{"id":5676,"date":"2015-10-15T14:18:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T18:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=5676"},"modified":"2015-10-16T00:54:47","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T04:54:47","slug":"in-which-i-write-about-a-movie-i-havent-seen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=5676","title":{"rendered":"in which i write about a movie i haven&#8217;t seen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have not seen <em>The Martian<\/em>, and probably won&#8217;t, but this article annoyed me: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/richard-brody\/whats-missing-from-the-martian\" target=\"_blank\">What&#8217;s Missing from The Martian?<\/a>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>The premise of the piece, in brief, is that <em>The Martian<\/em> is an amazing technical achievement, but that we don&#8217;t get enough, or maybe any, background on any of the characters, including the protagonist.<\/p>\n<p>I think this is a really incorrect approach to movie writing (and, really, writing in general). Matt Damon&#8217;s character is stuck alone on Mars for years, and he survives (spoiler, I guess). He uses science to solve problems, and maintains his sense of humor. That&#8217;s not enough? You also need a family life and what movies he likes and watching him play solitaire?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not enough to watch a character do something extraordinary? <\/p>\n<p>To take another example from Ridley Scott, how much information do we get about Ripley in <em>Alien<\/em>? Not a heck of a lot, and <em>Alien<\/em> is pretty damn awesome anyway.<\/p>\n<p>This also makes me think about <em>Good Night, and Good Luck.<\/em> In that (excellent) film, we see Edward R. Murrow play a vital part in changing history, and we learn almost nothing about his personal life. Which is fine with me.  <\/p>\n<p>Not that it&#8217;s bad to include the personal stuff, but it&#8217;s not essential when you&#8217;re telling about somebody doing something amazing.<\/p>\n<p>Also, I have to say that the movie (<em>The Martian<\/em>) is 144 minutes long already.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder, by the way, whether Scott decided to make this movie, about a scientist surviving because of his scientific knowledge and creativity, to make up for the &#8220;scientists&#8221; in <em>Prometheus<\/em>, who were all nitwits and psychotics.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-bottom-left\"><a href=\"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F5676&#038;print=pdf\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-pdf\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/pdf.png\" alt=\"image_pdf\" title=\"View PDF\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F5676&#038;print=print\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_blank\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have not seen The Martian, and probably won&#8217;t, but this article annoyed me: &#8220;What&#8217;s Missing from The Martian?&#8220; The premise of the piece, in brief, is that The Martian is an amazing technical achievement, but that we don&#8217;t get enough, or maybe any, background on any of the characters, including the protagonist. I think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5676"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5682,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5676\/revisions\/5682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}