The Martian - Looks nice, overall look is not distracting, worked for the film.
But, mechanical counter pressure suits (MCP) or "Squeeze suits" have been a dream concept for years. (See
Webb Space Activity suit) This idea has been given new inspiration by Dava Newman's
Biosuit project. Which by the way, was never a real suit. They never had a working prototype.
The issue with these suits is there are too many physiological side effects / issues to make them a practical idea.
First, fit. They have to be custom made for each wearer, and they do not allow the skin to breath. You also need to apply sufficient pressure to the whole body, or blood will pool in any area not under sufficient pressure. Air pressure suits, apply pressure evenly because air is a fluid, and therefore flows everywhere evenly. An MPC suit needs to apply pressure to "hollow" areas like armpits and palms of the hand. Also, hair follicles originate from a tiny pit in the skin, and these areas cannot be "squeezed" so as a result blood pools in these tiny depressions and get what look like pox. Also, I don't know if any testing has been done for the long term effects of this or tight physical contact with the skin over long periods.
Side note on this film, when the hab blows up, and he patches it with Visqueen and duct tape, I could almost buy it, because of the way he fabricated it. BUT, when the hab gets repressurized, this would be as taunt as a drum head, and would not flap in the Martian wind. Which is another huge issue, the Martian atmosphere is so thin, a hurricane level even, would feel like a strong breeze on earth. So the whole premise of how he gets stranded is bogus. Even the author of the book admitted he really cheated that.
Again, Huge helmet, not very practical. I was in Budapest for some filming, as we supplied the ACES suits, for the return to Mars scene, and I talked with the costume designer. She told me Ridley loves big helmets. (just look at any of his space films) I have no clue why a helmet would need to extend so far above the wearers head. Also, of it's a MPC suit, why would you need a rigid torso? Takes up way too much volume when stored and has little function.
2001 - Love these suits as well . We have built a couple of replicas of these for various projects. (Most recently
Gucci's Kubrick project) I had considered building a functional version of the suit. As in fully pressurizable.
Prometheus - Huge goofy helmets and MPC suits. Stupid film.
Moon - Ok design. Nothing special, but looks practical. Helmet needed a sun visor though. You would get a serious sun burn in only a few minutes if exposed to the direct sunlight.
Mission to Mars - Dumb film. Bad physics. Dumb suit design. Hoses going to back of helmet, suit details for the sake of adding detail. Nothing looks functional on these suits, They look to me like costumes. Controls on the suits too small to be used and not in line of sight. (Like tiny switches and indicator lights on the lower back of the PLSS (back pack) Zippers exposed and on the chest like that makes it very difficult to get into the suit, unless the helmet disconnect can be unhooked from the suit.
Tin Tin - Strata suit influence again.
Interstellar - Ok suits. Hoses to back of the helmet impractical. Nice helmet design though. We thought we would be building these suits, but it was decided they would build them in-house with their costume department. They had a number of problems with these suits on set. Spacesuits are not simple to make, even movie ones.
Alien - ehh. They seem more like attack dog training suits to me.
Star Trek - Interesting design. Given the era, and the need to make them seem very futuristic, I like that they don't look like any other spacesuit concept.
Battlestar - Terrible design. Again, details for the sake of details. Helmet looks like it weighs 50 pounds.
Outland - already discussed.
Firefly / Serenity - This is the only one in this group we made. These armoured spacesuits were originally made for the Kurt Russell film, "Soldier". For a quick flashback scene. Built quickly and pretty cheaply.
They were then rented to the TV series with the original helmet, and on a later episode, they wanted a different helmet design. (pictured) The idea of the helmet was the fabric in the back was so the whole front of the helmet could be opened and pivoted back, and the fabric section would collapse. As an example, the Russian Sokol suit uses an all fabric helmet, other than the faceplate. The helmet lights were designed to look "added on" in the style of many of the shows equipment. The chest box is an upside-down Apollo RCU.
Sunshine - Like the design, but I cant say it's all that realistic. There would be better ways to protect an astronaut in this scenario, but the design does a good job for the film.