halfway through the film and shouted, "Don't worry folks, it's only a movie!"?

Mark Watney Wouldn't Really Last That Long on Mars.

Informative in just a few minutes.

Thank you for the post.

...Batman would be a deranged psychopath who would be apprehended in minutes.

Pretty Woman would be a psychological wreck with multiple STDs and drug dependencies.

Christian Grey would be a serial killer.

Captain Kirk would have been booted from Starfleet for insubordination.

In the meantime, let's enjoy the movie. Pass the popcorn.

... and make up stories about all kinds of things he did that "of course StarFleet is gonna deny".

"real science-y" I expect an enjoyable sci-fi film to be.

I guess if its plot is closer to what seems like real life (everybody knows there's no Batman) the more I expect in the way of verisimilitude.

But I like Batman.

I always thought that the first time it looked like we were facing almost certain death I would have led the mutiny to put Spock in charge.
I know there were multiple plots where it was Kirk's "human intuition" that saved the day, but who would you want making decisions if your survival was on the line?

to pass his fitness test!

kirk was quite up to the established norm....

But Dwayne Johnson would.

into submission.

to get away from the rest of us, our resources, labor and technology...to be pure!

Especially as our robots and control technology become increasingly sophisticated.

If we humans ever do occupy lands beyond earth (which seems very unlikely) it will be by some science and technology yet undiscovered. (Anti-gravity, A Wrinkle in Time tesseract, that sort of thing...)

Otherwise outer space is a realm for our intellectual descendants, engineered creatures who may be human-like or not, who are fully adapted to environments deadly to natural humans.

Witnessing how we treat the other intelligent beings we share this planet with, even among our own species, I'm not sure we are worthy of occupying any more lands, not here on earth, and not in space. If some catastrophe on earth wipes us out, especially a catastrophe of our own making, then oh well, that's how the rocks bounce. The universe is very large, our human civilization is very small. The vast majority of earthly species are extinct. Join the club.

Philosophically, I think our manned space programs are in essence the last gasp of our ancient anthropocentric religions, in which earth is considered the center of the universe, and mankind some god's greatest creation.

I'll tell you what, if you enjoy science fiction, the earth is crawling with alien biologist grad students and a quite a few professors too. They're focus of study is not humans. We are boring to them. Throw down a few automated sensors, the data can be collected automatically, and sent home to be studied at leisure.

Nope, most of the space alien biologists living here on Earth are studying beetles and they can't even be bothered to say "hello" to us. We may even be annoying to them.

Read up on Haldane if you'd like an unsanitized view of 20th century science, politics, and philosophy. It was messy.

Philosophically, I think our manned space programs are in essence the last gasp of our ancient anthropocentric religions, in which earth is considered the center of the universe, and mankind some god's greatest creation.

No, don't think so. If my great-grandkids can vacation on or otherwise visit Mars, I want that world for them, for them to see what humanity became capable of during their lifetimes.

Its exactly because I celebrate our planet not being the center of the universe that I think this.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22680192

That's a strange religion.

I hope my great grandkids have someplace comfortable to live, enough to eat, and someone to love.

Should they learn how to talk to Orcas in the wild, adapt communities of all species to a rapidly changing natural environment, or do some kind of cutting edge medicine or science, that would thrill me.

Landing human beings on Mars is simply an expression of the human ego and self-centeredness.

Hey! Look at Me!

There's no difference between "God says I'm Special!" and "We say we're Special!"

In fact they are EXACTLY the same thing, which ought to be especially obvious to any atheist.

We loved it, laughed out loud at times.

Since when did movies about science fiction need to be scientifically accurate? Does the general population need to be re-educated on the meaning of the word fiction?? There are lots of examples to help them. Ben Carson's autobiography comes to mind.

Am planning to see the movie soon.