10 Movie “Mistakes” That Were Put There Intentionally

At the start of Ridley Scott's The Martian, Matt Damon is left stranded on Mars as a result of a raging dust storm that separates him from the rest of his crew.

The storm is seen absolutely battering the crew and damaging valuable equipment, but if you take this same situation and give it a real-life context, then the outcome would not be nearly as devastating.

Dave Lavery, Program Executive for Solar System Exploration at NASA and a consultant on the film, confirmed as much in a chat with IFLScience:

“Dust storms certainly do occur on Mars, they get winds in excess of 100mph... but a 100mph wind on Mars, because the atmosphere is so thin, has the same inertia and dynamic pressure down at the surface as about an 11mph wind on Earth. It’s not going to have the sort of energy to move large objects the way that is portrayed in the book and the film.”

But without a devastating inciting incident, there is no movie, and so - fully aware that a real Mars dust storm wouldn't have the same punch in real life - the filmmakers (and author of the original novel, Andy Weir) chose to include a damaging one anyway, just to move the plot along.