The initial trailer for Ridley Scott’s **The Martian touched down online back in June. Here comes the second, which adds a little more detail, but do beware spoilers if you haven't read the book.
Matt Damon stars as NASA astronaut Mark Watney, seriously injured and thought dead by his crewmates on Mars during a huge storm that forced them to evacuate. But Watney is very much alive, and intends to stay that way, putting his botanical skills and astronaut survival training to good use, figuring out ways to live with limited supplies. Fortunately, he’s also got a wry sense of humour to keep him sane.
Back on Earth, meanwhile, NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) and some of his team (Chiwetel Ejiofor’s mission overseer, Kristen Wiig’s media relations expert, Mackenzie Davis’ tech and Sean Bean’s crew supervisor) have to decide what to do, especially when they discover Watney’s non-dead status. And then there are his crewmates, headed back to Earth on the Hermes ship, and seemingly kept in the dark about Mark’s status. How will Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), tech expert Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), flight surgeon Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), and German astronaut Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie) respond when they, too, learn that there is life on Mars, and he’s busy growing food?
Ridley Scott and Matt Damon, along with representatives from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California recently brought 49 minutes of footage to show at a cinema near the scientific establishment, and Scott in particular talked about what inspired him to make the film given that this isn’t exactly his first cinematic trip away from Terra firma. “Sci-fi is mostly fantasy, and what was attractive about this is the reality of the situation. I always liked The Right Stuff, which got into the early days of the astronauts, and this, while not the same at all, offered the reality of the situation, the challenges an astronaut may have in 15-20 years,” he said. “In essence, this film is about a guy who controls all the feelings about what a terrible situation he's in, and where he is and therefore will look for that internally inside himself and pull out the elements that might make things humorous. He has to do that hour by hour, day by day, so don't be surprised if you find yourself laughing with him, you're allowed to laugh!”
Damon also found himself drawn to Mark’s sarcastic, scientific nature. “I think a lot of people, including myself really responded to the character in the book that Andy wrote, and Drew (Goddard, the screenwriter) did a great job of capturing that. So it's like being a chef and getting a really good piece of meat to cook; you don't want to overthink it and mess it up too much and bronze the gold medal. I just wanted to keep alive what Andy created,” he said. “I think mere mortals like us are captivated by how people like this can do this sort of thing and maintain the preternatural calm in these incredible high stress situations. And that was really attractive about the character, how he kept his sense of humour and this incredible, logical, practical, problem-solving type of thinking, and it's what the real astronauts can actually do.”
The Martian will be on our screens on September 30.