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Everyone must watch the Martian immediately!!!
The Martian is for people who wonder at space and space travel and visiting other planets and sciencing your way through problems, especially the NASA type.
The Martian is for people who enjoy laughing at gallows humour and moments of "this is ridiculous why are we doing it" and then continuing to science in that manner anyway.
The Martian is for people who want to see men and women of all races and nationalities behaving competently, with their roots being acknowledged without the other extreme of highlighting it in neon.
The Martian is for people who cry at the isolation of astronauts and at rocket explosions and yet still fight for space travel because this is what the men and women who went into space would have wanted, because the hope is always greater than the risks.
Why are you still reading this? Go and watch the Martian immediately!
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
I think you probably deserve a fair warning that anything from this point on is viewed from a biased eye. I never read the novel and I'm writing this based on my personal experiences. I joined a few NASA based programmes when I was younger - one where I was a communicators officer on a simulated landing on Mars, and the other where I ran simulations on the viability of potato crop growth on Mars.
That's why the opening scene hit me so hard in the guts. I remember during the simulation, the NASA lady stopped me from typing out my messages so that I could watch the scene of us landing on Mars. It was grand, but half of my mind was on the content of those messages because it was dire. In the same way, when Johasson gave the message about the storm, I understood her dilemma of needing to deliver the news in the most factual way possible, without overemphasising the danger and panicking the crew.
So it was with that simulation very fresh in the back of my mind that I watched the mission go wrong with one casualty, and the reaction of NASA back home. It was also with fondness that I watched Watney awaken on Mars and, after the drama of patching himself up, proceeded to do inventory and record his diary. Because that's what astronauts do. Also I totally geeked when he started planting potatoes on Mars. This is what I used to do in my teens ladies and gentlemen. And there's Matt Damon on the screen putting it to use.
Matt Damon really got to shine as Watney. I liked that he got to do a mix of smart-alecky humour while actually sciencing when it got serious. And whenever NASA told him something unacceptable or accidents happened he was allowed to curse, rave, break down, grieve as he needed to. He might have been the big action hero of the movie, but he was also allowed to be human and relateable.
I liked that the Commander of the mission was a lady without it being suggested that any of her decisions was made on the basis on being a lady. (Yes Interstellar, I'm still mad at you.) In fact, the only thing she got ragged about was her very 1960s taste in music, which is a gender neutral thing that was a funny point and allowed the soundtrack to be as retro as it needed. She also got to talk to the other lady on the ship without being a big deal, and passing the Bechedel test! Awesome. The two might not have gotten to talk to the ladies back on Earth (who also didn't talk to each other), but I thought it was a nice touch to have a decent representation from the ladies.
Likewise for the other races. The Head of the Mars mission didn't need to have Indian ethnicity, or the Chinese America guy working with Pathfinder and the other probe, or the African America guy planning flight paths. Plus the best part was that they weren't just people who just happened to be another race. When one of the official remarks upon the rocket launching that it was time to pray to God, the Head of the Mars mission got to remark that his father was Hindu, so he believed in several. No other mentions of his race came up. The wisecrack by the Chinese America guy also worked for me, as well as the treatment of the Chinese National Space Administration. Now that's how you do race.
I also liked that no one in particular was the bad guy. Yes, there were times in the movie when you became aware that NASA is a very political agency that has to science based on the whims of politicians and the general public. But even as people were taking different stances I always had the sense that they were truly doing it for the best that they believed in, and since I like to believe that everyone is a good guy, it worked for me.
There are some wince-worthy scenes, such as when Watney has to patch his wound up and shots of his body towards the end of the mission that resemble that of WWII POWs. There's also emotionally wrenching scenes when Watney despairs, or people realise that they've been lied to, and of course rocket explosions.
But to me, that's part of going into space. Sometimes you are the guy staring at his screen, telling everyone to stop celebrating and sit back down because you can see something is going wrong. Sometimes you look at a Mars horizon and see all the distance you have to travel instead of all the distance you have to explore. Sometimes you bite your nails and whisper, "Get that debris out of your face, you can't afford a cracked visor now!!" But you wouldn't be worrying about your space suit's cracked visor if you weren't in space in the first place, and that itself is a feat worthy of celebrating.
What everyone needs to remember is sometimes, despite all the odds, you bring your crew and renewed knowledge home. Isn't that something worth going to space for?
The Martian is for people who wonder at space and space travel and visiting other planets and sciencing your way through problems, especially the NASA type.
The Martian is for people who enjoy laughing at gallows humour and moments of "this is ridiculous why are we doing it" and then continuing to science in that manner anyway.
The Martian is for people who want to see men and women of all races and nationalities behaving competently, with their roots being acknowledged without the other extreme of highlighting it in neon.
The Martian is for people who cry at the isolation of astronauts and at rocket explosions and yet still fight for space travel because this is what the men and women who went into space would have wanted, because the hope is always greater than the risks.
Why are you still reading this? Go and watch the Martian immediately!
SPOILERS FROM HERE ON
I think you probably deserve a fair warning that anything from this point on is viewed from a biased eye. I never read the novel and I'm writing this based on my personal experiences. I joined a few NASA based programmes when I was younger - one where I was a communicators officer on a simulated landing on Mars, and the other where I ran simulations on the viability of potato crop growth on Mars.
That's why the opening scene hit me so hard in the guts. I remember during the simulation, the NASA lady stopped me from typing out my messages so that I could watch the scene of us landing on Mars. It was grand, but half of my mind was on the content of those messages because it was dire. In the same way, when Johasson gave the message about the storm, I understood her dilemma of needing to deliver the news in the most factual way possible, without overemphasising the danger and panicking the crew.
So it was with that simulation very fresh in the back of my mind that I watched the mission go wrong with one casualty, and the reaction of NASA back home. It was also with fondness that I watched Watney awaken on Mars and, after the drama of patching himself up, proceeded to do inventory and record his diary. Because that's what astronauts do. Also I totally geeked when he started planting potatoes on Mars. This is what I used to do in my teens ladies and gentlemen. And there's Matt Damon on the screen putting it to use.
Matt Damon really got to shine as Watney. I liked that he got to do a mix of smart-alecky humour while actually sciencing when it got serious. And whenever NASA told him something unacceptable or accidents happened he was allowed to curse, rave, break down, grieve as he needed to. He might have been the big action hero of the movie, but he was also allowed to be human and relateable.
I liked that the Commander of the mission was a lady without it being suggested that any of her decisions was made on the basis on being a lady. (Yes Interstellar, I'm still mad at you.) In fact, the only thing she got ragged about was her very 1960s taste in music, which is a gender neutral thing that was a funny point and allowed the soundtrack to be as retro as it needed. She also got to talk to the other lady on the ship without being a big deal, and passing the Bechedel test! Awesome. The two might not have gotten to talk to the ladies back on Earth (who also didn't talk to each other), but I thought it was a nice touch to have a decent representation from the ladies.
Likewise for the other races. The Head of the Mars mission didn't need to have Indian ethnicity, or the Chinese America guy working with Pathfinder and the other probe, or the African America guy planning flight paths. Plus the best part was that they weren't just people who just happened to be another race. When one of the official remarks upon the rocket launching that it was time to pray to God, the Head of the Mars mission got to remark that his father was Hindu, so he believed in several. No other mentions of his race came up. The wisecrack by the Chinese America guy also worked for me, as well as the treatment of the Chinese National Space Administration. Now that's how you do race.
I also liked that no one in particular was the bad guy. Yes, there were times in the movie when you became aware that NASA is a very political agency that has to science based on the whims of politicians and the general public. But even as people were taking different stances I always had the sense that they were truly doing it for the best that they believed in, and since I like to believe that everyone is a good guy, it worked for me.
There are some wince-worthy scenes, such as when Watney has to patch his wound up and shots of his body towards the end of the mission that resemble that of WWII POWs. There's also emotionally wrenching scenes when Watney despairs, or people realise that they've been lied to, and of course rocket explosions.
But to me, that's part of going into space. Sometimes you are the guy staring at his screen, telling everyone to stop celebrating and sit back down because you can see something is going wrong. Sometimes you look at a Mars horizon and see all the distance you have to travel instead of all the distance you have to explore. Sometimes you bite your nails and whisper, "Get that debris out of your face, you can't afford a cracked visor now!!" But you wouldn't be worrying about your space suit's cracked visor if you weren't in space in the first place, and that itself is a feat worthy of celebrating.
What everyone needs to remember is sometimes, despite all the odds, you bring your crew and renewed knowledge home. Isn't that something worth going to space for?
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