An excerpt from The Captain’s film review for The Martian which will be available 10/09/15:
What can I say, this film is great. It is Apollo 13 meets Cast Away. Is there a way to even screw that up? Well, Red Planet tried.
Now that I think about it, I’ve seen a lot of Mars related movies at the theater. Why Mars? Why is Mars so interesting?
Anyone see the film Mission to Mars? Where they find an alien space ship on Mars? Oh spoilers for Mission to Mars. I know some of you might be pretty upset with learning the ending to Mission to Mars.
If you ask someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson, they might mention Mars used to be a lush green planet, and life might have actually started there. An example being the water bear. An organism impervious to radiation, extreme heat, and extreme cold. The only reason anything would have that capability would be if it had to experience those harsh conditions. The only place you’d experience that is outer space!
If this film has really taught me anything, it is trying to colonize Mars is a terrible idea. They say if we do manage to colonize the moon or Mars that would certify human existence. No matter what happened on earth, the human species would live on. So that’s pretty cool.
But!
There’s no point in colonizing Mars for one important reason. There’s no fucking air! It’s uninhabitable! You can’t live there! You can’t grow food, and you know, there’s no fucking air!
And if the film The Martian has taught you anything, everything is out to kill you. Technology fails, and if it does that’s it for everyone. Because you can’t go outside. And if outside comes inside, you’re still dead.
It’s basically trying to live at the bottom of the sea. Let’s colonize the bottom of the ocean! That makes sense!
One thing I noticed right away about the film is it didn’t feel like Ridley Scott was behind it. Normally his sci-fi films are usually pretty visually noticeable. Alien, Blade Runner, Prometheus… they all have this dark, almost gothic look and feel to them. As for The Martian it’s very bright and colorful. Hell, the tone is also completely different from anything I’ve seen him do. This actually had more of a Ron Howard feel to it.
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The movie was great but did it need be in 3D (greed?;and no 2D option)? Granted there were a few 3D moments. But the pans of the Martian landscape with a ridge in the foreground seemed lame attempts to remind us it’s in 3D.
Sam,
The wife and I don’t see 3D movies anymore, much to The Captain’s dismay. We’re getting older and it makes us sick, lol.
Thanks,
Hank