Ridley Scott’s The Martian will go down as one of the director’s greatest triumphs and now that the film has arrived on DVD and Blu-Ray, it is a chance to marvel at his film, and also delve deeper into how he made such movie magic.
The Martian, based on the bestselling novel by Andy Weir, follows the extraordinary effort of astronaut Mark Watley to stay alive after being abandoned on Mars and the equally astounding job everyone on Earth did to rescue him. Watley was a member of a Mars exploratory team that was forced to evacuate the Red Planet when a storm charged its way through and threatened their collective lives. Believing that their colleague was dead, the crew took off into the heavens. Surprise! He was alive and somehow he has to figure out how to stay alive on a planet that is littered with death and simultaneously communicate to the people at home that he is in dire need of a rescue.
As you can tell from our theatrical The Martian review and the fact that the film is on our top 15 of 2015, The Movie Mensch absolutely adored this film. It is a celebration of intelligence and a lesson in how much we as humans can do when we work together towards a common goal.
The Martian Blu-Ray has over 90 minutes of special features, most notably one led by stars Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean as the characters they portray in the movie, delving deeper into the cinematic world of The Martian. In the 17-minute featurette Ares III: Refocused, they discuss the “true” story behind the daring rescue as they look back with the perspective of time. The bonus feature takes place seven years after Watley was brought home.
Our favorite part features the delightful bickering between Bean and Daniels’ NASA big wigs!
Ares III: Refocused is a terrific bonus feature and a gift to anyone who cherished the movie itself. It also should serve as a reminder that studios need to be more creative with their home video extras. The audience is becoming much shrewder and as such, getting more creative like bonus materials that feature characters from the movie in faux documentary type settings, well, that is just brilliant and we need to see more of that.
There are other in-movie bonus features that keep the astounding creative juices flowing. The Right Stuff borrows the name of the iconic space race movie in its three-minute look at how Damon and the crew met with a NASA psychologist during their training process. Don’t blink or you will miss Watley’s insight into Aquaman and how his sea powers truly work.
The producers of The Martian tap celebrated scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson for a four minute featurette, Ares: Our Greatest Adventure. Tyson hosts a “show” called StarTalk which finds Tyson providing scientific background to why this Mars mission is so profound.
Given that film is, today, such a director’s medium and the fact that this movie would be nothing without the insight and talent of Scott, Signal Acquired: Writing and Direction is also a priceless addition to this package. It showcases how producers and the film’s director took a beloved novel and a supremely talented cast and managed to craft as perfect as a film as one could ask for.
Speaking of that stellar cast, Occupy Mars: Casting and Costumes finds Damon and other cast members – such as Jessica Chastain and Kate Mara — talking about their roles in the film and how each felt the responsibility of the weight of the story in impeccably capturing who each of their characters are at various points in the harrowing tale. In addition, 14-minute featurette finds the costume designers sharing insight into how the folks at NASA were priceless helps in closing the gap between sketching a costume and creating one that is flawlessly real.
Finally, gag reels in comedy Blu-Ray releases are nothing new. But in dramas, they are few and far between. Thank goodness The Martian cast had some serious gags, because the seven-minute-plus gag reel that’s included on the film’s Blu-Ray is hysterical and also simultaneously gives insight into the impeccably cast and director chemistry that permeated this shoot.
Film: A+
Bonus Features: A