I rewatched The Martian and totally forgot how optimistic this movie is about technology, America, and international relations 
when this movie came out in 2015 my little liberal ass loved it. i still believed in a future.
we dont even have bazinga mars nerds anymore just different flavors of “i wont eat the bugs” all clawing at each other to climb out of a pit rapidly filling with water
xi i will scrub toilets please give me a K visa 
Imagine thinking the US isn’t obsessed with world domination and could peacefully coexist with a rival foreign power.
People seriously believed musk would save us all and be on mars in 2023. Like so much that several sci-fi properties (Star Trek, Mass Effect, etc…) mentioned it.
The book is really enjoyable. The liberalism is annoying, but I loved the suspense and the Real Science™. I haven’t read it since it came out, but the movie was just fine, comparatively speaking
I’ve never seen the movie (which I’ve heard is actually pretty good) but a couple months before the movie came out I did read the book, which I despised. Not really because of the lib politics and optimistic internationalism, I just hate the way Weir writes. A guy gets trapped alone on Mars, surely doomed to die, and he powers through it by going “fuck yeah, I love science.”
2001: A Space Odyssey is great because it uses the backdrop of the space race and the visual language of Science Fiction (or I guess literal language in the case of the novel) to explore some big ideas about the human condition: isolation, duty, regression, depravity, hope, the incomprehensible beauty and impossibility of existence. The Martian uses the backdrop of a man trapped in the most horrifying situation imaginable to geek out about how cool it is that potatoes could be grown in a shit-slurry. Which, in fairness, is perhaps mildly interesting but is lacking in the necessary pathos and artistic drive to really make engaging fiction.
I don’t know, clearly a lot of people love Weir’s whole shtick, but it’s very much not my thing. It’s far too safe.
Believe it or not, The Martian is a joy to read compared to Project Hail Mary. It’s basically the same story except even more juvenile and reminded me of One-Dimensional Man because of the simplistic story, the glorification of technology and the unity of international action. It was really stupid. Not even Gosling can save that story.
I read The Martian when it came out and generally liked it (can’t say I would like it now) but the movie is unwatchable. I saw it in theaters and hated how sterile it felt and how the side characters were so flat. I tried rewatching it and I fucking turned off the tv when he says “I’m gonna science the shit out of this.”
It was a little similar in For All Mankind, where the USSR doesn’t collapse (because they got the moon landing first - it’s a space show so whatever, sure) and the “space race” continues to spur impressive feats.
But it very, very, quickly libs out and stops imagining this leading to a better future, just better technology - and almost all of the American cast are fucking awful liabilities.
I gave up on that after the 4th episode. Friends recommended it because I would like it. I’m assuming because the USSR still exists in the show but the POV of the show is just Americans the entire time
Weir’s latest book, project hail Mary, had a scene where the US army and the PLA jointly march into a courthouse to inform the judge and ballifs that the main characters are above copyright law actually.
I hate the way he writes. Characters are all interchangeable and quirky because he says so. The science is tacked on like a chemistry teacher putting their kids to bed.
SciFi: Read Larry Niven and James Blish if you like feats of engineering, read Ann Leckie and Nancy Kress if you like characters defined by their actions.
Don’t tell me to be excited Andy just because you wrote “THAT’S SOO COOL!” after revealing some tidbit. I’m not a fucking child.
That’s getting a movie too, and I’m honestly kinda looking forward to pirating it and seeing the
sort of a project hail mary spoiler, but a pretty early one and also kind of the main premise of the story
little alien buddy
The second half of the 2010s unloaded an aa-12 magazine into the overall global mood until 2020 arrived and gave it a “mercy kill” via grenade launcher, after which it woke up into the deepest realm of hell
Yeah, seeing the level of US-China cooperation is pretty shocking today
never watched the movie but i liked the book. it was like the dark chocolate of sci fi - not a lot going on besides tech and science but the tech and science was super good.
i feel you on the optimistic vision of technology tho. it’s not just him but the decline of musk’s reputation feels like it dragged the entirety of the tech world with him, tesla went from being an optimistic venture into future tech to being a stock market grift, we’ve got peter thiel talking about the antichrist, america as a whole is canceling green energy projects and increasing fossil fuel consumption, sam altman is saying that we need to burn more fossil fuels in order to run more ai chatbots because that will somehow fix everything…
still got a SpaceX shirt in my closet. I think I got it over ten years ago. reminds me of where I was at.
still got a SpaceX shirt in my closet. I think I got it over ten years ago. reminds me of where I was at.
Ten years ago I think is an acceptable statute of limitations on that. Back then, SpaceX leadership hadn’t gone fascist, and the fight in the launch industry was about advanced tech from an underdog group with zero military ties versus the military-industrial complex like Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Now of course everything is different but I wouldn’t feel bad about having acquired that shirt then.
I like star trek. Mainly because it tries to explore what humanity could be if we stopped fighting over resources and spent our energy trying to hook up with aliens and build paradise planets.
spent our energy trying to hook up with aliens
What happens is a red blooded texan twink gets impregnated by an alien through touching their magic rocks, oh and all of Florida gets lasered during space 9/11
um actually, that red blooded mpregged twink was floridian, not texanah fuck, ah shit, my credentials are revoked
all of Florida gets lasered during space 9/11
I’m gonna cum
https://youtu.be/V92Ypi5_ixE heres the clip so you can cum more, unfortunately it also cuts cuba in half
Honestly really underwhelming like it kinda just lazily fired for a bit and then fucked off? what even was the point of that
Blowback, this one is for the brave mujahideen of the Xindi
Cuba
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
volcel police
The VOLCEL POLICE are on the scene! PLEASE KEEP YOUR VITAL ESSENCES TO YOURSELVES AT ALL TIMES.
نحن شرطة VolCel.بناءا على تعليمات الهيئة لترويج لألعاب الفيديو و النهي عن الجنس نرجوا الإبتعاد عن أي أفكار جنسية و الحفاظ على حيواناتكم المنويَّة حتى يوم الحساب. اتقوا الله، إنك لا تراه لكنه يراك.
Which Star Trek was this?
Enterprise
Holy shit I saw it for the first time like 2 nights ago and thad similar thoughts. Just made me kind of sad. Like a little misty as I thought “I wish we could have a world more like that instead”.
It’s a perfectly alright film. I don’t have much to say about it otherwise.
Wasn’t a plot point in The Martian an emergency repeal on the Obama ban on doing space stuff with China?
I dont remember any obama bits but i was p high. cooperation is a big part of it though
They don’t mention that it was Obama’s fault, but when China offers to send some supplies I think they mention the ban on NASA working with China that he signed into law
oh yeah there was a cool scene where they speak mandarin but i had subtitles off and by the time i realized i dont know mandarin it was over. typical american L
You’re not missing out. The spoken Mandarin in that movie was extremely bad. I couldn’t even follow as a native speaker.
we dont even have bazinga mars nerds anymore just different flavors of “i wont eat the bugs” all clawing at each other to climb out of a pit rapidly filling with water
It’s vision of US-China cooperation becomes more sci-fi by the day, depressing.
