Whilst films like "Gravity" and "Interstellar" have seen a welcome return of proper science fiction to the cinema, both have also had a strong dose of emotional sentimentality to try and get people not normally into this often cold genre onboard.
From George Clooney's home-spun tales and Sandra Bullock's life affirmation, to Matthew McConaughey's corn-fed pining for his daughter and the infamous 'library in space' third act, both films struggled to be as authentic as possible until it didn't suit the story. This has understandably led to criticisms from both reviewers and the scientific community who believe the New Age pseudo-science convention undermined the films in order to appeal to the 'cheap seats'.
As such, those people are seeking something more objective, serious and credible. It sounds like Ridley Scott, a filmmaker famous for not dealing in sentimentality, may have delivered that with his upcoming sci-fi flick "The Martian". The first footage from the film, based on the novel by Andy Weir, screened at CinemaCon in Las Vegas today and reportedly wowed the crowd.
The film deals with Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded alone on Mars after the rest of the crew presume he's dead and depart. Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Michael Pena, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover, Sean Bean and Jeff Daniels also star. io9 has a review and here's an excerpt:
"Unlike Interstellar, no one is crying the whole goddamn time. Seriously, it looks amazing... This is the gritty, space survivalist film we have been waiting for. No woo-science, no blubbering, no imaginary conversations with imaginary George Clooney - what I saw was a man abandoned on a planet that he is going to fix with science.
[Damon] has to figure out how to survive for three years on this planet, which is when the next planed mission is set to return to Mars... The part that put me firmly in the 'I must see this' camp for The Martian was after Matt Damon (who plays abandoned Astronaut Mark Watney) realizes that he only has enough food and oxygen for 30 days and says, 'I'm going to have to science the s--t out of this.'
This is where things get pretty wonderfully MacGyver-esque. Damon realizes he has no way to contact NASA, no food, and no hope for a rescue mission, but tries anyway. He posts a sign that reads 'Are you receiving me?' and eventually NASA find him. I'm not sure how swiftly NASA alerts the returning Ares 3 crew, but once they find out, they're in.
There’s a brief montage of all sorts of science and space hacks Damon has to perform to keep himself alive (like growing food, etc). At one winning moment (not sure what) he yells out in jubilation 'In your face, Neil Armstrong!' It's great. Obviously, things get more dicey and you see Damon start to unravel, but you can’t help but cheer him on, specifically when he starts duct-taping his cracked space helmet. This is the strap-your-moon-boots-on scifi feature we’ve all been waiting for."
sounds so much more enjoyable than interstellar or that shitty fucking gravity film.
god i fucking hated gravity. two or three very pretty and well shot sequences dont make up for 90 minutes of sandra whinging and whining and summoning magic and wishful thinking to get her happily ever after.
I'm puzzled how it will translate to a movie since 90% of the book is spectacularly technical. And Mark had supplies for 400 days, not 30. What the fuck hollywood
Also, why the fuck are the above pictures so gloomy and depressing, whilst in the book Watney turns shit going wrong all around him into black comedy
Quote:
“He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology?”
He turned back to Venkat. “I wonder what he’s thinking right now.”
LOG ENTRY: SOL 61
How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.
The trailer looks nice, definitely looking forward to watching it.
It's good but it's not what most people expected. No twist or mystery or aliens or Night-Shyamadong crap. Just several hundreds of pages of technical potato growing details.
Today I didn't even need to use my AK. I gotta say it was a good day. (c) - Ice Cube
The concept looks nice because there is never enough hard scifi out there. But the trailer has this bits that spoiler facepalm moments because he will have to "science the shit out of this!" Fuck yeah!
sar·casm | \ ˈsär-ˌka-zəm \
1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual
b: the use or language of sarcasm
Damn these uber-long trailers are hard to watch since they tend to spoil too much D:
The visuals once again seem to be solid (that's never been the problem with Ridley), though as for the dialogues...I'm not convinced. Let's hope for the best, if there isn't solid writing, having dem technicalities alone definitely can't save the falling spaceship (yes Prometheus and Gravity, I'm looking at you xD)
@VonMisk: exactly, didn't like those parts either to be honest, they came off as silly.
The concept looks nice because there is never enough hard scifi out there. But the trailer has this bits that spoiler facepalm moments because he will have to "science the shit out of this!" Fuck yeah!
thats not made up by hollywood. Hes actually like that in the book.
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