'The Martian' Deleted Scene Features Additional Science, More Matt Damon Wisecracking
If you haven't seen The Martian yet, what are you waiting for? Ridley Scott's thrilling, hilarious tribute to science, hope, and human cooperation is the best kind of crowd-pleaser. It never sacrifices brains for heart and, somehow, manages to have plenty of both. A smash hit with audiences, critics, and at the box office, the film has even managed to enter the Oscar discussion. You know a movie is hitting the right notes when a deleted scene hits the internet only one week after opening. You want more? Here's more!
You can watch the Martian deleted scene after the jump.
While this scene doesn't feature or reference any major plot points beyond the first act, the ultra-spoilerphobic who haven't seen the movie may want to tread cautiously. You know who you are.
Like much of Drew Goodard's screenplay, this deleted scene features Matt Damon's Mark Watney making the most of his isolation on the Red Planet by science-ing the crap out of things and letting the wisecracks fly a mile a minute. In this case, he's decided to occupy his long days in the empty Hab by finishing all of the experiments they were unable to conclude before their emergency evacuation. As he is wont to to do, Mark blends smart scientific analysis with dumb jokes, trolling each and every one of his crew mates. Martinez gets the worst of it.
He may be fictional, but surely even real-life scientists can admire Mark's dedication. Neil DeGrasse Tyson would certainly approve.
We're not sure exactly where this scene would've fallen in the actual cut, but Mark looks healthy, his environment looks fresh, and he's working on experiments that would have immediately followed that ill-fated "Sol 18." So it must have come from the first 30-45 minutes. We'll probably know soon, because Ridley Scott is a big fan of releasing extended director's cuts on Blu-ray and DVD. When you watch The Martian at home, this scene may be spliced back in.
Will this disrupt the film's quick, perfect pacing that makes the whole thing feel like a breezy 90 minutes instead of 141 minutes? That's the danger of any director's cut.
While we're talking about the construction of The Martian, fans of before-and-after visual effects shots are going o want to peruse the gallery below. Scott and his crew filmed interiors in Budapest, Hungary, but they used the stunning deserts of Wadi Rum in Jordan to stand in for the Martian exteriors. Still, the sets and Earth's natural vistas required some tinkering in post-production so they'd actually look like Mars. In some of these shots, it's amazing how much a digitally enhanced color palette can do.
Movies are pretty cool, huh?
