Red Marble

Closely based on Andy Weir’s self-published (and bestselling) novel of the same name (2011), The Martian enters the cinematic landscape on the coattails of such blockbuster films as Gravity (Cuarón UK/US 2013) and Interstellar (Nolan US/UK 2014), but sets itself apart in its attempt to rehabilitate the popular image of NASA and space exploration. Winner of the 2016 Golden Globe for ‘Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy’ and ‘Best Actor’ in the same category for Matt Damon’s engaging performance, The Martian has been praised both for its depiction of science and for its compelling and sometimes irreverent portrayal of isolation on Mars. The scope of NASA’s support for the film and the transmedia public relations campaign that accompanied The Martian speak to its unique imagination of space, a representational strategy that appealed to and was shaped by NASA’s own vision of the future of space exploration and colonisation.

Weir explains that he continually revised the novel over the course of its original online serialisation with input from its readers, a collaboration that mirrors Ridley Scott’s later collaboration with NASA, along with that of the cast and the film’s crew. This re-writing extends to the movement from prose to screen in subtle ways: adaptations of the dynamics of international relations or of the novel’s treatment of closed systems, for example, modulate the novel’s libertarian ideological underpinnings. This essay first considers the dimensions of the transmedia public relations campaign that extends the film’s representation of space exploration before moving on to explore some of the film’s major themes in order to account for its portrayal of the future of Martian exploration. These themes include humankind’s dependence on nature and technology, the ecological implications of closed systems, terraforming and ecological imperialism, international relations and the politics of scientific endeavour.

The Martian is, in many ways, a classic sf story. Both a Robinsonade and an Edisonade, the film portrays Mark Watney’s (Matt Damon) experience as a NASA astronaut who is marooned on Mars for 496 Martian days (sols) after an unexpectedly severe storm separates him from the rest of the crew of the Hermes (the spacecraft that brought the astronauts to Mars). Understandably believing Watney to be dead, Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) is forced to abort the Ares III mission and leave Watney behind on their return to Earth. Through a series of ingenious solutions to the various problems involved in maintaining a life-support system on Mars, Watney extends his capacity to survive on the planet long enough to re-establish contact with NASA and await a rescue mission. Members of a fictionalised NASA play counterpoint to Watney’s struggle on Mars as the resources of the organisation are marshalled for the task of somehow retrieving their abandoned astronaut. The returning Hermes crew also make sacrifices of their own once they discover Watney to be alive. Choosing to extend their time in space by 533 days and, for the military members of the expedition, risking court-martial, they commandeer the Hermes against NASA’s express orders so that they can return to Mars and rescue Watney. The film’s tagline, ‘Bring Him Home’, powerfully encapsulates the public’s desire, as portrayed in the film, for Watney’s return to Earth, a return that closes an epic cycle and sees a hero come home to inspire and train new generations of astronauts for the purpose of exploring and colonising Mars.

In addition to the rest of the Hermes crew, the film follows several other characters at NASA: Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), director of NASA; Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor), director of flight operations; Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis), an engineer; and Richard Purnell (Donald Glover), an astrophysicist who supplies the interplanetary flight plan for Watney’s eventual rescue. Other important US-based characters include Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig), director of public relations; Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), the flight director of the Ares III expedition; and Bruce Ng (Benedict...