Ridley Scott still remembers, vividly, sitting down in a movie theater, watching the lights go down and experiencing as a gamechanging moment as 2001: A Space Odyssey sputtered to life onscreen. It had been out less than a week, the filmmaker recalls, settling into a chair in a cavernous hotel conference room in Toronto. I sat in theater all by myself in the middle of the day, in Queensgate, London, with a pack of cigarettes you could smoke in theaters in those days. It was a brand-new 70mm print, and that cut from the bone to the spaceship, it was justit was so majestic. He closes his eyes for a second, then looks over at author Andy Weir, whos hanging on his every word.
Ive either tried to crib from or outright rip off that movie numerous times in my career, the filmmaker conspiratorially stage-whispers, and Ive never been able to do it quite right until, possibly, now.
Its easy to see how the shadow of Stanley Kubricks space-is-the-place epic might loom large over The Martian, Scotts tale of an astro-botanist named Mark Watney (Matt Damon) left to fend for himself on the Red Planet after being abandoned during an emergency evacuation. Granted, no Star Child shows up to watch this cosmic Crusoe use his wits and scientific smarts to fight for his life; no singing evil supercomputer tries to sabotage his team, led by Jessica Chastain, once they realize hes still alive; and back on Earth, the all-star cast that makes up the movies Mission Control response squad (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels and a particularly kooky Donald Glover) arent getting any help from humming monoliths.
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But along with a few visual nods, the Alien directors adaptation of Weirs self-published Web serial-turned-bestselling novel shares a chin-stroking curiosity and existentialist vibe with its intellectual sci-fi predecessor. The movie certainly delivers the spills, chills, thrills and even laughs youd expect from a Hollywood blockbuster, but it also stops to look to the stars and wonder: What does it mean to be human? Where do we fit in to the big picture?
I mean, its not a superhero movie, Damon says, calling in from Los Angeles a few days earlier. Its a guy-trying-to-survive movie, and done really intelligently. [Screenwriter] Drew Goddard kept calling it a love letter to science its all about using ingenuity and knowledge to adapt to your environment. That, to me, was the key. The actor hadnt heard of Weirs blog-to-Kindle hit novel when he read the script; he just responded to the smarts and the humor, which was enough to kickstart lengthy discussions with Damon and the screenwriter, who was set to direct.
Then Goddard received an offer to helm a dream project the comic-book project The Sinister Six and the project was back-burnered indeifnitely, until Damon heard that Scott was potentially interested. I literally sprinted over to his office, he says, laughing. We had a five-minute meeting, and then we were both in. I mean, its Ridley Scott in space. Thats bucket-list material!
Unlike Scotts previous forays across the universe or really, the majority of his filmography The Martian is also rife with unexpected humorous moments among the what-does-it-all-mean headscratchers and solemn extreme-survivalist set pieces. (When the man who had Russell Crowe utterUnleash hell! in Gladiator is told that its unusual to hear so many funny lines in his movie, he rises from his chair, growls Are you saying Im humorless? and puts his dukes up before he and Weir both burst out laughing.) Watneys monologues into his video diary are full of wisecracks and giddy, self-deprecating asides. Frustrated by trying make alien terrain more Homo sapien-friendly, he screams out Fuck you, Mars! at one point. (That was an on-the-spot improvisation, Damon says. I cant believe he kept it in.) There will be disco dancing.
Theres humor, yes, but its gallows humor, Scott points out. And Im English, so we live for kind of dry, dark notion of whats funny. That was one of the things I liked about the script, was how it retained Andys humor from the book yet never made you feel the stakes werent incredibly high. I also love how it makes Mark seem like an everyman; it sound dull to say hes the perfect John Doe character, because hes certainly heroic. Hes just not the sort of invincible hero youre used to.
When Matt and I would talk about Mark, the director continues, the word that kept coming up was fear. He kept saying, My character never really seems to show fear, which you think would be unusual hes stranded on fucking Mars! But I kept telling him to think about The Right Stuff. Test pilots dont really show fear; they couldnt cope with what they needed to in a situation if they were terrified. When Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, he had a broken arm and two fractured ribs
And he had to use a broom handle to keep the door on his plane shut! Weir interjects.
Exactly! Talk to anybody whos ever landed a plane with three engines out, and theyll tell you they didnt have time to be scared shitless, Scott says. But you need to inspire fear in the audience, which is the key to most any drama. So it became: When does Mark show fear? We found the places for it the storm, the running out of potatoes, wondering if the door will hold on the shipthese were points when he just lets go and gives in. And once we found where those moments were he snaps his fingers we found the character.
For Damon, the challenge of having to handle almost all of his scenes by himself was enough to draw on for his drop-your-poker-face scenes. Ridley and I talked through everything about those long one-hander sections but yeah, it was a little nervy, he admits. Its all on you. You cant blame the other actors when a scene goes wrong: Hey, this isnt working, talk to my co-star. Although I guess you could blame the writer. Drew, if youre reading this
And though he claims he wasnt science-fluent when he started, the shoot allowed him to pick up a few Watney-esque skills. I can indeed science the shit out of some potatoes now, yeah, he says, proudly quoting a line from the film. All those crops were stuff I grew and replanted on the set in Budapest. And I didnt even need to be stranded on Mars to do it!
At its heart, its still a man-versus-nature story nobody roots for nature in these types of movies.
Which is fortuitous, considering what happens when the Red Planet decides to throw a number of obstacles in Watneys way: not just a harvest-destroying accident, but also random sand storms, faulty equipment, dwindling supplies, an ill-timed explosion or three. Its not giving anything away to say that an escape plan co-ordinated between our hero and the handwringing folks back on the Big Blue Marble forms the gist of The Martians last act, but even then, the movie adheres to the survivalist-drama template of something like All Is Lost, The Gray or that other heir to 2001s brainy sci-fi throne, Gravity. It just happens to be set on the fourth planet from the sun.
At its heart, its still a man-versus-nature story, Weir concedes. When I watch a movie, I always find myself rooting for the antagonist. I know he or she is probably going to lose, and I feel bad for them. But nobody roots for nature in these types of movies. Its too easy to self-insert: What would I do if I had to survive at sea, or in the wilderness
Or on the big, beautiful monster that is Mars, Scott chimes in.
Mars is probably the second biggest character in the movie, Weir says, before adding, After saying that aloud, I now feel like I have to put on a jacket with elbow patches and puff on a pipe.
Asked if the movie also fits in with what might be considered a new wave of cerebral sci-fi (see Under the Skin, Ex Machina, Interstellar), Scott says the film probably resembles a Western as much as it does those movies, though he readily admits that we were determined to make an intelligent film, certainly. And it is a science fiction movie. But I know what youre talking about, and its something thats been on my mind a lot as I get ready to jump into Prometheus 2. [A week after he talks to Rolling Stone, hell reveal that the title of this sequel is now named Alien: Paradise Lost.] Theres a lot of silliness for the nerds in that first movie, but its asking a serious question that I want to get into for the next film: Are we created by a force that we know nothing about? The fact that Mark Watney can use his brain to try and get back home or that you and I are sitting here talking into a piece of technology billions of years after salamanders crawled out of the ocean how can you not believe that there arent benevolent guardians in the universe looking over us?
Scott pauses for a second, then a light goes off behind his eyes. The minute I said guardians, it occurred to me: Its 2001 all over again. The mon-oooo-liths! he yells in a sing-song voice. I cant seem to get away from that fucking movie.
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