The Martian

The Martian (2015)

20 mistakes since 17 Feb '17, 00:00

(8 votes)

Other mistake: During the storm scene in the beginning of the movie, the astronauts' faces inside the helmets are brightly lit, meaning there's a light source pointed directly in their face. That's something that would render them mostly blind and unable to see and appears to be nothing but a dramatic effect for the camera. (00:05:00 - 00:08:00)

Other mistake: Rich Purnell explains his plan to redirect the Hermes to Mars in order to rescue Watney, positioning people to represent planets and using a stapler to show the trajectory of the vessel. He is talking to experienced, qualified engineers and technologists working at a very high level on the space programme. They don't need drama school play acting to be understand things like this. He could have explained his plan in the most complex and abstruse terms and they would have been way ahead of him.

PEDAUNT

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Suggested correction: This isn't really a mistake. Yes, the character oversimplified the explanation but, as is shown when the character is introduced, he doesn't exhibit typical social behaviour. To him it's probably normal to explain things that way to strangers (which is basically what the people he's talking to are).

I think this is one of those borderline mistakes. Movies and TV shows often have a character over-simplify things, especially when involving science, for the audiences' sake and not for any of the characters. This type of mistake is similar to when characters start a conversation, but the show skips time by having characters arrive at a new location in the next scene without showing them traveling, but then the characters continue their conversation for the audiences' sake.

Bishop73

Other mistake: The photo that is taken of Watney doing the Fonz pose is in vertical lines, much like the satellite imagery. However, the camera that took this photo was the pathfinder, which took normal black and white images, as seen in the "Yes" "No" question card scene.

David Atkinson

Continuity mistake: When Vincent Kapoor is talking about getting Congress to fund a sixth Aeries mission, he states Aeries 3 evacuated after 18 SOLs. Near the beginning of the movie, after Mark Watney regains consciousness and returns to the HAB, you see Rover 2 parked behind the HAB with the crew cab facing away from the HAB. Later when Mindy Parks is comparing the SOL 18 and SOL 54 pictures, Rover 2, in the SOL 18 picture, is turned 180° (with the crew cab facing toward the HAB) from what we saw when Mark returned to the HAB on SOL 18.

Continuity mistake: During the segment showing the rocket carrying supplies exploding, Teddy is shown in the background walking out of the control room. However in the next scene Teddy is standing with others in the control room.

Factual error: Teddy tells Purnell that he is the "director" of NASA. The chief of NASA is referred to as the administrator, not director.

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Suggested correction: This could be a deliberate mistake. Is common in business for an "administrator" to be a clerical / entry level role (I've worked in such places). Referring to the character as Administrator of NASA could cause confusion in people not familiar with NASAs structure. By contrast, Director is likely to be understood by everyone as someone in charge, even if it's officially incorrect.

Revealing mistake: When Mark builds his HAB greenhouse, he surrounds the growing area with sheet plastic. Later, when making his first attempt at lighting the hydrogen to produce water, there is a small explosion, which throws Mark back across the HAB. Given that an open-air explosion will produce a 360 degree shock wave, there should have been a noticeable disturbance to the plastic sheeting throughout the HAB, but the only disturbance we see to the plastic sheeting is the location where Mark is blown into it.

Continuity mistake: After breaking his helmet (with the "2" on the right side camera and with the name "Watney" on the back, he replaces it with one with no name and no number on the camera. However during the scene when he is preparing for the final trip, in shots of him manhandling solar arrays he has his old helmet on again. (01:34:25)

The Martian mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Right after Matt Damon wakes up from the storm, while he goes back to the base, his costume has a small backpack with a "2" written on it. After he closes the second door the scene cuts and the backpack is gone. (00:12:25)

Character mistake: The flags (both USA and China) on Iris 2 when hung vertically, were hung incorrectly, and appeared as such on the cover of the "Times." They should have been "reversed" so that canton is still in the upper left hand corner. (01:30:35)

Plot hole: Rich Purnell started his calculations that required the Hermes to dock with the Tieyang Shen well before Teddy, the Director of NASA, found out about the confidential information about the Tieyang Shen even having enough fuel to be the booster.

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Suggested correction: I don't think that is correct. When he first comes up with the idea to reroute the Hermes back to Mars he was thinking about/ working on the calculations for the original probe before it blew up.

Factual error: During Watney's funeral, a Marine is carrying the United States Flag in what is supposed to be a multi-service color guard. In any joint ceremony, as the senior service, the Army always carries the National Colors and commands the color guard. (00:19:17)

Continuity mistake: When Vincent draws the line on the Martian landscape picture and comes to the conclusion Mark is heading for Pathfinder, in the long shot, Mindy, who is standing next to Vincent, holds her left hand up by her face and her right arm down by her side. As Vincent begins to walk away, the camera instantly cuts to a close up of Mindy's face and now her right hand is up by her face and her left arm is down by her side.

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Suggested correction: It is possible Martinez brought more than one cross and the one Mark is holding while lying down isn't the one he was whittling just before.

Other mistake: When Mark Watney is adjusting the solar panels of the path finder there are a few frames where he adjusts a small solar panel and you can see the actor is a completely different person.

Factual error: Earth's moon is in the frame as a clear crescent after the explosion when Mark goes out. Mars' moons are not spherical, so can't appear like that. (01:10:00 - 01:11:00)

Factual error: When the airlock blows off the "garden" section of the Hab, the initial leaks shows gases flowing to the inside of the chamber. The building pressure should be flowing to the outside as the airlock pressurizes.

kaevanoff

Continuity mistake: Before planting the potatos he has to bring dirt into the HAB. The dirt on Mars is red due to high iron content. When we go to an inside view of the same dirt it's brown like here on earth.

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Suggested correction: He mixed it with the poop (which is usually brown) from himself and all the other astronauts.

Quantom X

Other mistake: When Matt Damon is brought back onto the Hermes, he is surrounded by his crewmates who are not in spacesuits. All air from the Hermes outside the control room had been expelled by the explosion, and could not have been replaced in the recovery time frame.

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Suggested correction: The first priority would have been to only replenish the air in the corridors leading from the bridge to the airlock, since these are the 2 locations the crew need access to. They did not need to replace all the air in the ship at once, just a relatively small area.

Mark Watney: I admit it's fatally dangerous, but I'd get to fly around like Iron Man.

More quotes from The Martian

Trivia: The secret project created to use the Hermes to return to Mars to rescue Watney was called Project Elrond, a reference from the Lord of the Rings (also used in the original book of The Martian). Mitch Henderson, played by Sean Bean, was an attendee at the Project Elrond meeting. Sean Bean also played Boromir, who was an attendee at the Council of Elrond in the LOTR movie.

Blathrop

More trivia for The Martian

Answer: In the book, he's stranded on sol 6, and leaves on sol 549, making it 543 sols (554 days). In the movie, he's stranded on Sol 18 and leaves on sol 561, making it 542 sols.

More questions & answers from The Martian

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