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Space Scares Me: "The Martian"

I procrastinated hard on this one.

By Rebekah ConardPublished about a year ago 7 min read
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"Space Scares Me" is a series that is part review, part liveblog, about space movies I've been too chicken to watch until now. You can read my thoughts on "Gravity" (2013) here.

Spoilers for "The Martian" (2015) ahead.

I'm back, and I watched "The Martian." Thankfully it was much more chill than "Gravity." Well, maybe not "thankfully." A less intense reaction meant I procrastinated longer before writing this up. I guess it's a little give-and-take. If a movie makes me want to puke, you're going to hear about it right away. Otherwise I just don't have the sense of urgency to write about it. Let's dive in.

Early-movie

"The Martian" opens in a remarkably similar way to "Gravity." Both films start us off mid-mission with astronauts in their suits working and joking around in space. It's an obvious choice, but still an effective one. Witty banter helps establish the characters while we're still struggling to see faces through their helmets. I actually had a hard time figuring out which one was the protagonist until the plot hit him. And hit him, it did.The storm hits and Mark Watney (Matt Damon) gets taken out by flying debris. So, we're two-for-two for space movies that punch me in the gut five minutes in.

I absolutely love the mission commander, Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain). She is what she should be: decisive and willing to take responsibility. She doesn't really hesitate to call off the operation when the storm comes in. She doesn't hesitate to put herself at risk to find Mark, even if it's just to recover his body. She gives her crew clear instructions to leave if she doesn't make it back in time. I feel like we too often get characters in command who hesitate in their decision-making for dramatic effect. Commander Lewis displays competent leadership skills without losing any dramatic tension.

As the crew lifts off, I get my bearings and notice that Matt Damon isn't with them. That's when my brain clicked on and I remembered what movie I was watching. Like the commander, it's clear from the get-go that Mark has experience and training to fall back on. That really kept me in-the-moment. The reality of the situation didn't have time to set in for Mark or for me until after his wound had been dealt with. One thing that did break the illusion for me for a second: handheld "shakey cam", on Mars. It's a little harder to convince me this man is alone in space when I can see the cameraman at work.

Mark begins to record a log to lay out the situation. "Luckily, I'm a botanist," he says. His confidence in this log made me grin like an idiot. That's the way to tackle a dire situation. Fiercely. "Fuck you, Mars," indeed. Later, he says something like, "I'm gonna haveto science the shit out of this." The dialog in this movie is really good. I don't say that because I like to hear swears; I just mean it's very modern in tone. I know people who think and speak like these characters. It's grounded.

Skipping over most of the farming, but the water-making explosion was an effective jump scare. I quickly told myself, "we're so early in the run-time, of course he's okay," but I had a death-grip on my own arms. So...

Generally, I dislike the whole "thinking someone is dead when they're not" trope. At the same time, the nature of the whole situation dictates that they'll realize he's alive quickly. It wasn't drawn out. That's when this idea works. Another reason this film's premise works so well: NASA dudes aren't the only ones who can see the satellite images. They absolutely have to take this public. I think this is the kind of story that could write itself, but you have talented actors, directors and writers involved taking it to the next level.

(My next note says: "That press conference after finding him alive, I'm shook." I guess I procrastinated so hard I forgot the details of that scene, but apparently I was shook.)

Mid-movie

Nerd break: One of the crew brought "Zork" and "Leather Godesses Of Phobos"! I love old text adventures. What a reference.

So far this movie has been fairly kind to my space-phobia, but the tension snuck up on me when Mark finally makes contact with NASA. There was just so much waiting involved. It took time for NASA to figure out Mark's plan. It took time for the messages to travel back and forth through space. It took time to spell out the messages in hexadecimal. For a moment it looked like Mark was about to doze off. What if he had missed the beginning of a message?

Then it goes from tense to acutely emotional. They tell Mark that the rest of the crew doesn't know he's alive. The audience sees Mark shouting f-bombs that can't be heard outside of his bubble of atmosphere. We see the NASA people react to his emphatic reply. I really felt it. Imagine, you wait 20 or 30 minutes to get his reaction to the bad news you just told him, and then it's probably pure vitriol. Ouch.

I love the conflict about not telling the crew right away. What a natural and human problem to have in a setting where it's tempting to focus on space disasters. Bear with me while I turn this into another nerd break: I got Star Trek vibes, like, original series vibes. The core dynamic of Star Trek is that Kirk has to deal with a messy philosophical situation in space and Spock and McCoy weigh in with reason and compassion. So in "The Martian" we have Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), NASA director of Mars missions, facilitating the mission and communications. Weighing in, you have NASA Administrator, "Teddy" Sanders (Jeff Daniels) arguing againt telling the crew so they can focus on returning home safely, as well as Hermes flight director, Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), insisting that the crew should be told. They would want to know. The deserve to know. This dynamic isn't uncommon, but these are both space stories and my brain drew that parallel.

Late-movie

Donald Glover is here, and he has a brain-blast. What a wonderfully silly piece of comedic relief. Maybe this break in the tension made it hard for me to digest what comes next. The head honcho says no to the plan. He doesn't want to take the risk. That's fine, I get that. Sean Bean can't let it go and secretly informs the crew of the idea. Sure, I guess I can buy him putting his job on the line like that. It's in-character. But then the crew unanimously decides to go for it, based on this limited info leak, risking the mission and their lives and all of their jobs? I don't know. It feels like pure Hollywood at this point.

After deciding to go back for Mark, each crew member gets a short scene where they communicate with their families, who will now have to wait even longer to see them again. It's an excellent narrative decision that puts me back on track emotionally. This absolutely fills me with fear. They were practically guaranteed to come home safely until this departure from the itinerary. Now they could all die. I'm fairly confident Hollywood wouldn't let a movie end like that, but the remote possibility still makes my stomach churn.

The big moment approaches. Watching Mark get emotional as they prepare to pick him up hits hard. He hasn't been too emotional throughout the movie. Now is definitely the time. The commander said it's okay for him to pass out during the flight. I'm starting to get very nervous.

The commander is my hero in every scene she's in. When the math doesn't work and it seems like they won't make it, she keeps her head and reminds her crew to "work the problem." And their solution is... Oh, a bomb. Well, I guess the commander is already in deep shit with NASA, she might as well go for it.

When the time comes, the commander herself is the one to go outside the ship to catch Mark. Somehow I didn't make the connection that by "catching Mark" they meant "one of us does a spacewalk and tries to physically catch Mark." Even before the camera starts spinning, that realization turns me inside-out. My note here says: "Oh no no no no I didn't realize they meant physically catching him man-to-man. I don't like this. uggghghhghg I HATE THIS." Fortunately, it all works out, and the relief is very welcome. It was beautiful to see them reunite.

Finally, I hear "I Will Survive" over the credits, and it feels like that song choice is the entire reason the movie inserted the running gag about disco music. I'm not as exhaused as when I watched "Gravity", but I did sweat a lot. Thankfully this DVD has a gag real to help bring my stomach back into compliance. This time I won't make any promises about what I'm watching next because I don't want to end up procrastinating like this again. It'll be a surprise to all of us.

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About the Creator

Rebekah Conard

31, She/Her, a big bi nerd

How do I write a bio that doesn't look like a dating profile? Anyway, my cat is my daughter, I crochet and cross stitch, and I can't ride a bike. Come take a peek in my brain-space, please and thanks.

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Comments (2)

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  • Edward Germanabout a year ago

    The Martian was a great movie and one of the best for that decade.

  • Gene Lassabout a year ago

    I expect the writing in the film is so good because it was based on the book. After I first saw the film, not that long ago, I saw that NASA was actually consulted on what they would do in this situation, because they wanted to make it all as realistic as possible, and it was. Yeah, there were parts where I was pretty sure things would be okay, but there are no guarantees. Brave authors and moviemakers have defied expectations, such as Hitchcock killing his lead character partway through "Psycho," or "The Mist" not only not having a happy ending, but having one of the grimmest endings ever.

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