Fiction Friday: Oct. 9, 2015: The Martian

When I reviewed the book "The Martian" earlier this year, I wrote, "What's so great about this book is that it's not 'fantasy' and it's not hard-core 'sci-fi,' you know, those books from the 60s with the most unrealistic characters anyone could ever imagine, zipping around in unrealistic (not sci-fi, just unrealistic!) space ships and conquering new worlds while having unlimited sex with nubile and even more unrealistic and unrealistically acquiescent female aliens and astronauts."

Right? It's real science-driven fiction, what we all have been wanting all along, fiction based on real science.

And so, what about the movie? Well, the movie does the book justice and more so. The plot of the novel is brilliant, the screenplay adapted from the novel is brilliant, the directing is brilliant, the effects are brilliant, and Matt Damon is brilliant as the astronaut who is left behind when his 5 crew-mates have to abort their mission.

The movie asks the questions, what will life for Earthlings be like on Mars, and how can anyone survive there if all the NASA fail-safes fail? It answers the questions: It will be incredibly hard, but if you want to live and you follow the training you've received and don't let yourself panic, and if your crew comes back for you, and you have NASA and the whole world hoping and waiting, you might make it.

Because, as the trailer says, "Help is only 140 million miles away!"

The book was so incredibly good, and, guess what, the movie does justice to it. Great plot! Great screenplay! Great characters! Great acting! Great effects! Great planet! Great everything!

The movie is my favorite in the last few years, maybe my favorite of all time. Here's the "official" trailer:

If you're concerned about language, the movie is rated PG-13, so you know it has some strong language. There is also a scene showing the very skinny naked astronaut from the back toward the end of his long ordeal on the inhospitable planet (I'm guessing this is not the actor Matt Damon), and there are some views of a bloody injury and the astronaut sewing that up. In other words, if your 13-year-old sees this movie, she will not hear or see anything she hasn't already been exposed to for the last 6 years of her life.

Should you see it? Yes. Please see this movie. And maybe you'll know why I keep hoping that *I* can go to Mars someday.