In the script, it said that Mark started crying the first time he heard the crew's voices. Matt Damon and Ridley Scott wanted to take it out because they thought it wasn't authentic. When they filmed it, Matt had been filming alone in the desert for weeks/months, and some stage hand was supposed to read the others' lines. So when he heard the rest of the cast talking, it made him realize what Mark had gone through... and he started crying for real. The reason that moment hits so hard is because Matt's not acting, he's actually crying.

The reason Mark seemed to be able to "do everything" was that the members of the crew all specialized in two areas, with some basic skill overlap. Mark was a botanist in charge of doing related experiments, but he was also the mission fix-it guy and had engineering training, as I recall. All the astronauts were skilled in multiple disciplines, since redundancy would be really important on a mission like this. (I also love that in the book it's explicitly stated that one reason Mark was chosen for the mission was his ease in getting along with others, his sense of humor, and his good natured resilience.)

“One of my lessons was called, “Don’t dig up the big box of plutonium, Mark!”” cracks me up every time

The biggest thing for me about this movie is that it tries to explain to people who've been fed spacecrafts in fiction all their lives that you can't just turn around in space and go back. It's such an essential concept to understand space travel and exploration. You can't stop, you can't put it in reverse. Well you could put it un reverse but you'd have to burn so much energy to reduce your speed, then burn it again to move in the other direction at the same speed.

If you thought the movie was funny, the book is flat out hilarious. The opening line: "I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion. Fucked."

21:00 Ahh... the discovery of the term "feltcher" The shock and horror on MrLBoyd's face! LOL The Mars surface shots were done in the deserts of Jordan, the interior set location was filmed in Budapest, Hungary. This cut you watched was the extended cut. The scenes of Mark doing the other astronaut's jobs and finishing the mission was not in the theatrical cut. This is one of my favorite movies of the last decade, easily. I love that it's just an uplifting human story of survival. There's no enemies, no bad actors or villains that want to thwart the protagonist for their own personal gain. No, the only villain is Mars herself, and just surviving alone there. A tale of human ingenuity, showing that we can solve any problem if we put our minds to it. The film was based on a novel by Andy Weir, who is an author who strives for accuracy when it comes to his science fiction. Sure, its not 100% accurate, there are some things he had to skirt. But without a doubt this is the most believable depictions of science that I've seen in a science fiction movie! I'm glad you liked it!

‘We shall see, plant man, we shall see!’

Spaceships can’t just “turn around”. Andy Weir, who wrote the book this is based on, actually did all the math for the orbital trajectories. There’s a Google Talks video with him demoing the software he wrote to work out all the orbits. (He was a software engineer to pay the bills during the “struggling unknown author” phase of his career.)

I didn't read all of the other comments, so I apologize if someone else addressed this. The Hermes could not simply "turn around" to get back to Mars. Basically speaking, space travel needs to use the gravity and momentum it has as fuel is a finite resource that has a lot of weight to it. So they use that fuel to get them into an orbit that forms an ellipse from the Earth to Mars with the Sun in the middle. And once they're at the right velocity, they just let gravity keep them going. To completely turn around and travel in a straight line would likely be impossible, especially if they want to get home too.

The Martian, Interstellar, Contact... When scientists write a story, they make magic.

Literally screaming at the screen that they can't "just turn around."

So the few inaccuracies. The storm at the beginning. Mars has huge dust storms with high winds but its atmosphere is so thin dust is about the only thing it could pick up. Andy Weir the author knew this but wanted a man vs nature story and this was the best way he could come up with to put Watney into danger. For the novel everything else was as accurate as he could make it with the knowledge of Mars at the time. In the movie you caught that Beck wasn’t tethered during his EVA. Our astronauts always remain tethered. At the end Mark goes Ironman by cutting a hole in his suit. In the book Mark suggests this but they specifically don’t because it wouldn’t work. There’s just not enough pressure in the suit to provide any significant thrust. Beck goes out and grabs him with the manned maneuvering unit and a really long tether

The line "Rich Parnell is a steely eyed missile man" is a nod to a line in "Apollo 13". Always loved that.

"I am the greatest botanist, on this planet."

One of the key things I love about this movie is no one is _dumb_. Every single character is smart and skilled and highly competent. Emotions do affect choices, but none of them are *dumb* or *foolish* choices. And when a choice is made due to emotion they pay the consequences for it.

The author of the book did consult experts and NASA officials asking “is this believable” and they gave feedback that he took to heart. I love the book.

@10:00 ironically Matt Damon does a lot of random cameos in movies. Although, they are usually comedies. Thor Ragnarok for example, has him in it for a single scene only. Same with Euro Trip.

The potato "disease" you are thinking of is called Potato Blight, aka water mold. Not actually a bacteria, and it only really affected certain typoes of potato species. The reason it hit so hard in Ireland was mainly due to the lack of diversity in the crops, with the majority of them being types that were the most prone to the disease. Since that fungus is not present in his farm, it wouldn't be a risk anyway unless it managed to survive sterilization on one of the seed potato plants that were used, and those potato species were actually weak against it at all.

"the person that did it, is therefore the person who has to do it" - Mrlboyd 2024

There are two main conceits in this movie. First is the storm, with the atmospheric pressure on Mars being about 1/100th as on Earth (if I remember correctly) the wind could blow at 250kph and you would hardly notice. But the writer, fully aware of this, wanted a natural disaster to strand him and this worked best for what he wanted. Second, the Ironman moment. In the original story that was published as a book they discussed the Ironman option and laughed it away because it IS stupid. The movie choose otherwise. Apart from that this is very solid hard sf and a great movie.

"They'll turn around" Like they've just missed a turn off the highway. lol Too many people's understanding of space exploration is entirely based on Star Trek. The callous nature of the director of NASA might be uncomfortable to watch, but he is right. He has to consider the lives of everyone, not just one person. That's the problem with being in such a position. You cannot make emotional decisions. Your actions have to be practical, logical, methodical. I think it's one of the things this movie does extremely well.

a great sci-fi film. Something special and Matt Damon does an amazing job carrying the film with out being able to interact with any actors for most of the screen time

"NASA doesn't like flamable things..." This in a rocket ship that is probably 90% rocket fuels.

The real lesson... duct tape can fix anything. And apparently never runs out. Or course I'm Canadian... we've known that for years.

Interesting thing is that to this day, Space Shuttles are NOT designed to turn around in any fashion--they can only go forward, much like a cueball on pool table. That's the exactly why concepts such as a Gravity Assist came into play. That said, just about every reaction I've seen for this movie, the phrase "They're Gonna Turn Around" has been guaranteed to pop up. It was filmed in the country of Jordan.

It's not KINDA. He definitely grew something on Mars.

The problem with turning around, is that space flight tends to run close with fuel. For a ship to turn about and make the return run, would need a massive amount of fuel.

I read the book and had really hoped that they'd use the opening line of the book: "I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked."

The spaceship can't just turn around and head back to Mars on the spot. They don't have the fuel/energy to do that (no warp reactor). So they have to rely on their current momentum/inertia, the gravity of Earth and whatever fuel they can spare to burn and head back to Mars.

The “No intro” beginning 😃 Omg I didn’t realize how much I want my reactors to do what they’re doing ! 😆 I always skip everyone’s songs/jingles and the 3 - 10m of talking about whatever they talk about. I’m subscribing 👍

9:50 they did it to Steven Segal in the movie Executive Decision. They introduced him about 1/4 of the way through the movie and then killed him not even five minutes later. It was hilarious.

If none of the potatoes he originally planted had the blight disease, the pathogen responsible wouldn't be present on Mars.

The movie celebrated smart and problem-solving. When my friends and I saw this in the theater, we would each remark when we would have not survived. There are reasons they select people with hard core science and engineering skills.

Astronauts are a different breed. NASA learned early on how to screen out people who wouldn't hold up under pressure. You'll see in other films people suffer space madness, and that is a real thing.

Paraphrased from the book. Mark: You want to send me into space in a convertable? NASA: You'll be covering the top with HAB Canvas. Mark: So a Ragtop.

Deadpool killed brad pitt with 2 seconds of screen time

Mars has this pretty cool quirk where sandstorms can quite literally cover the whole planet

The physics in space revolve around inertia and momentum. You expend enormous amounts of fuel "slamming on the breaks to make a U-turn." It's more fuel efficient to go forward and use the Earth's gravity to turn around.

Since you mentioned "Hail Mary".... that's the latest novel and the next film from the same author. Well done. Cheers

I don't care how many times I see it (it's a lot), the line "This is Hermes Actual .... We got him." always, always hits me just as hard as the first time. It's the tension of the whole final act being released all at once.

I happen to like a slice of raw, peeled potato now and then...washed, and of course with a little salt....love the crunch!

22:42 I like that these characters act like real people. The mission commander and XO are military so to leave a man behind probably hurts them even worse. So they would have definitely been on board to go back the moment they heard he was alive.

People have survived really long odds before through sheer willpower and a lot of luck. People can surprise you.

I'll never forget reading the book for the first time. It was after the movie was announced, but before it was released. I picked it up in the afternoon and stayed up to read it in one straight shot. Very few books have ever done that to me before. The Maze Runner and Hunger Games series being right up there

point of order, with a crew that small, EVERYONE would be cross trained.

One thing the movie never highlighted was the fact that it takes (on average) 20 minutes one way for a signal to reach Earth from Mars (40 minutes round trip). So, there would be no instantaneous communications like is implied in the movie.

Blight wouldn’t exist on Mars unless we brought it there.

Love this lovie, one of Matt Damons best performances. As a fellow space nerd i was enthralled by this whole story. On the NASA directors demenor, i think he was just being realistic, space travel is dangorous as he said, the fact weve lost a few people in space travel sice we first started in the 50s is actually.kind of astonishing, i think hes just being real, hes not sugar costing anything its kind of like 'hey guys if we are going to do this we all need to understand exactly whats at stake here'

I love your reaction when he was ironmanning.

MrLB: "What's a..." Definitely not Logical.

Try the movie "Robinson Crusoe on Mars'. I haven't been to the Johnson Space Center in a long time. I remember the last time I was there, they told me about changes. They said they are now growing grass on the roof of one of the buildings I used to work in. I asked if the DEA knew about this. The reply was "Not that kind of grass!" LOL

One thing they kind of glossed over in the movie, is when you send a message from Mars, it takes like twenty minutes or more to reach Earth. Then the same amount sending one back.

The reason they used GoPro for video diaries is because the written book has Mark’s written journal entries as his narrative. The dry sarcasm really conveys itself well via written word, but adding the facial expressions just elevates the story to the next level.

Everyone always says this, you can't just "turn around" in space. First of all you can't just bank right and pull a 180 like you can in air. There's no air to bank against to cause the turn. To "Turn around" you have 2 options: You either need something with enough gravitation to swing around like they do in the movie or thrust in the opposite direction of your travel to completely negate all the momentum you worked so hard to gain just to start accelerating in a different direction. In option 1 you better have done some calculations on your trajectory or you just booked yourself a one-way ticket to deep space followed closely by death. In option 2 you 100% don't have anywhere near enough fuel to pull off said maneuver so, you're dead.

RE: your idea about including a food-growing package, I've read a couple of stories where all human ships have them. One called it "the Watney Protocol." That one had a setting where the other species out there knew to never let humans set up shop on a world because after a while they don't want to leave, and it's almost impossible to get rid of them. But you also want to make nice with humans because if a human likes you they will do batsh*t insane stuff to help/protect you. 😛

You keep asking why the crew of the Hermes doesnt turn around and go rescue him. They arent flying around in space like Star Wars/Trek/Gate. It is impossible for the ship to do anything other than follow the orbit they are on. At most, and all they can do is make minor corrections. That is why the supercomputer was needed. It had to calculate if it was possible for a new orbit could be made to send them back to Mars and then back to Earth. The author of the book this movie is based on wanted all the science to be real. There were a few mistakes, but it is amazingly accurate. Also, its funny you said "Hail Mary" as that is the title of one of his newer books (Project: Hail Mary), which is supposedly having a movie made of it, as well.

Houston Space Center is amazing to see. A great and very informational tour. (Just make sure you dont go in the summer. It’s partially outside and the weather is gross-even for us living here.)

You would land in the open because it's the safest place to land. They would, and will, need an open, flat, rock free area to land. You won't find that in a valley

I think the highest praise I can give this movie is that it has the same over all feeling of 'this actually happened' as things like Apollo 13 had.

In the book series "The Expanse", there's a reference to a ship named the "Mark Watney". It's just a passing mention, but people picked up on it and are fan-fic-ing that The Expanse and The Martian are in the same universe. There's nothing saying they aren't, but in reality, it was the authors' nod to The Martian and nothing more.

In space travel, you cannot "turn around" in a sense like you would with a car. You are traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour at the rate of the orbit of the planets. So you would have to overcome that 10,000 miles an hour and then go 10,000 miles an hour the other direction to get back where you came from

@MrLBoyd This is just a small reason why Ridley Scott is in my top 10 directors of all time. His movies look amazing, and they are always interesting (yes even prometheus) this had heart, humor, and shows just how bad some meetings at NSA probably were behind closed doors. Damon and the cast were all amazing to me when we saw this in the theator

I literally said don’t google it and you did and I just about died laughing so hard 21:06

The winds all over Mars are routinely well over a hundred miles an hour. But the atmospheric pressure is so low that winds even that fast would barely ripple a piece of paper. It's enough to blow dust around pretty well, though. The dust is probably very statically bound due to the dry environment -- likely the dust sticks to everything, I'd think, just like the regolith on the Moon.

This is one of the few movies I would put on par with the book it is based on. The author helped to write the adapted script, and though a few beats, and details, were changed, it still has the same spirit as the book.

Winds on mars are fast, but have no density. So that storm is complete fiction.

If you're interested in any other Matt Damon movies, I would highly recommend "Good Will Hunting".

37:00 cars and trailers don't really have enough area for solar PV. With flexible ones you could make awnings that might help. Most EVs have glass roofs which is a form of solar power. It provides heating in the cabin - and solar thermal is way more efficient than solar PV. The other issue is PV panels need to be tilted, not flat.

Why not land in a protective valley, you ask? First off, the storm - or rather its effects - is the least realistic thing in the book and the movie. There are indeed storms on Mars with wild wind speeds, _but_ the atmosphere’s pressure is much lower, so it’s much less destructive than shown. The author, Andy Weir, flatly admitted this bit of dramatic license, since he wanted Mars itself to be the inciting incident. While not a perfect analogy, think of how you can be comfortable on a windy day, but replace that wind with water moving equally fast and you’d be gone, since the water is so much more dense. Secondly, you don’t land in nice deep valley because it’d be stupidly dangerous. You want a big, flat place to land, because you get one chance, and you want your bullseye to be miles wide. This is another planet; there are no do-overs. And you’re not in a helicopter that can just increase altitude and reposition; the only way a descent vehicle goes is down, only braking just in time to not kill everyone. It can’t just abort landing or fly around, no more than a skydiver can return to his or her plane. As we see the _ascent_ vehicle, which can go up, is a completely different machine that’s already in the surface, ahead of the astronauts landing. And that thing also needs to land - autonomously even - on a nice flat spot, while leaving room for the crew to land too. And thirdly, if you could land in a cosy valley, would you want to? You’re on Mars to do science, and maybe what you’re investigating isn’t in a valley but on an old floodplain or river delta.

I get so tired of reactors demonizing Teddy. The only questionable thing he did was not allowing the crew to make their own decision about the Rich Purnell Maneuver. Everything else he did had the big picture in mind, which was what his job was. Did he do everything perfectly? No. Is he a villain? No. Am I kissing up to his character? No. I'm just a big fan of both the book and movie. For the record, in the book Teddy personally went to Chicago to tell Mark's parents he's still alive before the news breaks. He didn't have to do that. He could have sent someone else. Also, you can't assume that they are using today's technology. This takes place in approximately 2035. Things will have changed a lot by then. And if Teddy had allowed time for the inspections Mark would be dead. There was literally no more time to wait. And another point from the book, Mark had no intention of starving to death. If it came to the point where there was absolutely no chance of being rescued he says there is enough morphine in the medical supplies for a fatal overdose. He was going to take an easier way out, which is totally understandable under the circumstances.

They wouldnt land 'in a valley' because it's not easy to land, especially perfectly to planned position, many things can happend so open, flat surface is a must. Above that landing on even small curve can not only be dangerous, but also may result in way more complication in later ascend (as ship will point in wrong direction)

Wow i saw this in theaters it feels like ages ago already

On the topic of a solar panel trailer behind a Tesla, it would probably take more energy to tow the trailer than it would produce. And with the amount of energy those battery packs have, it would take forever to charge it with a few panels.

I never knew what felcher meant and I refuse to google it LOL especially now after seeing you google it ! Sounds like its just best I leave that negativity out of my life lmao

Launching straight up out of the atmosphere to orbitalal height above earth takes 1/20th of the fuel, but if that's all you do gravity's still at over 90% strength so you fall right back down again. The other 95% of the fuel is spent speeding up sideways so fast that the curvature of the Earth is dropping away under you as fast as you're falling towards it, which is all orbit is. The only reason to go up high before doing that is so wind resistance doesn't slow you down as you go 18,000 miles per hour, on something like the moon you just need to be high up enough not to hit a mountain. The reason reentry requires heat shields is you used most of your fuel getting up there and speeding up (best case scenario you burn 8 pounds of fuel to get each pound of payload into orbit, and that's when you're being as efficient as possible), so instead of using fuel to decelerate you slow down just enough to descend into the atmosphere and use wind resistance to slow yourself back down. Slowing down from 18,000 miles an hour is enough friction to glow red hot for several minutes of deceleration, even with the air blowing past cooling you down. That's just low earth orbit. Getting to/from other planets is worse. You need to bring more fuel up into space to get _out_ of orbit (speeding up more and spiraling outwards), meaning you burned 8 times as much fuel getting it up there. You control your height by speeding up or slowing down your orbit. If you try to go straight up or straight down without changing your sideways velocity, you just add a wobble and do a sine wave orbit. (If you throw a baseball straight down at Earth from orbit, it will fly back past you a while later, and then drop down again... If you throw it ahead or behind it will go into a higher or lower orbit.)

Look up Holganix, it's a collection of enzymes, bacteria, fungi, which plants here use to grow naturally, when added to the soil around a plant it greatly increases their root ball, allowing them to absorb much more nutrients from the soil, it also allows naturally occurring nitrogen to be produced, so fertilizer isn't needed. It's basically a plant probiotic. I think that would be super helpful for any mission we send to mars. The best thing is, it can be sent as a capsule for a hab, so they always have some if they need it. OR you could just ship a stock of it, as a small amount goes a very long way. With Holganix, you could basically turn barren soil into fertile soil.

The main inaccuracy about this movie is the wind/storm incidents. Storms on Mars are both giant and can last for a very long time. However because Mars has only 38% of Earth gravity and the atmospheric pressure on mars is only 0.095 psi (earth at sea level is 14.7 psi) the storms cannot do the level of damage depicted. Wind speeds on Mars have been recorded in excess of 110km/hr (~70 mph). However because of the pressure it exerts very little force. It has enough energy to move sand and small rocks, but it would compare to a moderate breeze on Earth. Even in the lower gravity flinging tools and panels around would be impossible and a spacecraft could be anchored quite easily with a simple cable. In addition when he uses plastic to built the habitat walls they would barely move in the storm (a sheet of plastic would almost be impenetrable in a Martian storm). For sake of wind load numbers if the storm on mars was a sustained 150km/h and the wall was 10 square meters at a direct 90 degree angle against a flat surface (worst possible load) you would encounter 173.6 newtons of force. That is 39.03 pounds or 17.70 kilograms on that 10 meter squared wall. Duct tape and plastic would just be inflated outwards like a soft balloon and would barely show any signs of wind effect. The biggest risk from a storm would generally be sand in equipment, burying things, blocking out the sky, and eroding from under the footings. In fact the only reason you couldn’t use basic plastic, paper, Mylar, etc as structural materials is the radiation. Mars lack of a strong magnetic field and thin atmosphere does a bad job at filtering radiation from space and the sun. Almost everything else about this film is very well researched and based on mostly accurate science.

With the help of color filters, all of the Mars external shots were made in Jordan.

Once upon a time, Game of Thrones and The Martian had a secret love child, and they named it The Expanse. For science fiction TV series, it just doesn't get any better than The Expanse. Do yourself, and all of us, a favor and react to The Expanse!

As far as all the GoPro usage in the film...Nasa uses the GoPro HERO4 Black camera to document their space missions, and the HERO4 Silver has been used on the ISS. and although NASA uses mostly Nikon in space these days, the ISS is fitted with several D4 cameras. Astronauts on spacewalks often use GoPro cameras for footage of their EVA and to give ground control a live feed of their activity.

I love how you analyze movies. It adds a lot to the reaction, which other channels lack. I hope you can seriously consider reacting to a forgotten DISNEY movie called NEVER CRY WOLF (1983). The movie has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. I believe Disney has "walked away" from this film because, surprisingly, it has many shots of full male nudity. Yes, it is a Disney movie with full frontal and often complete male nudity. I won't go into any other spoiler info, but only say, it is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. It has an excellent score. Has recognizable 80s actors. And it is like no other movie you've probably ever seen. You will definitely find it fascinating. Since it is a movie which Disney has decided to "sweep under the rug", it has never been reacted to, and has probably never been on a list for a reaction. I purchased mine on a streaming service, and I see youtube has it also for purchase. It really is one of those movies that reaches into your soul. I hope to see your reaction to it. If you remember Siskel and Ebert, the movie reviewers, they also loved it, gave it 2 thumbs up.

The book is amazing. I finished it within 24 hours

46:28, practically everyone in this movie is an alumni of the MCU or the Fox Fantastic Four and X-Men or Sony Spider-Man movies. Heck they could launch Phase 6 of the MCU with this cast alone.

One of the best books I've read. The science actually almost all checked out completely as well and was verified by NASA people if I remember some of the interviews with the author. That stuff is almost as enthralling as the movie. I highly recommend the book, it actually explains all the science stuff really well, and how it would work.

Hail Mary - the title of the author's next big novel. Fun Mars fact: the surface air pressure on Mars is the same as the Earth's at 90,000 feet. That's how thin the atmosphere is there.

Great reaction, don’t remember seeing so tense before 😂😂 Could I suggest The Impossible or Lion, both amazing films based on true stories

Try taking him to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Also you can't just turn around in space.

Fun fact, due to the low pressure atmosphere on mars, even the mightiest sandstorm, wouldn't be able to impede a persons movement, let alone throw things other than particles like sand through the air.

This was written before commercial space flight was prevalent. Now you can have 6 rockets in under 2 months capable of going to Mars.

"Sunshine" next and then "Gravity".

So, space travel isn’t how most people imagine it. Through out the movie you kept mentioning the idea of them turning around. But the fact is that’s not possible with current technology. Unlike in the popular show The Expanse where they just flip the ship and burn fuel in the direction they were going to head back in the same direction they were coming from lol. We are hundreds and hundreds of years away from that kind of technology 😂

There is a part in the book that isnt in the film where the hermes crew choose who will commit suicide in order to save resources for the rest of the crew. The younger female crew member would be last to die. Her parents ask her if she will have enough food to survive and she responds that there will be plenty of calories, hinting that if she needed to, she would be dining on her dead crewmates.

negative 168 Celsius, with nearly zero atmospheric pressure, there is hardly any thermal entropy under that pressure. Wouldn't feel cold, there's no matter to diffuse your body temperature into... Space is cold, but wouldn't feel cold.

9:52 and that explains what they did with Janet Leigh in the film Psycho (1960). She was exceptionally famous at the time, and they killed her off very early in that film. It was very shocking at the time.

The biggest “off” thing about this movie scientifically is that the air on Mars is far too thin to blow sand and gravel like that, let alone threaten to blow over the ship. I just had to get over that, and then I could enjoy the movie.

This is probably one of my absolute FAVORITE reactions of yours. This was fantastic 🙌🏽

Thanks for the video. I enjoyed it.

After watching this... you're DEFINITELY going to want to watch "GRAVITY"... a space epic with absolutely astonishing effects, story, and cinematography.

"we shall see, plant man, we shall see" absolutely sent me.

Apparently the only thing in this film that didn't pass a science muster was the storm- and only because that kind of storm just isn't possible on Mars.