‘The Martian’ Movie Makes Science The Hero Of The Movie And Shows Nerds Rock
The Martian is the latest creation from the director Ridley Scott. Scott, whose directorial credits include Blade Runner, Gladiator, and Blackhawk Down, once again takes a stab at directing a science fiction movie and turns science into the hero.
The plot of the Martian movie is simple. It stars Matt Damon as a botanist on a mission to Mars. During the mission his character, astronaut Mark Watney, finds himself stranded on a hostile planet with few supplies. He must use his ingenuity to survive until he can make contact with NASA and get rescued. This is where the science comes in, and Ridley Scott makes science fun again by giving it a practical application.
According to AL, there are several reasons for this. The first is that NASA actually consulted on the movie. It contributed to the realism in the movie, and it showed the can-do attitude of NASA at its best. The film deftly handles all the geeky stuff by having Watney explain what he’s doing.
The scenery for Mars, although beautiful and majestic, is also terrifying and bleak. It is a hostile environment to survive, and it’s even more hostile trying to survive it alone. Matt Damon occupies most of the screen time as he tries to conquer this hostile planet. Although it’s not the best space movie ever, because it doesn’t aim that high, Inquisitr did report that it is one of the best movies of the year.
Even though the movie doesn’t hit theaters until October 2nd, there has been a lot of scientific nitpicking about the science in The Martian movie. As reported in Geekwire, NASA astronaut Michael Barrett, a flight surgeon and two time space traveler, said during a panel at the Seattle Space Museum that it was not a good idea to get hung up on it.
“I would just ask everybody to get past that, because there are so many things they got right.”
Barratt, often compared to Star Trek‘s Dr. McCoy, said that the movie made no attempt at simulating Martian gravity, which is 38 percent that of Earth. On a positive note, he said that there was a lot of focus on the interaction between the astronauts and NASA, and that it was realistic. The most important lessons to learn from The Martian movie he said, were that geeks rock.
“One of the themes of the movie is, No. 1, nerds rock. And No. 2, nerds survive.”
The author of the book The Martian, Andy Weir, said that concessions had to be made for dramatic purposes. Those concessions included a wind storm, something that couldn’t be generated on Mars because the air is too thin.
[Photo Credit Bill Ingalls/NASA/Getty Images]
