10 Glaring Goofs That Will Ruin 2015's Best Films For You
7. Water On Mars - The Martian
Ridley Scott was back with a bang in September, enlisting the services of Matt Damon to give Andy Weirs best-selling novel The Martian the Hollywood treatment. The story of marooned and presumed-dead astronaut Mark Watney is surprisingly fast-paced considering his circumstances, with a typically endearing Damon dealing with everything Mars throws at him with a Robinson Crusoe level of ingenuity. In his own words, he has to science the shi* of out of the place to survive, though some of the science he uses is maddeningly inaccurate. Perhaps the biggest example of this is the plastic sheet he uses to repair the airlock breach. A hole large enough for him to walk through was blown in the side of his base, meaning said hole had to have been at least two meters in diameter. In reality, that sheet would have needed to contend with 3.2 tons of pressure if it was to hold after he stabilised the airlock and would have been torn in an instant. As cool as it looks fluttering in the crazy Mars winds, it just wouldnt happen. The Martian also contained a glaring factual error, though one that really couldnt be helped. The entire film revolves around Mars being devoid of any water source and Watney desperately trying to create his own, though in the weeks preceding the premier news broke that NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had spotted evidence of flowing water on the planet. Scott said that it was simply too late to include the discovery in the narrative, and admitted that he would have changed it had he known in time.
