Breakthrough and Dilemma

Barry 2021-10-13 13:06:59

Compared with "Interstellar", the biggest feature of "The Martian" is to keep your duty safe. There is no such big ambition, no deliberate sensation, no rise to the height of all mankind, and it is this kind of steadiness that makes this film satisfactory in terms of entertainment. Not everyone goes to the theater to find something profound on Friday night when they want to relax. In many cases, audiences just want to watch entertainment films that require a little bit of IQ, and they will be satisfied. From this perspective, "The Martian" is a success. He has simple and easy-to-understand scientific knowledge, a humorous male protagonist with his own Tucao mode, and small quarrels within NASA. As the protagonist overcomes the difficulties a little bit and returns to his homeland, the audience has a very complete and satisfying experience, and a good evaluation is expected.

But as a commercial film, some places are still not satisfactory (crossed out) and unsatisfactory.

The first is the shaping of characters. There are so many astronauts on Hermes. Jessica's performance has to be given a bad review, and there is no emotion at all when she reads the lines. You can't play a strong female captain in this way. It doesn't mean that being stable is equal to having confidence. The NASA people are no exception. Conflict for the sake of conflict, this is also in understanding. After all, it is "rescue", not just as simple as the male protagonist trying to survive. If he can't reach the earth, it will be useless to grow many potatoes. However, the director becomes a little bit powerless when there are more clues about the characters. In order to quickly let the audience know where it is, every character has what he wants on his face. Not three-dimensional enough. There is no way, after all, they are not the protagonists, so it is better to show the tension of the drama. But back to the protagonist Matt, his personal pen and ink is actually not that much, and he doesn't know what has supported him for so long, and he didn't even describe his wife. He is really the strongest single dog in history. Ordinary people will collapse a little bit in that lonely environment, although his venomous tongue humor is very playful, it will become flat after a long time.

The second is momentum imbalance. The film has a clean beginning, but the story begins to drag and loses motivation afterwards. I think there are several reasons:

1. The location of key plot points
Matt had two major setbacks from waking up on Mars to being rescued. One was that the pressure capsule exploded and the plants died out, and the other was that the US booster failed to launch. The two are a bit close to each other, and there are special textbooks in their locations. But there was no major setback between the failed booster launch and the end. It is estimated that this is why the third act is very weak, relying on NASA's conflicts

. 2. One sentence summarizes
a lot of scientific knowledge (the so-called hard science fiction), but every scientific term will be explained to you in plain and easy-to-understand language after the end of each scientific term. What does it mean, let’s make a very obvious one-sentence summary, point out the choices needed for the plot point, for fear that the audience will not understand it. Then why do you spend so many words? Just give us that sentence. The audience is not so stupid.

3.
In addition to the two songs that are the captain’s disco music, there are at least three songs selected by the director himself and placed in the montage, such as growing potatoes and boiling water, CNSA launching the sun god, and finally Matt boarding the aircraft. In East and West, there are five songs in this way that are highly dynamic and rhythmic dance music. I admit that I was very happy when I listened to it at least the first three times. I found it interesting to control the atmosphere, but when I saw the dynamic music behind it, I frowned. This way, there is no diversity, and it will be incomparable later, and it will appear frivolous.

4. It’s okay. Don’t clap.
Let’s count the number of applauses in the film:

-NASA’s first contact with Matt and live text messages (I can understand this applause, and I’m also happy)
-NASA launch booster (let You guys are so happy and blow up right after the drumming)
-CNSA successfully launched the sun god (the Chinese people say, dare to fail?)
-Hermes lost contact with Matt briefly after launching and contacted him, NASA applauded
-Matt was successfully rescued , The whole world applauded-
(the easter egg before the cast and crew came out was a bunch of applause, I ignored it)

In fact, watching all the people on the screen applaud is something that consumes the audience's energy, because I want to be as happy as the people on the screen. The most exciting thing in the film should be the final applause, which is an important emotional release, which should give the audience a lot of satisfaction. But due to the dilution of the various applause and the funny music, I obviously feel that I can't get high anymore. Compared with "Gravity", I can't wait for the whole film to be suppressed, which is why the scene at the end is so satisfying.

5. Conflict between the core of humanity and the secular The
director basically uses various methods to make the story appear private and secretive, whether it is the switching of various camera angles (Go Pro is used), the shocking big vision, the real Sound design... We are all following Matt's lonely journey, as if we as the audience are his only witnesses. I am very happy that the director did not desperately sublimate to the height of all mankind, because it is very authentic and obeys the characters. Although there were a few brain-dead press conferences in the middle, you just used it to satirize the media. But in the end, the rescue had to be in Times Square. It made me want to roll my eyes with so many people in London and Beijing. It broke the tacit understanding between the audience and Matt in an instant, and it suddenly became noisy. Looking back at "Gravity", loneliness is lonely to the end, don't go against your original intention.

There are still advantages.

First is Matt's performance. When he first contacted NASA using the keyboard in the rover, he gasped quickly, his eyes were a little tearful, he didn't cry, and then he typed. I think this was a natural reaction. The scene of not crying too much is a big praise. Only when his aircraft was about to take off, he cried. It works well. I’m going to black "Interstellar" again. Sometimes it doesn’t mean that I can cry because I have good acting skills. Good acting means good film. In "Star Cross" Matthew can cry so much. Although he is crying, I feel less sad in my heart. . Isn't this the first rule of screenwriters? When the characters are crying, the audience will not cry. The characters don't cry, but the audience is crying. That is the high state. Matt's performance does not have a tendency to deliberately show off his skills, which makes me feel very intimate.

Then there is real sound design. The storm sounded very full and there were no strange things mixed in (many ordinary sound effects artists would mix in the roar of lions or something. It sounds stupid, and many people do it). Foley's is also in place. My only dissatisfaction is the lack of silence. There is not a single segment with no dialogue/music for more than two minutes, which makes me feel a little frivolous. There are many absolutely silent clips in Gravity, which are very shocking. Of course, the directions of the two films are different. One is to highlight loneliness, despair and survival, and the other is to highlight Robinson's wit and courage. There is no right or wrong, good or bad. It can only be said that there are different choices and different means of expression. In this regard, "Gravity" is even better. The heroine actually didn't want to live (daughter died) at first, but found the motivation to survive when fighting against space. And Matt wanted to live from the beginning, and continued until the end, a little single, and the characters didn't grow much.

It’s nice to have a lot of small details. For example, there is a drop of water on the green sprouts that grow in the greenhouse. Believe me, this drop of water must have been artificially brought up, but after having it, the screen will be different. It's just that the green and the yellow will be monotonous. And Matt has lost weight after 7 months and his teeth have turned yellow, not as white as at the beginning, which is quite interesting.

The flat characters, the procrastinating rhythm in the second half, a bit too amusing, the star is reduced.

Damon sells a cute hand, a good flesh, and a ribbon flying in space. (WALL.E: Follow me?)

End

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Extended Reading

The Martian quotes

  • [first lines]

    Melissa Lewis: All right team, stay in sight of each other. Let's make NASA proud today.

    Rick Martinez: How's it looking over there, Watney?

    Mark Watney: Well, you will be happy to hear that in Grid Section 14-28, the particles were predominately coarse but in 29, they're much finer and they should be ideal for chem analysis.

    Rick Martinez: Oh, wow. Did everybody hear that? Mark just discovered dirt.

    [laughs]

    Rick Martinez: Should we alert the media?

  • Bruce Ng: Mars' atmosphere is so thin, by the time the ship's going fast enough for air resistance to matter, it'll be high enough that there's practically no air.

    Vincent Kapoor: You want to send him into space under a tarp?

    Bruce Ng: Yes... Can I go on?

    Vincent Kapoor: [frustrated look] NO.