Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Martian (2015)

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Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 10-01-2015, 10:52 PM:

All I have to say walking out of this was "WOW!" Perhaps the most creative. gratifying film centered around space since Gravity, The Martian works on really every level. Matt Damon's Mark Watney performance is very faithful to how he was portrayed in the novel, keeping a sharp edge to his humor even though he's in a rather unfortunate situation. The novel was brilliant and a really fun read, but I always imagine it's format being hard to bring to film, but Ridley Scott, master filmmaker and knows damn well how to make a space movie, and shockingly makes a very personal narrative movie feel huge and compact in many levels. The supporting cast is also very impressive, led by a strong performance by Jessica Chastain as the commander of Watney's team and Jeff Daniels as the administrator of NASA. Cinematography is also stunning even though a good chunk of the movie takes place inside a "hub". Overall, The Martian is one of the best movies of the year so far, proving that Matt Damon can continue to lead his own flicks strongly and a comeback for Ridley Scott after coming off the terrible and disappointing Exodus and Consoler movies. Even if you don't dig science or space, I guarantee you'll get a kick out of The Martian.
Film: 4 out of 4 stars
Presentation: 3 out of 4 stars (saw it in Cinemark XD, really great soundtrack, some dialogue got overshadowed at times though and the picture looked a little bit washed out. And on a very small side note, my theater played a lot of trailers for movies that are gonna be in "flat", and letterbox sides on a gigantic screen doesn't look that good. [Wink]

)

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 10-04-2015, 09:03 AM:

CINEMA: Regal Kansas City 18, Kansas City, MO
AUDITORIUM: 16
PRESENTATION: Mystery Meat Digital
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Three stars (out of four)

I walk into the auditorium with my medium popcorn and Coke ($13.85) and wonder if they remodeled because the walls are black and void of sconces. Then I realize that this is NOT the case...there just aren't any lights on. The floor guide lights and the projector aren't on either. It's damn near pitch black in here. So I end up feeling my way to my seat, which is not terribly easy with my hands full. First Look came on a few minutes later and the lights came up to trailer level, so others coming in (I was the first one in here) didn't have the same issue.

THE PLOT: An astronaut dies and...what? He's NOT dead? We just LEFT him there? Awww crap. Wackiness ensues.

This is a pretty great fluffy feel-good mainstream movie with some really well done space genre cinematography that the masses will eat up and claim to be one of the most amazing things ever filmed, even though it's not.

But that's okay. Everyone needs to smile sometimes. Except maybe goth chicks.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 10-04-2015, 10:32 PM:

Sony 4K at that theater, Sam. And I think maybe 7.1 in some of the houses?

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 10-07-2015, 05:26 AM:

Well between "The Martian", "Interstellar" and "Saving Private Ryan", the good old USA has spent a TON of money saving Matt Damon. Way more then we have spent trying to kill him (Jason Bourne).

Couldn't help but think about the (fictional) cost when I was watching this movie.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 10-07-2015, 02:25 PM:

Saw this at Regal Avalon, a fairly new complex. So I assume their bulbs should still be fairly new. but the scenes with mostly white backgrounds like the press conferences had a dim lighting backdrop to them and seemed a tad blurry. Projection or the cinematography?

Movie was decent fun. Michael Pena was a funny choice for an astronaut role as I am used to seeing him as the comedic strange guy in some movies.

Watched it in 2D.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-07-2015, 03:37 PM:

The movie was only 2K (if there is a 3D version of the movie, then it tends to be 2K for the 2D version as well). The movie did have a 7.1 soundtrack.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 10-09-2015, 12:37 AM:

I was referring to the theater equipment rather than the movie if that was directed towards me.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-12-2015, 10:34 PM:

I've seen this twice and yes, all the press conference/office room scenes do have this drab, oddly lit darkness on two different projector setups.

the best use of 3D is the last thirty minutes of the movie.

I don't know what it is, but of the two Atmos mixed Ridley Scott movies: this and 'Exodus: Gods and Kings' neither of them impressed me

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-12-2015, 10:35 PM:

This movie was quite refreshing and I thought it was great. Somewhat far-fetched of course, but who knows? Maybe Mars travel will be commonplace in a hundred years and people will look back on this movie and marvel how much they got right.

To me the best thing about it was how "human" it was. In an era where we have Marvel superhero movies and Transformer movies in which every machine has thousands of clicking, whirring gears and hinges and solenoids and other gadgets that all work perfectly despite being blown up, crashed into or otherwise abuse, here we have a movie in which things don't work, have to be improvised, or are otherwise inadequate for the task at hand. And a hero who displays the kind of ingenuity that a real person probably WOULD display in the same kind of situation. In short, despite the far-fetched story line, these human touches made the movie quite believable.

One thing that sort of irritated me was the phony-looking zero-gravity scenes, in which the astronauts flew around like Superman, taking off and changing directions at will and being able to walk around on the ground when they needed to. I don't know why that stood out for me among the (probably) dozens of incorrect scientific details but it did. And the depiction of gravity on Mars, too, was pretty variable, considering it has a gravitational pull just one-third of Earth's.

The cast was uniformly perfect, although the kid who "saved the day" was more of a smartass than he probably needed to be (no person knowing lives were in the balance would ever say, "I've got a great idea that might save the day! Wait.... I need more coffee before I tell you what it might be") but it does make for a great movie moment.

I thought the Chinese-government aspect of the story kind of got shortchanged. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see a director's cut of the movie with that angle explored a bit more. The movie started to seem a little long by the third act; but by and large it was a huge amount of fun and probably my favorite sci-fi movie since Gravity.

The sound mix was pretty good and I enjoyed the 70s soundtrack, pretty much all songs I got sick of back in my DJ days. (Except "Waterloo," that tune is still great.)

Four out of five stars from me.

Posted by Aron Toplitsky (Member # 6950) on 10-16-2015, 04:51 PM:

From Jonathan
"I don't know what it is, but of the two Atmos mixed Ridley Scott movies: this and 'Exodus: Gods and Kings' neither of them impressed me"

I thought it was just me and was concerned since the theater I saw it in is very reliable. I agree this Atmos mix wasn't anything too special. I haven't seen Exodus. If I had to describe The Martian's Atmos mix, I would have to say...subtle and toned down.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 10-16-2015, 05:33 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
phony-looking zero-gravity scenes, in which the astronauts flew around like Superman, taking off and changing directions at will and being able to walk around on the ground when they needed to. I don't know why that stood out for me among the (probably) dozens of incorrect scientific details

If you notice, what they were doing was moving in zero-gravity along the long axis of the ship, but swinging themselves into a section that was spinning like a centrifuge, where the sitting/walking areas were. This, apparently, is a viable way to simulate gravity in outer space.

I thought the picture was a little dry in the first half, not being especially interesting to watch a guy grow potatoes in his own poop. Actually, I was wondering why there was a botanist on the mission in the first place, since, as he pointed out, nothing grows there (sure is lucky for the screenwriter though). It picked up nicely once NASA got into the act, but the reaction shots of the Kristen Wiig character got a little tedious. My only real disappointment was that a very exciting set piece towards the end of the novel didn't make it into the movie. It was still in all worthwhile to watch.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-16-2015, 08:37 PM:

interestingly Seattle's Cinerama is promoting:

"We're still showing Ridley Scott's The Martian and it's still selling out, so be sure to grab your tix in advance! And thanks again to our friends at 20th Century Fox for cutting us the only 'high-brightness' version of this film in the nation!"

I wonder how this actually looks (?)

Posted by Michael Kurtzke (Member # 7512) on 10-18-2015, 10:42 PM:

I Wish I knew about the 14 FtL version of The Martian before I got rid of our 3D Print. I would have loved to see it!

When I called Deluxe about it, they said that it wouldn't be a big deal to ship me the 14 FtL version. I assume it's not just for the Cinerama.

I hope this becomes a new thing because one of our houses can hit almost 15 FtL per eye!

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-18-2015, 11:29 PM:

Just out of curiosity,which theater are you referring to Michael?

Posted by Michael Kurtzke (Member # 7512) on 10-20-2015, 12:16 AM:

We can hit that light spec in Theatre 2 when we are playing scope films. We can almost hit it in Theatre 3 with a new lamp (~13Ft L) while playing a scope film.

Even though we are common width, we set up our 3D lenses for common height (for scope) so we can get ~80% of the light we get out of a 2D Lens.

I'm hoping Star Wars has a 14 Ft L version!

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-20-2015, 03:30 PM:

This one turned out better than expected. Not everybody seems to like Matt Damon, for whatever reason, but I do think he is a fine actor and managed to portray a believable "Mark Watney".

quote: Mike Blakesley
One thing that sort of irritated me was the phony-looking zero-gravity scenes, in which the astronauts flew around like Superman, taking off and changing directions at will and being able to walk around on the ground when they needed to. I don't know why that stood out for me among the (probably) dozens of incorrect scientific details but it did. And the depiction of gravity on Mars, too, was pretty variable, considering it has a gravitational pull just one-third of Earth's.

As far as I remember, they only sit and walk in space in the centrifugal sections of the space ship. On such a long mission, having a section with simulated gravity would make a lot of sense.

The depiction of gravity on Mars itself is indeed a bit sloppy in general. I guess it was just to expensive to get this right.

Besides some nitpicking on some minor factual errors, there were a few problems which did bother me:

- I doubt there could ever be a storm on Mars, so strong it would be able to move debris of the size depicted, let alone pushing over an entire space craft. The atmosphere is far to thin, it might be capable of moving dust, but that's about it.
- Using duct tape (even if it's the type of super-strong tape they use for temporary aircraft repairs) and some plastic sheets to fix a giant hole in your habitat just doesn't cut it. It didn't even budge after re-pressurization.

The movie did have an Atmos sound track. But, unfortunately, it didn't really put the system to good use. Compared to Gravity, this mix was an amateur job.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-20-2015, 03:38 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
As far as I remember, they only sit and walk in space in the centrifugal sections of the space ship. On such a long mission, having a section with simulated gravity would make a lot of sense.

I thought about that. It just seemed to me that if they needed gravity they had it, and if they didn't need it, they didn't. Plus they did a certain amount of "turns" while floating without grabbing on to things, which wouldn't be possible. But, like I noted above, it wasn't enough to make me not like the movie.

I wondered the same thing about the duct tape and plastic. Seems like you can never get that stuff to stick where you want it, but it always sticks where you don't want it to.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-20-2015, 06:32 PM:

quote: Michael Kurtzke
We can hit that light spec in Theatre 2 when we are playing scope films. We can almost hit it in Theatre 3 with a new lamp (~13Ft L) while playing a scope film.

Sounds like you need a tech out there to re-calibrate the light sensor if you have BARCO's, for I can easily hit 30 plus fL's if I take a BARCO 32B out of CLO mode running a 6k bulb on a 70 ft wide screen. One insane bright picture is the results.

In CLO mode where I have 14Fl's as my goal setting, I'm running that 6K as a 4.5K and only using 3300w of power to reach that goal.

I have a beautiful picture...and buying bulb life.

The 3D content were only 4.5 and 6Fl.

Posted by Michael Kurtzke (Member # 7512) on 10-20-2015, 06:37 PM:

Monte,

We are an all Sony complex! We shoot colours and light levels with a Minolta CS-100 that gets calibrated every year.

We don't run all 6 lamps at 100% in that theatre, or else people's eyes would melt (especially with a 2D Lens installed).

But to keep this topic on track, I just kept wishing this film was shot in 4K. You could really see the stair-stepping on the text.

Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 10-20-2015, 07:15 PM:

quote: Michael Kurtzke
I just kept wishing this film was shot in 4K.

The Martian was shot on a Red Dragon camera, which actually shoots in 5K, however, they mastered in 2K during post-production for release. (If you wanna read more about it: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/life-on-mars-the-vfx-of-the-martian/)

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 10-31-2015, 09:13 PM:

quote:
- I doubt there could ever be a storm on Mars, so strong it would be able to move debris of the size depicted, let alone pushing over an entire space craft. The atmosphere is far to thin, it might be capable of moving dust, but that's about it.
- Using duct tape (even if it's the type of super-strong tape they use for temporary aircraft repairs) and some plastic sheets to fix a giant hole in your habitat just doesn't cut it. It didn't even budge after re-pressurization.

The movie did have an Atmos sound track. But, unfortunately, it didn't really put the system to good use. Compared to Gravity, this mix was an amateur job.

These were my exact complaints as well.

The plastic sheeting... That about ruined the movie for me. No way in hell that pressure that could apparently blow off the entire front of the building could be contained by a hastily hung glorified trash bag.

The Atmos mix disappointed me also.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. As a huge green thumb, all the botany aspects of the movie excited me.

Posted by Steve Wilson (Member # 2411) on 11-11-2015, 06:25 PM:

I saw this movie twice and I loved it. Acutally, NASA had a lot of input on this movie to get it right at much as possible. Not sure how much, but that was the talk I had heard from those that know more than I do.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-01-2015, 04:25 PM:

I think that this is my favorite film (video) release this year. Comparisons to Gravity are apt, and it seems that they went to fairly good lengths to get the science right.

Agreed that the duct tape/plastic thing was dumb...if the room were pressurized to 5 psi (as the lunar module was) and the plastic sheeting were 200 sq. inches in size, that would be 1000 lbs. of force on the plastic.

Otherwise, though, I enjoyed the film. It is still doing good business here.

Did 3D add anything to this? I enjoyed it perfectly well in 2D.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 12-01-2015, 04:36 PM:

^ as I noted before thought the last 30 minutes was when the 3D proved it was worth it to watch it as such. Amazon notes the release date of the bluray to be January 12, 2016

extras:

Extras:
Signal obtained: writing and directing
Invading Mars: Cast and Costumes
Bloopers
Ares III: Focus Adjustment
Ares III: Farewell
The right thing
Ares: Our greatest adventure
Leave Your Mark
Bring him home
Trailer
Production Gallery

not Atmos or DTS-X on the bluray as Fox doesn't 'do' either.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 12-01-2015, 05:15 PM:

I did not see THE MARTIAN in a theatre because I will get the movie on 3D Blu Ray and watch it in 3D at home when it comes out next month

-Claude

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-01-2015, 06:22 PM:

Too bad - it was a good one to see theatrically.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 01-15-2016, 02:52 AM:

Saw THE MARTIAN tonight at home in 3D from a blu ray disc and it was fantastic and should do well at the Academy Awards. Although the sets and everything about the movie was almost perfect, I noticed one major flaw. During a press conference, the American flag was on the wrong side. The flag should always be on the left and not on the right side as shown in the movie, It must always be to the speakers right.

-Claude

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-14-2016, 02:48 PM:

Holy crap is this movie overrated. Rented this on Blu-ray the other night. The movie gives no time to get to know or feel for the characters. They are thrust into an emergency situation probably less than 2 minutes after the movie begins. The reason for the evacuation also makes no sense. You would think that they would have thought of situations like these and planned for them. Nope. Also the movie jumps from problem to solution in hyper-speed fashion. At no point whatsoever are you left wondering what the hell Matt Damon is going to do to fix his current dilemma. That's because he tells you immediately. Hell sometimes he's telling you the fix before you even know that there's a problem. There's no mystery to the movie at all. Some of the problems are just dumb, like his airlock exploding. The computer actually has the audacity to say "Malfunction" because of a tear? Why wouldn't they build these things better? And why did it tear? It blows up but the plastic tarp is fine? Did they do literally no research before they went to Mars? Seems like it. There was no reason to like any of the characters. But the movie REALLY wanted us to as they tried making the characters "fun". More than once a character is asked to reveal the idea he/she just got. They do not reveal. This bugs me and a lot of mainstream movies do this. It's supposed to be "fun". I want to punch each character in the face like they deserve. It makes them not believable human beings because a real person would mention their idea and not be rude pricks when continuously asked what they're thinking.

The product placement in this movie also bugged me. They never missed a chance to show NASA or JPL logos (even putting them on doors backwards to make sure we can read them). Crap like that really takes me out of the movie.

The movie felt like it was three hours long. Not sure how long it actually was but more than once I kept wondering "How long is this thing?" It also felt like it was ripping off Apollo 13 in more ways than one. Ridley is getting very boring and pedestrian in his old age. If this passes for acceptable then no wonder I don't like watching movies very much any more.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 02-14-2016, 04:04 PM:

Read the book. It has less plot holes in it and is really top notch.

I liked the movie too -- you just have to take it for what it is, a movie, and not a scientific paper. The book goes into the science a lot more.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-15-2016, 02:17 AM:

That's the thing, though. The movie goes to great length to show NASA and JPL in every frame so it's harder to suspend disbelief. Also, I don't like books. I just can't get into them especially fiction.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 02-15-2016, 12:47 PM:

Digital Bits reports:

" Fox reps confirmed to me during the event that a new and much more elaborate The Martian: Special Edition Blu-ray is currently in production for release in the not-too-distant future. I’m told it’s not officially on their release schedule yet, but you can probably expect it before the end of the year, in time for the holidays. That’s great news, in my opinion. Yes, it’s a double dip. But if there was ever a Ridley Scott film that deserved elaborate special edition treatment, it’s The Martian."

maybe THIS version will have the Dolby Atmos mix ... [Roll Eyes]