Note Taking Practice

The Martian
 

The spacesuit and the spaceships in the film fit in with the iconology of Mars and space in general. Mars looks like what you would expect, as does Earth from space. The story starts with that of a mission that seems to be either on or around Mars. The mission looks to be involving a team, but something goes wrong, and there ends up only being one lone survivor. He wakes up on the planet, and goes into NASAs Mars base. He only has supplies for a limited amount of time and he realises that he will need to start growing his own supplies, and find water. He tries to send signs back to NASA in the meantime, but he doesn’t know when they will see them. When they finally find the signs, they contact him. They inform him they will be coming to get him, but it may take longer than he thinks.

The main actor Matt Damon is a very popular actor, and this will add to the appeal factor of the movie. The other actors have been in other films, but are not anywhere near as popular as him. The director is also a very popular figure. He has worked on many successful movies in the past, for example Alien. The music throughout the trailer is very dramatic and theatrical, and can also be seen as ‘epic’. This adds to the effect.

The movie does not follow a typical rule in terms of Propp’s Character Types. There is no villain or as such throughout. There is only a hero being Matt Damon, and the helpers being NASA. They try and save him when they realise he is still alive. He is a hero due to him living out time on an empty planet were nothing grows, and water is hard to come by.  The camera positioning for the audience is in third person and there is a few close ups shots but mostly just half body and full body. There is an enigma mean of being weather he will be able to survive, and whether or not he will be found and saved. The action codes are things such as the food starting to grow and him getting water. They help with the enigma.

The Binary oppositions in this movie are between survival and death, and the themes throughout are heavily on him being able to stay alive, and grow food to live. This film also follows suit with Todorovs structure. Everything is fine at the start, then they crash land and all but one is dead. The lone survivor recognising this, realises he needs to survive and get to the NASA Mars base. His attempt to make it better again is to try and send a message back to NASA, to find and save him. NASA who see the message, and tell him they are coming to save him.

The editing in the film features a fair amount of CGI with the rockets and such. The lighting is fairly bright, and the SFX is used on Mars and for the rocket. The main dialogue is from the main character and their lots of dramatic music throughout