The Martian (2015)

An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.

Director:

Ridley Scott

Writers:

Drew Goddard (screenplay by), Andy Weir (based on the novel by)

Stars:

Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig

Nominated for 7 Oscars. Another 39 wins & 188 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Matt Damon	...	Mark Watney
Jessica Chastain	...	Melissa Lewis
Kristen Wiig	...	Annie Montrose
Jeff Daniels	...	Teddy Sanders
Michael Peña	...	Rick Martinez
Sean Bean	...	Mitch Henderson
Kate Mara	...	Beth Johanssen
Sebastian Stan	...	Chris Beck
Aksel Hennie	...	Alex Vogel
Chiwetel Ejiofor	...	Vincent Kapoor
Benedict Wong	...	Bruce Ng
Mackenzie Davis	...	Mindy Park
Donald Glover	...	Rich Purnell
Nick Mohammed	...	Tim Grimes
Shu Chen	...	Zhu Tao

Storyline

During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring "the Martian" home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible, rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney's safe return.

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Plot Keywords:

astronaut | space habitat | left for dead | nasa | presumed dead | 

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Taglines:

Bring Him Home

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, injury images, and brief nudity.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official Site

Country:

UK USA Jordan Hungary

Language:

English Mandarin

Release Date:

2 October 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Martian 3D

Filming Locations:

Hungary

Box Office

Budget:

$108,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$54,308,575, 4 October 2015, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$228,433,663

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$629,281,283

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, TSG Entertainment, Scott Free Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

144 min 151 min (extended cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Dolby Atmos Dolby Surround 7.1 Datasat SDDS Auro 11.1

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Near the end of the film, a sequence is shown in which people around the world are watching news reports of the attempt to rescue Watney in city centers like Times Square in New York and Trafalgar Square in London. In Matt Damon's next film, Downsizing (2017), one of the scenes at the beginning of the film shows people around the world watching news reports about the first humans to shrink themselves to 5 inches tall, and Matt Damon's character is shown watching it.

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Goofs

After the airlock was blown away, Watney repairs the breach with a plastic sheet and duct tape. The hole was large enough for an astronaut to walk through in length, suggesting the hole was at least 2 meters in diameter. With an atmospheric pressure of 1 Bar (100 kPa), it would equate to approximately 3.2 tons of pressure onto the seal(if the outside atmosphere is neglected, since it is less than 0.01 Bar). Such a repair would have broken as soon as he tried to pressurize.

Also, this repair is seen fluttering in the wind. Provided the seal would hold the entire 31.4 tons of pressure inside, it wouldn't flutter with that large inequality in pressure, no matter how strong the outside wind is.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Melissa Lewis: All right team, stay in sight of each other. Let's make NASA proud today.
Rick Martinez: How's it looking over there, Watney?
Mark Watney: Well, you will be happy to hear that in Grid Section 14-28, the particles were predominately coarse but in 29, they're much finer and they should be ideal for chem analysis.
Rick Martinez: Oh, wow. Did everybody hear that? Mark just discovered dirt.
[laughs]
Rick Martinez: Should we alert the media?

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Crazy Credits

Disco music, which had been a running gag throughout the film, is played during the ending credits. Appropriately, the first song played is "I Will Survive," which features the lyric "And so you're back, from outer space."

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Alternate Versions

In June of 2016, an extended cut was released on Blu-Ray and Ultra HD 4K Blu-Ray that adds 10 additional minutes of footage.

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Connections

Referenced in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Tina Fey/Dane DeHaan/Kenny Rogers (2015)

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Soundtracks

Love Train
Written by Kenny Gamble (as Kenneth Gamble) & Leon Huff
Performed by The O'Jays
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

I Am The Only One Who Was Not Disappointed

Having read the book, and being very impressed, I was looking forward to the movie interpretation. I was not the least bit disappointed. I was hoping this movie would not be an overacted, overproduced and sappy version of the original, and I was pleasantly surprised that the story played out without the overblown extraneous embellishment that Hollywood seems to depend on so often.

It was great to see how the screenplay added extra material that was not in the book, and it enhanced the story to make it even better. The characters were interpreted with full respect to the intention of the author, Andy Weir, and nothing was overdone. The pacing and editing of this movie was some of the best I've seen, in fact, some of the one-liners from the book are done so quickly it pushed the story forward relentlessly.

One thing that struck me is that everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I think that could be a testament to the originality and uniqueness of the book. I believe anyone who reads the book is captivated and involved with the story from beginning to end, and it's possible this comes across in all phases of the production; the acting, the sets, sound, everything. They all knew they had some great material to work with and ran with it.