Poll: The Martian vs. Gravity vs. Interstellar

BloatedGuppy

New member
Feb 3, 2010
9,572
0
0
Happyninja42 said:
I guess it depends on how much you like movies like the upcoming Concussion movie with Will Smith. Becuase Erin Brokovich is basically the same kind of movie. Lone, average person fighting a one person battle against Big Business on behalf of their poor defenseless victims. Though I do give the Erin Brokovich story a bit more weight than Concussion, seeing as what happened to them was without their knowledge, as opposed to professionals engaging in a sport that makes them smash their heads into things repeatedly, and are somehow shocked that brain damage can result from it. But that's just me.
Oh I have no intention of ever watching it. I'm still annoyed that Ellen Burstyn didn't win the Oscar for Requiem for a Dream. Never forgive. Never forget.

Pluvia said:
Funny yeah, The Perfect Man has to be funny, but all that shows is he doesn't react like a normal person would and instead stays perfect throughout.
Anyone who utters a phrase that rhymes with Berry Stew and infects yet another thread is going to get beaten to within an inch of their life with this rubber bat.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
I liked Gravity the most.

It's like they preemptively took the single exciting scene from The Martian and made that the entire movie. Although the character arc felt rather artificial.

The Martian was pretty dull. It got fun towards the end but there was a whole lot of watching Matt Damon eating potatoes to get to the good bits.

Interstellar was garbage.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,981
118
Pluvia said:
Happyninja42 said:
How is he the perfect man? The fact that the protagonist of a story overcame all of the obstacles put in front of him, and survived to the climax/resolution of the story? Um, that's just how storytelling works. He got angry at his situation, he was upset, showed weakness and depression at the problems in front of him. He showed fear at the things he had to endure, and basically showed that he was a normal human being. In what way was he perfect, aside from my already mentioned "He overcame his obstacles like every protagonist ever since the beginning of ever"
Well he managed to overcome all the obstacles in-front of him, apart from airlock, with ease.

Sandstorm that he has no idea about that is made out to be huge and mission stopping that NASA are extremely worried about? Eh he figures it out pretty quickly and avoids it.

Drill knocks out Pathfinder (probably the only problem he creates for himself)? Eh no problem he figures out how to do everything without NASA's help with ease.

Rover flips over? Eh no problem, he flips it back the right way and continues on his way. I mean you think at least one of these major problems would be like, a problem to him.

Also you say "basically showed he was a normal human being" but the book and film actually go out of their way to show how unworried he is about the whole situation and how relaxed he is. For example there's a part where people on Earth talk about what it must be like for a person up there, what he's going through, the feeling of isolation and possibly cabin fever. Then it cuts to him and he says "I wonder why Aquaman can talk to whales if they're mammals?".

Funny yeah, The Perfect Man has to be funny, but all that shows is he doesn't react like a normal person would and instead stays perfect throughout.
You're forgetting the part where they speak to the psycho-analyst that evaluated their crew. She explains that Watney's profile is to make jokes when he becomes stressed. It's a coping mechanism. It doesn't mean he never got emotionally distressed, it's simply how he dealt with it. Hell the movie and book, aside from that one specific moment you are referring to, show him being emotionally overwhelmed by his situation. He starts pounding the rover and cussing when the airlock blows, showing a clear breakdown at the problems facing him, one that has pretty much killed him in the long run. When he's counting his potatoes and that tarp is flapping violently in the wind, and he almost loses it, since his life is protected by a piece of plastic at this point. How he was clearly counting the food stuffs to give him something to focus on during the storm. How he cries with relief when he gets his first bit of direct communication with Earth. Those are examples from the movie, the book is, admittedly more subtle, but it's mostly in the tone of his running monologue. He shows bitterness and frustration, fatalism, depression, a whole range of emotions. But, his natural desire to not die, eventually wins out, and he proceeds to get over it and continue to do what he has to to try and survive. Which is a pretty common reaction in survival situations. The problem won't solve itself by being depressed at it. YOu have to get up, and deal with it. Which he does. Which every protagonist does. It's one of the key reasons they're the protagonist, and not an extra. They tackle the problem and resolve it.

So, you seem to determine he's Perfect Man because only 1 of his many problems were self inflicted, which isn't true. He almost blew himself up when trying to make water by forgetting to factor in his oxygen from breathing. So that's 2 problems he caused himself that I can recall off the top of my head. If I sat down with the book and made notes I could probably find another one, but please provide the metrics you require as to the ratio of external:self inflicted problems that make a character non-Perfect Man, and then we can talk.

And if he is also a Perfect Man because he never showed any stress in his situation, then you're just simply incorrect. He showed many emotions due to his situation, in movie and book, aside from humor. The fact that he tried to amuse himself when stressful things happened isn't unrealistic, it is in fact, very human. Hell I do it myself. So did a kid I helped in a car accident, while he was on a backboard, and worrying about his friend that was critically injured in the backseat. I was keeping him busy while the EMT's removed his friend,and we were talking about random silly things. And you know what he said, laying there, hurt, and stressed about the possible death of one of his friends (who did in fact die from that injury)? "Hey, so, do you think this will negatively impact my Driver's Ed course at school?" since he was the one driving. Which had us both laughing. So yeah, Watney's reactions are perfectly natural, maybe just not natural for you personally. But we are a very diverse species, we humans, and we all vary widely in how we handle situations under stress. Some get hostile/violent, some get quiet/calm/observant, some get withdrawn/removed, some laugh/cut jokes to ease the tension. Watney happens to fall into that final category of person.
 

Dazzle Novak

New member
Sep 28, 2015
109
0
0
BloatedGuppy said:
Dazzle Novak said:
Okay Dazzle, I'll bite. What are some films you liked? Other than Paprika, which...meh. I've heard you sneer condemnation at a couple of films now, which is fine, I occasionally sneer condemnation at films and shows myself...their popularity be damned. I'd just like to have some idea of what you consider good. What would be a rough top five, perhaps?
I enjoyed The Force Awakens while thinking it was let down by a weak script and nostalgic EU-level pandering, so please don't frame me as Mr. Film School "Hates Everything Mainstream" Contrarian. I embody the internet's propensity for damning with faint praise while shouting petty failures.

I won't do a straight Top 5 of all-time because that'd run the risk of being as boring as citing The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as pretty good bands. How about 10 "personal cult classics" (in no particular order) and 10 films I really liked from last year:

List 1

1) Jackie Brown
2) Collateral
3) John Carpenter's The Thing
4) Saturday Night Fever
5) Battle Royale
6) Gone Baby Gone
7) Drive
8) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
9) Memories of Murder
10)Friday

List 2

1) Mad Max: Fury Road
2) Dope
3) Creed
4) Ex Machina
5) Straight Outta Compton
6) The Big Short
7) Sicario
8) The Martian
9) Steve Jobs
10)Furious 7

I don't watch nearly as many movies as I'd like, so my griping isn't comparative so much as how I felt after watching it.
 

BloatedGuppy

New member
Feb 3, 2010
9,572
0
0
Dazzle Novak said:
I enjoyed The Force Awakens while thinking it was let down by a weak script and nostalgic EU-level pandering, so please don't frame me as Mr. Film School "Hates Everything Mainstream" Contrarian.
I'm NOT. That was entirely the point of asking you for some favorites, you great girl's blouse. If I wanted to just call you Armond White and be done with it, I'd have done that, now wouldn't I? =P

Dazzle Novak said:
I won't do a straight Top 5 of all-time because that'd run the risk of being as boring as citing The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as pretty good bands.
Yes and no. I find people's tastes can vary wildly on even something as simple as a favorites list.

Your eclectic list is eclectic...I've seen 1-3 and 5-7. Can't say any of them particularly stuck with me, although I remember liking 1-3 and 5 well enough.

I haven't seen Jobs yet. I'm a fan of Fassbender's acting so I'm eager to see it. Sicario...I enjoyed it, but also felt mildly let down by it. It was so well reviewed I think I was expecting something transcendent. If I'd just stumbled across it I'd have been well impressed.

Obviously I enjoyed Fury Road and Ex Machina. Haven't seen the rest yet. Oh wait, I saw The Martian. Eh. S'alright.

The Furious films intrigue me because of their wild popularity and the fact they seem to get more popularly and critically acclaimed with each new entry, which is a complete inverse to how these things usually work. I've not even seen so much as a single minute from one of them though.

Dazzle Novak said:
I don't watch nearly as many movies as I'd like, so my griping isn't comparative so much as how I felt after watching it.
It might surprise you to learn that my girlfriend considers me a horrendous nitpicker, so don't feel like I don't understand the instinct to criticize. This would nicely summarize our interaction after watching most things: http://poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/so-then.png
 

flying_whimsy

New member
Dec 2, 2009
1,077
0
0
It looks like everyone is overlooking the obvious: the OP totally forgot the obviously better movie.

Apollo 13.

Seriously, all of those other movies suck compared to that. The martian is basically apollo 13 for idiots. Gravity is just a woman suffering = character building. And Interstellar is yet another really boring Nolan movie that gets its head stuck up its own ass. All of the special effects those three movies had and yet they still didn't manage to be as interested as seeing a bunch of PhD carrying rocket scientist sit around a table and figure out how to put a square peg in a round hole.

(Honorable mention should go to Mission to Mars, though: it perfectly captured the spirit of human exploration and had a character go through exactly the same story of The Martian as an off-screen side-plot.)
 

Dazzle Novak

New member
Sep 28, 2015
109
0
0
BloatedGuppy said:
I'll stop putting words in your mouth and accusing you of misrepresentation (as fun and suspension-laden as that has been in the Star Wars thread).

To me, The Martian was a good comedown following the pretentious grandiosity of Prometheus. Obviously it's not vintage Alien/ Blade Runner sci-fi Ridley Scott, but I'll settle for a polished crowd-pleaser given the alternative.

You kind of caught me off guard because I can't immediately recall half the movies I've seen and where they rank in my mind. I have films like Lawrence of Arabia and Taxi Driver and Chinatown in my all-time classics list, for example, but all that tells you is I've read a Top 10 list at some point.

I'd throw in Rebel Without A Cause for a schlocky movie with bad melodramatic acting that I love anyway (along with Battle Royale). I'm partial to Paul Newman flicks, too. Cool Hand Luke is vintage counterculture "borderline homoerotic Jesus allegory" sentimentality.
 

BloatedGuppy

New member
Feb 3, 2010
9,572
0
0
Dazzle Novak said:
To me, The Martian was a good comedown following the pretentious grandiosity of Prometheus. Obviously it's not vintage Alien/ Blade Runner sci-fi Ridley Scott, but I'll settle for a polished crowd-pleaser.
True, true. If nothing else, The Martian was a competently made piece of entertainment that showed conclusively that Ridley Scott's capabilities had not COMPLETELY abandoned him. He was on a pretty worrisome streak there, the nadir of which was Robin Hood (although maybe dual wielding orphans riding donkeys is your thing, I dunno). I guess there's now a glimmer of hope for Blade Runner 2, down there at the bottom of the well of cynical horror.

Dazzle Novak said:
You kind of caught me off guard because I can't immediately recall the movies I've seen and where they rank in my mind. I have films like Lawrence of Arabia and Taxi Driver and Chinatown in my all-time classics list, for example, but all that tells you is I've read a Top 10 list at some point.
I have a few go-to films that perpetually haunt my "favorites of all time" list, and have for many years now. Boogie Nights. Lost in Translation. Spirited Away. It gets pretty fluid after that though. One thing that's changed dramatically over the last ten years or so is my appetite for grinding misery. My favorites list (and personal collection) used to be a who's who list of gut-punch specials. Requiem for a Dream, Boys Don't Cry, The War Zone, Irreversible, etc, etc. These days I find myself far preferring gentle escapism. Although I guess my television preferences have stayed pretty dire. I blame early 2000's HBO for setting the tone.
 

Loonyyy

New member
Jul 10, 2009
1,292
0
0
Pluvia said:
MrFalconfly said:
When did the commander put anybody's life at risk?!?

Seriously when?
At the start when she refuses to get on the ship when she's searching for Watney. And again at the end when she causes an explosion in the ship.

And seriously, Mark isn't the best at anything (that is clear).

He's just the engineer and botanist of the crew. That just happened to be the two skillsets needed to survive on an abandoned Mars base.
Whilst also being amazing at chemical engineering, emergency self-surgery, high-tech space repairs on things like Pathfinder and the Rover, and problem solving on figuring out things that a botanist or mechanical engineer wouldn't know, like hexadecimal. In fact he's so good at all these things he doesn't even need NASA's help to do like any of them. He's actually smarter than NASA.
You do know that basic Hex is a part of Mechanical Engineering right?

I know, because I sat through class with them watching them stumble through it. Depending on your university, you can expect engineers of all stripes to have done bits of other engineering disciplines, at mine we all did basic civil, electrical, mechanical, and an introduction to basic programming. Including a Digital Electronics primer in second year, which includes Binary and Hex. And if you understand any system bar base 10, you can work out another, it's not exactly hard, the hard part comes into using it to code in machine code. And you do know that Mechanical Engineering actually involves quite a high level of mathematics? Specifically advanced vector calculus in different coordinate systems, and potentially even Frequency Domain analysis? As much as The Big Bang Theory might treat engineers as glorified mechanics, they are anything but.

I could teach any baseline numerate person Hex in less than half an hour.
 

Vigormortis

New member
Nov 21, 2007
4,531
0
0
Dazzle Novak said:
No, I dislike it because it was a bad movie filled with cardboard cutouts making bad decisions over Nolan's sterile approximation of "emotions". Even the idiot girl who needed it explained loudly and repeatedly that Gargantua was a black hole and not Saturn knew enough to laugh derisively when Anne Hathaway started shrieking that, "Love is a universal constant like gravity" horseshit.
As did the film in the end. It practically scoffs at Brand when she makes that assertion. Even by the end, Cooper interprets the idea not as love being some fundamental force but just an emotional bond he shared with his daughter throughout their lives.

Honestly, did we watch the same movie? I really do not get how people take Brand's comments as the film's explanation for the ending.

As for the science, eh. I'll trust my D- in high school physics intuition that blackholes with gravity so harsh light can't escape don't double as worm holes and if it shredded the ship it would shred the astronaut inside.
Except that...actually, this will take way too long to explain and I really don't feel like typing it out. So, if you're truly interested in science, I highly recommend giving Thorne's book a read - https://vk.com/doc167609816_375081946?hash=0b9915c18cb800cdfc&dl=0c04e5acb7557dacde

I also wonder how a planet can suffer time dilation from its adjacent black hole without being affected by gravity in other ways or why astronauts would knowingly choose the "1 hour=20 years" planet orbiting a fucking black hole as a first resort.
The planets were effected by the gravitation. Recall the tidal bulge, for example?

And they chose the planet orbiting so close to Gargantua because they received the "all clear" signal from the previous lander, Miller.

Again, did we watch the same film? I feel like you've tuned out quite a lot of details from the story.

Maybe Kip Thorne has all the theoretical equations that squares the unintuitive leaps the movie took, but none of it came across to me as a moviegoer. I suspect a lot of it works piecemeal: "In this extremely specific, borderline impossible scenario, one could theoretically..."
There are very few leaps taken in the film, and most of the scenarios presented are as grounded in real science as they could.

And let's be honest here: There's rarely anything "intuitive" about physics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.

I'm admittedly not a fan of Nolan because he can rarely write characters or thematic subtext without obnoxious exposition. Compare, for example, Inception with Paprika (the anime that inspired it).
Nolan wrote the story for Inception well over a decade before he made the film, and well before Paprika came out. I mean, maybe he made changes to the story based on Paprika (assuming he saw the film), maybe he didn't, but the story was written well before.

One's a thorough exploration of the subconscious and identity while the other's a knockoff Ocean's 11/ lecture in shifting, made-up dream logic bullshit: "Oh yeah, if you die in a dream, your brain turns to mush now. Reasons! Stakes!"
So they're the same story...but they're not the same story?

Can't have it both ways, I'm afraid. Either you claim Nolan ripped-off Paprika or you claim the stories are fundamentally different.

And I'll be frank: I wasn't that fond of Paprika. It was pretty to look at, and there was a lot going on, but, much like a Bethesda RPG, it lacked depth. It's "thorough exploration" was no more insightful than a sophomore's interpretation of 'that weird dream I had last week'.

All that said, what movies you enjoy or don't enjoy are of no consequence to me, as long as there are some that you do enjoy. I just can't help but scoff at 'couch physicists' who say these films "got all the science wrong" when they actually got so much of it right.
 

Dazzle Novak

New member
Sep 28, 2015
109
0
0
Vigormortis said:
Not doing the tit-for-tat thing.

I said Paprika "inspired" Inception because Nolan himself cites it as an influence. I never claimed the plots were the same, but they do share a premise.

I'll accept this as an agree-to-disagree impasse. One of my bugbears is how a lot of media would rather have the credence of "being about big themes and ideas" than focus of the basic storycraft of making engaging characters and drama. Sorry, I don't buy the female astronaut suddenly spouting histrionic new age horseshit after she was originally portrayed as being reasonable if not coldly so. I don't accept the importance of Murphy's daddy issues when contrasted against how neglected the son is (who doesn't even warrant inclusion in the happy reunion). I don't think finding the macguffin formula would magically render it applicable in the real world or reverses decades of ecological destruction.

Also, the movie can't claim Cooper has a bond with Murphy yet frame the conflict as him abandoning her for the mission. That's something that's mutually-exclusive and can't be both.

Problems like these aren't solved by me reading Kip Thorne's science textbook on the movie. I'll take 100 "simplistic" movies with emotional honesty over these dour, overwrought epics and 2001: Space Oddysey wannabes.
 

Laughing Man

New member
Oct 10, 2008
1,715
0
0
Well he managed to overcome all the obstacles in-front of him, apart from airlock, with ease.

Sandstorm that he has no idea about that is made out to be huge and mission stopping that NASA are extremely worried about? Eh he figures it out pretty quickly and avoids it.

Drill knocks out Pathfinder (probably the only problem he creates for himself)? Eh no problem he figures out how to do everything without NASA's help with ease.

Rover flips over? Eh no problem, he flips it back the right way and continues on his way. I mean you think at least one of these major problems would be like, a problem to him.
Yes like a large number of humans have done since the start of humans they solved the problem. What you seem to be complaining about is that he didn't just stop where he was break down have a cry admit to just giving up and then some how at the last minute find a solution, like Sandra Bullock did in Gravity. He encountered problems and he solved them because the alternative would have been a very long very drawn out and very lonely death a very long way from home, also most folk have to deal with problems on top of going about their daily lives, his daily life is LITERALLY solve the next problem or die. He was also by no means perfect, he didn't notice the storm until he was already in it, he actually kicks himself for not rotating use of the habs air locks, blaming himself for using the same airlock over and over, he killed path finder, he rolled the rover, he nearly blew the hab to bits and for no reason whatsoever decides he's going to dip a potato in Vicadin (which I thought would turn in to some sort of House in space addiction thing to create conflict) and was quite pleasantly surprised when it didn't. He's also pretty big headed which is very clear from quite a number of log statements he makes, best botanist, up yours Armstrong, etc

You do know that basic Hex is a part of Mechanical Engineering right?
It's part of most basic Engineering degrees, first year of my Electronic Engineering degree we looked at it extensively.

Seriously, all of those other movies suck compared to that. The martian is basically apollo 13 for idiots
Care to explain that statement in a bit more detail? The science is a good more detailed you also the have addition that Apollo 13 is based on real world events so the mistakes that movie does have, and it does have a few both in terms of hard science and procedural activity can't be excused.

As for the three movies in question

Gravity was amazing to look at but the concept that all these structures would be on the same orbital paths and could collide with each other was just stupid, but suspension of disbelief I guess.

The Martian was my kind of movie, a guy solves problems to survive, the fact that Watney was funny just made things better I think the big twist would have been for him to die at the end through something that he had control and no ability to solve or fix but the fact he lives comes as no dis-appointment.

Interstellar, watched a video about the batshit crazy ending, have never gotten round to watching the actual film, I might but I am worried Ill spend the majority of it going Watney was better.