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The Martian inaccuracies (may contain spoilers).


cicatrix

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Just watched this awesome movie that out of the three latest sci-fi major movies (The Martian, Gravity and Interstellar) I rate the first and the most accurate one.

Still, I have noticed several inaccuracies that I find hardly possible:

1. The dust storm which caused all that - is it really possible for a storm to be so violent with so thin an atmosphere?

2. Mark burns hydrazine to make water but isn't it highly toxic? Yet, he wears no protection when breathing near it.

3. He punches a hole in his space suit glove to make the outgoing air act as a reaction mass for him to fly towards Hermes - although it may sound theoretically possible I doubt it can be done IRL. Most probably this action would make him spin uncontrollably.

4. Gravity - as I understand the makers didn't focus on simulating of lesser gravity on Mars to cut the expenses.

5. Apparent lack of radiation protection - Mark spends much time outdoors but seems not to suffer from much higher radiation level. Of course I give the benefit of doubt to his suit, perhaps it offers at least some protection from it.

So far this is the only things I find inaccurate in this great movie. Did anyone notice anything else?

Edited by cicatrix
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For the gravity, i don't totally agree with you. If you look, when he unbuilds the MAV, he seems to be able to move relatively heavy objects without too much difficulties (as the seats or the nosecone). But except that, I assume that it was quite difficult to make it on screen.

For the hydrazine, I agree with you and was thinking: W T F? It's also that it looks like metallic pellets in the movie when it's a liquid stored in a tank ...

I was also thinking: only 35km of autonomy for the rover? Seriously? It means that they cannot explore the area and do scientific day trips.

And do we see the Mars Descent Vehicle? Because it's necessarily a different vehicle than the Mars Ascent Vehicle.

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I've got two more:

The Ares III landing site is IRL rocky with boulders the size of rovers, not flat and smooth as described and Ares IV landing site is smooth and flat, not with lots of rocks and no need to drive with caution

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I haven't seen the movie yet (Hopefully tomorrow!) but did read the book.

#1: No it's not. The author of the book conceded that, saying it was necessary to set up the rest of the book. I'm cool with it. I can't think of a better way to set it up. But it seems weird that a Mars Mission wouldn't have a contingency plan for the - presumably - expected maximum dust storm level.

#2: As this isn't anything that hurts the plot (He could have worn his suit. IIRC in the book he did take precautions) I think it's fine. It's the same as when in TV shows the main characters don't wear face protection when storming the enemy base. They WOULD IRL, but having the audience see their faces is more important than strict adherence to realism.

Interesting about #3, as that was suggested in the book (I think by Watney himself) and rejected. I was kinda hoping he'd be forced to do it anyway. I think it would make you spin but not necessarily uncontrollably. You'd surely need practice at it to be good enough to do it, but rule of cool would allow it. I think.

I can't speak on #4, but his ability to do things impossible in Earth gravity is mentioned several times in the book.

#5 I don't see why the suit shouldn't offer reasonable radiation protection. I do recall several passages about it in the book, but not any specifics.

I don't recall any mention of the descent vehicle in the book, other than that they used one.

Regarding the rocks, they make the scenery pretty and don't affect the plot at all (I assume). So that's fine IMO.

So far, I've not heard of anything unreasonable in the movie or book. Nobody else seems to mind that Watney seems to have NO IDEA THERE ARE MANY SATELLITES OVER THE PLANET THAT WILL BE WATCHING HIM, so I'll let that one go too.

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I actually did notice some attempts to simulate Martian gravity. I think quite a few scenes in the hab were filmed at slightly higher framerate (effectively a slight slow-motion) though only when he wasn't speaking, which gave the illusion of things falling slower and stuff like that. Obviously that's a bit of a botched approach since he'd be moving at the same speed in real life, but it definitely did give the sense of something being subtly different.

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#3. Probably he would get his flesh been sucked into the hole in his glove and partially gluing up this hole.

That would make air stream additionally unpredictable.

Just press you hand to a vacuum cleaner tube.

#5. We don't know how long was his life after the return. Maybe, the scenarist just omitted unessential particulars.

Mark spends all his time in a small room covered with rotting wastes - that means, full of waste gases: methane, hydrogen sulfide, etc.

As his haven't been suffocated, we can presume that his air cleaner works fine and removes even low quantities of flavorless gases such as methane.

Then why didn't it clean out the hydrogen causing the explosion?

Edited by kerbiloid
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I've just started rereading the book after seeing the movie last week. It does briefly describe the descent vehicle and it sounds like it was a very basic capsule with parachutes and thrusters (not powerful enough to lift it-s own weight). Being a (mostly) parachute-based lander, I suspect they would have landed some way from the camp, and would have left the lander where it landed.

On point 3 I was disappointed (but not surprised) they went ahead with it. I also didn't like they swapped the people around so it was Commander Lewis 'redeeming herself' by being the one that went out to rescue him. Being the commander she would have know her job was to, well, command. She had 2 other crew memebrs who were clearly the EVA specialists, so taking their place goes against the calm and professional disposition she, as the commander, would have had.

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his air cleaner works fine and removes even low quantities of flavorless gases such as methane.

Then why didn't it clean out the hydrogen causing the explosion?

The hydrogen would have to reach the ventilation duct without igniting somewhere, the system cannot magically remove a gas from the air at a distance.

Also, according to the book, the whole apparatus was to create hydrogen, which he burnt with the oxygen in the hab to create more water from the MAV's fuel. The ventilation system reclaimed excess air humidity and stored it for him to water the plants. In the movie he seems to just let it "rain" - how well that would work as depicted anyway.

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For the hydrazine, I agree with you and was thinking: W T F? It's also that it looks like metallic pellets in the movie when it's a liquid stored in a tank ...

Oh no, the metal pellets are the catalyst that breaks hydrazine into H2 and N2. Hydrazine is the liquid he drops over it.

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One more inaccuracy besided those mentioned was the "live coverage" of the rescue. They explain how a signal takes 24 minutes to reach Mars in the Command Center but the rescue was without delay.

But this more an issue of making a film and the viewer stay involved than a plain wrong assumption like the other things you already mentioned.

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One more inaccuracy besided those mentioned was the "live coverage" of the rescue. They explain how a signal takes 24 minutes to reach Mars in the Command Center but the rescue was without delay.

But this more an issue of making a film and the viewer stay involved than a plain wrong assumption like the other things you already mentioned.

Well one would assume that they have a better telecommunications array.

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One more inaccuracy besided those mentioned was the "live coverage" of the rescue. They explain how a signal takes 24 minutes to reach Mars in the Command Center but the rescue was without delay.

But this more an issue of making a film and the viewer stay involved than a plain wrong assumption like the other things you already mentioned.

12 minutes to reach Mars. 24 minutes would be for a two-way trip. Since Houston never actually talked to Hermes during the rescue, there was absolutely no reason to delay the "Houston listening" from "rescue actually happening" in the movie. I think this part was filmed very well.

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One more inaccuracy besided those mentioned was the "live coverage" of the rescue. They explain how a signal takes 24 minutes to reach Mars in the Command Center but the rescue was without delay.

But this more an issue of making a film and the viewer stay involved than a plain wrong assumption like the other things you already mentioned.

I was about to ask if they actually had any back-and-forth in the movie. They did not in the book. In fact, I recall someone at NASA saying something like "It's happening right now and we won't know if it worked for 12 minutes" or something like that. But now I don't have to as:

12 minutes to reach Mars. 24 minutes would be for a two-way trip. Since Houston never actually talked to Hermes during the rescue, there was absolutely no reason to delay the "Houston listening" from "rescue actually happening" in the movie. I think this part was filmed very well.
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was mentioned in the film aswell but they cut the dialogues as if they would happen simultaneously. Like cheering in Mission Control right after Watney is secure again. But of course you want to keep it interesting for the viewers so it was okay I guess to do it like this.

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I don't like how the filming location doesn't look like Mars. I heard they filmed it it Jordan, but it seems like they could have found a more realistic (not to mention safer) place in Northern Africa.

The he spacesuit is a little weird too. The suit he wears on Mars doesn't appear pressurized at all for no apparent reason. It looks a little like he's wearing a cross between clone trooper armor and climbing gear.

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All of these "problems" with the movie just don't seem like problems to me. There's a huge difference between inaccuracy to make an otherwise unworkable plot function (all the "orbital mechanics" in Gravity, for example) and those done simply to give a better experience to the viewer (Being able to see Matt Damon's face through his visor, for example).

From what I can tell every inaccuracy in the Martian movie - other than the sandstorm - falls into the latter category and is alright to be there.

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All of these "problems" with the movie just don't seem like problems to me. There's a huge difference between inaccuracy to make an otherwise unworkable plot function (all the "orbital mechanics" in Gravity, for example) and those done simply to give a better experience to the viewer (Being able to see Matt Damon's face through his visor, for example).

From what I can tell every inaccuracy in the Martian movie - other than the sandstorm - falls into the latter category and is alright to be there.

Well, I did hate how they handled the hydrazine-gone-wrong part. I could easily suspend my disbelief for the situation and solution described in the book, but "I forgot to account for the oxygen I was exhaling" just made no damn sense.

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