Ridley Scott’s ‘The Martian’ is a masterpiece of hard science fiction
Realism is a term thrown around a lot in discussions of genre fiction. The question of how closely a film or book needs to adhere to the laws of reality or even consistent logic is hotly contested among critics of the genre. Many critics (myself included) find the whole idea of approaching film from a perspective of logic to be antithetical to the whole idea of film as art (many of the greatest films ever made, from “Jurassic Park” to “Citizen Kane,” fall apart when even simple logical analysis is applied to them). Others argue that adhering to strict logic and realism creates both an interesting puzzle for the audience to work out, and provides an environment for the story to play out free from the distractions of iffy logic.
The catch with this line of reasoning is that even if your fiction is hyper realistic and intensely logical, that only provides you with a space to work in. You still have to fill that space with an interesting story with human emotions or people won’t care how much math you did. This is the problem “Interstellar” ran into last year — having meticulously accurate physics doesn’t matter if your story is built on an increasingly silly and emotionally moot series of twists.
Enter Ridley Scott’s “The Martian.” Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, the film’s premise is pretty simple: “Apollo 13” meets “Robinson Crusoe.” Matt Damon plays Mark Wattney, an astronaut on a mission to Mars who is left behind after being separated from the rest of his crew and presumed dead. He has to use various engineering, chemistry, logic and botany skills to keep himself alive until NASA can send help. Oh, and he has no way of contacting the folks at NASA, who all believe him dead.
Much hubbub has been made about the film’s meticulous scientific accuracy — one of the trailers even came with an endorsement from Neil deGrasse Tyson himself — but what makes the film so great is that it knows how to use that realism to tell a great story.
The hyper-real science on display in “The Martian” accomplishes two ends. First, by establishing the stakes of the film and how easily those stakes can be threatened, the film creates a masterful air of tension (we’d expect nothing less from the director of “Alien”). Second, it allows the real heart of the story’s philosophical thesis to shine through. You see, “The Martian” is a film with no antagonist. Every single character in the film, from the director of NASA to the civilians watching events unfold at home, want to help. This is a film about the incredible things humans can accomplish if we work together and are intuitive enough to solve whatever obstacles are in our way.
Even Mars isn’t framed as a villain to conquer the way the island in “Castaway” is or the vacuum of space in “Gravity,” but rather as a challenge and a puzzle to be solved. Matt Damon even spends large chunks of the film reflecting on the sublime beauty of the red planet. In a very real way, the conflict in this film isn’t a battle of man versus nature, but of the powers of intuition and grit versus the ever present temptation to give up and accept one’s fate. This film believes that human inginuity and determination are our greatest attributes, and if we use them together, there is no problem we cannot solve.