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 40 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:

Help is only 140 million miles away

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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 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

Gross USA:

$228,433,663

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$630,161,890

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

Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan praised the film. Cernan was on the moon in December 1972. He is the subject of the documentary The Last Man on the Moon (2014).

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Goofs

There is a delay in radio communication between Mars and Earth due to the signal speed and the huge distances involved which spans between 4min to 24min one way. So even at closest proximity between Mars and Earth a message could exchanged only every other 8 minutes, even if every party answered immediately. So real time text messaging as in the movie could not be achieved and Kappoor would never have been embarrassed by Mark asking "Are you receiving?" when failing to respond.

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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

In the opening credits, the letters of "THE MARTIAN" fade away but as the top of the "T" fades, it then leaves an "I" onscreen for a fraction of a second, reminiscent of Ridley Scott's "Alien," where the letters slowly fade in one at a time.

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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

Featured in Honest Trailers: The Oscars (2016)

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Soundtracks

Hot Stuff
Written by Pete Bellotte, Keith Forsey and Harold Faltermeyer (as Harold Faltermeier)
Performed by Donna Summer
Courtesy of Island Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

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.