Mark Watney. One man representative of humankind. Stranded on Mars.

Rating: 9/10 (21 October 2015)

Why is Mark's spacesuit orange? International orange is the official spacesuit color to help us spot orange astronauts in the off-chance they fall into a blue ocean. On Mars, a planet boasting every shade of orange, why not a forest green spacesuit with blue accents, to contrast with the desert planet, to identify Mark Watney as a botanist, an Earthling, a fish out of water? If I were the cinematographer or colorist, I'd be irked by an orange suit against an orange landscape.
But then again...orange to blend into his environment, like a ranger in camouflage, Mark's rugged armor in a barren wasteland of sand. Blue for water. Orange for desert. Orange because the movie title is "The Martian". As a driver glimpsing the billboard, I'd buy a Mars-bound astronaut in an orange spacesuit.
But the details don't add up to detract from the big picture, the crazy idea:
Mark Watney. One man representative of humankind. Stranded on Mars.
What would it be like for all of humanity to follow the journey of one man? One man whose only goal is to save himself-- to simply get by in life? Get by alone, in a desert that engulfs a whole planet, until a rescue mission reaches him from Earth, 225 million km away. It's not completely hopeless. He's got all of humanity on his side. Humankind united, rooting for him to survive. The brightest minds collaborating with the best resources at hand in an international truce to save one man. It's inspiring, to say the least.
Mark Watney, he's got brains and brawn. He's creative, optimistic, funny! He deserves to be saved.
The Martian approaches sci-fi like a captain's log after a shipwreck on a deserted island. In the book, the author's passion shines greatest in Mark's every step of every problem, logged in great detail. It reads at times like a survival guide. The movie adapts many events to be more cinematic and engaging in the film medium. Precisely this attention to realism, in both movie and book, makes the impossible seem possible, sparks curiosity and raises questions. People are wondering about science and space.
The Martian shines brilliantly in realism and faith in humanity. It makes a science fiction concept a world away feel like a news story that happened a month ago. The Martian has crazy ideas that seem too crazy to be true, yet crazy ideas are the ones that change history and progress humankind. For example-- the time is now: we can send astronauts to Mars.