Boromir (Sean Bean) is sitting there explaining it. I have watched this movie so many times but completely missed that until now. I'm a bit slow but get there eventually. :)
You should read the book (or listen to the audiobook, which is really well done) - so much more detail on the science, and even more problems for Watney to solve... I do love that there's no "bad guy" in this story. It's just a conflict over methods and risks.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this movie so much. I adore the book and was very happy with this adaption. I listen to the audiobook every few months. Thank you for the reaction!
You got to read the book, by Andy Weir. I read the book first. Lots of F words, but IF you were left on Mars without a way home...you'd probably use the F word too. The book is just as charismatic as the movie. You fall in love with Mark Watney. I encourage you to read it. You know the ending, but the journey is so much MORE than the movie could do...though they did an amazing job adapting it to the big screen. Also, the story of HOW this story got made into a book is also cool. This NASA engineer, Andy Weir started writing this story on his website. A chapter at a time. When it was finished he gave the book away for FREE to anyone who wanted to read it. BUT, people wanted to read it on their Kindle, so he had to charge 99 cents (the lowest allowed at the time), it was SO popular, that it became a Best Seller on the KDP and then it went viral. There is one big conceit, the storms on Mars are NEVER that bad. SO, the science was fibbed a little, but pretty much everything else is by the book. Also, AFTER the book was written, they found pockets of water on the surface (just below the crust) in certain areas...so that too changed from when the book was published. BUT still a great story. My wife and I have read the book twice and seen the movie twice. Thanks for this reaction. It is so much fun watching your reactions. Thank you for sharing them with us.
I absolutely love this Movie. Up there with Ridley Scotts finest. I adore it that much that I had to buy the UHD 4K Extended Edition which is Awesome also.
The science in this is famously incredibly accurate. About the only thing that's very unrealistic is that storm. The atmosphere on Mars is extremely thin, no storm of that severity could ever happen there. And they sexed up the rendezvous at the end for the movie.
My favorite part of them Hollywooding the rescue was how they did exactly what Mark said in the book would happen were it a movie when he boarded the Hermes, they all come to meet him at the airlock. He explains in the book that not only do they still have tasks to do since they're still doing a maneuver around Mars, but they would rather not have to smell him either.
@@jgreen2015 The round trip delay would be somewhere between 10 and 40 minutes depending on the position of the planets. But when they say he’s being broadcast live, they mean his words are going out as soon as they come in for them.
@@jgreen2015 24-hour news networks have had over 40 years to figure out how to fill dead air, I think they could figure out how to fill in the gaps during an unprecedented scientific endeavor.
@@jgreen2015 They meant that it was being broadcast live as they were receiving it, not that the communication was instantaneous. Still unrealistic, but not for science reasons.
This was my first time watching this reaction and it was fantastic 🔥. From top to bottom I had such a fun time, thank you for putting it in on your community tab today Jen.
Sci-fi and space movies are often among my favorites. This is a good one. Would also be cool if you ever get around watching some of our fellow countryman Denis Villeneuve movies like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, Prisoners, Dune and Incendies. All very good movies. Love the channel.
Has anyone done a reaction to Incedies yet? I've seen reactions to Blade runner 2049, Arrival -- I think I've even seen 1 channel do Prisoners - and a LOT of people have covered Dune, but I'm not sure I've seen anyone cover Sicario or especially Incendies. That would make a interesting reaction.
I knew you'd love this before I even started Jen and you weren't alone thinking something bad would happen at any moment 😬 . Watching anything with Jessica chastain I'm sold 🥰 and along with the best reactor around it doesn't get much better 🙌 cheers Jen this was sciencetastic
6:43 An Astronaut is quoted as describing the science as so accurate that he felt like he was still at work.... he was talking about a convo he had with the author.
I'd give him the bronze award, I think Jen was right to give the low key MVP to the rest of the crew. Everyone else back on Earth helped make it all possible and Sean Bean sacrificed his career but they were the ones who had to make the decision to potentially sacrifice their own lives to save their friend. Many people were crucial to make the plan work but no one else had to sacrifice what they did and risk making the ultimate sacrifice.
great movie + reaction! Another great 'space survival' type movie is "Apollo 13" (1995), a true story starring Tom Hanks(!) and directed by Ron Howard 👍
I just like the whole "poke a hole and fly around like iron man" thing considering how many actors in this movie were/are in the MCU. Matt Damon - Actor Loki Sebastian Stan - Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier Michael Pena - Luis Chiwetel Ejiofor - Baron Mordo Benedict Wong - Wong Donald Glover - Aaron Davis Kate Mara - US Marshal Jessica Chastain turned down two different roles in MCU films Sean Bean is actually rumored to play Mephisto at some point
I remember reading that the wind would not be able to do any of this...The atmosphere is so thin that even at high velocities it wouldn't threaten their spaceship.
My favorite movie. There aren’t enough great science oriented films out there. I wasn’t a Matt Damon fan until The Martian came out and now I love the guy and have seen all of his films lol.
this is my favorite movie/book ever. There’s no human villain and/or romantic melodrama… just straight up problem solving based on science to save the day. Science and the love/commitment of Science is the real hero of the story and i love it! ❤
You’ve seen Chiwetel Ejiofor in this and in Serenity. For something different, in Kinky Boots he’s a drag Queen in a small English town. Was later made into a stage musical, but Chiwetel is not in that film.
Funny that you said it was serious. It actually was in the comedy category at the award shows that year. There's also an extended version out there if you want to see even more Martian.
Hi Jen, great reaction! 2 more recent sci-fi films that focus on survival and isolation are "Moon" starring Sam Rockwell and "Gravity" starring Sandra Bullock. I highly recommend both and think you'd have a lot of fun reacting to them!
I get the feeling that there was a big lead up to the song that played during the credits for this movie, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. The lyrics fit the movie plot extremely well, and I get the sense that they gave the mission commander, Melissa Lewis, her fanatic love of Disco Era 1970s music as a lead up to that song in the credits, along with creating the multiple comedic moments as Mark Watney complains about her musical preferences in his mission log - though I note he continued to listen to them anyway.
A great reaction to a great film, Jen. As you enjoyed this, I highly recommend, 'Apollo 13' as a space film to react to, it's based on a true story too, and of course, '2001: A Space Odyssey', which is a great space film also.
Hello again Jen,as usual an excellent choice! This and Good Will Hunting are my favorite Matt Damon films. As I have mentioned before I am here for every reaction, and to give you support. Love your channel and keep your great reviews and reactions coming!
@@jenmurrayxo As a side note, your Shining and Jaws reactions are probably my favorites. When you are out of your comfort zone, those reactions are most real. And most people don't really venture outside of their comfort zones. It is brave of you to do that.
@@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis. Hi Adam, just now came across your comment. I hope you had a pleasant day. What do you think of this film. For the most part the science is pretty spot on. (Except for possibly the storm in the first scene, there's no enough atmosphere to throw around that much debris.) The director, Ridley Scott is one of my favorites. Bladerunner, Legend, and Hannibal are some of my favorites. I do believe you are a big fan of Bladerunner. Its in my top 5 of all time favorites! The tears lost in rain scene at the end, rips my heart out every time. I keep trying to think of more suggestions to recommend to Jen for October. I'm a big fan of the original Frankenstein. The set designs for that film are fantastic. Anything you have in mind.
@@e.d.2096 Hi again, Eric, I love the original 'Frankenstein' with Boris Karloff and the original 'Dracula' with Bela Lugosi too, both are excellent films from Universal Studios, James Whale was the director of Frankenstein and Tod Browning the director of Dracula, both are classics. Ridley Scott is a superb director, and his brother Tony was too, 'Blade Runner is one of my favourite films ever, I have the boxset of it with five different versions of the film all remastered.
I just got finished listening to the audio book for this movie. It was really good. In the book he had so many more hurdles he had to overcome. And to say that he "scienced the shit" out of it, would be an understatement. It was really really cool and interesting listening to him figure out the solutions to all these problems. And just like in the movie, Mark Watney had a great attitude and he was hilarious. The very ending in the book wasn't nearly as dramatic as they portray it in the movie, but it was still really good. He did suggest the "Iron Man" thing, but in the book he didn't actually do it.
I also recommend reading the book. It explains the science so much better. And Watney did run into a storm on his way to the rocket. The science is really good in this book with the admitted exceptions of the storm intensity, the soil viability, and the Iron Man thruster.
Though it's on my list I haven't read the book, so I don't know if it was already written that way, but the decision to have Mark Watney essentially have an emotional break down whilst awaiting launch during the rescue was a stroke of genius. Given the general tone of this movie it would have been an easy choice to make that another light hearted moment filled with jokes. Instead they showed a man in a moment of absolute vulnerability. A man who had held in so much for so long in order to simply survive, but could no longer keep the dam wall from bursting. A man in knowledge of the fact that what they were about to attempt was more likely to fail than it was to succeed. A man with the gravity of all he had just been through crushing down upon him all at once and trying to deal with the fear of knowing that the next little while would determine if it had all been worth it or if it would all amount to naught. In my opinion it was done expertly. It really writ large what was at stake for this man and as the viewer had you slide to the edge of your seat as you tried to swallow the lump in your throat - amazing, brilliant, perfection in story telling.
This is a film where much of the excellent dialogue is taken directly from the book. Anyone that enjoys this movie should absolutely check out the book. The audiobook is fantastic. Everything in this movie that is good, is even better in the book. The science in both book and film is not perfect, but it is as accurate as just about any fiction.
The last week I’ve found myself binge watching your content. You add value to peoples lives. Thank you so much for what you do, even if it can sometimes be a chore. It means a lot. If you ever get a chance to react to Quigley Down Under that’s be cool but whatever you choose - thanks Jen. You’re a boss.
Just wanted to point out that a bunch of extra scenes for the movie were released on UA-cam. For example, I recommand watching "ARES III: The Right Stuff", which shows the part of the story where the would-be astronauts get interviewed after spending a super long time in isolation to test their resistance to this situation. Another extra scene is "ARES III: Farewell", which is a vlog by Mark Watney just before they leave Earth for Mars.
Wonderful film. In It's first week of release, It was available in IMAX and amazing to watch. The great Ridley Scott never fails to astound audiences. Took a lot to adapt the novel and every measure of talent to bring it to life. He made "Alien" as fantastical as possible, while with "The Martian" was treated much more realistically. What a cast. One of Matt Damon's best lead performances. The supporting cast is such a great mix of personalities. At the end of the day; knowledge of enviroment, survival and self-worth is how you make it on any world. Hope drives it all.
Those storms do happen on Mars but the air is thin so you wouldn't get knocked around by it. But, the dust would get into everything and stick like glue. It takes effort to remove it.
PATHFINDER!!! As soon as i knew where he was going, i knew what he was after! The first pathfinder high res pic of mars took me all day to download over dial up internet!
Oh side note, the book is also great (though it goes into a fair bit more technical detail at times which I love as a space nerd but may not be to everyones taste). There is a superb Audiobook version read by none other than Wi 'Prince of Nerds' Wheaton himself (and he does an appropriately stellar job :))
6:11 - *“ ‘Sol 36’ That's a cool way to say ‘Day’.”* Also a way to say it that can't be confused for an _Earth_ day, which is 37 minutes shorter than a Mars day. In a business where pinpoint precision and timing are vital, any confusion between the two can have deadly consequences. 6:43 - *“I'm wondering how accurate the science is in this. Is this based on a book, like written by a scientist?”* It's _fairly_ accurate. The book took some artistic license (e.g. the sand storm that starts everything off could not possibly happen in Mars' thin atmosphere) and made a couple of reasonable if slightly optimistic presumptions about near-future space tech - and the movie adaptation takes some _additional_ license. For example, they did not go to the considerable effort and expense of simulating Mars gravity, for obvious reasons, but they also unfortunately chose to replace the book's sturdy, high-tech "hab canvas" with _obviously, visibly flimsy_ plastic wrap and duct tape. What's even more accurate, though, is the glimpse behind the scenes of NASA and of astronauts' day-to-day life, to the point that people at NASA asked the book author, who his "inside source" was, because they couldn't believe that someone could get it so right without actually working there. The movie version depicts the hab and the spaceship _incredibly_ big and roomy, rather than the tiny, cramped spaces they would really be, because that's more cinematic, and the NASA and JPL offices look so cool, modern, and sexy that the people who work there in real life _wish_ the real offices could be _half_ as awesome. 16:01 - *“Crap! Does he have time to start over? **_Can_** he even?”* Unfortunately, no. Not only would the flash-freezing have destroyed the cells of the potatoes, the near-vacuum atmosphere of Mars would also kill all the soil bacteria. Without those, the soil is nothing but dead dust that can't grow anything, no matter how much fertiliser you pour on it. The book goes into more detail, how he had to laboriously "infect" the barren Martian soil with soil bacteria from a sample of Earth soil that would have been part of an experiment, during the course of the original mission. 16:59 - *“They should turn around. Can't they get there faster?”* They literally cannot do that. Even with the (currently purely theoretical) ion engine of the _Hermes,_ is is physically impossible to abort and reverse an orbital trajectory - not without infinitely larger fuel reserves than a spaceship could possibly carry. It would be like a parachute jumper deciding halfway to the ground, "You know what? I'm just gonna fold up my chute again and _fly back up_ into the plane." Sure, there's no physical law of the universe forbidding it - but you still can't do it.
The movie is very accurate to the book, but NASA scientists have reviewed the book early on and they said, really the ONLY thing that a real stretch in this is the ferocity of the storm at the beginning. Mars just doesn't have a dense enough atmosphere to have a hurricane type storm that strong. Everything else is awesome.
Great film. From what my sciencey friends have told me, the storm at the beginning is the only really unrealistic part. Mars has tons of storms, but the atmosphere is so thin they wouldn’t be able to cause the kind of damage that one did.
** Make sure you LIKE the video 👍if you want to see more space movies!!! **
about your question about storms on mars and how are we ever going to go< 1 we will never go to mars, we would have to have magic levels of technology to tarraform mars.2: lets say we do develop the technology to go, said storms wouldn't be an issue like in the movie the atmosphere on Mars is so thin that even a strong wind wouldn't make that much of a difference a wind storm even at 60 mph would seem more like a breeze because the density of martial air is only 1% of that of earths so a 60 mph wind would feel like a breezy 6 mph
About the science of it.... well, as they confirmed in the movie, Mars has almost no atmosphere, so the storm at the beginning that caused the movie could never actually happen without atmosphere, so....... 😉
Jen human space ships don't have the capability to turn around only way if they sling shot around a planet or moon
@@houseofaction Well Elon wants to go to Mars and I'm not really inclined to be against the man. Going there isnt the same as terraforming it though, and nobody has claimed terraforming.
The atmosphere is less dense, as has been said, so storms, while they certainly do happen, are not as intense as depicted here. Even in this movie the storm wasnt a threat to their base- it was the threat of tipping over their ride home that was the problem.
Is the science accurate- I'm told the science is pretty good except for the fact that it turns out there's something poisonous in the soil so its not actually possible to grow stuff as he did. No idea if the contamination could be cleansed with the right facilities or not.
The director originally wanted Damon to break down crying earlier in the movie, but they said it felt to forced. However, when he heard the crew through his headset, at the end, Damon just started crying on his own. He said he realized, as a character and through his own humanity, that hearing these voices after being alone for so long got him emotional. So, they kept it in the movie.
Anyone who gets chills from the science in the movie simply HAS to read the book! It really takes you into the puzzle-solving of finding the resources in Mark's environment to keep him alive and there's like twice as much science stuff as there is in the movie. Overall the movie is very well made and faithful to the book, it's just condenced to work much better in movie format.
The science is supposedly as accurate as possible except for that Martian atmosphere is so thin that the storm which sets the movie's premise would be impossible. Andy Weir who wrote the book is like an engineer or something and I think he's worked with NASA, which is why he knows all the science and technology that create the environment of the story.
Ditto! I have the Audiobook as I have a fair commute daily. The voice acting is Superb! 1) Yes they had to change a few things for the screen. 2) Watney- "Ductape works anywhere, It should be Worshipped!" 3) At the end a kid met him in the park and asked him if he woulsd go back to Mars. Watney - "You F-n Kidding me?" I've replayed it several times!
@@1wwtom Me too - wonderfully read and a superbly involving story.
@@1wwtom Make sure to listen to the Bray-read audiobook, not the Matt Damon one. The first is the one with a great performance by the reader, doing multiple accents throughout.
@@kathyastrom1315 I got the Audio well before the film came out and is definitely Not Matt Damon doing it.
While much should be theoretically possible, the execution shown in the film is often not possible in this form. In the Martian soil, for example, there are toxic salts that would have to be washed out before agriculture could be practiced. Or the tent shown in the movie would be dark to grow potato plants. The whole Mars station shown has no visible radiation protection. The propulsion used to leave the surface at the end would not be strong enough to overcome the gravity of Mars. Etc. etc.
When the crew called Rich Purnell a "steely-eyed missile man" that was the highest compliment one can get in NASA. Basically it is given to an astronaut or engineer who figures out how to solve a big problem quickly while under extreme stress.
"Do storms like that really happen on Mars?" wellllllll . . . No. Not at all, or rather, not THAT way. It's MUCH thinner atmosphere, so even a huge storm is pretty trivial. TBH, that's probably the biggest stretch in both the book and the movie, is how severe that storm was. (That and "Iron Man"). That said, the amount of science fact remaining in the rest of the story makes us forgive that one big whopper, especially since it's such a great setup for the rest of the difficulties Watney tackles in the rest of the story.
I love this story, even with the stormy unreality at the beginning. Glad you got to enjoy it too!
Thank you for the reaction!
Such a great movie. Watching Matt Damon break down when he says "Thanks for coming back for me", never fails to make me blubber. The science stuff is fascinating, but the characters rule. So well written, so well acted. Another crown jewel for Ridley Scott.
One of the all time best "realistic" science fiction movies (other than the wind on Mars). They didn't need to invent space monsters to further the plot or raise the stakes. Just one man trying to science the shit out of this.
Once the Hermes headed back to Earth it would be practically impossible to turn around and go back to Mars, other than how it was done in the movie, that is. The ship is in a ballistic orbit around the sun that happens to intersect the orbit of Earth at the same time that Earth is at that point in its orbit. It would take a lot of computational power to calculate the new orbit back to Mars and potentially a very large amount of fuel to get into the new orbit. Even if the fuel was available, depending on the relative positions of the Hermes and Mars it might even take longer than the Purnell Maneuver. Then there's the issue of needing enough fuel to get them into the proper orbit to return to Earth and to slow down when they get to Earth. Orbital mechanics is hard.🙂
The computations aren't a problem. Might be hard to do on the ship, but it could easily be done on Earth and uploaded. The real problem is the amount of fuel it would take - there's no way the ship would be designed with that large of a fuel reserve. Frankly, even they way they did it in the movie seems a little bit sketchy to me as far as available extra fuel goes. They probably would have needed to pick up extra fuel along with the other supplies they got while passing the Earth, and unless the ship was designed for refueling in space that's not really practical, either. You are also right that even with a huge fuel reserve the Purnell Maneuver might be faster than trying to change course and head back to Mars directly.
@@hkpew It probably wouldn't be "turning back" per se, they'd probably boost into a higher orbit, outside Mars', and wait for Mars to pass them and then try to catch up as they got closer to the Sun. At least the Purnell Maneuver takes advantage of the gravity slingshot from Earth and perhaps from Mars (they're just doing a fly-by) hopefully leaving enough fuel for braking. I also assume Purnell also calculated their second return trajectory and hopefully accounted for fuel requirements. I guess to figure it out we'd need to know the original orientation of Earth and Mars. Can KSP simulate our solar system?
The problem isn't that orbital mechanics is hard (plenty of computational power available, with a bit of help from a source or two on Earth) ... it's that orbital mechanics is _absolutely_ *unforgiving!* The equations produce what you want - or they *don't!* There is no 'bending the equations' to *force* the results to be what you want!
P.S. - way back 'in the day', Isaac Asimov wrote a story about an astronaut facing a drastic problem, and trying to make it all work out so that both he *and* a stow-away kid could survive until arrival or rescue or *something* ... but "The Cold Equations" didn't work out that way ... so depressing; it's the only Asimov story I only read once!
@@hkpew well the Hermes is using a vasmir (plasma thruster) so fuel usages is quite low, as it’s a low thrust but constant (basically a high tech ion engine like dawn space craft)
The other question is if they have enough food & oxygen for the longer mission.
Proof that a movie can be dramatic and action filled without a single character dying.
When I saw Sean Bean in it I was like 'How's he gonna die? He hasn't even left Earth!"
@@captin3149 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂
Lol Sean Bean retiring and playing golf? Probably died in his sleep off camera and that's thr afterlife.
But the plants died 😔
@@Dr.HooWho those plants will be remembered for their brave sacrifice
So to answer your question about the scientific accuracy, Andy Weir wrote the novel originally as a serialized piece of fiction on his website. Various readers of a scientific bent helped him iron out a lot of the inaccuracies or mistakes he made with a few notable plot related exceptions. The biggest one is the sandstorm that sets everything in motion. Mars does have massive sandstorms like the one shown, but not nearly that forceful. While the wind speeds can be pretty high, he actual force is akin to a light breeze since Mars’ atmosphere is much much thinner than Earth’s is, around half of one percent the pressure. There is just no way it could lift the dish or tip over the MAV, but then we’d have no story.
The other big gimme is radiation. Mars doesn’t have a strong magnetic field to deflect solar and cosmic radiation like we do and proper radiation shielding for something like that is a few cm of lead, 50 cm of water or, a full meter of rock. There is no way the thin material of he space suits or the hab could have protected Mark for as long as he was on Mars. As Weir put it, you’d have so much cancer, your cancer would have cancer. Other than that, the hydrogen burning, the way potato growing is described in the book (before we knew how full of perchlorate salts Mars soil is), and the vast majority of his solutions should actually work. Also, the Iron Man thing is mentioned but not executed in the novel, it just makes it look cooler in the movie.
I'm no agricultural chemist -- so are the perchlorates good for the potatoes or bad?
@@bigdream_dreambig They're bad. However, it's not really all that bad, as the perchlorates can be basically "washed out" of the soil. It's a tad more complex than just pouring water on it, but it CAN be done. It just needs to be planned for.
Edit to add: Also, the perchlorates can be used to make rocket fuel - sort of. Solid rocket engines, such as those on the space shuttle, are made of potassium perchlorate or ammonium perchlorate.
I do not know why anything even semi-permanent structures are tolerable above-ground! They keep showing everything as domes on the surface of mars in SF, but why not go into a lava tube or excavate even for soil/regolith cover!
I also assume that commercial efforts will send regolith-processing printing robots for initial structures (landing pads, some walls or onion-domes, etc.)
The way this book was written is also interesting if you ever want to look it up, it was chapter at a time with commentary from fans, I believe. (Though it was Andy Weir's friends at that point, I assume!)
Here to say that space nerds of a certain age teared up a bit when Pathfinder was introduced as a key to saving Mark. That probe was the stuff of dreams and lasted so little time.
I love the shots where he's adopted the Sojourner Rover as a sort of metal dog.... very K9.
"Of a certain age", lol. I'm 23 and didn't learn about Pathfinder until a few years ago and that is the only scene that manages to make me emotional for some reason. The scene, the music, a lone human digging up a human technological relic to save themselves on another planet. It's perfect to me. Easily my favorite science fiction movie. Pathfinder might only be a machine but I have a soft spot for all the probes and rovers we send out into space.
I just finished Andy Weir’s book Project Hail Mary. He wrote the Martian. It’s good and is being made into a movie as well. The Martian is one of my fav’s.
Another of his - Artemis - (read by Rosario Dawson) is one of my favourite audio books.
A PHM movie would be exceedingly cool. Showing the hero gain awareness as he does in the book would be a challenge.
@@davidbaker1363 Ryan Gosling has already signed on as Ryland Grace.
@@Richard_Ashton It’s on my wish list but didn’t realize who narrated it. Very cool.
@@jodonnell64 Huzzah!
An old Sci-Fi drama people often forget about, but is really good is "Enemy Mine". It's from the mid 80s, and it is about two beings who are on opposite sides of a interstellar war stranded on a planet together. Great, great movie.
You know the story of why the climax takes place how and where it does? Apparently the studio execs didn't think people would understand the expression Enemy Mine so they had them put an actual mine in to the story.
Louis Gosset Jr. did a fantastic job playing the alien, and made the movie work. They don't give out Academy Awards for actors in such movies, but he deserved one. It did not do well in theaters and was considered a financial flop, but like John Carter on Mars, Enemy Mine is a much better movie than the critics implied. Perhaps they did not like the rather negative portrayal of humanity in the film, but after 67 years of observing my species, I think the portrayal was spot on!
The best part about this movie is, it's actually scientifically plausible. The biggest liberty both the movie and book take is the wind storm that kicks it off. Mars's atmosphere is like 1% as dense as earth's, so even 100mph winds in that kind of air pressure wouldn't so much as tip you over. But Weir needed an inciting incident and, again, it's the biggest creative liberty he takes. It's nuts how good both movie and book are
The author admitted to cheating on one thing. The chemistry for making the water is correct, it's just to be able to make enough water in time would create enough heat to melt the habitat 😯
It is called "Sol" (from the Latin word for Sun) because if we think of a day, automatically we think in 24 hours. But each planet has its own day length so in planetary sciences it is preferred the term "sol" as the apparent interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the same point in the sky as seen by an observer. A Martian sol is 24 hours and 40 minutes. On Pluto, a sol takes 153.5 hours. It is almost used exclusively on Mars because is the only other world we are planning to visit in a close future. Maybe will be use it more often in other planets if we get to visit them...
This is really my go-to answer for Quentin Tarantino's concern about getting too old to make good films. Ridley Scott was in his late 70s when he made this, and it's one of his best films. It's the ultimate man-vs-nature, problem-solving film, and shows the value of a good understanding of science.
Clint Eastwood is 92, and STILL going
Last I checked the writer of The Expanse loved this movie so much they made it canon in their universe where they even named a ship the Mark Watney after the character.
This is one of my favorites from the past decade. It's just tons of fun, and beautifully filmed. Ridley Scott coming through once again.
This and Castaway are to me neck and neck for the whole 'lost on an island' type thing. Although it's hard to forget 'Alive!' (based on a true story and would be an interesting one to see a reaction to these days)
34:20 I like how they use the music for some additional jokes. He just told us that he's freezing to death, that the plutonium reactor is really dangerous, and now he has loaded it into his cabin, is comfortably warm and listens to "Hot stuff".
"I want all the memorials back home to be about ME!" That cracks me up everytime lol
I'm kind of embarrassed to say that, according to my UA-cam history, I've watched this video about 60 times in the 11 months since you uploaded it. It's one of my favorite movies and definitely my favorite of your reactions. I like how you insert yourself into the dialog, such as the scene where the woman is reviewing satellite imagery and you shout "Enhance! Zoom! Enhance!" and again when she calls her supervisor to report what she says and you imitate her and say, "Someone is moving the rover around." That cracks me up every time. Other times you seem to be doing his math along side him, or listening carefully to his explanation of a chemical process and verifying each step in your head, as if you're agreeing with his plan. You're not just *watching* the movie, you're *participating* in it. Anyway, I watched it again last night and thought I need to let you know how much I enjoy it.
Thanks Craig! I really loved thus movie too ☺️👍
It's nice to see a movie with Sean Bean, where he doesn't die
CinemaSins: Sean Bean doesn’t die in this scene *ding*
I can never get over Sean Bean being at a secret meeting titled Project Elrond.
Exactly! He was there in the 2001 movie as Boromir :)
2:45 Windspeed on Mars can get up to hundreds of kph, but the air pressure is so low it'd have the force of a slight breeze.
The only part of the movie that isn’t 'real science' is the first five minutes. Everything else is real world math at work. Thats why its so good.
This is one of the best SciFi movies about space travel. It was one of the most realistic ones out there and Mr. Weir did a great job and Ridley Scott is a master.
One thing that I do miss from the book is an explanation for why/how he’s good at, like, everything despite just saying he’s a botanist in the movie. In the book, he’s a botanist but he’s also basically the crew’s handyman and can do a little bit of everything. The book also explains how he’s able to grow the potatoes: they had brought Earth soil with them to experiment with, and the reason he couldn’t grow more potatoes after his accident is that the necessary bacteria in the Earth soil was dead.
Orbital mechanics: the crew was too far away to turn around the second they left Mark. It's impossible to maneuver like that without insane amounts of propellant that no vehicle has.
KSP players will agree. Spaceship isn't like car, it's more like a bullet. You can't just turn around in the middle of the flight without previous planning.
@@rosyidharyadi7871 KSP players would disagree. Just enable the unlimited propellant cheat 🤣
So my brother actually does work at JPL. He thinks this movie is closest to that actual environment of what its like to work there. Engineers too often get represented as stuffy humorless nerds cramped in a lab somewhere. There are some relatively minor problems with some of the science, but overall nothing too major. Most of it is relatively accurate.
You were asking why they didn't turn around. There are lots of factors. Not limited to fuel, momentum and the fact that planets are moving. The fact that planets move is the biggest factor. Its why anything we send to Mars has to be sent in a certain window of time, Otherwise Mars is too far away or moving away from us. If we launch something to Mars we are ahead of Mars and launch ahead of it so it intercepts where it will be months later. This would apply coming back too. So Mars would be moving away from the ship at a very high velocity. So they just wouldn't have near enough fuel to reverse momentum and then gain enough velocity to not just match Mar's velocity but overtake it. When they slingshoted around Earth, they would not have done a complete 180. They came from Mars being in one spot, which it was no longer at, and slingshot to another spot where Mars would be in 7 months. Its why the calculations were so complex. Its not a simple point A to point B.
Also, I rewatched this while isolating during lockdown. I was going stircrazy then, but still had some people around me. It made the isolation factor of the movie hit so much harder that time I watched it.
Orbital mechanics are truly weird. They make it so that *every* planet's nearest neighbor (defined as the planet it's closest to for more time than any of the other planets) is Mercury.
Thanks orbital mechanics!
It's all explained here, if you care: ua-cam.com/video/GDgbVIqGADQ/v-deo.html
They also had to run the calculations due to the Hermes being under constant thrust, instead of a thrust-drift-thrust maneuver. IIRC the writer had to write his own program to calculate the first optimal transfer maneuver so he could calculate the crew being on the ground during Thanksgiving. He then had to use the same engine to calculate the Hermes' maneuver to rescue Mark while performing the flyby of Earth.
This is a really great movie, and almost all the science in it is spot-on accurate...
Almost...
The main issue is the storm at the beginning, which was threatening to tip over the MAV. In reality, the atmospheric density on Mars is only 1% that of Earth, so even a 400mph tornado on Mars would be no stronger than a gentle 4mph breeze on Earth, and would barely move a sheet of paper, let along blow over a spacecraft...
And the iron man stuff at the end, which isn't in the book IIRC.
This film got nominated as best comedy at the golden Globes 😂
I mean it's really funny but that's weird
If you want another space survival movie, check out "Gravity" with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.
But the physics in Gravity is so unrealistic according to Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I prefer The Martian to Gravity.
@@susah135 Physics were bad but a pretty good movie.
@@susah135 It's just a movie my guy...
My favorite performance is Jeff Daniels' NASA administrator. I love ethical villains. The scene where donald glover explains to him the maneuver and doesn't know who the administrator of NASA is... Jeff Daniels's character introducing himself to his subordinate is my favorite line. His annoyance with not being recognized is just so well executed.
3:51 love it when the Canadian accent comes "out"
"Can he even lift that stuff?"
Martian gravity is a little more than one third of that on Earth. Because of that, everything on Mars (Watney included) weighs about one third of what it would here. Plus it costs a ton of money to put things into orbit (like thousands of dollars per pound), let alone fly them to another planet, so everything on that vehicle would have been built to weigh as little as possible. If anything, the film probably has Watney straining _too much_ when he's shoving the nose cone aside. But it doesn't look very dramatic if Matt Damon just casually shoves a huge chunk of spacecraft aside.
Nah, Mark's been there 500+ Sols...his muscles have adapted to low gravity. Therefore, they're gonna strain under a load that would normally cause them strain.
"I'm going to Science the Shit out of this" Is one of the Best movie quotes ever! =D
Yeah, and in an interview, Andy Weir said he wished HE had come up with that line in the book.
Someone actually put that quote on the front page of a copy of the script
I often describe this as "Macgyver on Mars". Have you ever seen Macgyver?
Never seen it!
As noted elsewhere, the atmosphere on Mars is thin enough that even a 200 m.p.h. wind would feel like a light breeze. The visibility would suck, though.
Author Andy Weir acknowledged that he fudged the strength of the storm winds, at the beginning, because he literally could not think of any other way to strand Watney.
Another fun fact is that Weir is friends with Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, the authors of the series, The Expanse. Apparently, the three of them have informally agreed that the events of The Martian exist as canon in the future setting of The Expanse.
The TV series based on The Expanse acknowledged this by naming a Martian botanical garden (IIRC) after Mark Watney. 😊
As others have said, storms of that size can occur on Mars, there can be these HUGE dust storms, but due to the thickness (or thinness in this case) of the atmosphere, it would have very little force behind it.
One of the few times the movie closely matches the source material in all the good ways. And for the record no, storms like that don't happen on Mars. Even the writer Andy Wier was clear on the fact that he had to create a more severe storm to get his story off the ground. So fear not JM, future martian colonist will not have F5 style winds to contend with.
Andy Wier specifically wrote Mark to be someone who was a person who had the ability to keep the team motivated with his humor, that's why he was so amusing in this story. Also, his reply to being told to watch his language was to write "LOOK BOOBIES" and then created text boobs with parentheses and periods. Absolutely loved this book, the only thing they did that I didn't care for was change the Kapur character to an American, and they down played Mindy Park's empathy. She was very mousey and was always crying about what it must be like to be Mark there all alone. She was one of my favorite characters in the book
Just a note Jen you should read his newest novel Project Hail Mary if you like Mark Wateny you'll love Ryland Grace. His book Artemis is also good, but admittedly Andy doesn't do quite as good a job writing a female lead. She's still good, but well... just read it and decide for yourself.
One big thing they got wrong though, he could only use his own waste to grow the potatoes because it has bacteria from his own intestines. Using others could potentially caused serious illness.
Man this was a fun watch, thanks JM for another awesome reaction vid. This is one of the best sic fic stories in years because it's not that confused sci fantasy stuff, Andy Wier put actual science back in sciences fiction again.
19:40 "Project Elrond" - and Boromir (Sean Bean) is sitting there explaining it. I have watched this movie so many times but completely missed that until now. I'm a bit slow but get there eventually. :)
Low key MVP - math and science. Yes you were on the edge of your seat when he launched. Many many things could go wrong
You should read the book (or listen to the audiobook, which is really well done) - so much more detail on the science, and even more problems for Watney to solve... I do love that there's no "bad guy" in this story. It's just a conflict over methods and risks.
"I'm still not unclenched yet..."
Ha!
Jen - Your "space medicine" comment really brightened my day! 🤣🤣🤣
😂👍
This a movie that I can throw on anytime and still enjoy, that's how you know it's quality! ❤
yes it is based on a book it's said to be a really good book. Jen Matt Damon is perfectly cast for this film. great cast.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this movie so much. I adore the book and was very happy with this adaption. I listen to the audiobook every few months. Thank you for the reaction!
You got to read the book, by Andy Weir. I read the book first. Lots of F words, but IF you were left on Mars without a way home...you'd probably use the F word too.
The book is just as charismatic as the movie. You fall in love with Mark Watney.
I encourage you to read it. You know the ending, but the journey is so much MORE than the movie could do...though they did an amazing job adapting it to the big screen.
Also, the story of HOW this story got made into a book is also cool. This NASA engineer, Andy Weir started writing this story on his website. A chapter at a time. When it was finished he gave the book away for FREE to anyone who wanted to read it. BUT, people wanted to read it on their Kindle, so he had to charge 99 cents (the lowest allowed at the time), it was SO popular, that it became a Best Seller on the KDP and then it went viral.
There is one big conceit, the storms on Mars are NEVER that bad. SO, the science was fibbed a little, but pretty much everything else is by the book.
Also, AFTER the book was written, they found pockets of water on the surface (just below the crust) in certain areas...so that too changed from when the book was published.
BUT still a great story. My wife and I have read the book twice and seen the movie twice.
Thanks for this reaction. It is so much fun watching your reactions. Thank you for sharing them with us.
I absolutely love this Movie. Up there with Ridley Scotts finest. I adore it that much that I had to buy the UHD 4K Extended Edition which is Awesome also.
The science in this is famously incredibly accurate. About the only thing that's very unrealistic is that storm. The atmosphere on Mars is extremely thin, no storm of that severity could ever happen there. And they sexed up the rendezvous at the end for the movie.
My favorite part of them Hollywooding the rescue was how they did exactly what Mark said in the book would happen were it a movie when he boarded the Hermes, they all come to meet him at the airlock. He explains in the book that not only do they still have tasks to do since they're still doing a maneuver around Mars, but they would rather not have to smell him either.
@@jgreen2015 The round trip delay would be somewhere between 10 and 40 minutes depending on the position of the planets. But when they say he’s being broadcast live, they mean his words are going out as soon as they come in for them.
@@jgreen2015 they out-right say there's a time-delay that prevents them from giving on-call support.
@@jgreen2015 24-hour news networks have had over 40 years to figure out how to fill dead air, I think they could figure out how to fill in the gaps during an unprecedented scientific endeavor.
@@jgreen2015 They meant that it was being broadcast live as they were receiving it, not that the communication was instantaneous. Still unrealistic, but not for science reasons.
I enjoyed that in theaters. Got a kick out of the end credits when they played I Will Survive.
I love that the math and science is accurate and plausible.
This was my first time watching this reaction and it was fantastic 🔥. From top to bottom I had such a fun time, thank you for putting it in on your community tab today Jen.
Sci-fi and space movies are often among my favorites. This is a good one. Would also be cool if you ever get around watching some of our fellow countryman Denis Villeneuve movies like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, Prisoners, Dune and Incendies. All very good movies. Love the channel.
+1 for Arrival
Came here specifically to say watch Arrival. JEN! WATCH ARRIVAL! DO IT. I mean, please, I guess :)
Has anyone done a reaction to Incedies yet? I've seen reactions to Blade runner 2049, Arrival -- I think I've even seen 1 channel do Prisoners - and a LOT of people have covered Dune, but I'm not sure I've seen anyone cover Sicario or especially Incendies. That would make a interesting reaction.
I knew you'd love this before I even started Jen and you weren't alone thinking something bad would happen at any moment 😬 . Watching anything with Jessica chastain I'm sold 🥰 and along with the best reactor around it doesn't get much better 🙌 cheers Jen this was sciencetastic
I could live on Mars by myself with my Sia collection!!! I'd be happy as a clam... and my Jen reactions too!!!
That you read each 'sol' like a Russian grandmother was endlessly amusing to me 😂🤣
6:43 An Astronaut is quoted as describing the science as so accurate that he felt like he was still at work.... he was talking about a convo he had with the author.
My low key MVP goes to Sean Bean. He's the only one willing to do what was necessary to give Mark his best chance.
I'd give him the bronze award, I think Jen was right to give the low key MVP to the rest of the crew. Everyone else back on Earth helped make it all possible and Sean Bean sacrificed his career but they were the ones who had to make the decision to potentially sacrifice their own lives to save their friend. Many people were crucial to make the plan work but no one else had to sacrifice what they did and risk making the ultimate sacrifice.
@@dnish6673 Well, he did lose his job, which is kind of like dying in a movie where everyone lives.
“Enhance! Zoom! Enhance!” 😂
great movie + reaction!
Another great 'space survival' type movie is "Apollo 13" (1995), a true story starring Tom Hanks(!) and directed by Ron Howard 👍
100000% agree, Apollo 13 is a MUST. After watching it, I highly recommend watching it with the Jim Lovell commentary...it is fantastic!
Check out "Moon" with Sam Rockwell.
[ Directed by the Starman (David Bowie's) son ]
Did you know Sean Bean played Boromir in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ ? For some 'Project Elrond' brought a big laugh.
Lol this is why I want to do a LOTR re-watch... its been 20 years since I saw them
such a great fun re-watchable film!
I just like the whole "poke a hole and fly around like iron man" thing considering how many actors in this movie were/are in the MCU.
Matt Damon - Actor Loki
Sebastian Stan - Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier
Michael Pena - Luis
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Baron Mordo
Benedict Wong - Wong
Donald Glover - Aaron Davis
Kate Mara - US Marshal
Jessica Chastain turned down two different roles in MCU films
Sean Bean is actually rumored to play Mephisto at some point
I like the Project Elrond scene with Sean Bean in it.
what roles did chastain turn down?
I remember reading that the wind would not be able to do any of this...The atmosphere is so thin that even at high velocities it wouldn't threaten their spaceship.
My favorite movie. There aren’t enough great science oriented films out there. I wasn’t a Matt Damon fan until The Martian came out and now I love the guy and have seen all of his films lol.
this is my favorite movie/book ever. There’s no human villain and/or romantic melodrama… just straight up problem solving based on science to save the day.
Science and the love/commitment of Science is the real hero of the story and i love it! ❤
10:22 cisco with the smart advertising lolol
Greaat reaction. It was fun to see you so excited and animated.
You’ve seen Chiwetel Ejiofor in this and in Serenity. For something different, in Kinky Boots he’s a drag Queen in a small English town.
Was later made into a stage musical, but Chiwetel is not in that film.
Thanks, Jen! 🟠 I loved this one... as well as the novel by Andy Weir, upon which it was based. #JenMurray #RidleyScott #TheMartian
"Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man" is a shout-out to Ron Howard's "Apollo 13" which is well worth a watch if you haven't yet seen it.
Storms like that do happen, but the air pressure is so low that the wind has far less energy.
Funny that you said it was serious. It actually was in the comedy category at the award shows that year. There's also an extended version out there if you want to see even more Martian.
the waste can be recycled as fertilyzer or fertile soil to grow seeds in
Hi Jen, great reaction! 2 more recent sci-fi films that focus on survival and isolation are "Moon" starring Sam Rockwell and "Gravity" starring Sandra Bullock. I highly recommend both and think you'd have a lot of fun reacting to them!
Gravity was undeniable. Loved it in IMAX.
Gravity's visuals are nice, but I've yet to see an astronaut say they liked the film. It's absolutely ridiculous in all the worst ways.
I get the feeling that there was a big lead up to the song that played during the credits for this movie, "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. The lyrics fit the movie plot extremely well, and I get the sense that they gave the mission commander, Melissa Lewis, her fanatic love of Disco Era 1970s music as a lead up to that song in the credits, along with creating the multiple comedic moments as Mark Watney complains about her musical preferences in his mission log - though I note he continued to listen to them anyway.
A great reaction to a great film, Jen. As you enjoyed this, I highly recommend, 'Apollo 13' as a space film to react to, it's based on a true story too, and of course, '2001: A Space Odyssey', which is a great space film also.
"Can he even lift this stuff?" Remember, Mars gravity is 1/3 of Earth.
Hello again Jen,as usual an excellent choice! This and Good Will Hunting are my favorite Matt Damon films. As I have mentioned before I am here for every reaction, and to give you support. Love your channel and keep your great reviews and reactions coming!
Thanks Eric! 😊👍
@@jenmurrayxo As a side note, your Shining and Jaws reactions are probably my favorites. When you are out of your comfort zone, those reactions are most real. And most people don't really venture outside of their comfort zones. It is brave of you to do that.
@@e.d.2096 Hi Eric, great that you chatted with, Jen. This is an excellent film, I like 'Good Will Hunting' too.
@@Adam_Le-Roi_Davis. Hi Adam, just now came across your comment. I hope you had a pleasant day. What do you think of this film. For the most part the science is pretty spot on. (Except for possibly the storm in the first scene, there's no enough atmosphere to throw around that much debris.) The director, Ridley Scott is one of my favorites. Bladerunner, Legend, and Hannibal are some of my favorites. I do believe you are a big fan of Bladerunner. Its in my top 5 of all time favorites! The tears lost in rain scene at the end, rips my heart out every time. I keep trying to think of more suggestions to recommend to Jen for October. I'm a big fan of the original Frankenstein. The set designs for that film are fantastic. Anything you have in mind.
@@e.d.2096 Hi again, Eric, I love the original 'Frankenstein' with Boris Karloff and the original 'Dracula' with Bela Lugosi too, both are excellent films from Universal Studios, James Whale was the director of Frankenstein and Tod Browning the director of Dracula, both are classics. Ridley Scott is a superb director, and his brother Tony was too, 'Blade Runner is one of my favourite films ever, I have the boxset of it with five different versions of the film all remastered.
I just got finished listening to the audio book for this movie. It was really good. In the book he had so many more hurdles he had to overcome. And to say that he "scienced the shit" out of it, would be an understatement. It was really really cool and interesting listening to him figure out the solutions to all these problems. And just like in the movie, Mark Watney had a great attitude and he was hilarious. The very ending in the book wasn't nearly as dramatic as they portray it in the movie, but it was still really good. He did suggest the "Iron Man" thing, but in the book he didn't actually do it.
Love this movie,fantastic reaction,so inspiring an moving.
I also recommend reading the book. It explains the science so much better. And Watney did run into a storm on his way to the rocket. The science is really good in this book with the admitted exceptions of the storm intensity, the soil viability, and the Iron Man thruster.
Though it's on my list I haven't read the book, so I don't know if it was already written that way, but the decision to have Mark Watney essentially have an emotional break down whilst awaiting launch during the rescue was a stroke of genius. Given the general tone of this movie it would have been an easy choice to make that another light hearted moment filled with jokes. Instead they showed a man in a moment of absolute vulnerability. A man who had held in so much for so long in order to simply survive, but could no longer keep the dam wall from bursting. A man in knowledge of the fact that what they were about to attempt was more likely to fail than it was to succeed. A man with the gravity of all he had just been through crushing down upon him all at once and trying to deal with the fear of knowing that the next little while would determine if it had all been worth it or if it would all amount to naught.
In my opinion it was done expertly. It really writ large what was at stake for this man and as the viewer had you slide to the edge of your seat as you tried to swallow the lump in your throat - amazing, brilliant, perfection in story telling.
Saw this in the theater. Glad you are seeing it. Thanks for sharing!
Must have been awesome to see in theaters!
This is a film where much of the excellent dialogue is taken directly from the book. Anyone that enjoys this movie should absolutely check out the book. The audiobook is fantastic. Everything in this movie that is good, is even better in the book. The science in both book and film is not perfect, but it is as accurate as just about any fiction.
I'd really like to read the book! 👍
Jen you are a steely eyed reactor woman! I Luv this movie and yes it is intense! Problem solving at its best! Thanks Jen ❤️💛🟠
The last week I’ve found myself binge watching your content. You add value to peoples lives. Thank you so much for what you do, even if it can sometimes be a chore. It means a lot. If you ever get a chance to react to Quigley Down Under that’s be cool but whatever you choose - thanks Jen. You’re a boss.
Just wanted to point out that a bunch of extra scenes for the movie were released on UA-cam. For example, I recommand watching "ARES III: The Right Stuff", which shows the part of the story where the would-be astronauts get interviewed after spending a super long time in isolation to test their resistance to this situation. Another extra scene is "ARES III: Farewell", which is a vlog by Mark Watney just before they leave Earth for Mars.
I love your editing ❤ great channel
Wonderful film.
In It's first week of release, It was available in IMAX and amazing to watch.
The great Ridley Scott never fails to astound audiences.
Took a lot to adapt the novel and every measure of talent to bring it to life.
He made "Alien" as fantastical as possible, while with "The Martian" was treated much more realistically.
What a cast.
One of Matt Damon's best lead performances.
The supporting cast is such a great mix of personalities.
At the end of the day; knowledge of enviroment, survival and self-worth is how you make it on any world.
Hope drives it all.
Well said! This must have been awesome to see in theaters!
I highly recommend reading the book. It is a fantastic read.
Those storms do happen on Mars but the air is thin so you wouldn't get knocked around by it. But, the dust would get into everything and stick like glue. It takes effort to remove it.
Great choice Jen. Excellent movie.
PATHFINDER!!! As soon as i knew where he was going, i knew what he was after! The first pathfinder high res pic of mars took me all day to download over dial up internet!
Oh side note, the book is also great (though it goes into a fair bit more technical detail at times which I love as a space nerd but may not be to everyones taste). There is a superb Audiobook version read by none other than Wi 'Prince of Nerds' Wheaton himself (and he does an appropriately stellar job :))
6:11 - *“ ‘Sol 36’ That's a cool way to say ‘Day’.”*
Also a way to say it that can't be confused for an _Earth_ day, which is 37 minutes shorter than a Mars day. In a business where pinpoint precision and timing are vital, any confusion between the two can have deadly consequences.
6:43 - *“I'm wondering how accurate the science is in this. Is this based on a book, like written by a scientist?”*
It's _fairly_ accurate. The book took some artistic license (e.g. the sand storm that starts everything off could not possibly happen in Mars' thin atmosphere) and made a couple of reasonable if slightly optimistic presumptions about near-future space tech - and the movie adaptation takes some _additional_ license. For example, they did not go to the considerable effort and expense of simulating Mars gravity, for obvious reasons, but they also unfortunately chose to replace the book's sturdy, high-tech "hab canvas" with _obviously, visibly flimsy_ plastic wrap and duct tape.
What's even more accurate, though, is the glimpse behind the scenes of NASA and of astronauts' day-to-day life, to the point that people at NASA asked the book author, who his "inside source" was, because they couldn't believe that someone could get it so right without actually working there. The movie version depicts the hab and the spaceship _incredibly_ big and roomy, rather than the tiny, cramped spaces they would really be, because that's more cinematic, and the NASA and JPL offices look so cool, modern, and sexy that the people who work there in real life _wish_ the real offices could be _half_ as awesome.
16:01 - *“Crap! Does he have time to start over? **_Can_** he even?”*
Unfortunately, no. Not only would the flash-freezing have destroyed the cells of the potatoes, the near-vacuum atmosphere of Mars would also kill all the soil bacteria. Without those, the soil is nothing but dead dust that can't grow anything, no matter how much fertiliser you pour on it. The book goes into more detail, how he had to laboriously "infect" the barren Martian soil with soil bacteria from a sample of Earth soil that would have been part of an experiment, during the course of the original mission.
16:59 - *“They should turn around. Can't they get there faster?”*
They literally cannot do that. Even with the (currently purely theoretical) ion engine of the _Hermes,_ is is physically impossible to abort and reverse an orbital trajectory - not without infinitely larger fuel reserves than a spaceship could possibly carry. It would be like a parachute jumper deciding halfway to the ground, "You know what? I'm just gonna fold up my chute again and _fly back up_ into the plane." Sure, there's no physical law of the universe forbidding it - but you still can't do it.
The movie is very accurate to the book, but NASA scientists have reviewed the book early on and they said, really the ONLY thing that a real stretch in this is the ferocity of the storm at the beginning. Mars just doesn't have a dense enough atmosphere to have a hurricane type storm that strong. Everything else is awesome.
Great film. From what my sciencey friends have told me, the storm at the beginning is the only really unrealistic part. Mars has tons of storms, but the atmosphere is so thin they wouldn’t be able to cause the kind of damage that one did.