Movie Analysis : The Martian The Martian is a science fiction movie that came out in 2015 and it’s about an astronaut, Mark Watney, who is left behind on mars and has to survive on the deserted planet. It’s one of my favourite movies and that’s why I wanted to write this essay about it. The movie is directed by Ridley Scott who is recognized for his emphasis on the sensory impact of his films. He mostly relies on video and especially audio to get his point. The movie was shot in the Kordastudio in Budapest and in Wadi Rum in Jordan because the scenery seems like the Martian landscape. The main themes of the movie are isolation , fear ( anything can go wrong in space), perseverance (keep on trying after many setbacks),science , survival and friendship. The meaning of the title comes from the fact that Mark Watney is the first true Martian. He was on the Ares three mission which implies that there were already two manned missions before his mission. However those other astronauts only stayed for a month and Mark Watney was trapped there for nearly two years. As Mark Watney says in the movie: "once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially "colonized" it". So he is the real Martian. As I already said is the main character off course Mark Watney. On his Ares three mission he is accompanied by the rest of the crew: commander Lewis, Martinez, Johansen, Beck and Vogel. Some other important characters are the staff of NASA , Teddy Sanders, Mitch Henderson & Venkat Kapoor who do everything to save Watney. Then there’s also the astrophysicist Rich Purnell who came up with the idea to save Watney. In this essay I will shortly resume the movie, talk a bit about the setting and the structures. Then I will search for a deeper meaning in some scenes and finally I will convince you that this movie is worth watching. The movie starts with a crew of six astronauts who are on a manned mission to Mars. All of a sudden , there is a giant storm that endangers their mission. The crew has to leave mars and while leaving astronaut Mark Watney is hit by debris and is presumed dead by the rest of the crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself alone on Mars. He hasn’t a lot of supplies and will probably starve to death. Thanks to his ingenuity he manages to grow crops. Back on earth an employee who processes Satellite images at NASA is the first to notice that Watney is still alive. She contacts the chief of NASA and they try to figure out how they can save Watney. After a while , Watney can communicate with earth. After that he must endure some setbacks, like for example the rocket with supplies that explodes while taking off and his hab that explodes and causes all his crops to die. On earth, a GUY found a way to save Watney fast, in a cheap way but with many risks. The plan consists in resupplying the spacecraft of the rest of the crew (who were heading back to earth) and to resend it to Mars to pick up Watney. NASA decides to execute this plan and cooperates with the China National Space Administration to do so. Finally , with some additional problems, Watney gets picked up by his crew. Back on earth , Watney becomes a survival instructor for astronauts. Watney will be stuck for almost two years on mars and the audience can follow his every move. Most of the scenes are in the hab where he lives , in his rover or just on the surface of mars. The hab is where he sleeps, works, grows crops,… It might not be that comfortable, but it provides him a good place after spending his days struggling for survival. The area surrounding the hab is of course wasteland. When the hab explodes, Mark realizes how alone he truly is and that in space anything can go wrong. Sometimes Mark takes his rover to undertakes a journey across the Martian surface. This journey shows us how old mars really is. We also get a sense of the planet's scale, with immense craters littering the landscape as far as the eye can see. This journey provides us a crash course in the dangers of life on Mars. For the deeper analysis I chose some scenes with a deeper meaning. The first scene is when he uses a wooden Jesus cross to make fire so he can make water for his crops. The fact that he uses the wood of the cross means that he still believes in the fact that he will survive. The second scene I chose is when he sees the first leaves of his crops. That’s the moment he gets really motivated, because at first he thought that he would starve to death on mars. It’s a big step in surviving on mars and the audience really feels motivated to continue watching. The next scene I chose is when his hab exploded and all his crops are death, Mark is sitting an a boulder and he is looking around and reflecting about his current situation. There he realizes that anything can go wrong on a deserted planet and that he will need a lot of luck to survive. The director filmed Mark on the boulder and in the background the Martian scenery. The audience can really sympathize with the struggles that Mark has. Another scene is at the end of the film, right before the climax when Mark prepares to undertake the long journey with his rover to the spacecraft that will reunite him with the rest of the crew , the music of David Bowie (Starman) is playing. It’s a feel good song and it gives the audience the feeling that everything will be fine at the end. The director uses also a lot of personal sound effects from the actors, like shouts and heavy breathing from the characters that made the audience understand the struggle of survival on a deserted planet. Last but not least I want to bring up something that I noticed throughout the movie. During the movie Mark listens to a lot of disco music from commander Lewis. He hates the music , but it reminds him of her and the rest of the crew. The fact that the director uses a lot of that disco music means that he want to emphasize the good relationship between the astronauts. When Mark is reunited with commander Lewis the first thing he says is a remark on her bad taste in music. The Martian is science fiction film that reveals the suffering and finally the rescue of astronaut Watney after he’s presumed death during a space exploration mission. The director has built an attractive movie using relevant settings, structure, style, acting and off course very good sound effects and music. That’s why I think that the Martian is an extremely well-made film, it's wellwritten, well-acted, and most of all, scientifically accurate, showing respect for the audience's intelligence by resisting the temptation to dumb everything down. In short the Martian is a film worth watching.
