Trailer Time: The Martian Trailer #2 (2015) *Will Ridley Mess Up 2014’s Best Book?*

Andy Weir’s science fiction masterpiece, The Martian, was my favorite book of 2014.  I love Matt Damon, I love Jessica Chastain, I love pretty much all the cast of the film and I know Andy Weir was directly involved in the adaptation, but I’m nervous.  It’s not the trailers, which have looked spectacular.  It’s Ridley Scott.  I can’t remember the last film Ridley Scott directed that I liked, which certainly wasn’t always the case.  I so hope this is a return to form for him, because this could be one of the best films of the year if it lives up to its source material.  The Martian lands in theaters on October 2, 2015, kicking off the Fall Movie Season.

 

Trailer Time: The Martian (2015) *Will Ridley Mess Up 2014’s Best Book?*

*Text courtesy of Rolling Stone

Matt Damon strikes a delicate balance between intensity and levity in the new trailer for Ridley Scott’s The Martian, in which the actor plays Mark Watney, an astronaut trying to survive after being accidentally stranded on Mars.

As the clip shows, Watney and his Ares 3 crew are hit by a sudden, severe storm and ordered to evacuate their mission on the red planet; Watney, however, gets caught in the chaos and is left behind and presumed dead. When he wakes up alone, he returns to the Ares 3 base and lays out the dire stakes in a video log: He has no way to communicate with NASA or his crew, and even if he could, it would take four years for another manned mission to reach him (adding to the tension, he only has enough supplies to last him 31 days).

“So in the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option,” Watney says, as he slaps on a pair protective glasses. “I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.”

The ensuing montage finds Watney MacGyver-ing Mars’ arid land into something that can support plant life and rundown equipment into a machine that sends a message to the Ares 3 crew. But while they are adamant about rescuing their abandoned crew mate, NASA rejects the mission. The Ares 3 is forced to go rogue, formulating an intricate plan that could leave them all dead.

The Martian boasts a stacked supporting cast that includes Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Donald Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The screenplay was written by Drew Goddard (World War Z, The Cabin in the Woods) and is based on Andy Weir’s book of the same name.