Writer Drew Goddard Talks Scripting Ridley Scott's 'The Martian'
While Ridley Scott's takes all the credit for the enormous success of his return to the sci-fi genre, screenwriter Drew Goddard defied any doubts with his adaptation of Andy Weir's jargon-heavy novel.
Mixing human drama with heavy science fiction elements, The Martian reached a wide audience with a character so wholly accessible in a situation that is ripe for sympathy. It wasn't always easy for Goddard, though, and he spoke about one particular scene he had trouble with:
"There's one scene that stands out as being especially difficult. I essentially called it the 'Matt sets up the third act' scene, and it's just a monologue. We had this concept of what the third act is, which is that we're going to launch Matt into space in a tin can. That's it.
"When we explained that that was going to happen, we needed to explain why, and we needed to explain the velocity involved in what's going to happen, because one of the things that's hard about filmmaking is speed can be difficult.
"For example, if you look at race cars on tracks, you need to see them blowing past something to understand that they're moving at a high rate. It's perspective. The problem with launching off the surface of a planet is, we really wanted to sell how dangerous all of this was about to be. It was this exposition that I was struggling with, of just Matt Damon talking."
He went on to discuss how having protagonist Mark Watney discuss the manipulation of the heads at NASA, who were priming him for a life-threatening departure from Mars with bold statements to try to put him at ease for the whole situation. And ultimately the hard work paid off.
Source: Slashfilm
