The protagonist of this film, Mark Watney, is a person that I would want to teach me how to use botany to become a better screenwriter because I truly believe he could, although it would probably be how to grow those poop potatoes to get through those hard years. Weir and Goddard created a character that almost convinced me to go to my school's science department and join the Botany department. However, the fact that he was a botanist was not what made this character special, it was his ability to solve all of his problems using his limited knowledge. And he was probably the coolest scientist the world will ever know. The writers putting humor into Watney's character made him more human to me. I think that given his situation, it would have been very easy for him to be a more distant character, but his personality was very easy to like and get invested in to the point where after he made it back to his crew, I would probably watch another two hours of his return trip to Earth.

The closest thing to a villain was Teddy, the director of NASA, who was aware of all the political ramifications that were going to occur as a result of any rescue attempt. He wasn't like an evil bean counter, "it's not worth going to Mars to save one man!" but he's aware of how all their actions are going to affect things down the line. On Mars, Watney is well aware of his limitations because they're right there in front of him, but on Earth, there's a whole other system of obstacles in place that have to be dealt with. He kind of has to be the survival mechanism for the organization. I feel bad that we weren't able to spend more time with the crew (I do like that Ares Live that went up showing the crew being analyzed after their isolation tests), but one little thing I liked was how understated the romance between Beck and Johannson (Bucky Barnes and Sue Storm, er, Sebastian Stan and Kate Mara). Any other movie would put that in the forefront, but it happens so subtly that you start to think back to all the signs. The real obvious one being Mara in the ring and Stan in the dock when they're on the supply run/the Starman sequence. You just think it's an effects shot in the moment, but when you think back later, you realize why it's in there. I'm sure there's other signs that I missed.

There were a few characters that I wished could have been developed either more or maybe directed differently. Mitch, played by Sean Bean, was almost a cipher, which makes me wonder if he was edited down. His scenes seemed to sort of just end and he wasn't much opposition for Teddy, who I'm pretty sure was written for us to dislike. Donald Glover as Rich Purnell felt like a caricature, a random sampling of behaviours as a character. The ignoring his boss, starting and stopping mid-sentence, all together he seemed almost less than one note. I'm not going to mention the book, swear! I also really liked that they kept the single, solitary romance very much in the background, and as far as that goes, VERY glad there wasn't a random romance shoehorned in for Mark Watney either. That shot of Beck and Johanssen through space was gorgeous.

Lance, when the movie first came out, I must have seen a half-dozen articles speculating about the influence - hopefully! - on young people to motivate them to get into science, possibly pursuing it as a career. Even some thought the movie might jump start NASA funding again. The movie's embrace of science and bringing it down to scale for us non-science types -- "Hey, look, science can actually solve problems!" -- is one of the story's strengths in reaching a wide audience. As far as humor goes, I'm so glad you mentioned that. Imagine Watney as a humorless individual. No, in a way, Watney's gallows humor, his ability to laugh in the face of almost certain death which shrinks the emotional distance between he and us, despite the fact he millions of miles away from Earth. The humor also breaks tension in the story and adds considerably to the entertainment value of the story. Thanks for those observations!

I think you're right, Chris: Teddy does provide the most opposition to the very idea, let alone plan to go back to Mars to save Watney. To the degree he does, he may be considered to serve a Nemesis function. What's nice about his character is, he has a defensible position. He's not just some cold-hearted bean counter. There is logic and statistics on his side, as well as a keen awareness of political exigencies. As far as spending more time with the crew, this dovetails into ImmaBookieWookie's next comment, and clocking in at 144 minutes, Ridley Scott pushed the envelope as far as he could. If the movie had clocked in 15-20 minutes more, sufficient enough time perhaps to service other characters satisfactorily, that would have meant one less screening per day which would have translated into fewer revenue dollars. Making movies = Imperfect world. The movie is not perfect. And Watney's dilemma trumps everything else in terms of the emotional logic of the story. Re the romance, such as it is: Thank God they didn't try to shoehorn something in beyond what they did. Would have taken us into 1970s Irwin Allen disaster movie territory!

ImmaBookieWookie, I hear you. Please see preceding comments to Chris. I can assure you when the DVD comes out, the director's cut will have a LOT of those subplots. You have to imagine that stuff was scripted and likely shot. But financial exigencies trump aesthetics almost always. Re absence of cheesy romance: Yes! That would have been cringe-worthy. And you just KNOW there were studio notes to do precisely that. Reminded that Warner Bros. execs suggested that in Gravity, give Stone a lover who was a technician in the ground crew in Houston, then cut back and forth during their communications. Yes, an actual studio note. There is ALWAYS that lowest common denominator mentality which emerges in any movie. Fortunately Ridley Scott and Drew Goddard stayed on point. Thanks for your reflections!

One thing that I think the characterisation does for the movie is to make it feel more like a "true story", which helps draw us in to Watney's predicament. In fiction, we as writers are always told to reduce the cast, conflate similar characters, have fewer characters but dig more deeply into them. (And for good reason, usually!) The one exception is films based on true stories, which tend to have larger casts of characters as they try to reflect the roles played by real people in the situation. So, by having the Ares crew *and* a wide range of senior personnel and experts at NASA, The Martian feels a lot more like those "true story" movies and thus more believable. It's unlikely anyone set out to deliberately achieve that, but it's a fascinating side-effect...

You've heard those stories about people who think that the movie IS true, right? Definitely a testament to how realistic it feels (it takes place in 2039, but they never say the date and they don't put anything "advanced" onto the screen, so no holowhatevers or clear phones. The Marvel movies, which take place in the present, feel more futuristic!)

There's that idea that the villain is the hero of his own story, Teddy's priority shifts into saving Watney, but he's also trying to save NASA and future Mars missions. He's not really a nemesis but more obstacles to overcome, like Mars to Watney, and they're not random or arbitrary obstacles either, they're real issues that are solved, how else? By thinking things through.