What better venue could there be to enjoy a movie about space than space itself? Over this past weekend, that’s exactly what the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) did as they were treated to an early screening of the upcoming sci-fi film The Martian.
The Martian, which is based on the Andy Weir novel of the same name, stars Matt Damon as an astronaut who is presumed dead during a journey to Mars and left behind on the Red Planet. The film shows his struggles to stay alive with the hopes that he will ultimately be rescued.
While the film, which co-stars Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, and Kate Mara, is not due out until next month, the ISS crew were able to get an early sneak peek while in zero gravity.
According to Entertainment Weekly, astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren took to social media to share photos of their fellow crew members watching the film, and Lindgren tweeted out that it was a treat to watch the movie and “see reflections of our own journey to Mars!”
Thumbs up or thumbs down?
In the movie, Damon’s character attempts to survive on Mars for four years in a habitat which was only designed to support him for a month, according to CNET. Kelly, who is in the middle of a one-year mission in space, is participating in a series of experiments to see how the human body and mind might respond to an actual mission to Mars.
While neither Kelly nor Lindgren, who had the opportunity to speak to Damon via phone as the actor toured NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California last month, publicly shared their reviews of the movie, they appeared to enjoy the experience. Both of the astronauts previously said they liked the book and were looking forward to the movie.
The Martian is not the first movie that the ISS astronauts have been able to see in zero gravity. In fact, it isn’t even the first depicting a space-related mishap, as the crew of the orbiting laboratory previously viewed the Oscar-winning film Gravity, Philly.com said. As for those of us stuck here on Earth, we will get our first chance to see The Martian when it comes out in the US on October 2.
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Feature Image: Scott Kelly/Twitter
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