ABSTRACT
In an interview celebrating his Oscar nomination, screenwriter Drew Goddard at once acknowledges and dismisses the literary ghosts that haunt The Martian. Based on Andy Weir's 2011 novel, the film features an astronaut who finds himself abandoned on the surface of Mars. James Chapman and Nicholas Cull describe an American foreign policy that after the Second World War shifts from isolation to one of implicit expansion. A single theatrical poster for The Martian speaks to these precise ambiguities of post-colonial Crusoes. The neo-colonial effect becomes strikingly clear after Mark Watney establishes contact with NASA and begins to receive emails from Earth. A key breakthrough in NASA's rescue plans comes when the Chinese space program willingly sacrifices its own clandestine mission for Watney. Capitalists must also discover new means of production in general and natural resources in particular, which puts increasing pressure on the natural environment to yield up necessary raw materials and absorb the inevitable waste.
