# The Martian film - seen it thread. Unboxed spoilers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 30, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095 "2015-09-30T23:46:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/441 "2015-11-03T13:38:02Z")
Oh please yes I want that. That would be a perfect episode for their final season. We can watch Adam get dressed up in one of his working spacesuits and get knocked over in a low-pressure windtunnel! Gratuitous sugar-bomb explosions and depressurizations! And even some proper science and engineering of crops and life support systems! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/442 "2015-11-03T15:40:15Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > …It’s a hell of a lot easier to make a simple pressurized greenhouse than manufacture an entire hydroponics system with artificial lighting… Would a greenhouse on Mars have to have a particular kind of window/skylight material to let in some kinds of radiation, and keep out others, for maximum safe growth? ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/443 "2015-11-03T15:57:59Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Why did the whole crew go down to Mars? Why were they lugging some much crap down to the surface and back? > > Why is NASA investing in multiple landing sites. This isn’t Apollo. They aren’t sending people down for a couple days to grab and go. They are building stuff on Mars. Working on one site for the time being makes a _lot_ more sense. > > Lots of little stuff: Why is Kapoor sleeping near the rover duplicate? Once he talked to the staff and sized up the situation, he can go home. Phones and Internet are all he needs from then on. > > And the big one: The O2 bomb. Umm, he pours sugar into a Dewar flask, then liquid O2??? That goes BOOM right then and there. > > Why send a botanist to Mars? Any old techie could do all the needed tasks with a little training and be useful for other tasks during the long journeys. Too much of a plot device. > > The big positive is Matt Damon. He just played it right. This is his movie. I guess they felt the mothership didn’t need crew onboard as it was so reliable and redundant that it wouldn’t help to have a repairman on it. So it made more sense to have all the astronauts on the surface doing exploring. They didn’t lug very much crap back - the original mission plan, the MAV would just carry the astronauts in pressure suits + rock samples. NASA wanted to explore a variety of places on Mars, and you can’t do that if you only land at one place. I agree that it would have been a safer mission to use just 1 landing site. Kapoor is sleeping by the rover duplicate because the old computers used to talk to Watney are only in that room. He sleeps because this takes hours every day due to timelag. Also, in the same facility, they had mockups of Watney’s equipment and tested out various plans. This actually makes a lot of sense to me and I would have done something similar. [Oxyliquit explosives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxyliquit) are a real thing. Do you have a cite for sugar going off spontaneously? I did think the bomb was a little weak, in the book and the movie, that thing was put together in just a few minutes, which seemed unlikely to me. Watney wasn’t a botanist. He was a mechanical engineer - a NASA grade techie, why would they choose a mere technician if they can get an engineer in the same slot - and he happened to have double majored in bontany. When you’re talking about astronaut selection, obviously NASA can find unicorns for every crew slot. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/444 "2015-11-09T04:30:06Z")
Saw the movie, two nitpicks: 1. Although it simulated zero-g in the central, non-rotating section of the spaceship, it made no effort at all to simulate Martian surface gravity – which is 0.376 g, but Watney appears to be moving and working under 1 g at all times. 2. The surface atmospheric pressure on Mars is 600 pascals, or 0.06 atmospheres – so, how could there be such a thing on Mars as a storm powerful enough to blow around anything more massive than dust particles?! ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/445 "2015-11-09T05:07:35Z")
I saw the movie today without having read the book. Enjoyed it tremendously. Spacewalking with no tethers was the only thing that made me go, “WTF no way”–the rest of it I was able to gloss over. The scenes of people watching in Times Square, Trafalgar Square, etc. seemed like they were trying to copy _Apollo 13_. And the sloppily-dressed geek genius coming up with the brilliant but crazy solution and busting in to present it impatiently to the nonplussed Guys in Suits reminded me strongly of Jeff Goldblum’s “give the mother ship a virus (because it conveniently interfaces with Windows 95)” scene in _Independence Day_. A certain acquaintance who went with me to the movie and who has spent the last 20 years working for NASA contractors thought that the depiction of the head of NASA as a PR-obsessed weasel was terrifically realistic. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/446 "2015-11-09T07:15:37Z")
> [@chizzuk](#): > > I saw the movie today without having read the book. Enjoyed it tremendously. Spacewalking with no tethers was the only thing that made me go, “WTF no way”–the rest of it I was able to gloss over. They had no choice. They had taken all the tethers and joined them into one enormous tether to increase their reach to grab Mark. When they came up with the bomb idea for the vehicular air lock, there was no other way for Beck to place it and get back to the other airlock inside the time frame they had other than “to be careful.” I’m pretty sure this was stated in the film but then again the book and film are starting to blur in my mind. I do know this: The book’s commander was much more strict when it came to actually retrieving Mark. She wouldn’t even let Mark unstrap himself from his seat until Beck (yes, it was Beck doing the rescue in the book) had positively attached himself to Mark. But the untethered hand-over-hand from airlock to airlock was still there as they had no other choice. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/447 "2015-11-09T15:35:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **BrainGlutton** : > > 1. Although it simulated zero-g in the central, non-rotating section of the spaceship, it made no effort at all to simulate Martian surface gravity – which is 0.376 g, but Watney appears to be moving and working under 1 g at all times. And low g is a lot easier to do in a film than zero-g. You can get most of the way there by just slowing down the replay. But I think I understand why they didn’t: To those of us who aren’t nerds, it probably would have been distracting. ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/448 "2015-11-10T05:16:34Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > They had no choice. They had taken all the tethers and joined them into one enormous tether to increase their reach to grab Mark. When they came up with the bomb idea for the vehicular air lock, there was no other way for Beck to place it and get back to the other airlock inside the time frame they had other than “to be careful.” I’m pretty sure this was stated in the film but then again the book and film are starting to blur in my mind. > > I do know this: The book’s commander was much more strict when it came to actually retrieving Mark. She wouldn’t even let Mark unstrap himself from his seat until Beck (yes, it was Beck doing the rescue in the book) had positively attached himself to Mark. But the untethered hand-over-hand from airlock to airlock was still there as they had no other choice. The tether they were using at the end didn’t look like a bunch of tethers joined together to me–it looked like one long tether attached to a winch apparatus. How did they do that without any visible knots or joints? And the scene where they were “catching” the supply pack sent up on the Chinese rocket sure looked like it had Beck in an open airlock without being hooked to anything, like he was standing on his porch watching the UPS man pull into the driveway. But I could have missed something. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/449 "2015-11-11T18:44:48Z")
Finally saw the movie last night. Best movie of the year after Mad Max: Fury Road. > [@chizzuk](#): > > A certain acquaintance who went with me to the movie and who has spent the last 20 years working for NASA contractors thought that the depiction of the head of NASA as a PR-obsessed weasel was terrifically realistic. I think that’s a little unfair to Teddy. PR-_aware_, absolutely, but part of his job was to manage & control public expectations. And weasel is a little strong. He did do everything he could to rescue Watney, including eliminating the inspections of the resupply launch vehicle. The only thing he did that you could consider even slightly weaselly was veto the Purnell maneuver, which he did for sound reasons as well as PR reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/450 "2015-11-11T21:51:09Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Would a greenhouse on Mars have to have a particular kind of window/skylight material to let in some kinds of radiation, and keep out others, for maximum safe growth? Hmm? ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/451 "2015-11-11T22:06:31Z")
I decided to read the book and I’m already halfway through. I think the movie succeeded by cutting out a lot of unnecessary stuff from the books. For example, there’s a short little passage about Teddy and Venkat having to wait in line for customs in China. It serves no purpose to the story, it doesn’t tell us anything about the characters, and it’s not particularly eventful or humorous. There’s lot of little bits like that that the movie streamlined out. Also, maybe the movie glossed over this or I missed it, but now that I understand the full impact of the Rich Purnell maneuver, I think I would have agreed with Teddy. If the China launch had failed in any way, the Hermes crew would have been doomed to starve as they drifted away from Earth. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/452 "2015-11-11T22:46:51Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Also, maybe the movie glossed over this or I missed it, but now that I understand the full impact of the Rich Purnell maneuver, I think I would have agreed with Teddy. If the China launch had failed in any way, the Hermes crew would have been doomed to starve as they drifted away from Earth. That would be an interesting survival story. With no way to get food, how would that play out? You could almost imagine that there might be enough “alternative” food sources on board to allow one person to survive the journey. Ugh. They don’t really even need to be on the ship for that to happen. If the MAV had blown over, the whole crew might be facing that decision right there on Mars. Unfortunately, because of all the risks, I worry that it may actually play out for real if we ever do travel to Mars. There’s a movie coming out soon called “Heart of the Sea” about a true story of a whaling ship which was sunk and the crew drifted in small lifeboats. They were in an almost lifeless part of the Pacific and had to make some pretty grim choices of how to get food to survive. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/453 "2015-11-11T23:00:33Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > That would be an interesting survival story. With no way to get food, how would that play out? You could almost imagine that there might be enough “alternative” food sources on board to allow one person to survive the journey. Ugh. This scenario was part of the book, with the plan as you hypothesize. Martinez even jokes with the crew member chosen to survive, “who were you going to eat first? You like Mexican food, right?” ---
**Author:** ![satogata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@satogata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/satogata)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/454 "2015-11-11T23:07:08Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > That would be an interesting survival story. With no way to get food, how would that play out? You could almost imagine that there might be enough “alternative” food sources on board to allow one person to survive the journey. Ugh. In the book… they cover this – the remainder of the crew will suicide with pills with the expectation that Johannsen could survive the return trip with the “alternative” food sources and without the remainder of the crew using other survival resources. See [this stackexchange.com exchange](http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/102247/in-andy-weirs-the-martian-is-the-ares-3-crew-joking-about-having-johansen-ea) for some relevant passages from the book. I was not at all surprise that this was cut from the movie! ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/455 "2015-11-11T23:39:45Z")
How people plan for that situation and how it plays out for real can be very different things. Although with disciplined astronauts, I could believe they might stick to the plan more so than a group of random people would. Some of that “sticking to the plan” happened in the “Heart of the Sea” as well. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/456 "2015-11-12T02:14:22Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Hmm? Should the gravity and heat waves described by Edgar Rice Burroughs be kept out of a Martian greenhouse? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/457 "2015-11-13T07:36:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And low g is a lot easier to do in a film than zero-g. You can get most of the way there by just slowing down the replay. I disagree. Think of how the Apollo astronauts bounced around on the moon. They rose many inches off the surface with just a slight push from their toes, and had an odd skip-like gait when they walked. In no way did it resemble ordinary walking on earth simply slowed down. Mars has more gravity than the moon, but trying to recreate that kind of movement for the film would have involved putting Damon in a harness connected to springs that would simulate low-G. (Much like the rigs the astronauts trained in.) It would have been an incredibly complicated and time consuming process on set. And then the aparatus would have to have been removed with CGI. In **every** shot in which he moved around. And they would have had to use FX for every other object that fell, slid, or otherwise moved under the influence of gravity. Virtually every shot on Mars would have been an effects shot. > [@](#): > > But I think I understand why they didn’t: To those of us who aren’t nerds, it probably would have been distracting. If the filmmakers had managed to do it, the audience certainly would have been distracted at first, but the novelty would have worn off within the first 15 or 20 minutes, and it soon would have seemed normal and natural. The real reason they didn’t do it is that it would have been **unbelievably** expensive. A month-old nitpick for **carnivorousplant** : it’s pronounced Rafe von Williams, but it’s spelled [Ralph Vaughan Williams](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams). Many people are caught off guard by the British pronunciation of Ralph. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/458 "2015-11-13T11:16:51Z")
I finally saw it yesterday. Other than the weirdness of having gale-strength winds with a pressure of about 10 millibars, which has been acknowledged (and the way the repaired airlock flaps in the wind when it should be under huge outward pressure) I thought it was excellent. And, as a bonus, I discovered that I can see films in 3D, which I thought I was unable to do because I have one very dominant eye. One thing though - why does he put stoppers up his nose when dealing with the shit? He has a perfectly good space helmet! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/459 "2015-11-13T13:59:09Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > A month-old nitpick for **carnivorousplant** : it’s pronounced Rafe von Williams, but it’s spelled [Ralph Vaughan Williams](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams). Many people are caught off guard by the British pronunciation of Ralph. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095/460 "2015-11-13T14:41:05Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I finally saw it yesterday. Other than the weirdness of having gale-strength winds with a pressure of about 10 millibars, which has been acknowledged (and the way the repaired airlock flaps in the wind when it should be under huge outward pressure) I thought it was excellent. > > And, as a bonus, I discovered that I can see films in 3D, which I thought I was unable to do because I have one very dominant eye. > > One thing though - why does he put stoppers up his nose when dealing with the shit? He has a perfectly good space helmet! In-movie reason - for the helmet to block all scent, he’d need the full suit, or at least the chest portion as well. Which is pretty awkward for the job he was trying to do. Real reason - the visual of Matt Damon with foam earplugs shoved up his nose was funny, and fit well with the entire slapstick feel of the scene, which after all, was based on him rehydrating and mixing dehydrated shit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-martian-film-seen-it-thread-unboxed-spoilers/733095.md?page=24)