Keith’s note: The trailer for “The Martian” is out. (Once again) the public will love it – and Neil Tyson will hate it.

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

18 replies on “Video: "The Martian"”

  1. When I first heard about this being made as a movie, I thought, “Oh, Matt Damon would be perfect for this – it would be like his Castaway.” And lo! They did.

    1. I pictured Mark Watney as much younger than Matt Damon. Someone around 30, not mid-40s. But the trailer looks great.

  2. Really looking forward to seeing this! Not looking forward to space supporters picking the s**t out of it to show how smart they are instead of using it to reach out to non-space believers. News flash #1: every single movie ever made can be nitpicked. New flash #2: you aren’t really that smart.

    1. Totally agree. Neil Tyson seems to be hell bent on trampling any halfway decent movie about space.

    2. Well, I agree nitpicking a good story is pretty useless, and some artistic license is necessary to make a good story. But too much artistic license can be more of a bigger problem than just nitpicking. When it gets beyond a certain level, you’re convincing the audience that things which just aren’t possible are real. I think _Gravity_ was on the edge in a couple of respects, and the trailers for the new earthquake disaster movie bother me. (Having been iin the East Bay for Loma Prieta, there are lots.of real and unreal views people have about them. I don’t consider encouraging the unreal ones to be helpful.) For _The_Martian_, I think I’d like to wait and see what it’s like.

    3. This will probably be harder to nitpick than most. The science in the book is pretty solid. I’m also glad that the elegant mars direct scheme is going to be getting the big screen treatment. I wonder how much they will try to explain though, the book was a little… discursive.

        1. Huh? Maybe not in the finer details, but enough at a high level that I wouldn’t call “not even close.”

    4. Well said and I also agree. I don’t know why movies can’t be enjoyed for what they are. In this case it’s Sci-fi not Sci-fact.

  3. The trailer looks really good. Really looking forward to it. NASA has done a great job so far capitalizing on the trailer. In fact the first time I saw it was on the NASA Facebook page.

  4. Read the book some months ago. Nice, quick read … a fun read.

    With Ridley Scott directing, that’s a guarantee of quality.

    1. Another ‘reimagining,’ this time of Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) – but will it have the alien mining slave and an Adam West analogue?

  5. Robinson Crusoe has been on Mars before. When I was a kid my Grand mother had Robinson Crusoe in her personal library. People had books back then.

    Good to SEE him back again

  6. I hope they keep the astronaut’s sense of humor in the movie. It really helped make the book for me.

  7. The flag is on the wrong side…

    Seriously though, now this is a movie teenagers will actually want to watch.

  8. My only problem with the book and ARES 3 teaser is all the F-bombs. My mind doesn’t associate astronauts with lots of swearing.

    1. Wear a confining space suit all day and have every little thing maybe go wrong? I would f-bomb all the time..

  9. “No such thing as bad publicity”
    Tyson gives these movies a little extra free publicity.
    Keith gives Tyson a little extra free publicity too.

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