Long distance and close up
.
Went to see The Martian yesterday. Man, that is quite a film. Incredibly beautiful, and a really, really well-written script. Matt Damon was fantastic, as usual. Just an all-around excellent film.
But...
There were a couple things that bothered me. Not huge, but I can't get them out of my head. One of them was just an annoying detail, but the other seemed kind of important.
First the detail: Um, dehydrated poop would not smell. The hellacious odor that comes from shit isn't because of the shit - it's because of the bacteria feeding on the stuff in your body and giving off noxious gases. THAT is why your shit smells.
But if you dry it out completely, as it's dried out in the film, the bacteria dies. No critters, no gas. No gas, no smell. And rehydrating it doesn't bring them back, so the planting room he created would not, in fact, smell like human shit.
This is really basic stuff. The only reason I can think of for the movie to go so completely against something so easy to confirm is the ha-ha factor. Cheap laugh. Or did the writer think the public wouldn't understand the lack of odor? Easy to solve - have Watney open the pack, take a sniff and say, "Huh. I guess the dehydration killed off the bacteria." Turn to the camera mutter, "Good thing I won't have to spend months breathing the smell of my own poop." Problem solved. * shrug * Maybe the laugh was more important.
The other thing seems bigger to me, and it's this:
How is it Watney didn't realize NASA could see everything he was doing? I mean, come on - are we supposed to believe that he didn't know about the cameras point straight at Mars from our satellites? Really? I'm sorry, but I'm not that stupid. If you've got cameras looking in his direction, then he's going to know about it.
So how come he didn't use that? A nice big flat area right in front of him, and he's not out there with a shovel carving I'M ALIVE GODDAMNIT in letters ten feet high, all the way around the palace? What the actual fuck?
It's not like all this happens in a day or two. This guy's got all the time he needs to do shit like this. How did it not occur to him? Again, I think it has to do with story structure, but the very fact that the cameras then become his salvation made me instantly question why the fuck he hadn't tried to signal them in the first place, knowing as he must that they'd be looking at his site trying to figure out what went wrong. I mean, this is elementary thinking, yet this wonderful scientist misses it?
(What makes me really suspicious about this is the fact that it only works with the audience if you don't tell them the cameras are there. The second you do, it becomes obvious what to do. When you have to hide things to make your story work, you need to do a little more work on your story, is all I'm saying.)
So yeah, wonderful movie. Too bad it got tripped up for me by such silly, obvious points. I still enjoyed it, though, and would recommend it to anyone. Just don't think that because it gets so much right, that it gets everything right. It is Hollywood, after all. ;)
P.S. Phil Plait, who writes science articles for Slate, has a great little post on the movie here, where you can see a funny little deleted scene, as well. Enjoy!
Went to see The Martian yesterday. Man, that is quite a film. Incredibly beautiful, and a really, really well-written script. Matt Damon was fantastic, as usual. Just an all-around excellent film.
But...
There were a couple things that bothered me. Not huge, but I can't get them out of my head. One of them was just an annoying detail, but the other seemed kind of important.
First the detail: Um, dehydrated poop would not smell. The hellacious odor that comes from shit isn't because of the shit - it's because of the bacteria feeding on the stuff in your body and giving off noxious gases. THAT is why your shit smells.
But if you dry it out completely, as it's dried out in the film, the bacteria dies. No critters, no gas. No gas, no smell. And rehydrating it doesn't bring them back, so the planting room he created would not, in fact, smell like human shit.
This is really basic stuff. The only reason I can think of for the movie to go so completely against something so easy to confirm is the ha-ha factor. Cheap laugh. Or did the writer think the public wouldn't understand the lack of odor? Easy to solve - have Watney open the pack, take a sniff and say, "Huh. I guess the dehydration killed off the bacteria." Turn to the camera mutter, "Good thing I won't have to spend months breathing the smell of my own poop." Problem solved. * shrug * Maybe the laugh was more important.
The other thing seems bigger to me, and it's this:
How is it Watney didn't realize NASA could see everything he was doing? I mean, come on - are we supposed to believe that he didn't know about the cameras point straight at Mars from our satellites? Really? I'm sorry, but I'm not that stupid. If you've got cameras looking in his direction, then he's going to know about it.
So how come he didn't use that? A nice big flat area right in front of him, and he's not out there with a shovel carving I'M ALIVE GODDAMNIT in letters ten feet high, all the way around the palace? What the actual fuck?
It's not like all this happens in a day or two. This guy's got all the time he needs to do shit like this. How did it not occur to him? Again, I think it has to do with story structure, but the very fact that the cameras then become his salvation made me instantly question why the fuck he hadn't tried to signal them in the first place, knowing as he must that they'd be looking at his site trying to figure out what went wrong. I mean, this is elementary thinking, yet this wonderful scientist misses it?
(What makes me really suspicious about this is the fact that it only works with the audience if you don't tell them the cameras are there. The second you do, it becomes obvious what to do. When you have to hide things to make your story work, you need to do a little more work on your story, is all I'm saying.)
So yeah, wonderful movie. Too bad it got tripped up for me by such silly, obvious points. I still enjoyed it, though, and would recommend it to anyone. Just don't think that because it gets so much right, that it gets everything right. It is Hollywood, after all. ;)
P.S. Phil Plait, who writes science articles for Slate, has a great little post on the movie here, where you can see a funny little deleted scene, as well. Enjoy!