Ridley Scott Says He Knew About Water On Mars Months Ago
When NASA announced yesterday that Mars does have water, those of us in the film world wondered how the news would affect Ridley Scott's upcoming film The Martian. In an interview with The Guardian, Scott reveals that he knew about the big announcement "months ago":
“When I first talked to Nasa, we got into all kinds of stuff and I said: ‘So I know you’ve got [these] massive glaciers.’ And [they] said, ‘Yeah, that massive white thing [on the surface of Mars] that gets covered with dust, we think that’s ice ... And I said, ‘Wow! Does that mean there was an ocean? Are we right now what Mars was 750 m years ago?’ And they went, ‘Uh, good question.’ So they want to go up there and find out.”
Of course NASA told Scott this two months ago...long after The Martian had finished filming, but he's not all that worried about it. Despite the fact the film became "dated" just a few days before its release, Scott has no regrets, saying Matt Damon's character creating water is one of the more interesting sequences of the film. That being said, he did outline how he would've changed it had the information come to light sooner:
“He would have found the edge of a glacier, definitely. It would be fascinating..."