Movie Review: The Martian

Andy Weir's book The Martian has been turned into a popular celluloid Hollywood flick.  Because I am a night owl I watch the late night television talk shows, and so happened to catch Matt Damon when he appeared on James Corden's Late Late Show.  A clip from the movie was shown and so I decided that I should see this movie today.

I have not read the book on which this movie is based so I have no idea whether the book is faithfully reproduced or not.

Hollywood has had so many movies about space travel that all of it seems fantasy more than reality, and frankly, since real space travel is probably boring as all get out, there is little reason to think that any film could be a thriller.  I think that the best space film so far has been Space Odyssey:2001 directed by Stanley Kubrick, but this Martian film has some interesting plot devices.  The only reason Space Odyssey:2001 is halfways interesting today is because of the computer malfunction and the final scenes which end up today resembling a giant cellphone or tablet. So in that sense, it may have been prophetic or just an easy device to copy.

The plot is simple enough: astronaut finds himself in  trouble after crew leaves him all alone on Mars while they try to get to space lab.  They assumed that he was dead when he was hit during a violent dust storm.  Later, when NASA learns that Mark is still alive, there is an effort to try to save him.

So naturally enough, the movie deals with his having to learn how to survive the elements, how the crew learns that he is alive, how the men at JPL and at NASA determine whether he is a value target, whether they can send him supplies  to stay alive, or whether he can be rescued at all.


The film must be projected into an entire new century, 2100 perhaps, but certainly not in this one.  To have to transport all the materials needed to survive on the planet will take so many different missions that it will take decades before man could even begin to build a colony on the planet.  But this film does include a reference to Rover and other imagined vehicles that are supposed to be useful to surviving the planet.

The equipment alone made me realize the futility in even dreaming of traveling to Mars.   One small Rover on Mars does not a colony make.

I related to the movie big time and in a previous post realized the similarity and why it seems to me that once again someone is picking on me.    I maybe could take a few hints to realize that maybe somebody is really listening on my every word, as I have been trying so hard to determine, and that maybe I had better consider the fact that i may have to move again.

I felt at home in this group who speak my lingo!  I was more specific in previous post but this one I am editing to share.   The final scenes made me think of all the red tape we had to cut to attain some goals in the past.  That may give a clue as to why this film is to be taken not so much as thriller but as political.

thumbs up if you see it in 3-D.  Otherwise, it is rather ordinary Hollywood masturbation!