What are the odds that the movie adaptation of The Martian will succeed?

Cafe Society
81

Have you moved on to Disco yet?

One Sol (Martian Day) is 24 hours, 37 minutes so, for all practical purposes in the time we have until the movie comes out it, the number of sol’s will be the same as the number of days.

The new trailer looks great - and there is a degree of sarcasm in Watney’s recordings. I think it will work nicely.

One thing I hope they do (spoilered because it’s about how the book ends)

All that work to rescue Watney and yet he never wrote about the reunion or reactions to his rescue. I felt a bit cheated just having the basic diary entry. I hope they have a better resolution and epilogue in the movie.

82

Concerning the same spoiler:

I think there will be much back slapping and embracing, then fade and music.

83

I’m a lot more stoked. The second trailer seems to match the book much more closely than my impressions from the first trailer.

  1. The “science the shit out of this” line I found a little jarring because it wasn’t said in the book, but “I’m the planet’s best botanist” was either in the book or is totally in character.

  2. I saw a lot of pieces from VFX shots that looked like exact matches from the book, implying they will follow it closely

  3. I had the impression that when he gets that certain thing hooked up, and it shows Houston what’s going on in the trailer, that it was implying that thing was capable of a video link when it clearly didn’t have the bandwidth given the age of the electronics. But, actually, the video records are Watney’s journal - they were audio or written in the storyline of the book, but, either way, Watney knows he is probably going to die, he just wants us, the audience, to have a record of what happened, since he knows that eventually these records will be found as NASA’s computers are really really reliable and good about retaining data. Even if it’s 20 years before an expedition visits the base he was at to recover his body, you can pretty much bet that all the data would still be intact.

  4. It captures some of the strongest scenes in the book. First we see it from Watney’s perspective, then we see his actions - that make perfect sense to him - from the perspective of Earth, where they, despite being the best and the brightest, can’t always figure out what he is up to.

84

Spoiler from book:

NASA: You’re a dick.

85

I’m looking forward to it, I’m reading the book right now and I love Watney’s snark. I hope that comes through in the movie.

But there are a couple of things that are bugging me:
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Venkat Kapoor. Okaaaaayyyyyy.
Rooney Mara plays the “beautiful” Johansson.
Based on the cast list, it looks like the entire China storyline is dropped.
Korean scientist Mindy Park is played by blonde Mackenzie Davis.

86

That lines bugs me too, especially because “engineer the shit out of this” would make much more sense.

87

Your sentence is more grammatical, and thus less funny.

88

Also, more video: - YouTube

89

Here’s a new trailer.

Man, this looks good. I can’t wait.

90

I read the book already knowing it was going to be turned into a movie, so maybe I was a bit influenced to me, but reading it made me think “OF COURSE they’ll turn it into a movie.” It’s the sort of story that feels like it was written for the big screen instead.

91

I don’t remember him having a son in the book. I can’t recall how much his wife was involved in the story after he left earth (I remember it being minimal) and I’m wondering how they will insert the obligatory love story.

92

I recall his being concerned about his parents, but not a Wife or child in the novel.

93

It’s good to see favourable comments on the book. I bought it a month ago and have been holding back, saving it for a couple of extended flights I’m taking tomorrow, hoping it will get me through several hours of mind numbing flying. Looks like it will.

94

I absolutely loved the book, and tried to get my wife to read it. She was resistant, though, 'cause she’s not into hard sci-fi like I am.

Then she saw the trailer, read the book, and less than halfway through was recommending it to everyone she knows.

I think she just doesn’t trust me.

95

Lessee:
-stupid premise
-at odds with all that is known about Mars
-you know what will happen
Sounds like a big success!

96

Darned spoil sport. :dubious:

97

I’m reasonably confident that that’s a misleading cut in the trailer, and those are actually Michael Pena’s wife and child.

98

Only “at odds” I know of is the windstorm, which the author has stated multiple times was a cheat to keep the narrative as “man vs. mars”. He had a draft with mechanical problems causing the accident but scrapped it.

We rewatched Apollo 13 recently (yep, it holds up). It’s 20-year-old movie that had a story with a known ending, had a scene which inspired “The Martian” (square peg in round hole) and was #3 box office gross of the year. #1 was Toy Story.

99

I just saw an ad for this during the Packers-Bears game and they changed the line to “science the hell outta this”, which sucks ass. I hope to was just because it’s a televised ad, but if the film itself has that line, I swear to “Bob” I’ll walk out of the theatre.

100

I wonder if they’ll include the gay rainbow goddess probe joke.

As opposed to other movies, where you’re in the dark?

Spoiler for 95% of movies, even edgy indy ones:

The protagonist lives.
They get the girl or achieve their goal. Usually both.
In the unlikely event they do die, it won’t be until towards the very end, so you can be sure they won’t die for the first two hours.