As one reviewer put it, “The most science fiction aspect of this movie is that NASA is fully staffed and funded, and the politicians listen and follow the scientists’ advice.”

I always start crying when China steps in and is like - "You need a rocket, we... uh... we got a rocket." The idea of superpowers working together to do something that's actually truly good makes the optimist in me weep.

"And this is exactly how scientists are." Yes, we all look like Matt Damon.

Adam Savage

I like how in the book it is stated that Mark’s humor and state of mind is a major factor to his survival.

while the book has so much more material, the movie did a phenomenal job with the adaptation. neil degrasse tyson himself says this is one of the best, scientifically-accurate space movies. the author, Andy Weir, recently published another space-centered book (with an Audiobook version), "Project Hail Mary". I 100% recommend it to everyone who loved The Martian.

Imagine the amount of money the US government has spent rescuing Matt Damon......

i LOVE this movie because of how un-dramatic it is. it absolutely has dramatic moments, of course, but its never hollywood-ized added drama like in Apollo 13 (which is an awesome movie, dont get me wrong) ...this just FEELS right, its what you would expect highly trained scientists and astronauts to do: be professional, solve the problem, and science the shit out of everything.

FYI - because sometimes people forget, or weren't even born by then and don't know or haven't looked it up. Pathfinder is a real probe that landed on Mars in 1997. Interestingly enough - it was the very first time I can recall of NASA releasing images and data to the public via internet. This was in a time when dial-up modems were still the primary means of getting online. Needless to say - their early website got CRATERED (pun intended) from the attention by tech savvy fans.

Never question the power of Duct Tape. Great review.

4:28

He didn't lose the weight, they used a body double. He was WILLING to lose it, but the director forbade him. Apparently he lost a ton of weight for another movie and it cost him in health problems.

My favourate thing about the book this movie is based on is at one point, Watley had to calculate power usage per sol a lot, so he developed a unit of measurement to help with it. Since it was just shorthand for himself, he called it "Pirate-Ninja". Well, the people at JPL (Jet Propulsion Lab) have to calculate that a lot as well. They have started to informally use that unit of measurement between engineers, and even when speaking with management.

I've seen this movie at least 20 times. Never fails to engage me. This film is terrific.

There are two deviations from scientific reality in this story (both in the book and movie). The first is that the Martian atmosphere is so thin that even though winds get up to 200mph or more, they'd struggle to rustle a fabric flag let alone rip a metal dish antenna off its mounts and knock Watney far enough that he couldn't be seen (the darkness and lack of visibility is very true, that darkness is ultimately what killed the Opportunity rover). Weir knew this but needed the story to start somehow, so took artistic license to force a situation where Mark could be left behind. The second is that Martian soil is full of perchlorates, a poison that would make it impossible to grow anything. Weir didn't know about this because it wasn't discovered until after the book was published. That said, perchlorates are soluble in water, so you'd just need to wash the soil thoroughly first and then filter the water for re-use. Rather than a scientific discrepancy, it's easy enough to simply assume Mark did that and we just weren't told about it. If Weir wanted to, he could publish a second version with an additional paragraph added to deal with the perchlorates.

The thing is with space travel, it's essentially 99% just falling. Once the spacecraft is out of the atmosphere, rockets just help guide the spacecraft to where it's falling to. It's near impossible to make U-turns with limited fuel supply and without the aid of gravity wells from other heavenly bodies like moons and planets. Best explanation of space travel I've heard was from Space Cowboys, "You just have to hit the baseball halfway there and the Moon's gravity does the rest."

the death star at

The Martian is criminally underrated. It’s easily my favorite film. It got me into watching more of Matt Damon’s films as I never cared much for him until I saw this. Now he’s one of my more liked actors lol.

Can we also mention how great the soundtrack is? The way this film uses 'Starman' by David Bowie is just perfection. And I love the fact that they actually played 'I Will Survive' over the end credits, that is just so fantastically appropriate

I love how hopeful this movie is. Shows how versatile humans can be in adverse circumstances. Lovely film.