In the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, the United States Department of War orders a detachment to rescue Private James Francis Ryan, played by Matt Damon, from behind enemy lines following the Omaha Beach landings on June 6, 1944. Why? Because the Ryan family back home in America had already lost three of its four sons to the war. To put this into the proper perspective, the US War Department was willing to risk the lives of an entire detachment of men for the sake of the Ryan family's fourth son.
The film's premise was very loosely adapted from the story of the Nilands, a family from upstate New York who, it was believed, had also lost three sons of its four sons to the war. When the War Department learned of this, it brought the only known surviving son -- Frederick "Fritz" Niland -- back the US. Of course, the department didn't dispatch an entire detachment of men to rescue Fritz or anything. It just ordered him onto a plane or boat and shipped him home. Later on, it turned out that another Niland brother, who had been assumed dead, was alive in a Japanese POW camp.
In The Martian (2015) Matt Damon needs to be rescued again. This time he plays a botanist-astronaut who is accidentally abandoned on Mars during a mission to the planet in the year 2035. The Matt Damon character manages to survive by rationing the remaining food, creating his own water, and growing some potatoes. He also succeeds in contacting NASA to inform the fine people there that -- despite everything -- he is very much alive and, well, and would really like to return home.
NASA -- which initially had assumed Matt Damon had died of explosive decompression -- ums and ahs about what to do for what seems like an eternity, and then finally decides to work with the Chinese space program and spend billions or trillions of dollars to rescue its Martian Robinson Crusoe. Naturally, all of Martian Matt's crew mates -- who are already halfway home by this point after years of being out in space -- unanimously decide that it's worth risking their lives to save him.
Now, the United States War Department would not have risked an entire detachment of soldiers to save Matt Damon in 1944, but it's good to know that they probably would have brought him home if he wasn't in action or behind enemy lines.
It's also good to know that in 2035, world governments and NASA will gladly risk gazillions of dollars worth of cutting edge technology to save Matt Damon from having to live out the rest of his days as a Martian potato farmer.
With that in mind, I must admit that watching Saving Matt Damon films is difficult in this time and place. I simply cannot bring myself to believe that any of today's world governments or global organizations or space crews would be willing to risk anything to save Matt Damon from behind enemy lines or Mars or anywhere for that matter.
Sorry Matt. Them's the breaks. Better start looking elsewhere for saving.
The film's premise was very loosely adapted from the story of the Nilands, a family from upstate New York who, it was believed, had also lost three sons of its four sons to the war. When the War Department learned of this, it brought the only known surviving son -- Frederick "Fritz" Niland -- back the US. Of course, the department didn't dispatch an entire detachment of men to rescue Fritz or anything. It just ordered him onto a plane or boat and shipped him home. Later on, it turned out that another Niland brother, who had been assumed dead, was alive in a Japanese POW camp.
In The Martian (2015) Matt Damon needs to be rescued again. This time he plays a botanist-astronaut who is accidentally abandoned on Mars during a mission to the planet in the year 2035. The Matt Damon character manages to survive by rationing the remaining food, creating his own water, and growing some potatoes. He also succeeds in contacting NASA to inform the fine people there that -- despite everything -- he is very much alive and, well, and would really like to return home.
NASA -- which initially had assumed Matt Damon had died of explosive decompression -- ums and ahs about what to do for what seems like an eternity, and then finally decides to work with the Chinese space program and spend billions or trillions of dollars to rescue its Martian Robinson Crusoe. Naturally, all of Martian Matt's crew mates -- who are already halfway home by this point after years of being out in space -- unanimously decide that it's worth risking their lives to save him.
Now, the United States War Department would not have risked an entire detachment of soldiers to save Matt Damon in 1944, but it's good to know that they probably would have brought him home if he wasn't in action or behind enemy lines.
It's also good to know that in 2035, world governments and NASA will gladly risk gazillions of dollars worth of cutting edge technology to save Matt Damon from having to live out the rest of his days as a Martian potato farmer.
With that in mind, I must admit that watching Saving Matt Damon films is difficult in this time and place. I simply cannot bring myself to believe that any of today's world governments or global organizations or space crews would be willing to risk anything to save Matt Damon from behind enemy lines or Mars or anywhere for that matter.
Sorry Matt. Them's the breaks. Better start looking elsewhere for saving.
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