My views on THE MARTIAN

So **SPOILER WARNINGS**
(but the movie and book have been out FOREVER so, yeah...)

So if you read my previous post you know about how I've recently become interested in The Martian. After having watched the movie a number of times (btw, if you can watch the extended edition, do it), and beginning to read the book, I have my own views on the underlying themes of the story.  Yes there is science and how amazing things can be done with it, and what happens with exploration, but in my humble opinion, there really is a theme in this story of faith, hope and love.

I break it down by going through each one by one.

Starting with Faith.  Dr. Mark Watney wakes up alone on Mars deserted by the rest of the crew after they think he died trying to get to the MAV.  Does he blame them?  Nope.  Does he just decide to give up and die because he knows there is no way he's going to survive?  Once again, no.  It takes a while, but he counts his rations, and then figures out a way to survive by using his "botany powers".  He doesn't give "giving up" a thought because somewhere in him, he has the faith that he is going to survive long enough to get rescued.  (Vincent or Venkat depending on which version) Kapoor had the faith that the mission was going to work.  The crew had faith in Lewis.  Lewis had faith in the crew (I have more on them later).

Hope.  There's a heck of a lot of hope in The Martian. Purcell's whole plan, even though he did all the math and it worked out, that's all hope (and faith) that it goes off without any hitches.  I dare to suggest that Mindy Park is the personification of hope during half the movie (I'm still reading the book, just an FYI).  The first time you meet Kapoor he is hoping to extend the Ares program, and that's just after an astronaut "died". The Ares III crew's hope that they can catch Mark despite all the problems that they kept encountering.  Hope is all over the place.

So here's the big one: Love.  I know most people think about love as romantic love.  Yeah ok, that shows up here briefly with Johanssen and Beck (which is adorable, BTW), and probably not surprising when two single people would be in close contact together in a small group for over 3 years, but there's more kinds of love.  There's a line in the bible that says, "The greatest love is to lay down your life for a friend."  This is the kind of love I'm talking about.  Agape.  Mark wasn't mad at the rest of the crew for leaving him behind.  He knew that they thought he was dead.  He didn't blame them.  That in itself shows love.  But then there is when they decide to go back.  It's unanimous.  There's no dissention in the ranks.  Even in the book where they have the contingency plan where if they run out of supplies they make Johanssen the "designated survivor" (ok, ok, I looked ahead, so sue me).  Bringing their friend home is more important to them than their lives.  THAT is love, in one of its purest forms.  And back on Earth, the entire planet is united, at least for a moment, to just find out if one man was saved.  There's an element of love in that as well.

So that's my take.  Science made it possible for Mark Watney to make it home in The Martian, but Faith, Hope, and Love were the forces that guided them.