Ridley Scott's films are always an easy re-watch - even if you've seen them a dozen times again, and even if the script isn't always up to scratch, they're always beautiful to look at, and always cinematically charming.
But of all of them, I always find The Martian the easiest to watch again. I caught the first five minutes of the bastard the other day on the TV, and ended up watching the whole damn thing. I couldn't help myself.
It's easy to get sucked in, because it looks fucking amazing, and has an incredibly strong cast. But the main reason I like to watch it again is that there are no dicks in it. No selfish cunts creating drama in the name of narcissism, putting obstructions in the way of our heroes.
A million screenwriting handbooks will tell you about the need for conflict, but people acting like obstructive dicks just because they are dicks are just the easiest way to get it, and that can just get really tiring.
But The Martian doesn't need any of that to create tension, it just has one simple problem, that a lot of people want to solve. And everybody involved just wants to help, in any way they can, and the eternal optimist inside me still thinks there are more people who want to help others than harm them in the world, all evidence on the nightly news notwithstanding.
I have found it weirdly hard to watch films with racists in it, even though their actions are in no way condoned, and they usually suffer some kind of consequence for it, but they're just fucking stupid morons, and I can't wait for them to get off the screen.
Sometimes you just need good people doing interesting things. Is that so much to ask?
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