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As the second trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Martian hits cinemas and websites, little tidbits of behind the scenes information are also starting to surface.
It’s recently been revealed that director Ridley Scott and actor Matt Damon consulted experts from NASA on how to make the circumstances of the movies as scientifically accurate as they possibly could. And it turns out that the technology and the space travels portrayed in The Martian aren’t that far off from reality.
Damon gave a statement to Reuters saying that “We’re kind of on the cusp of being able to do everything that happens in the movie”. He went on to add that if scientists had “the right funding and the right attention” they could be exploring the same things seen in the movie.
He also believes that we will eventually get there and that “this is going to be a part of our kids’ lives”.
The upcoming Sci-Fi movie is based on a book written by Andy Weir back in 2011. It has the same title as the movie and tells the story of Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is left behind on planet Mars after his team is led to believe that he died during a powerful Martian storm.
He now has to find a way to grow enough food to sustain himself for several years, as well as figure out how to contact his teammates, led by Captain Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), in order to inform them that he is still alive.
But even if his teammates receive the message and manage to get approval for a rescue mission or to secretly organize one, the spacecraft will still take four (4) years to reach Mars and the Red Planet is unpredictable. Watney will have to use his botany skills as well as his wits if he is to survive the long wait and maintain his sanity.
The new trailer was released earlier this week, on Wednesday (August 19, 2015), and puts an empathies on the main character’s determination as well as his dry wit.
Damon said that he was very happy to bring to life the character that Weir created because he is a really smart, really capable guy with a great sense of humor, but an even greater type of gallows humor “that people who do this kind of work tend to have”.
On Tuesday, to celebrate the release of the second trailer, Fox and Damon hosted an event at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California). The lab is specialized in planetary science and is know for launching Mars’ Curiosity rover back in 2011.
Journalist who attended the event were given a tour and Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science, offered them an explanation why the science in the movie isn’t far from what could happen in the near future – he and his team were consultants of the movie and provided Scott and Damon with real world theories and information.
Image Source: ignimgs.com
