I went to the showing of The Martian skeptical of how much I would enjoy the film. I am not usually a fan of science fiction and I was not sure how exciting the movie could possibly get – after all, how much can one man can do on a desolate place like Mars? Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised as it turns out one man can do a lot there! The film reiterated for me how essential persistence can be. It is not hard to lose hope, especially after encountering failure and failure. For instance, Watney faced so many obstacles including crop failure and the blow-up of the hab. But Watney kept himself going – cracking jokes about his commander’s taste in music, creating video logs of his daily life, and continuously planning out how he was going to get off Mars. His teammates and his colleagues at NASA showed the same persistence – refusing to give up and repeatedly adapting to changing deadlines. The fact that Watney was brought back alive was a miracle but his own persistence and the persistence of the people rooting for him surely played a major role in allowing it to happen.

This film, while a bit cheesy, brought up a lot of interesting ideas. For me, the most important one was the idea of persistence as mentioned previously. But the film also made me think about the importance of mindset. While Watney was in distress when he first realized his teammates had left and he was alone on Mars, he quickly recovered from this distress given the circumstances. I was shocked by how fast Watney “bounced back.” He could have easily decided that there was nothing left that he could do to get back home but he didn’t. This film served as a friendly reminder that an optimistic mindset, hard work, and persistence can yield tremendous outcomes.