I called Everest a big bag of NOPE after watching the first trailer, and after sitting through Fox’s three minute-plus first trailer for The Martian, I am adding this movie to the NOPE bag, too. Directed by Ridley Scott, The Martian is based on Andy Weir’s novel (adapted by Drew Goddard) about an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars after a manned mission is forced to abort. Because of the distance and general “everything out there hates us and wants to kill us” nature of space, it would take four years to rescue him, but he only has a month’s worth of supplies. The astronaut is played by Matt Damon, which is giving me a kind of cinematic vertigo as it makes The Martian sort of look like an Interstellar prequel about Damon’s nutcase character in that movie.
The Martian looks super intense and it boasts an incredible cast including Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, and Michael Pena. And sci-fi is Ridley Scott’s wheelhouse, even though Prometheus did not live up to the hype, so the material is in good hands. (Damon Lindelof is not involved with The Martian, which, hopefully, makes all the difference between the two movies.) And like Prometheus, Scott is once again creating viral content for his movie in order to set up the world in which it takes place. There’s a “beamed from space” video “made” by Damon’s character, introducing the crew of the mission to Mars (oh hi, Sebastian Stan Problem, I almost forgot about you). Prometheus’s viral advertising way outclassed the movie itself, though, so I’d rather just get a really good movie this time around, without all the bells and whistles beforehand.
“I have to science the sh*t out of this.” Is there even enough science in the world…?
(Lainey: does it feel like it’s been forever since Matt Damon’s been at the movies?)
