SPOILERCAST - Ridley Scott's The Martian - Still Untitled - The Adam Savage Project - 10_6_2015

**The Future is Bright**

We're going to talk about the future and I'm excited because it looks good. My new GoPro is amazing and I want to go to Mars, man. The future is so bright we need shades just thinking about it. I think this might be the last time we'll discuss the Martian on the podcast, but I'm wrong. There will be all sorts of extra materials available once the Blu-ray DVD comes out, and I'm looking forward to diving into all that content.

**Live Events**

We have a live event coming up at the end of this month in San Francisco. It's going to be hosted by Tested, and you can get tickets on Eventbrite.com. We also have another event scheduled for October 27th, where Adam Norm and I will be podcasting on Alcatraz. We'll talk about our latest film, Michael Bay's finest work, which is a topic of much debate among film enthusiasts. I'm excited to share my thoughts with you all.

**Inside Out**

When we were discussing Inside Out last time, one thing that stuck with me was the theme of determinism. The characters in the movie seem to have zero agency, and their actions are determined by external forces. However, from a Buddhist perspective, this can be taken even further. Your emotional landscape is only part of the mental landscape; it's not necessarily the most important one. In fact, when we're experiencing difficult times, it's essential to realize that we're not in physical danger. Our brains and emotions can respond as if we are, but intellectually, we know better.

**A Conversation with Carl Reiner**

I recently learned about a comedy routine by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner called the "2,000-year-old man." It was a series of jokes where Carl Reiner would interview Mel Brooks, who played the role of an old man. The jokes were hilarious, and I grew up listening to them on comedy albums. One of the jokes that stood out to me was when Carl Reiner asked Mel Brooks if he always believed in God, and Mel Brooks replied, "No, no, no. What did you believe in before God? Well, we used to believe in Phil. He was a very big man." The humor comes from the absurdity of this response.

**Crossover Characters**

Another interesting aspect of Inside Out is the way the characters' personalities and emotions intersect. While most people would have many crossovers between male and female versions of these traits, Pixar has taken a different approach with Riley, the main character. Her personality is a mix of both male and female traits, suggesting that she's still developing and learning to navigate her emotions. This could be seen as a way for Pixar to say that everyone is on their own unique path, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to dealing with difficult emotions.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week's episode of still entitled the Adam Savage project is brought to you by wix.com do you need a website why not do it yourself with wix.com no matter what business you're in you can get your site live today with hundreds of templates and easy drag and drop features it's simple to customize and there is no coding needed you don't need to be a programmer or designer to create something beautiful go to wix.com and create your own studying website today it's easy and free so given that we'll probably run this before this podcast I want to point out that um uh I want to address that uh YouTube post yes yes yes that you mentioned to me that you sent to me recently um which is we're often talking about movies on this podcast and whenever we do we say spoiler alert and I then will frequently make a joke from The Simpsons about The Crying Game um I'm not going to make that joke here because a YouTube user uh allowed that that was uh potentially offensive and actually offensive because the joke is uh making it's making an assumption about the gender of transgender people being uh something or the other and while I've always laughed at that joke simply because it demonstrates someone being bullheaded and stupid I didn't realize that by making it about spoilers to be clear not about being transgendered right I was actually being pigheaded and stupid about transgender people and uh to that YouTube user I want to say I I apologize profusely I agree with you that it was insensitive and I won't make that joke again so let's spoiler spoil movie start welcome welcome to still entitled the Adam Savage project I'm will I'm Adam and I'm Norm that might be the longest pre-roll we've had on this uh podcast that that is uh quite the Epic discussion the thing that freaked me about inside out yeah um I might put this actually I might put that at the end actually because we have spoilers for a movie that we didn't warn people that are going to be spoil for they'll probably be upset cuz it's still in theaters um anyway the the different emotions are the lead drivers for different people the dad is anger the mom is sadness the little girl is Joy that's what we all have our own different versions of right every inching toward rage and serenity is where I go anyway uh we saw the Martian last night holy cow our long National nightmare is over we got to see we got to see a preview screening here in seph Frisco of the 20th Century Fox film The Martian uh Ridley Scott directed starring Matt Damon Donald Glover uh uh uh Jess Chastain chel edor Kate Mara oh my God the cast is fed Chris uh Kristen we the the cast is phenomenal the script is from a book that we are completely uh boted with the Martian by Andy Weir and the script written by Drew Gart Drew Gard um one of our favorite Hollywood writers cabin in the woods and I mean really really good adaptation of a challenging piece of work yes a love letter to science and directed by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott um and it's uh you know it's Ridley has directed some of the most important special effects science fiction films in film history um and the first thing I'm going to say is the Martian belongs in that Pantheon I I was I mean it's it's it's early to judge I agree I agree I enjoyed the film immensely I really did um um it was what I it was what I as somebody who was a fan of the book it was exactly what I wanted I don't know how well it stands for somebody who hasn't read the book well so let's let's let's start this is a spoiler cast yeah we're just going to I mean we like the movie we love the movie we told you to watch it last week and we're saying we're still saying go watch it I think we can talk about some vague generalities without spoiling things first all so we're going to start out by uh doing some yeah non spoiler and then we'll get to spoilers can we talk about the space suits a little bit Yeah I first off they in the film they showed the heads up display that shows like the PSI and everything like that yeah they really they they got the right PSI for the suits yeah because the current suits they use on the space station usually around 4 PSI it's real low by our standards that's awes I mean like there's a lot of attention to detail the suits seem to be based on the kind of skin suits uh thata yeah which is a you know when you look at the screenshots and the photos production Stills on the movie the the space suits were made by the same company who made the Prometheus space suits this is fbfx out of London right and so you have these the big dome and so they look you know from one sense they look like very Hollywood science fiction space suits not like at all the uh em the Eva suits em Al the Eva suit which exactly so the point is that you know it makes sense for a on Mars to have different suits that you would have for Eva Mission and that you would have for an on the land Mission Mobility is different because you have different pressures different atmosphere different gravity you actually have gravity and you actually have a minor atmosphere which means you are I believe more protected from micr meteorites which is one of the reasons for all the layers of many many many layers of beta cloth on the Emu suits right and so something that even wasn't even addressed in the book but the production took into account is to have two different suits one for when you're on this in the Hermes and E and taking up the uh the the MAV but also one for which is the majority of film The Beautiful orange space suit which is the Aries Mission suit well and so one of the things we loved about the book is totally extent in the film which is scientific rigor yes um this film was clearly made in deep cooperation with NASA uh and I believe uh I've been reading NASA scientists super excited about the film not just excited about seeing it excited about having seen it and seen how closely it Hues to reality the reality of what's possible even with slight leaps into the future I mean if anything the big leap is the thing that happens in the opening scene of the of the film which is the the Windstorm the atmospheric PR even and Andy we admits this as well the atmospheric pressure on Mars probably not high enough to have the kind of wind storm that's going to cause the kind of damage that caused the accident left him stranded in the first place after that though yeah and and you know you just something from a dramatic standpoint uh you know when you're reading the book we love the Martian because it is an exercise in one solving one problem after another and to get that type of thing across in under two-hour film is difficult and it while there are Montage sequences of problem solving the Ridley and and the writer does allow Matt Dam to verbalize and give you enough science so even if you didn't read the book you get the s that he's doing the math and he it's not just spewing nonsense it's real math real problem solving but but I I I hesitate like this isn't a science movie right I mean it is a science movie but it's a i it stands alone the science is what makes it plausible and believable and gives it weight that makes it feel like the greatest adventure story of Mankind's ever had rather than you know a science fiction like tale of survival right like there's a there's a difference between there's a difference between a movie like wild which is about a harrowing human story and the the the pulpy kind of tales of survival from the 50 you you know you know what I mean and this feels more like something that that is real that could happen to a real person yeah it's then then straight up science fiction in in the fantasy sense I mean that was the appeal of the book to me at least absolutely right it's the human the problem solving is a big part of it from an intellectual standpoint and then from an emotional standpoint the one of the reasons you connect not only with Mark Watney but also the people of Earth all of the people of Earth rallying behind him is what what connection means it's it's also that there's there's uh the character it's a is a terrific character Watney um he's uh a specialist but not a super specialist he's he knows a little bit about a lot of things uh he is as Raymond Chandler would say about the proper hero of a story um it wouldn't be an adventure if it did not happen to some one fit for adventure and Watney is so ready for this challenge even he doesn't realize how ready he is um and you know I said this on the podcast before but Chris Hadfield said there is no other fictional telling of space stuff that gets so perfectly the mind of an astronaut the determination which ends up being the theme of the movie we'll get to that in a little bit but uh from a adaptation standpoint because it's not just internal monologue which the book is it's the format it's the all data entri data entries and verbalization uh what you great get from film is the visual aspect and so you have just you know 5 Seconds of quiet quiet determination in his eyes which then can you don't need to expound you know a full chapter of the problem solving you can just see it which is a test the acting that's something I really really liked I was 5 minutes into the movie I was like we're not watching any of his data entries or they're very truncated of course it's film show don't tell exactly yeah where where Exposition Works in book and in film the exposition actually kind of stands out as like oh okay they this need to be we're hearing things we're hearing Lewis tell their situation okay I I this makes a lot of sense in the books but you know just show it the other thing I thought was really interesting just from a technical standpoint is it seemed like they Ed diagetic cameras a lot and I'm not sure if that's the right term for this that diagetic might only apply to audio but the cameras that exist in the Universe in the world um either as the the things that he's using the console with the the gimal mounted shoulder camera on the spacit or um presumably something facing the inside of his I was a little afraid uh cuz I don't know for people who like Manu it's a mass movie Mass Market movie um the way they filmed it because they use like the Inu cameras it almost evoked it from film making sounds like a horror movie and I there's a little bit of that because that horror movies have made extensive use of those kind of found footage Ty right and that like the scenes where he's just like hearing outside of Mars and the environment Like You Know It Go of course it never becomes a horror movie but it was interesting that you could still evoke those things and and I there is not uh sorry Jeff Daniels is also in the film um there's not a bad performance in the whole film I mean everybody I would say he was probably the the worst uh he he's wooden but I mean that's he's the director of a lifetime bureaucrat he's I think he's supposed to be we know Jeff Daniels has range at this point if he doesn't show range it's it's intentional uh yeah yeah it's not dumb and dumber and they and I think we're going to start to move into spoilers here I think this is the time they have a tremendous amount of Storytelling to do and when you hire really great actors they do a huge amount of your storytelling for you by imbuing their character with traits that make the script move much faster so Don Glover is yeah the one I was gonna say Don Glover's characterization of Rick purcel pcel rich pcel is is you know really really uh uh uh he he creates a very very distinct character instantly it's it's borderline character and it's a fine line well my son was like my son was like I I bet you didn't like that cuz there's another character from another film we had seen that I didn't like that kind of characterization that sort of over the top I'm a gen but can't timee my talking about Scot Pilgrim no okay but uh at the you know at the same time I thought D Glover's which is so hard for me to say Don Glover without thinking dong Glover um Donald Glover Donald Glover you can just by his musician name gamb do you know that child Childish Gambino said that he was 18 before he realized that his name was dong lover so my wife didn't realize she she didn't she didn't make the connection was Donald Glover and she was like he he's one of the coolest people on the planet how can he not how does he play this maybe less so cuz theil if you haven't seen it go see the movie it's in theaters it's worth your 15 bucks go we should really like let's let's talk about characterization do you think people should see the 3D uh yes okay okay we talk about a lot of things uh 3D I actually thought it was a fine 3D movie I thought it was a fine 3D I'm not a fan of 3D films and I agree with you the 3D was very subtle there wasn't a lot of arrows shooting right into your face kind of there steering wheel 3D and the ways they use 3D and we've talked about things we like about when they how use 3D is the framing of the the cinema you know using UI as the thing that pops out or when you're filming a landscape the landscape goes inward as opposed to popping out so those are effective some some of the Martian Landscapes were just absolutely gorgeous in 3D I don't think you're I think you're okay if you want to see this not in 3D I think you're totally fine um in fact actually I think the Mars is a character in this film Mars is the villain Mars is the antagonist and yet I don't think of it as totally antagonistic it's unfriendly but it doesn't mean ill necessar and he finds a bond with it and I think it might be one of the most fully realized planets done in a science fiction film you really get to see lots of Mars in this movie and you really start to feel like you're part of the landscape it it reminded me more of I think I heard somebody knocking hold on I I I think Adam's right Mars I don't think is antagonist in a traditional sense it is the obstacle it is the thing he has overcome it's the Everest but it is a character absolutely um in that the Bond he forms with the planet uh and not just Mars but then all the uh the technology around it the Rover the hab his last the have which you get in the book long paragraphs about you know I spent so many days here kept me alive I have this bond with this thing and now I'm finally leaving it it's whistful um you get that not said out loud but again shown the the thing that I thought that that uh the screenplay did and and prob ridly in the screenplay everyone involved most likely was condensed incredible amounts of information into very brief scenes like the scene with Donald Glover where he and and and uh where where he sets up where he sets up Kristen wig on one side and Jeff Daniels on the other side and illustrates the gravity ass the gravity assist slingshot in about two a minute and a half maybe that was a three chapter explanation in the book probably yeah and little things like you know to uh tip the hat to book readers things like why he had potatoes you know don't open till Thanksgiving just being written on on the package he needed to say oh now this is why we had live spuds uh I will say for the Mars thing and going back to the Institute cameras um Joey pointed this out when I was chatting with him last night uh when they filmed on Earth and interior they actually it looked like they lowered the shutter so you have your typical uh 48 shutter 24 FPS little filmic look but anytime you moved Outdoors into the Martian landscape they ramped up the shutter so it look more like fast motion less crisper crisper movement to give you just a difference in the in the environments oh sort of a visceral feel for yeah and you notice that especially in the sandstorms because there's not a lot of motion blur see all those particulates that was the particle the particulates Ridley has a very very uh well burned in crew uh costumes were done by the inimitable and amazing janty Yates who did both Gladiator Prometheus and a million other Ridley Scott films um his effects crew is just Parx Lance man they you know from flying Cork and Vermiculite for the dust storm to the the stuff that they do it's just beautiful Watney repairing God his his puncture wound absolutely as real as anything I've ever seen um and the shot the shot that they did with the mirror so you you think oh I'm not going to have to look at I'm not going to have oh outstanding and you think about you know when you have uh 120 Minutes for a movie and you got to condense a book that could go 6 hours long if you're telling it that way uh what you choose to linger on it's important and so choosing to have that moment of brutal survival in the very human and visceral sense you know and then having the body transformation which you never you hear you you kind of get that he over time with the rationing gets weaken but then getting a body double for Matt Damon yeah they did beautiful job with that body double um I so if you have read the book you should be aware that only about half of the things that happen in the book are in the movie uh and they do some fairly impressive uh streamlining yes that being said the one thing that I thought about the movie in that was a little bit of a problem was there were times when people were just talking so fast to get through the storytelling M and I find myself looking forward to a DVD release where there's perhaps a longer cut that really has some Breathing Room CU I think this movie could go to 2 and a half hours without much difficulty and some of these scenes would have a little more space around them and again that being said Ridley really does take time to give you these Quiet Moments of solitude and contemplation frustration and frustration for Matt Damon's character that was the thing to me that they ured really really well with the film was the the kind of the hard swings that were from the book cuz the book was written CH one chapter at a time Cliffhanger endings on more or less every chapter and you'd have hard swings from a real low point on Earth where everybody's like oh man that guy's going to totally died to Watney you know the what what's his reaction what what's his mind state right now and then it cuts to him listening to disco and cursing at the commander of the mission who brought all the Disco with them um it's supposed to be over you know years he's there you know over well over a year and so to cond that to two and a half hours to just scenes to a doz a couple dozen scenes of you on Mars you need to have a good Cadence of of his emotions and so they they they they get rid of a couple of the big complications in the book as he's heading toward SE Skipper Skipper relli crater um he uh he encounters a dust storm which takes him 3 days to diagnose and then several more days to get out of and then actually as the enters the crater at the end his vehicle rolls over and yet somehow still doesn't get ful a double vehicle he does the convoy system in the book which he does but the things that they kept uh really is just like uh not only love letter to science but also the book The talking about the uh the the meeting the elron project elron like which didn't need to be in the movie but it is a no was that in the book it totally and what's hilarious about them calling the secret so this is prel figuring out the gravity assist sling on his own and when he gathers people to talk about it he calls it project elron because it's a it's a nod to uh Fellowship of the Ring in which they decide to S and the joke is is that one of the actors who plays the mission Commander is sha Bean oh that's that's the joke the I didn't realize that that's great didn't even occur to me Mitch Mitch is Shan be he's Bor oh my goodness sorry I don't mean to yell that was oh that's why I was laughing so hysterically I just kept waiting for Shan Bean to get his head lopped off frankly yeah and will points out like the point of that chap that that sorry um in the book and essentially in the film is not for uh sha bean and for Jeff Daniels and and VOR and those characters but it's for the benefit of Kristen wig to show that how she is so not it's more reflection of her character and how she is not the Nerds like them and Christen we is great she has about six lines in the film and luckily the first one is are you me it was she gets Annie right without and they didn't need to caricature her yeah right the the so there were a lot of loving nods I feel like the screen in the back of Donald Glover's computer on on Rich parnell's computer when he's doing the initial calculation in his office I'm pretty sure that was Andy's simulation the one that he did to figure out the orbital mechanics that's very nice oh you're probably totally right I mean it was very similar to it if it wasn't it I did laugh at the there is a point in the movie which he figures it out and this thing comes up on his screen that says calculations correct there was so many of those and he's slugging in his USB to the on the server room and so he's cold huddled by the server computer I don't know is anyone JPL do you actually do that sorry you guys don't have networks are is there anyone in astrodynamics who has a giant chalkboard in the room where in the bottom corner you write science exclamation mark like I'm actually I'll bet that's true I'll bet that comes from actual research richell is a steel eyed Rocket Man got a big laugh one of the things about janty Yates the costume designer that I know is that she rigorously researches every last thing to the point of on Gladiator um couldn't find uh couldn't find Roman examples of heels in shoes so she didn't put heels on the shoes of any of the actors which was really rough on the stuntmen because it started hurting their back uh and uh so suffice to say I think Ridley's crew researches incredibly rigorously I will say that for her job as as a costume designer great job making NASA and astronauts so fashionable those sweaters and I said this when the first trailer came out I want everyone of every big neck sweater that that vo is wearing on the spaceship look so good yeah no jumpsuits also Johnson Space Center Johnson Space Center is Gorge doesn't look anywhere near that Co in real life there's no space right and I will say the one the one the one nod to science fiction movies is the Hermes which is a vehicle they go to get to Mars in it's just a large um combination uh standard ship but with a rotational aspect which is really important for it's we talked about this when we when we did the Hatfield videos right right right so it's the rooms on the Hermes SOA ridiculously spacious you would there's just never going to be rooms that big in space until we're living there large and but they did get right and I know it was a complaint of gravity cuz they had both zero g elements in the Hermes which the wire work is as it is there's so much you can do to simulate gravity without actually shooting in in low low earth orbit um they had all the the long hair pulled back so you didn't have the the the bad non-floating that's the way that's the way and in Gravity the hair when she first in space station it does not go out complaint that people had about thead science of gravity and so they had jica's hair down when they were in the the um we'll call it the banana cuz just like seven EES that was the banana yeah um and and then up when they were in the zero g Parts I looking at the way they shot those scenes specifically in the in the cental in the cental ring like thing made me appreciate how disconcerting it would be to be in one of those rooms um I hadn't really thought about it much but it would be like the the the all your frame of reference rotating outside you constantly not in a way that is down would make you would a beautiful shot of Kate Mara spinning around the I'll call the Taurus when uh when Beck is do receiving the um the the resupply mission one of the things that really Scott is so amazing at is what uh is what's called framing um which is telling you the important elements of the story in every shot what characters are in danger what characters are thinking uh where they are within the narrative um but also where you are in space and there there are few directors as good as Ridley Scott at doing that so outside the windows there's always something it's not just interesting going on outside the windows for interesting sake it's I know where I am in Mars in the spaceship on Earth shot to shot I'm never abandoned like Michael Bay where it's like we shot with 60 cameras and we're using all of them in every shot faal awareness yeah basic even great directors like Chris Nolan don't always get action scenes right with a spatial awareness uh this movie didn't have a ton of action scenes though so can we talk about issues we had with the movie should we um yeah oh absolutely but I wanted to talk about there was one more thing and I don't remember remember it was so I'll bring it up later if I remember Norm issues you had with the movie you're you're grumpy Norm I I I I definitely had some issues with the movie and you know it's not beef with the movie It's beef because we only get one movie one adaptation and you reading the book you have the images in your head that you want and so every decision made it's not the decision you had in your head is in some sense your your is a disappointment right which isn't to say it's a bad movie it's a great movie um so if you listen to like the spoilercast we did of the book and talking about how we our hopes and dreams and fears for the adaptation of the movie one of the hopes I had was that on their approach to Earth they would for the crew of the Hermes show what it was they were giving up the extra 500 days and they tried to do that with the the Telecommunications The Voice chats with family back on Earth but we never got that we're approaching the Earth shot this is our home and what home is and now we're going far away and could be the last time we're going away we're so close to coming home but we're what we're sacrificing is all this connection with our friends and family and of humanity to rescue the guy we left behind um which again not not it's not a bad thing they admitted it it's just what I'd hoped I mean I thought that the the overall the passage of time in the back half of the movie kind of things went fast I mean I realized that there was probably a lot for Watney there was a lot of sitting around the hab eating a half a potato a day and whatever it was that he was eating I was waiting for some line about how much he hated potatoes right or the ketchup line was pretty good like no nothing like what's what's Mars coffee well it's just hot water and caffeine and then it's we you know we coffee and tea uh I mean there were lot there was a lot of stuff the space PIR the pirate ninja bit was so yeah the pirate ninja bit is one of my favorite parts of the book in which he needs to figure out what hours per day yeah and he that phrase is too laborious for him to to keep writing so he just decides to shorten it to Pirate ninjas you get space pirate which is nice and and also communicates how he's been away from Earth maybe getting to him a little bit even though that's also his personality the biggest I will actually call this real beef with the movie uh in terms of changes and decisions made was making Lewis the one to rescue him I found that I yeah I agre um and I know they needed the connection of like her guilt and she was one who left them behind so she want to take responsibility but it was so overwrought whereas the soundtrack for all these montage sequen and the buildups were the disco music this was the time when they really brought out the orchestral score of the the the coiling of the cables let me let me let me say this G Drew Goddard is a one of the best screenwriters going right now my guess is that the first draft of this didn't have that or at least the first treatment had it following at the book and when they looked at this character breakdown and they realized we've got this we've got this large crew we can't tell all their stories we can't really tell the story about the affair we can kind of tease to it watney's knowing we're going to have to just we have to start mercilessly slicing stuff out and when we do that we end up in danger I'm saying we the Royal we of I'm trying to put myself in Drew's head um we still need things for the audience to connect to and Lewis's guilt over leaving Watney is actually I think one of the more difficult things to communicate because none of us are mission commanders right and in order to make that a real plot point you need to also give it a resolution now I think that so I think that it is a very reasonable plot choice to make even though it is overwrought again I remember we're we're sullied by having read and loved the book with all of its uh luxurious time for laying out a story Nuance yeah mhm yeah and then in the movie they have a very short time to solve those problems so I don't have any I I think that that's a very natural decision to make absolutely understandable Gina and I talked about this last night too the other thing is in the book she's directly involved like it's it's really clear that everyone on the ship is involved with the rescue attempt right and and that she's helping I can't remember who was out in the in the suit in the book but helping with the feeding course Corrections and all that kind of stuff to make the rescue happen and you lose all of that cuz it's just math that's going to get cut from the film so if you want her to be the driving force she has to be in the suit and I thought that to be honest that rescue of him getting tangled up in her web uh from the ship the 600 meter web webbing um and them spinning around each other uh was absolutely beautiful I was really Blown Away the whole Iron Man bit from Iron Man on was was the only place the movie Lost me and and I felt like because you had whole movie of buildup and you get I I get from a plot point that okay after 500 Days of intense survival this is the last thing and there's still problems you got to solve things on the spot it was also a great moment because you had the 12-minute delay to Earth to use that to cut in The Truman Show yeah Humanity coming together and you had you know there there was Time Square and the cheering but not like the looking up at bars actually it's funny it's funny that you say that I also felt that that was they left a little bit of drama on the table there the other place I felt that drama was left on the table was in watney's first hearing of Commander Lewis's voice in his calm I I thought they didn't quite make it clear that that was the first time he was hearing her we were just hearing her and then we cut to him and to me that's a moment to go to him of like switching a switch and hearing her voice and hearing the first human voice he's heard in 580 days he's an astronaut Adam you get a little had a job to do then still I mean I'm serious but the moment they caught that was when he's face to face with her in the suit and you think he's just going to say oh my God I never thought I was going to see another human again and he said you have terrible taste in music and it is it was one of the biggest laughs in the in the whole movie you do also get that when he first gets um connection back to M with a Pathfinder and that look in his face that communication is happening that is that connection is really there's one joke I was sad uh a couple of dir dirty jokes to talk about one is that um he hadn't showered in over a year when they got and he goes what is this line he says in the book apparently I smell like a skunk took a in a pair of sweat socks yeah it's pretty good um the other thing is is that now we're going to actually say some curses here so kids stop listening you going talk about Montage yeah so the thing is is in a PG-13 movie you're only allowed apparently by the MPAA to say once allegedly allegedly um now there are movies that make great use of this single usage uh case uh probably the greatest ever is Ron Burgundy in which Ron Burgundy is tricked into reading the teleprompter and saying you Sand Diego and it's the it is the hinge of the plot of the film it's the beginning of his downfall it is and it's the most important moment in the film uh and it's a perfect use of one-time use by the MPAA um given that in the book Watney curses almost constantly and the opening line is well I'm pretty much yeah um you're wondering how are they going to do this and I posited with Andy that it was going to be the first line of the film which it might have been in an early draft but it turns out to be the first word you hear Watney actually say no no he has a communication with because he has that he has all the chatter in the in that opening sequence when he's out doing those S after the dister after the disaster post disaster which was also that was a great place to put the title card the Martian when you're showed him buried in the sand and everyone's gone he's deserted is that where they put the title card it's not they put it before the sandstorm um so a little editing things also that might change between now and when it comes out also and they changed his name to Vincent who vanet K Indian and they changed Vincent kapor and then Mindy Park they kept her name but then brought in the actress from hton Catch Fire who I I like a lot um I thought she was great she was great she terrific I just like weird casting things U the one final thing the big I think the really big differentiation from the book I mean you can take out plot points but yeah what a movie adds to a book when there's already so much material to a book says a lot about what the filmmaker wants to do and what the writers want to do and you got an epilogue with the movie um that was never in the book in the book you have this Apollo 13 moment almost where you know you they rescued NASA cheers and then U you have the final log of Mart Watney which is the monologue uh where he talks about humans coming together and why he thinks he was rescued it's essensially the theme of the book not just survival but human connection and and and what NASA and space exploration means uh that monologue is in the trailer it's the opening line of the trailer the first trailer where he talks about in every culture and it is in the script but it's not in the movie they cut it out and instead they give you this epilogue where he's back on Earth he has actual physical touching of the ground recollection of the the plant growing and he becomes a he's a teacher now he's teaching a new astronaut Corp apparently at the new avengeance recrui Avengers recruiting station or something running uh and he does a monologue there which is about problem solving and the difficulties of surviving in space which I think was not as good a substitute for the original monologue I I that's the kind of thing that I find difficult to judge because I have really strong feelings about the the way the book ended I felt like the book kind of just trailed it it it was such a hard stop after such a a delightfully paced path that I needed something I don't know that what what they tacked on is great but I was not unhappy with it one one way to and it was nice to see him back on Earth I'm to Fan edit this you take the you take the dialogue from the trailer which is about survival Norm go right ahead and then when he goes into the classroom and he's talking to the the the new class you Fade Out the audio and then you give him that speech and then use that as a montage to where are the people who help him survive are and then that's you get that's probably better yeah I'd watch that I expect DVD comes out a few more things the guy who is the head of G JPL Bruce Bruce Ang wonderful oh God so good Wong which he was also he's in like two other space movies he was in Prometheus and he was in sunshine was he one of the botanists or something in Prometheus in Prometheus he was the pilot that with along with uh Stringer Bell makes the BET and or not maybe not Stringer Bell but uh they he one they decided to crash the ship and then in sunshine he was the one who the astronaut who makes the math mistake that gets saw and he watched the first two sunsh he was terrific some of the biggest laughs in the so it's a really funny movie we didn't say this up front but we should have the book is hugely hilarious and the movie retains that deep sense of humor even Gallow humor uh that the book had and that's the audience we saw it with was laughing uproariously through many many many parts of the movie yeah the um his his overall performance was was really Delight Matt Damon is incredible Matt Damon is is wonderful and dynamic and perfect perfect casting for Watney and car's I mean that the movie doesn't work if he isn't able to convey four emotions simultaneously in almost every scene ranging from exhaustion to frustration to anger to fear and he did a really lovely job with it the scene the scene where he sends the message to Lewis uh while he I mean I don't think he's actually sending the message to Le while he's sitting looking over the the hill but he sends the message to leis and asks her to go talk to his parents if he doesn't make it is unbelievable yeah um and that's like that's like the NASA Mission I any astronaut would say the same exactly um in fact somebody would have already been assigned at Nasa to they would have already happened to be a uh the liaison to the family for the astronaut who's up in space um yeah yeah I thought it was I thought it was lovely um I found it incredibly moving uh really really exciting and I I can't imagine the mixture of emotions that Andy Weir is going through oh I mean I mean one year it was a almost almost a year ago that I interview on the talking room uh and they had just started principal Photography in Budapest uh and now this movie is out that seems like a crazy amount of time I can't believe that it can be done it's it's really good I mean it has the visual style of you know the Ridley Scott movies that we've all loved um that that may or may not have been great films on their own uh but I I thought this was absolutely lovely highly recommend and yes the space suits completely completely obsess me I want to make one I need to make one you got to get that fancy new GoPro I got to get that GoPro must be very pleased with their treatment in that film Samsung and GoPro that's the only two I saw absolutely um yeah future the future looks good I want to go to Mars man the Future's So Bright we have to wear shades yeah uh that'll do it for us I think this is probably I think the last time we'll probably talk about the Martian on the podcast oh my gosh closure no once the Blu-ray DVD comes out there'll be all these extra materials to go over okay that one's making a space suit I bet yeah right you're okay never mind never mind sorry guys I thought I thought you were done n um thank you guys for listening uh we have a live event coming up at the end of this month in San Francisco go to tested theh show. eventbrite.com and you can get tickets in come uh we also have another event at the end of the month on October 27th uh Adam norm and I are going to Alcatraz we're going to podcast on the Rock on the gentlemen welcome to the Rock I think we'll talk about your swim my swim yes maybe Michael Ba's finest film I actually probably agree with that lot of early Michael Bay is absolutely wonderful Michael Bay's second or third best film and a bunch of other stuff as well uh see you guys next time uh I guess that's it bye bye bye guys oh hey there's more stuff about inside out after this so stay after the ad and you get some inside out business yes bye bye guys today's episode was brought to you by wix.com used by 60 million people throughout the world wix.com empowers business owners to create their own professional websites with dragon drop Builder and hundreds of designer made templates to choose from you can get your website live today it's easy and free go to wix and create your own stunning website today you know when we were talking about inside out last time I the thing that suck with me is that movie is such a weird head trip about and it is about inside your head about determinism cuz those characters have zero agency oh yeah the the main characters they think they do right but they are just manifestations of of the the the human actor I mean you can think of it two different ways you can think of it as she no the the little girl has no agency that's the way I thought which is actually even further than that it was occurring to me that from a Buddhist perspective your emotional landscape is only part of the mental landscape it's not necessarily the most important one and in fact one of the things that I have learned at any given point in any of our Lives we can get have really difficult times where we feel emotionally uh in crisis and when you feel emotionally in crisis the thing that helps me from a Buddhist perspective is to realize I am not in physical danger I my brain and my emotions actually I'm responding from a place of feeling like I might be in physical danger but I'm not so an intellectual part you just came up with the sequel to inside out where where headquarters meets other headquarters well that's the thing I thought that's I what I thought would have been an amazing reveal and inside out would be the realization that there's this entire other landscape you're talking about 11-year-old no I realized that but there's a there's an old Mel Brooks joke is uh Mel Brooks and Carl Riner used to have a party joke that they would do called the 2,000-year old man where Carl Riner would interview Mel Brooks it became a couple of comedy albums that I grew up on and at one point Mel Carl Riner says uh did you always believe in God he goes no no no no what did you believe in before God well we used to believe in Phil what really yeah what who was Phil Phil was a very big man very big man he would he would beat you up right so so one day one day Phil was out walking and the clouds formed and lightning Bol came down and struck Phil and we all looked up and we said there's something bigger than Phil the other thing that uh Dan actually brought up and I didn't know if anyone had written about this before is you know when you go into the mind of the mom and the mind of the dad and other characters they're all uh like one gender so the mom inside the mom's mind all the versions of the emotions are the female versions in the dad's it's it's all male and the boys it's all male and for lots of people you would have many crossovers on that front and so in but in Riley the main character little girl it's it's a mix so what is that is that Pixar's way of saying that is she's still developing like there's I think that's a really lovely way of saying thatthis week's episode of still entitled the Adam Savage project is brought to you by wix.com do you need a website why not do it yourself with wix.com no matter what business you're in you can get your site live today with hundreds of templates and easy drag and drop features it's simple to customize and there is no coding needed you don't need to be a programmer or designer to create something beautiful go to wix.com and create your own studying website today it's easy and free so given that we'll probably run this before this podcast I want to point out that um uh I want to address that uh YouTube post yes yes yes that you mentioned to me that you sent to me recently um which is we're often talking about movies on this podcast and whenever we do we say spoiler alert and I then will frequently make a joke from The Simpsons about The Crying Game um I'm not going to make that joke here because a YouTube user uh allowed that that was uh potentially offensive and actually offensive because the joke is uh making it's making an assumption about the gender of transgender people being uh something or the other and while I've always laughed at that joke simply because it demonstrates someone being bullheaded and stupid I didn't realize that by making it about spoilers to be clear not about being transgendered right I was actually being pigheaded and stupid about transgender people and uh to that YouTube user I want to say I I apologize profusely I agree with you that it was insensitive and I won't make that joke again so let's spoiler spoil movie start welcome welcome to still entitled the Adam Savage project I'm will I'm Adam and I'm Norm that might be the longest pre-roll we've had on this uh podcast that that is uh quite the Epic discussion the thing that freaked me about inside out yeah um I might put this actually I might put that at the end actually because we have spoilers for a movie that we didn't warn people that are going to be spoil for they'll probably be upset cuz it's still in theaters um anyway the the different emotions are the lead drivers for different people the dad is anger the mom is sadness the little girl is Joy that's what we all have our own different versions of right every inching toward rage and serenity is where I go anyway uh we saw the Martian last night holy cow our long National nightmare is over we got to see we got to see a preview screening here in seph Frisco of the 20th Century Fox film The Martian uh Ridley Scott directed starring Matt Damon Donald Glover uh uh uh Jess Chastain chel edor Kate Mara oh my God the cast is fed Chris uh Kristen we the the cast is phenomenal the script is from a book that we are completely uh boted with the Martian by Andy Weir and the script written by Drew Gart Drew Gard um one of our favorite Hollywood writers cabin in the woods and I mean really really good adaptation of a challenging piece of work yes a love letter to science and directed by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott um and it's uh you know it's Ridley has directed some of the most important special effects science fiction films in film history um and the first thing I'm going to say is the Martian belongs in that Pantheon I I was I mean it's it's it's early to judge I agree I agree I enjoyed the film immensely I really did um um it was what I it was what I as somebody who was a fan of the book it was exactly what I wanted I don't know how well it stands for somebody who hasn't read the book well so let's let's let's start this is a spoiler cast yeah we're just going to I mean we like the movie we love the movie we told you to watch it last week and we're saying we're still saying go watch it I think we can talk about some vague generalities without spoiling things first all so we're going to start out by uh doing some yeah non spoiler and then we'll get to spoilers can we talk about the space suits a little bit Yeah I first off they in the film they showed the heads up display that shows like the PSI and everything like that yeah they really they they got the right PSI for the suits yeah because the current suits they use on the space station usually around 4 PSI it's real low by our standards that's awes I mean like there's a lot of attention to detail the suits seem to be based on the kind of skin suits uh thata yeah which is a you know when you look at the screenshots and the photos production Stills on the movie the the space suits were made by the same company who made the Prometheus space suits this is fbfx out of London right and so you have these the big dome and so they look you know from one sense they look like very Hollywood science fiction space suits not like at all the uh em the Eva suits em Al the Eva suit which exactly so the point is that you know it makes sense for a on Mars to have different suits that you would have for Eva Mission and that you would have for an on the land Mission Mobility is different because you have different pressures different atmosphere different gravity you actually have gravity and you actually have a minor atmosphere which means you are I believe more protected from micr meteorites which is one of the reasons for all the layers of many many many layers of beta cloth on the Emu suits right and so something that even wasn't even addressed in the book but the production took into account is to have two different suits one for when you're on this in the Hermes and E and taking up the uh the the MAV but also one for which is the majority of film The Beautiful orange space suit which is the Aries Mission suit well and so one of the things we loved about the book is totally extent in the film which is scientific rigor yes um this film was clearly made in deep cooperation with NASA uh and I believe uh I've been reading NASA scientists super excited about the film not just excited about seeing it excited about having seen it and seen how closely it Hues to reality the reality of what's possible even with slight leaps into the future I mean if anything the big leap is the thing that happens in the opening scene of the of the film which is the the Windstorm the atmospheric PR even and Andy we admits this as well the atmospheric pressure on Mars probably not high enough to have the kind of wind storm that's going to cause the kind of damage that caused the accident left him stranded in the first place after that though yeah and and you know you just something from a dramatic standpoint uh you know when you're reading the book we love the Martian because it is an exercise in one solving one problem after another and to get that type of thing across in under two-hour film is difficult and it while there are Montage sequences of problem solving the Ridley and and the writer does allow Matt Dam to verbalize and give you enough science so even if you didn't read the book you get the s that he's doing the math and he it's not just spewing nonsense it's real math real problem solving but but I I I hesitate like this isn't a science movie right I mean it is a science movie but it's a i it stands alone the science is what makes it plausible and believable and gives it weight that makes it feel like the greatest adventure story of Mankind's ever had rather than you know a science fiction like tale of survival right like there's a there's a difference between there's a difference between a movie like wild which is about a harrowing human story and the the the pulpy kind of tales of survival from the 50 you you know you know what I mean and this feels more like something that that is real that could happen to a real person yeah it's then then straight up science fiction in in the fantasy sense I mean that was the appeal of the book to me at least absolutely right it's the human the problem solving is a big part of it from an intellectual standpoint and then from an emotional standpoint the one of the reasons you connect not only with Mark Watney but also the people of Earth all of the people of Earth rallying behind him is what what connection means it's it's also that there's there's uh the character it's a is a terrific character Watney um he's uh a specialist but not a super specialist he's he knows a little bit about a lot of things uh he is as Raymond Chandler would say about the proper hero of a story um it wouldn't be an adventure if it did not happen to some one fit for adventure and Watney is so ready for this challenge even he doesn't realize how ready he is um and you know I said this on the podcast before but Chris Hadfield said there is no other fictional telling of space stuff that gets so perfectly the mind of an astronaut the determination which ends up being the theme of the movie we'll get to that in a little bit but uh from a adaptation standpoint because it's not just internal monologue which the book is it's the format it's the all data entri data entries and verbalization uh what you great get from film is the visual aspect and so you have just you know 5 Seconds of quiet quiet determination in his eyes which then can you don't need to expound you know a full chapter of the problem solving you can just see it which is a test the acting that's something I really really liked I was 5 minutes into the movie I was like we're not watching any of his data entries or they're very truncated of course it's film show don't tell exactly yeah where where Exposition Works in book and in film the exposition actually kind of stands out as like oh okay they this need to be we're hearing things we're hearing Lewis tell their situation okay I I this makes a lot of sense in the books but you know just show it the other thing I thought was really interesting just from a technical standpoint is it seemed like they Ed diagetic cameras a lot and I'm not sure if that's the right term for this that diagetic might only apply to audio but the cameras that exist in the Universe in the world um either as the the things that he's using the console with the the gimal mounted shoulder camera on the spacit or um presumably something facing the inside of his I was a little afraid uh cuz I don't know for people who like Manu it's a mass movie Mass Market movie um the way they filmed it because they use like the Inu cameras it almost evoked it from film making sounds like a horror movie and I there's a little bit of that because that horror movies have made extensive use of those kind of found footage Ty right and that like the scenes where he's just like hearing outside of Mars and the environment Like You Know It Go of course it never becomes a horror movie but it was interesting that you could still evoke those things and and I there is not uh sorry Jeff Daniels is also in the film um there's not a bad performance in the whole film I mean everybody I would say he was probably the the worst uh he he's wooden but I mean that's he's the director of a lifetime bureaucrat he's I think he's supposed to be we know Jeff Daniels has range at this point if he doesn't show range it's it's intentional uh yeah yeah it's not dumb and dumber and they and I think we're going to start to move into spoilers here I think this is the time they have a tremendous amount of Storytelling to do and when you hire really great actors they do a huge amount of your storytelling for you by imbuing their character with traits that make the script move much faster so Don Glover is yeah the one I was gonna say Don Glover's characterization of Rick purcel pcel rich pcel is is you know really really uh uh uh he he creates a very very distinct character instantly it's it's borderline character and it's a fine line well my son was like my son was like I I bet you didn't like that cuz there's another character from another film we had seen that I didn't like that kind of characterization that sort of over the top I'm a gen but can't timee my talking about Scot Pilgrim no okay but uh at the you know at the same time I thought D Glover's which is so hard for me to say Don Glover without thinking dong Glover um Donald Glover Donald Glover you can just by his musician name gamb do you know that child Childish Gambino said that he was 18 before he realized that his name was dong lover so my wife didn't realize she she didn't she didn't make the connection was Donald Glover and she was like he he's one of the coolest people on the planet how can he not how does he play this maybe less so cuz theil if you haven't seen it go see the movie it's in theaters it's worth your 15 bucks go we should really like let's let's talk about characterization do you think people should see the 3D uh yes okay okay we talk about a lot of things uh 3D I actually thought it was a fine 3D movie I thought it was a fine 3D I'm not a fan of 3D films and I agree with you the 3D was very subtle there wasn't a lot of arrows shooting right into your face kind of there steering wheel 3D and the ways they use 3D and we've talked about things we like about when they how use 3D is the framing of the the cinema you know using UI as the thing that pops out or when you're filming a landscape the landscape goes inward as opposed to popping out so those are effective some some of the Martian Landscapes were just absolutely gorgeous in 3D I don't think you're I think you're okay if you want to see this not in 3D I think you're totally fine um in fact actually I think the Mars is a character in this film Mars is the villain Mars is the antagonist and yet I don't think of it as totally antagonistic it's unfriendly but it doesn't mean ill necessar and he finds a bond with it and I think it might be one of the most fully realized planets done in a science fiction film you really get to see lots of Mars in this movie and you really start to feel like you're part of the landscape it it reminded me more of I think I heard somebody knocking hold on I I I think Adam's right Mars I don't think is antagonist in a traditional sense it is the obstacle it is the thing he has overcome it's the Everest but it is a character absolutely um in that the Bond he forms with the planet uh and not just Mars but then all the uh the technology around it the Rover the hab his last the have which you get in the book long paragraphs about you know I spent so many days here kept me alive I have this bond with this thing and now I'm finally leaving it it's whistful um you get that not said out loud but again shown the the thing that I thought that that uh the screenplay did and and prob ridly in the screenplay everyone involved most likely was condensed incredible amounts of information into very brief scenes like the scene with Donald Glover where he and and and uh where where he sets up where he sets up Kristen wig on one side and Jeff Daniels on the other side and illustrates the gravity ass the gravity assist slingshot in about two a minute and a half maybe that was a three chapter explanation in the book probably yeah and little things like you know to uh tip the hat to book readers things like why he had potatoes you know don't open till Thanksgiving just being written on on the package he needed to say oh now this is why we had live spuds uh I will say for the Mars thing and going back to the Institute cameras um Joey pointed this out when I was chatting with him last night uh when they filmed on Earth and interior they actually it looked like they lowered the shutter so you have your typical uh 48 shutter 24 FPS little filmic look but anytime you moved Outdoors into the Martian landscape they ramped up the shutter so it look more like fast motion less crisper crisper movement to give you just a difference in the in the environments oh sort of a visceral feel for yeah and you notice that especially in the sandstorms because there's not a lot of motion blur see all those particulates that was the particle the particulates Ridley has a very very uh well burned in crew uh costumes were done by the inimitable and amazing janty Yates who did both Gladiator Prometheus and a million other Ridley Scott films um his effects crew is just Parx Lance man they you know from flying Cork and Vermiculite for the dust storm to the the stuff that they do it's just beautiful Watney repairing God his his puncture wound absolutely as real as anything I've ever seen um and the shot the shot that they did with the mirror so you you think oh I'm not going to have to look at I'm not going to have oh outstanding and you think about you know when you have uh 120 Minutes for a movie and you got to condense a book that could go 6 hours long if you're telling it that way uh what you choose to linger on it's important and so choosing to have that moment of brutal survival in the very human and visceral sense you know and then having the body transformation which you never you hear you you kind of get that he over time with the rationing gets weaken but then getting a body double for Matt Damon yeah they did beautiful job with that body double um I so if you have read the book you should be aware that only about half of the things that happen in the book are in the movie uh and they do some fairly impressive uh streamlining yes that being said the one thing that I thought about the movie in that was a little bit of a problem was there were times when people were just talking so fast to get through the storytelling M and I find myself looking forward to a DVD release where there's perhaps a longer cut that really has some Breathing Room CU I think this movie could go to 2 and a half hours without much difficulty and some of these scenes would have a little more space around them and again that being said Ridley really does take time to give you these Quiet Moments of solitude and contemplation frustration and frustration for Matt Damon's character that was the thing to me that they ured really really well with the film was the the kind of the hard swings that were from the book cuz the book was written CH one chapter at a time Cliffhanger endings on more or less every chapter and you'd have hard swings from a real low point on Earth where everybody's like oh man that guy's going to totally died to Watney you know the what what's his reaction what what's his mind state right now and then it cuts to him listening to disco and cursing at the commander of the mission who brought all the Disco with them um it's supposed to be over you know years he's there you know over well over a year and so to cond that to two and a half hours to just scenes to a doz a couple dozen scenes of you on Mars you need to have a good Cadence of of his emotions and so they they they they get rid of a couple of the big complications in the book as he's heading toward SE Skipper Skipper relli crater um he uh he encounters a dust storm which takes him 3 days to diagnose and then several more days to get out of and then actually as the enters the crater at the end his vehicle rolls over and yet somehow still doesn't get ful a double vehicle he does the convoy system in the book which he does but the things that they kept uh really is just like uh not only love letter to science but also the book The talking about the uh the the meeting the elron project elron like which didn't need to be in the movie but it is a no was that in the book it totally and what's hilarious about them calling the secret so this is prel figuring out the gravity assist sling on his own and when he gathers people to talk about it he calls it project elron because it's a it's a nod to uh Fellowship of the Ring in which they decide to S and the joke is is that one of the actors who plays the mission Commander is sha Bean oh that's that's the joke the I didn't realize that that's great didn't even occur to me Mitch Mitch is Shan be he's Bor oh my goodness sorry I don't mean to yell that was oh that's why I was laughing so hysterically I just kept waiting for Shan Bean to get his head lopped off frankly yeah and will points out like the point of that chap that that sorry um in the book and essentially in the film is not for uh sha bean and for Jeff Daniels and and VOR and those characters but it's for the benefit of Kristen wig to show that how she is so not it's more reflection of her character and how she is not the Nerds like them and Christen we is great she has about six lines in the film and luckily the first one is are you me it was she gets Annie right without and they didn't need to caricature her yeah right the the so there were a lot of loving nods I feel like the screen in the back of Donald Glover's computer on on Rich parnell's computer when he's doing the initial calculation in his office I'm pretty sure that was Andy's simulation the one that he did to figure out the orbital mechanics that's very nice oh you're probably totally right I mean it was very similar to it if it wasn't it I did laugh at the there is a point in the movie which he figures it out and this thing comes up on his screen that says calculations correct there was so many of those and he's slugging in his USB to the on the server room and so he's cold huddled by the server computer I don't know is anyone JPL do you actually do that sorry you guys don't have networks are is there anyone in astrodynamics who has a giant chalkboard in the room where in the bottom corner you write science exclamation mark like I'm actually I'll bet that's true I'll bet that comes from actual research richell is a steel eyed Rocket Man got a big laugh one of the things about janty Yates the costume designer that I know is that she rigorously researches every last thing to the point of on Gladiator um couldn't find uh couldn't find Roman examples of heels in shoes so she didn't put heels on the shoes of any of the actors which was really rough on the stuntmen because it started hurting their back uh and uh so suffice to say I think Ridley's crew researches incredibly rigorously I will say that for her job as as a costume designer great job making NASA and astronauts so fashionable those sweaters and I said this when the first trailer came out I want everyone of every big neck sweater that that vo is wearing on the spaceship look so good yeah no jumpsuits also Johnson Space Center Johnson Space Center is Gorge doesn't look anywhere near that Co in real life there's no space right and I will say the one the one the one nod to science fiction movies is the Hermes which is a vehicle they go to get to Mars in it's just a large um combination uh standard ship but with a rotational aspect which is really important for it's we talked about this when we when we did the Hatfield videos right right right so it's the rooms on the Hermes SOA ridiculously spacious you would there's just never going to be rooms that big in space until we're living there large and but they did get right and I know it was a complaint of gravity cuz they had both zero g elements in the Hermes which the wire work is as it is there's so much you can do to simulate gravity without actually shooting in in low low earth orbit um they had all the the long hair pulled back so you didn't have the the the bad non-floating that's the way that's the way and in Gravity the hair when she first in space station it does not go out complaint that people had about thead science of gravity and so they had jica's hair down when they were in the the um we'll call it the banana cuz just like seven EES that was the banana yeah um and and then up when they were in the zero g Parts I looking at the way they shot those scenes specifically in the in the cental in the cental ring like thing made me appreciate how disconcerting it would be to be in one of those rooms um I hadn't really thought about it much but it would be like the the the all your frame of reference rotating outside you constantly not in a way that is down would make you would a beautiful shot of Kate Mara spinning around the I'll call the Taurus when uh when Beck is do receiving the um the the resupply mission one of the things that really Scott is so amazing at is what uh is what's called framing um which is telling you the important elements of the story in every shot what characters are in danger what characters are thinking uh where they are within the narrative um but also where you are in space and there there are few directors as good as Ridley Scott at doing that so outside the windows there's always something it's not just interesting going on outside the windows for interesting sake it's I know where I am in Mars in the spaceship on Earth shot to shot I'm never abandoned like Michael Bay where it's like we shot with 60 cameras and we're using all of them in every shot faal awareness yeah basic even great directors like Chris Nolan don't always get action scenes right with a spatial awareness uh this movie didn't have a ton of action scenes though so can we talk about issues we had with the movie should we um yeah oh absolutely but I wanted to talk about there was one more thing and I don't remember remember it was so I'll bring it up later if I remember Norm issues you had with the movie you're you're grumpy Norm I I I I definitely had some issues with the movie and you know it's not beef with the movie It's beef because we only get one movie one adaptation and you reading the book you have the images in your head that you want and so every decision made it's not the decision you had in your head is in some sense your your is a disappointment right which isn't to say it's a bad movie it's a great movie um so if you listen to like the spoilercast we did of the book and talking about how we our hopes and dreams and fears for the adaptation of the movie one of the hopes I had was that on their approach to Earth they would for the crew of the Hermes show what it was they were giving up the extra 500 days and they tried to do that with the the Telecommunications The Voice chats with family back on Earth but we never got that we're approaching the Earth shot this is our home and what home is and now we're going far away and could be the last time we're going away we're so close to coming home but we're what we're sacrificing is all this connection with our friends and family and of humanity to rescue the guy we left behind um which again not not it's not a bad thing they admitted it it's just what I'd hoped I mean I thought that the the overall the passage of time in the back half of the movie kind of things went fast I mean I realized that there was probably a lot for Watney there was a lot of sitting around the hab eating a half a potato a day and whatever it was that he was eating I was waiting for some line about how much he hated potatoes right or the ketchup line was pretty good like no nothing like what's what's Mars coffee well it's just hot water and caffeine and then it's we you know we coffee and tea uh I mean there were lot there was a lot of stuff the space PIR the pirate ninja bit was so yeah the pirate ninja bit is one of my favorite parts of the book in which he needs to figure out what hours per day yeah and he that phrase is too laborious for him to to keep writing so he just decides to shorten it to Pirate ninjas you get space pirate which is nice and and also communicates how he's been away from Earth maybe getting to him a little bit even though that's also his personality the biggest I will actually call this real beef with the movie uh in terms of changes and decisions made was making Lewis the one to rescue him I found that I yeah I agre um and I know they needed the connection of like her guilt and she was one who left them behind so she want to take responsibility but it was so overwrought whereas the soundtrack for all these montage sequen and the buildups were the disco music this was the time when they really brought out the orchestral score of the the the coiling of the cables let me let me let me say this G Drew Goddard is a one of the best screenwriters going right now my guess is that the first draft of this didn't have that or at least the first treatment had it following at the book and when they looked at this character breakdown and they realized we've got this we've got this large crew we can't tell all their stories we can't really tell the story about the affair we can kind of tease to it watney's knowing we're going to have to just we have to start mercilessly slicing stuff out and when we do that we end up in danger I'm saying we the Royal we of I'm trying to put myself in Drew's head um we still need things for the audience to connect to and Lewis's guilt over leaving Watney is actually I think one of the more difficult things to communicate because none of us are mission commanders right and in order to make that a real plot point you need to also give it a resolution now I think that so I think that it is a very reasonable plot choice to make even though it is overwrought again I remember we're we're sullied by having read and loved the book with all of its uh luxurious time for laying out a story Nuance yeah mhm yeah and then in the movie they have a very short time to solve those problems so I don't have any I I think that that's a very natural decision to make absolutely understandable Gina and I talked about this last night too the other thing is in the book she's directly involved like it's it's really clear that everyone on the ship is involved with the rescue attempt right and and that she's helping I can't remember who was out in the in the suit in the book but helping with the feeding course Corrections and all that kind of stuff to make the rescue happen and you lose all of that cuz it's just math that's going to get cut from the film so if you want her to be the driving force she has to be in the suit and I thought that to be honest that rescue of him getting tangled up in her web uh from the ship the 600 meter web webbing um and them spinning around each other uh was absolutely beautiful I was really Blown Away the whole Iron Man bit from Iron Man on was was the only place the movie Lost me and and I felt like because you had whole movie of buildup and you get I I get from a plot point that okay after 500 Days of intense survival this is the last thing and there's still problems you got to solve things on the spot it was also a great moment because you had the 12-minute delay to Earth to use that to cut in The Truman Show yeah Humanity coming together and you had you know there there was Time Square and the cheering but not like the looking up at bars actually it's funny it's funny that you say that I also felt that that was they left a little bit of drama on the table there the other place I felt that drama was left on the table was in watney's first hearing of Commander Lewis's voice in his calm I I thought they didn't quite make it clear that that was the first time he was hearing her we were just hearing her and then we cut to him and to me that's a moment to go to him of like switching a switch and hearing her voice and hearing the first human voice he's heard in 580 days he's an astronaut Adam you get a little had a job to do then still I mean I'm serious but the moment they caught that was when he's face to face with her in the suit and you think he's just going to say oh my God I never thought I was going to see another human again and he said you have terrible taste in music and it is it was one of the biggest laughs in the in the whole movie you do also get that when he first gets um connection back to M with a Pathfinder and that look in his face that communication is happening that is that connection is really there's one joke I was sad uh a couple of dir dirty jokes to talk about one is that um he hadn't showered in over a year when they got and he goes what is this line he says in the book apparently I smell like a skunk took a in a pair of sweat socks yeah it's pretty good um the other thing is is that now we're going to actually say some curses here so kids stop listening you going talk about Montage yeah so the thing is is in a PG-13 movie you're only allowed apparently by the MPAA to say once allegedly allegedly um now there are movies that make great use of this single usage uh case uh probably the greatest ever is Ron Burgundy in which Ron Burgundy is tricked into reading the teleprompter and saying you Sand Diego and it's the it is the hinge of the plot of the film it's the beginning of his downfall it is and it's the most important moment in the film uh and it's a perfect use of one-time use by the MPAA um given that in the book Watney curses almost constantly and the opening line is well I'm pretty much yeah um you're wondering how are they going to do this and I posited with Andy that it was going to be the first line of the film which it might have been in an early draft but it turns out to be the first word you hear Watney actually say no no he has a communication with because he has that he has all the chatter in the in that opening sequence when he's out doing those S after the dister after the disaster post disaster which was also that was a great place to put the title card the Martian when you're showed him buried in the sand and everyone's gone he's deserted is that where they put the title card it's not they put it before the sandstorm um so a little editing things also that might change between now and when it comes out also and they changed his name to Vincent who vanet K Indian and they changed Vincent kapor and then Mindy Park they kept her name but then brought in the actress from hton Catch Fire who I I like a lot um I thought she was great she was great she terrific I just like weird casting things U the one final thing the big I think the really big differentiation from the book I mean you can take out plot points but yeah what a movie adds to a book when there's already so much material to a book says a lot about what the filmmaker wants to do and what the writers want to do and you got an epilogue with the movie um that was never in the book in the book you have this Apollo 13 moment almost where you know you they rescued NASA cheers and then U you have the final log of Mart Watney which is the monologue uh where he talks about humans coming together and why he thinks he was rescued it's essensially the theme of the book not just survival but human connection and and and what NASA and space exploration means uh that monologue is in the trailer it's the opening line of the trailer the first trailer where he talks about in every culture and it is in the script but it's not in the movie they cut it out and instead they give you this epilogue where he's back on Earth he has actual physical touching of the ground recollection of the the plant growing and he becomes a he's a teacher now he's teaching a new astronaut Corp apparently at the new avengeance recrui Avengers recruiting station or something running uh and he does a monologue there which is about problem solving and the difficulties of surviving in space which I think was not as good a substitute for the original monologue I I that's the kind of thing that I find difficult to judge because I have really strong feelings about the the way the book ended I felt like the book kind of just trailed it it it was such a hard stop after such a a delightfully paced path that I needed something I don't know that what what they tacked on is great but I was not unhappy with it one one way to and it was nice to see him back on Earth I'm to Fan edit this you take the you take the dialogue from the trailer which is about survival Norm go right ahead and then when he goes into the classroom and he's talking to the the the new class you Fade Out the audio and then you give him that speech and then use that as a montage to where are the people who help him survive are and then that's you get that's probably better yeah I'd watch that I expect DVD comes out a few more things the guy who is the head of G JPL Bruce Bruce Ang wonderful oh God so good Wong which he was also he's in like two other space movies he was in Prometheus and he was in sunshine was he one of the botanists or something in Prometheus in Prometheus he was the pilot that with along with uh Stringer Bell makes the BET and or not maybe not Stringer Bell but uh they he one they decided to crash the ship and then in sunshine he was the one who the astronaut who makes the math mistake that gets saw and he watched the first two sunsh he was terrific some of the biggest laughs in the so it's a really funny movie we didn't say this up front but we should have the book is hugely hilarious and the movie retains that deep sense of humor even Gallow humor uh that the book had and that's the audience we saw it with was laughing uproariously through many many many parts of the movie yeah the um his his overall performance was was really Delight Matt Damon is incredible Matt Damon is is wonderful and dynamic and perfect perfect casting for Watney and car's I mean that the movie doesn't work if he isn't able to convey four emotions simultaneously in almost every scene ranging from exhaustion to frustration to anger to fear and he did a really lovely job with it the scene the scene where he sends the message to Lewis uh while he I mean I don't think he's actually sending the message to Le while he's sitting looking over the the hill but he sends the message to leis and asks her to go talk to his parents if he doesn't make it is unbelievable yeah um and that's like that's like the NASA Mission I any astronaut would say the same exactly um in fact somebody would have already been assigned at Nasa to they would have already happened to be a uh the liaison to the family for the astronaut who's up in space um yeah yeah I thought it was I thought it was lovely um I found it incredibly moving uh really really exciting and I I can't imagine the mixture of emotions that Andy Weir is going through oh I mean I mean one year it was a almost almost a year ago that I interview on the talking room uh and they had just started principal Photography in Budapest uh and now this movie is out that seems like a crazy amount of time I can't believe that it can be done it's it's really good I mean it has the visual style of you know the Ridley Scott movies that we've all loved um that that may or may not have been great films on their own uh but I I thought this was absolutely lovely highly recommend and yes the space suits completely completely obsess me I want to make one I need to make one you got to get that fancy new GoPro I got to get that GoPro must be very pleased with their treatment in that film Samsung and GoPro that's the only two I saw absolutely um yeah future the future looks good I want to go to Mars man the Future's So Bright we have to wear shades yeah uh that'll do it for us I think this is probably I think the last time we'll probably talk about the Martian on the podcast oh my gosh closure no once the Blu-ray DVD comes out there'll be all these extra materials to go over okay that one's making a space suit I bet yeah right you're okay never mind never mind sorry guys I thought I thought you were done n um thank you guys for listening uh we have a live event coming up at the end of this month in San Francisco go to tested theh show. eventbrite.com and you can get tickets in come uh we also have another event at the end of the month on October 27th uh Adam norm and I are going to Alcatraz we're going to podcast on the Rock on the gentlemen welcome to the Rock I think we'll talk about your swim my swim yes maybe Michael Ba's finest film I actually probably agree with that lot of early Michael Bay is absolutely wonderful Michael Bay's second or third best film and a bunch of other stuff as well uh see you guys next time uh I guess that's it bye bye bye guys oh hey there's more stuff about inside out after this so stay after the ad and you get some inside out business yes bye bye guys today's episode was brought to you by wix.com used by 60 million people throughout the world wix.com empowers business owners to create their own professional websites with dragon drop Builder and hundreds of designer made templates to choose from you can get your website live today it's easy and free go to wix and create your own stunning website today you know when we were talking about inside out last time I the thing that suck with me is that movie is such a weird head trip about and it is about inside your head about determinism cuz those characters have zero agency oh yeah the the main characters they think they do right but they are just manifestations of of the the the human actor I mean you can think of it two different ways you can think of it as she no the the little girl has no agency that's the way I thought which is actually even further than that it was occurring to me that from a Buddhist perspective your emotional landscape is only part of the mental landscape it's not necessarily the most important one and in fact one of the things that I have learned at any given point in any of our Lives we can get have really difficult times where we feel emotionally uh in crisis and when you feel emotionally in crisis the thing that helps me from a Buddhist perspective is to realize I am not in physical danger I my brain and my emotions actually I'm responding from a place of feeling like I might be in physical danger but I'm not so an intellectual part you just came up with the sequel to inside out where where headquarters meets other headquarters well that's the thing I thought that's I what I thought would have been an amazing reveal and inside out would be the realization that there's this entire other landscape you're talking about 11-year-old no I realized that but there's a there's an old Mel Brooks joke is uh Mel Brooks and Carl Riner used to have a party joke that they would do called the 2,000-year old man where Carl Riner would interview Mel Brooks it became a couple of comedy albums that I grew up on and at one point Mel Carl Riner says uh did you always believe in God he goes no no no no what did you believe in before God well we used to believe in Phil what really yeah what who was Phil Phil was a very big man very big man he would he would beat you up right so so one day one day Phil was out walking and the clouds formed and lightning Bol came down and struck Phil and we all looked up and we said there's something bigger than Phil the other thing that uh Dan actually brought up and I didn't know if anyone had written about this before is you know when you go into the mind of the mom and the mind of the dad and other characters they're all uh like one gender so the mom inside the mom's mind all the versions of the emotions are the female versions in the dad's it's it's all male and the boys it's all male and for lots of people you would have many crossovers on that front and so in but in Riley the main character little girl it's it's a mix so what is that is that Pixar's way of saying that is she's still developing like there's I think that's a really lovely way of saying that\n"