Revealing mistake: When Mark builds his HAB greenhouse, he surrounds the growing area with sheet plastic. Later, when making his first attempt at lighting the hydrogen to produce water, there is a small explosion, which throws Mark back across the HAB. Given that an open-air explosion will produce a 360 degree shock wave, there should have been a noticeable disturbance to the plastic sheeting throughout the HAB, but the only disturbance we see to the plastic sheeting is the location where Mark is blown into it.
The Martian (2015)
1 revealing mistake - chronological order
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara
Factual error: When the crew is walking around the area of the Hermes with artificial gravity created by spinning the ship, the angle of the crew members' bodies should be perpendicular to the curved floor of the ship. However, in multiple shots, the crew standing at different locations of the room are seen standing at the same angle, directly upright.
Mark Watney: I don't want to come off as arrogant here, but I'm the best botanist on the planet.
Trivia: The secret project created to use the Hermes to return to Mars to rescue Watney was called Project Elrond, a reference from the Lord of the Rings (also used in the original book of The Martian). Mitch Henderson, played by Sean Bean, was an attendee at the Project Elrond meeting. Sean Bean also played Boromir, who was an attendee at the Council of Elrond in the LOTR movie.
Question: If the MAV could be blown over by a storm of sufficient force, wasn't it very risky dropping the Ares IV Mav five years in advance of the mission?
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: The crew (and mission control) are in constant contact with the previously dropped MAV and would have aborted the mission and continued back to Earth had the MAV become inoperable before their arrival. Weir states this explicitly early in the book.
Answer: Yes, it is very risky unless the new Ares MAV is in an area with much calmer weather patterns.