The Martian - Scientific Fiction

I really am behind on my film watching at the moment.  At last I got a chance to catch up with last year's winter science fiction blockbuster The Martian.  This was courtesy of a couple of very friendly chums of my girlfriend's who put me up for the night at their place in Chipping Norton - iTunes has films apparently.  Whatever next?
 

The Martian is based on the critically-acclaimed novel of the same name, and follows the story of Mark Watney (Matt Damon).  Watney is part of a crew on the ill-fated Ares 3 mission to Mars in the near future. He gets stranded on the red planet when a storm separates him from the rest of his crew.  He is presumed dead and the crew escape for the long journey home.  Watney of course survives, and has to "science the shit" out his survival on Mars until a future time when NASA can send a rescue mission.

 

It's a film that has an unusual tone for this sort of subject matter.  It is generally light and fun.  Aside from the doom-laden opening disaster sequence we have a NASA nerd chaneling Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day coming up with the solution and our main character telling us that he's going to 'science the shit' out of the situation, all accompanied by a 1970s disco soundtrack.  Not only is it unusual in that regard, it also pays a great deal of attention to scientific details.  Mostly notably in the logistics of space travel, but also in areas like scientific funding, media understand of science and biochemistry, the film is clearly based on an extremely well-researched source material.  Crucially the film is also set at a time in the near future when Mars and Earth are next going to be close together, and so a Mars mission is actually feasible - Science bitches!

There is very much an ensemble cast here, with several big name stars that never share any screen time together.  Matt Damon is on Mars, Jessica Chastain is in space and Chiwetel Ejiofor is on Earth (admittedly with Jeff Bridges and Kristen Wigg - but still).  Even so, Chastain has the crew of the Ares to play against and Damon has a soundtrack, a writer's wicked sense of humour and - of course - wonderfully rendered Martian scenery.  Of the film's many achievements, the visual feel of the Martian landscape is an X-factor that could easy go unnoticed.  The footage has a raw and unnaturally clean feel to it that unsettles and fascinates, bringing home the idea that this is a place absolutely untouched by human intervention.  Whatever the cinematographer / CGI team were doing to achieve that look - it worked.
 

Crucially though, for a film that deliberately takes a light-hearted tone with potentially onerous material, is it any fun?  The answer is definitely yes.  The disaster that strands Damon happens within the first few minutes of the film, meaning that we can get on with a story that effortlessly winds science in with fiction, never becomes boring, educates and entertains.  It's a story I would hesitate to call science fiction, rather I would prefer the term 'Scientific fiction' - such is its reliance on real science rather than the fantastic.  Is Con Air is science fiction film because it's set on a plane?  Planes use scientific principles to fly after all.  I think that this is one of the points The Martian is trying to get across; that these days science is part of our everyday lives, and that we would do well to have a greater understanding of the difference between fiction and fact.  I recommend The Martian to one and all.