Author’s Note: Well, I finally watched Project Hail Mary a few days ago. The film is a mash-up of The Andromeda Strain, Planet of the Apes, E.T., Wall-E, and at least half-a-dozen other classic sci-fi movies. And that’s okay. Everything is a remix. And Project Hail Mary is a fine film—gorgeous, exciting, suspenseful, and (yes) heartwarming.
It’s also another great example the The Scientist Hero archetype that I suggested a while back (writing about another Andy Weir film, The Martian.) So, I thought I would repost. Enjoy…
One of my favorite movies of the last twenty years is Ridley Scott’s The Martian. It’s a science-fiction/adventure movie about an astronaut (Matt Damon) who becomes stranded on Mars after his comrades leave him for dead. Marooned on a barren, hostile world, he has to use his brains and ingenuity to survive until his friends come back to rescue him. By the end of the movie, he has survived dust storms, explosions, freezing temperatures, and starvation.
How does he overcome all these challenges?
Science.
The story is familiar, of course. It has many antecedents, including with the original stranded-on-an-island novel, Robinson Crusoe, and also (more directly) to a great B-movie Robinson Crusoe on Mars. In that classic 1964 cheese-fest, the hero survives by finding a Martian cave full of air where plants still grow, water still flows, and there’s a steady source of light (which is never explained). He even befriends an alien who is also trapped on the planet.
Continue reading “The Scientist Hero: Our Newest Cinema Archetype (Repost)”
Ash Clifton, Writer 