The Martian was a book that was adapted into a screenplay and released in theaters on October 2, 2015. It was directed by Ridley Scott. Matt Damon plays Mark Watney in this science fiction movie. During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and was left behind by his crew. However, Watney survives and finds himself stranded alone on this hostile planet. Despite the harsh circumstances, Watney always seems to make light of the situation and never panics.

Watney must now survive on Mars with a small amount of food that would have only allowed him to survive around 150 days. He must figure out how to grow food on Mars, a planet  which is hardly capable of growing any food. Watney learns how to grow potatoes with human fecal.

After a while, NASA figures out equipment and electronic devices are being moved from one place to another over many sols. They soon learn that Mark Watney is alive but do not want to release this information to the media and his crew members. When it was released to the media that Watney was alive, NASA received serious backlash and began working tirelessly on a project to save him.

Things seem to be going fine on Mars until Watney’s base camp blows up and destroys all of his food. He uses duct tape to repair his base, but he loses all of his food and must ration it out. He is no longer able to make food anymore since the cold atmosphere destroyed all of the crops. This makes the rescue become much more stressful since he cannot live on his own much longer.

After one rescue mission fails because the rocket exploded, NASA decides to tell the crew members that Mark Watney is alive. They decide as a group to return to Mars and save Watney. Watney is launched into space and must meet the crew at perfect speed and timing, or he will die. It looks as the mission will be a bust until he pops a hole in his glove to propel toward the crew members’ space shuttle By sheer luck, the crew is able to save Mark Watney and return back to earth.

This science fiction movie received praise from NASA because the scientific facts from the movie were extremely accurate. All of the science information that the movie talked about was extremely interesting. The only problem for me was that it took me some time to figure out that a “sol” was the span of a day on Mars. I must have easily missed that information at the beginning of the movie.

The Martian received excellent reviews from Rotten Tomatoes with a 93% rating. There was humor throughout the entire movie, and there was never a dull moment. Matt Damon does a tremendous job and lives up to the expectations. Lawson Marchetti, Co-founder Jackson Prep Film Club, said the movie was “a superb tale of survival filmed with technological precision and scientific accuracy.”