Thoughts on The Martian trailer

I didn't have time to write proper post form start to finish for this Monday. So you get this draft for additional post turned into proper post. I am not turning my blog into this, This is just one time thing.

The Martian is based on hard science fiction novel. Few months ago I listened one hour podcast where author of the novel talked about science of The Martian. If I remember correctly novel had one unrealistic element and it was storms on Mars. Everything else was in realm of possibility at least in theory.

I have not read the novel. My knowledge is limited to the podcast but I think novel is not as full of action as this trailer. The Martian seems to follow trend of Gravity and Interstellar as movie which is kind of hard science fiction but ends up being something else. Gravity went from slow and realistic to fast and full of last second escapes. Interstellar just went weird for last fifteen minutes after being quite scientific until that.

I was curious about The Martian but not so much after seeing the trailers. It could be we saw most of the action in trailers but I doubt that. Hard science fiction can be interesting. Interstellar didn't need weirdness. It would have had different tone but it would have worked better. I guess they followed too much 2001: A Space Odyssey which ends weirdly. In 2001 weirdness was alien communication human could not understand. In Interstellar it turned out to be important story element.

Gravity could have stayed slower like it started. Stakes were high enough with out turning the movie into unrealistic roller coaster ride. You can make good hard science fiction movies. When big budget is included these movies tend to forget hard science fiction at some point even if it was original plan. Really good hard science fiction movies never seem to get real change. Movies like Moon (2009), Solaris (2002) , The Machine (2013) and Ex Machina (2015) struggle to get released when watered down and bad science fiction get huge marketing campaigns.

I will go to see The Martian because it could be good but trailer surely is not selling it to me.