Yet in many ways, 2015's The Martian is as much a movie about NASA as anything else. Virtually every main character is either an astronaut, NASA functionary, or JPL nerd.
In the movie, NASA sends a group of astronauts on a 14-month round trip journey to collect soil samples. "How many samples do we need, Commander?" "Seven. 100 grams each." Instead of a daring adventure, we get a technical mission that could have been done by unmanned vehicles, and delivered by wooden actors repeating leaden dialogue.
I understand that collecting soil samples is what an actual Mars mission would entail. But getting technical details right doesn't make it fun. They've solved the problem of transporting astronauts, and pressurized habitats, hundreds of millions of miles. But they couldn't figure out how to make the rocket for the return trip stand upright during a wind storm?
This NASA seems funded well enough to equip their crews with a trillion-dollar space ship, yet struggles with mundane issues like the cost of a paper clip and authorizing satellite time.
Vincent Kapoor, NASA's Director of Mars Missions: "I need you to authorize my satellite time."
Teddy Sanders, NASA Director: "Not going to happen."
The movie's biggest challenge is how to convey the emotional weight of the plight of marooned astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon. The problem is that Watney is all alone, with no other actors to play off of. Director Ridley Scott solves this exposition problem by having the narration take place in a mission log.
The emotional moments of Watney's ordeal are delivered via clumsy reaction shots back on earth.
Vincent: "Mark, We haven't told the crew you are alive yet."
Mark: "What the fuck?!"
Cut back to the control room, people gasping, covering their mouths with dismay. Then cut to a montage of Mark "sciencing the shit" out of things to a disco track like Rock The Boat, a 1973 standard by The Hues Corporation. The disco era is the descendant of the Apollo program? For a running joke, the disco theme works as well as a scratched LP.
Another theme that feels like a dud is the contrivance that Mark is a seafaring adventurer like days of old.
Mark: "There's a treaty that says, if you're not in any country's territory, maritime law applies. So Mars is international waters. I'm gonna be taking a craft over in international waters without permission, which, by definition, makes me a pirate."
Perhaps the humor is supposed to lessen the tension, but there isn't any doubt that Mark will be rescued (although I was certainly rooting against him).
Ridley Scott filmed the exteriors in Wadi Rum in Jordan, then colorized them to look like the Martian surface. Scott seemed to be making a conscious attempt to inspire the same sweeping grandeur as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, which was also filmed in Jordan.
Wadi Rum is a hostile environment if you are on a camel, but inert background to an astronaut in an SUV. The movie's premise is that Mark is a lone sailor on a vast ocean. The vast ocean is the surface of Mars, but they didn't render any Martian features. How cool would it have been for Mark to navigate Olympus Mons, the Martian peak 16 miles high?
Space is huge and expansive, but the human space there is claustrophobic and vulnerable, like a cork bobbing in the ocean. Astronauts are crammed into pressurized suits and transported by tiny capsules that conserve fuel. The Martian pampers us with a desert landscape that isn't Mars, and dewy actresses too pretty to be astronauts, on space stations big enough and shiny enough for an investor relations cocktail party and meet- and- greet at Theranos Corp.
We used to have exciting space travel that made children dream of becoming astronauts. Not anymore. We also used to make really good science fiction movies, back when disco was still king.
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