Essay Questions

What was the main question Ridley Scott was trying to grapple with in making this movie?

Front and center in Ridley Scott's mind when he came on board the movie (replacing screenwriter Drew Goddard) was the question of "no man left behind" and how would the urgency of saving him alter the behavior of the other characters in the film. He came to the conclusion that the need to save Watney would over-ride all other issues, including the affect on the space program and the safety of the other astronauts in bringing him home.

He has also said that the movie is about the paradox of Watney being entirely alone, yet not being alone at all; that nobody is truly alone because there are always others working to save them, help them or in Watney's case, bring him home. Many wondered if his sentimentalized version of a space mission gone wrong, and the "brotherly love" that abounded as his team try to rescue him, was in some way a reaction to losing his brother Tony only two years earlier to suicide; the movies he has directed after Tony's death have all featured an element of rescue, of the isolated individual being brought home again, as if by rescuing his key characters Scott was trying to rescue and reach his brother over and over again. Although he never directly addressed this rumor, he obliquely made reference to the fact that when contemplating solitude, it was important to do so with the knowledge that others are waiting to rescue you, much like Mark Watney.

Mark is both helped and hindered by his memories of home. How is this possible?

Mark suffers from terrible homesickness because everything that is known and familiar has been taken from him. When hie starts to lose focus, become despondent or feel his sanity slipping away little by little, focusing on his family, his home and his familiar life is helpful, because it reminds him of why he is forging forward each day, of why he still stays hopeful, and of how important it is to make sure the balance of his mind is not disturbed. Yet when he is missing his home the most, his memories of it make him all the more despondent and on those occasions those memories are a hinderance. Thinking of home sometimes reminds him of how far away he is from home, of how unlikely it is that he will ever get home again, and of how little he really knows about his new environment and how unfamiliar it is every day.