Near the beginning of the movie, shortly after the scene showing the booster separation, Martian One is shown passing the Moon. In this scene, Earth is illuminated from well behind the viewer's right shoulder while the Moon is illuminated directly from the right. At 93 million miles from the Sun, both orbs would be illuminated from virtually the same vector.
In the opening sequence as the rocket is jettisoning it's boosters etc they move incorrectly. They move quickly at first and slowly after, almost like something would move in water. In reality, they would simply disconnect and fall back to Earth.
About 5 minutes, the ship is approaching Mars after 80 days flight time. This means that are not travelling Faster than light (aka: "FTL"). However, they are shown communicating with Mission Control on Earth with no delay. Depending on the time of the year and each planet's orbit, there is an average delay of 14 minutes. It could be several minutes less or more, but this is the average time of delay.
At the beginning of the movie, when 'Martian 1' is approaching Mars, they are talking with Earth and getting responses in REAL-TIME ... several years BEFORE the Hyperlight Communication system was
invented. The SHORTEST communication time with Mars is a bit over 3 minutes each way (give or take) at its' closest approach, and up to 40 minutes at its' farthest (when we couldn't communicate anyway as the Sun would directly between us).
This is time compression. Everybody is aware of the time gap but few people would sit still for a movie with ten or so minutes between queries and responses.
This is time compression. Everybody is aware of the time gap but few people would sit still for a movie with ten or so minutes between queries and responses.
When Mack is treating Sterling after ARTI bops him in the head, the actor that plays Sterling seems to be very visibly breathing, even though he is supposed to be dead.