I was a big fan of the novel The Martian, which I found surprisingly mature for a first novel, much less an originally self-published one. When Ridley Scott optioned it, I wasn't surprised, but only because Ridley Scott options everything. But damn, the movie came out fast. And it's pretty good.
As he enters what I always think of as an aging artist's "Prospero Years", Scott has calmed down and started creating some dreamily paced movies, sometimes to good effect (the very underrated Robin Hood and The Counselor) and sometimes to horrifying result (Prometheus). The Martian is a good fit for him, as it is a not very thrilling thriller but the theme lends itself to the sort of intense visual style his nerdy films are known for.
Matt Damon is Mark Watney, a very clever person with the bad luck to be stuck on Mars, all by his lonesome, with some stuff from a scrubbed crewed mission and four years to live through before help can come. I hate Matt Damon. I hate him the way some people hate Tom Cruise. I hate his useless potato face. Watney spends much of his time cultivating potatoes in order to stretch his food supplies and whenever Damon ate one I thought, "Oh look, Matt Damon is eating tiny Matt Damons." Also odd: when he first cuts the potatoes, a bit of the score that can only be described as "The love theme from The Martian" plays in the background. (Check a sample here.)
But Damon was all right in this one. He's only needed to be a cypher. Really, Watney isn't the protagonist of the film, he's the McGuffin. (He is the protag of the book, by the way.) The Martian does try to focus a bit on the head of NASA, who makes hard decisions that are utterly useless because everything blows up when they try stuff to save Watney, but he's no protagonist either. It's really the phalanx of nerds, some on the ground, some in space, that do all the protagging. The Martian is a movie about public works planning and expenditure that just happens to be oriented around a single individual.
As such, a lot of The Martian has all the tension of packing for a long trip, but that's actually fine. Everything is beautiful and amazing. The font choice on the plastic bottles of Grape Juice in the film is incredibly compelling. The Mindy Park character was whitewashed for the film (boo!), but holy shit, look at the glasses they picked out for her:
![CMEAb_6UwAA8a3n]( "CMEAb_6UwAA8a3n")
And those delicious untamed eyebrows!
The zero-grav scenes are mostly casual, as if the astronauts are truly expert. (One shows off for his kids via videophone, but that's about it.) The space tether wraps around the characters like the ribbon on a gift basket. It's just gorgeous.
It's also a pretty faithful adaptation. Faithful enough that if you've read and enjoyed the book, the film isn't all that compelling. I did miss my favorite part of the book—one of the characters on the main spacecraft sent back to fetch Watney explains to her folks that they shouldn't worry, she actually will survive no matter what happens. (As smallest and youngest, if anything goes wrong with the rescue mission she'll get to eat her crewmates.) But the truly dark stuff, of which there is precious little in the book anyway, is all scrubbed from the film.
The Martian could be called a commercial for NASA, or for the idea of public goods, including science education, (and the public good) in general. Odd, given that Robin Hood was basically the Tea Party agitprop version of the leftist legend. One thing about commercials—they're the slicked films made. The Martian is just that slick, even if it isn't much else.
As he enters what I always think of as an aging artist's "Prospero Years", Scott has calmed down and started creating some dreamily paced movies, sometimes to good effect (the very underrated Robin Hood and The Counselor) and sometimes to horrifying result (Prometheus). The Martian is a good fit for him, as it is a not very thrilling thriller but the theme lends itself to the sort of intense visual style his nerdy films are known for.
Matt Damon is Mark Watney, a very clever person with the bad luck to be stuck on Mars, all by his lonesome, with some stuff from a scrubbed crewed mission and four years to live through before help can come. I hate Matt Damon. I hate him the way some people hate Tom Cruise. I hate his useless potato face. Watney spends much of his time cultivating potatoes in order to stretch his food supplies and whenever Damon ate one I thought, "Oh look, Matt Damon is eating tiny Matt Damons." Also odd: when he first cuts the potatoes, a bit of the score that can only be described as "The love theme from The Martian" plays in the background. (Check a sample here.)
But Damon was all right in this one. He's only needed to be a cypher. Really, Watney isn't the protagonist of the film, he's the McGuffin. (He is the protag of the book, by the way.) The Martian does try to focus a bit on the head of NASA, who makes hard decisions that are utterly useless because everything blows up when they try stuff to save Watney, but he's no protagonist either. It's really the phalanx of nerds, some on the ground, some in space, that do all the protagging. The Martian is a movie about public works planning and expenditure that just happens to be oriented around a single individual.
As such, a lot of The Martian has all the tension of packing for a long trip, but that's actually fine. Everything is beautiful and amazing. The font choice on the plastic bottles of Grape Juice in the film is incredibly compelling. The Mindy Park character was whitewashed for the film (boo!), but holy shit, look at the glasses they picked out for her:
And those delicious untamed eyebrows!
The zero-grav scenes are mostly casual, as if the astronauts are truly expert. (One shows off for his kids via videophone, but that's about it.) The space tether wraps around the characters like the ribbon on a gift basket. It's just gorgeous.
It's also a pretty faithful adaptation. Faithful enough that if you've read and enjoyed the book, the film isn't all that compelling. I did miss my favorite part of the book—one of the characters on the main spacecraft sent back to fetch Watney explains to her folks that they shouldn't worry, she actually will survive no matter what happens. (As smallest and youngest, if anything goes wrong with the rescue mission she'll get to eat her crewmates.) But the truly dark stuff, of which there is precious little in the book anyway, is all scrubbed from the film.
The Martian could be called a commercial for NASA, or for the idea of public goods, including science education, (and the public good) in general. Odd, given that Robin Hood was basically the Tea Party agitprop version of the leftist legend. One thing about commercials—they're the slicked films made. The Martian is just that slick, even if it isn't much else.