The Martian

Want to get away from it all?

Your dream destination is…

The Habitat – sleeps six, isolated, panoramic vistas, needs some work. Away from everything. Lengthy wait to book and arrange transportation. Comes with a vehicle called The Rover at destination. Limited services available, and no on-site support staff at all. Key words – Bring your own!

Doesn’t sound too promising does it? Astronaut/botanist Mark Watney was part of a team of six (The Ares Mission) that visited this place. A sudden and unexpected storm whipped up, and Mark was hit by some flying debris. Not only did his fellow adventurers lose sight of him, but he lost his communications power. Not quite like a cell phone needing a charge – more like he was knocked off the grid.

As the storm heightened, his mates had no choice. They had to saddle up and get out of ‘Dodge’ ultra quick. In about the same amount of time it took Han Solo to say – Take us to hyper-space Chewie, in a flash of powerful thrusters, they were gone.

So begins, Ridley Scott’s The Martian. The guy left behind, was thought to be dead. Only he wasn’t.

What he was – was stranded on the Planet Mars. Mark Watney is played by Matt Damon in a bravura performance. Speaking of bravura, let’s also toss a similar bouquet at Sir Ridley. This is easily his best effort in years.

Like most of you, I don’t get that many opportunities to explore our solar system. The furthest away from terra firma that I get is the cruising altitude of what ever commercial jet-liner I’ve chosen to book passage with. For me, I can go half way around the world in a day and then call it a day while retiring to a sweet hotel with room service, hot and cold running water, and maid service. Plus a concierge downstairs to help me if necessary.

For Mark Watney, his help is only 140,000,000 miles away.

So there’s your set up. Tom Hanks was the Castaway on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. There might be a passing steamship, fishing trawler, or even a super-tanker on the horizon, but they’d have no idea about him, and wouldn’t be looking for him anyway. Or there could be a flight high above that might spot his smoke signals or make shift driftwood signage that read HELP! from 39,000 feet above him. But Watney could not expect to be discovered in a similar fashion. To say he was off the beaten path would be a misstatement of epic proportions.

He was in a sense up shit’s creek without a paddle. But a paddle wouldn’t have helped him anyway. As there was no water. He’d have to make water. But instead of a paddle he had solar panels. Which could be used to generate power. So he’d be able to cook via his microwave. Only he had just a limited supply of the remaining food. After all, this always was a bring your own.

But he was a botanist which in theory meant they he’d have a better idea than most about growing some stuff. And he have to get on that right away. He did the inventory of food stuffs (which were not quite k-rations – but more like prepared food stuffs in packages. And there were just so many remaining packages. Applying math in the form of rationing out his supply he could stretch it so far but likely not far enough.

Transcendence

Transcendence opened today. Not quite with a thud but almost. Johnny Depp has little to do except think, dream, die – and  once that’s done, then the whole process begins again. Think of the fact of men, machines, and God; then roll them into one entity – as in sort of a new wave trinity, then upload this new being to the Internet, and you have a transcendental event or the theme of this film.

Now this film may sound as something provocative, or important, or even worthy of your time, money, and consideration. But really it isn’t. While not quite as numbingly bad as Depp’s turn as The Tourist in 2010, this is a film with little action, so-so dialogue, and a lot of philosophizing about the current natural order of things, and a new way to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Depp’s character Dr. Will Caster is not quite saying – We have met technology, and now we are technology. But that’s what the film is about. You see, as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Artificial Intelligence, Caster is set on building the ultimate Siri. Only he’s not talking about a mobile phone – instead he’s filled with terms like nannites, neural networks, AI, and more of the same.

Of course there are opponents. To wit, an anti-technology faction with Kate Mara as the Queen Bee called Bree. She’s not the least bit like a physical bee,  but don’t be fooled, she can surely sting as she’s the head of the opposition.

Now Caster has his allies as well. One of which is his wife Evelyn, played nicely by Rebecca Hall, another is Max Walter played by Paul Bettany, and a third is a think tank buddy/colleague/fellow scientist called Joseph Tagger and Morgan Freeman has the role.

So as the film begins we find the earth is mostly powerless, and since this is the case – we are back in the dark ages literally. We are told that Denver and another city have some power, but that is it Quickly we flash back five years and Dr. Caster is about to present his findings to an august body of some sort, or at least a packed auditorium, as opposed to a few guys at a corner pub.

He gives his speech and hallelujah, we all should embrace his benevolence and ways and means of not only protecting us from our own follies, but also, by doing so, we, along with AI, shall save the world. As he puts it, Once online, a sentient machine will quickly overcome the limits of biology; in a short time, its analytic power will become greater than the collective intelligence of every person born in the history of the world.

He means that all of that intelligence would now be available to us, and would now be at our finger tips, or actually he means a keyboard.

But then, those bad folks, those anti-technology folks, gun him down in the lobby of the auditorium while he’s signing autographs – yes, geeks have groupies in this film. He doesn’t die of the gunshot. But that bullet was actually a very small projectile that might also be considered a dirty bomb. He’s given four or five weeks to live before he will die of radiation poisoning.