All language subtitles for James.Camerons.Story.of.Science.Fiction.S01E02.720p.HDTV.x264-aAF

Space, the final frontier.

Science fiction
is basically saying

there are no limits.

-Space is anything we want it to be.
-Yes!

The scale of the universe
is unbelievably stunning.

We are asking
those big questions,

like "Where are we going?"

and "What does it say about us
as humans?"

Think it answers
something elemental

in human beings,
which is, "We love danger."

Space travel
sounds rather perilous.

They will never get me onto
one of those dreadful starships.

Science fiction
inspired the rocketeers

who brought us to the moon.

And that's just the beginning.

Science fiction holds out hope

for even more
incredible discoveries.

I think we're curious
in our bones

about going
into the galaxy.

What has the galaxy
ever done for you?

Why would you wanna
save it?

Because I'm one of the idiots
who lives in it!

Humanity is hardwired
to explore

and to exploit.

We are citizens
of the universe.

We belong there, too.

I hate space.

I've been thinking
about this idea

that space is anything
we want it to be.

It's the great unknown,
and we can project

our fantasies and our ideas,
our sociology,

and, you know,
we can use it just as an excuse

to get to a completely
different culture,

or we can take it
at face-value

as a problem we need to solve.
Yeah.

And I sorta think
about science f...

Space science-fiction
as, you know, on the one hand,

you got the hard-tech stuff,
like "2001,"

and then, at the other end
of the spectrum,

it's more space
as a kind of

complete unfettering
of the imagination.

You got...
You got two things.

No matter how you do it,
whether it's "2001"

or "Star Wars,"
they're adventures.

The... The...
The big bogeyman is the unknown.

Right.
Because the thing about humans...

It's always been
with us...

Is we have
an imagination.

The night sky has always been
the great mystery.

One, it's terrifying
because you walk out in it

and you get eaten.

And the other part is that
there's...

There's things up there.

I mean, the stars, the planets.
Yeah.

And the things have
to mean something.

So this is a primal attraction,
is what you're saying.

Yes.
And man has curiosity.

Curiosity and imagination
bring you things like stories.

So you're saying
it's a mystical connection.

-Yep, yep.
-But there's a mystical connection with the sky

and with stars
and all things,

so they relate directly
to us.

Isn't that what we try to do
with our movies?

-Yeah.
-Take... Capture a little bit of that awe

and bring it into
a movie theater

and... and feel what it might
be like to go out there?

Houston, I have a bad
feeling about this mission.

What Alfonso Cuar�n
does with the camera

at the very beginning
of "Gravity"

is you have this extended
single-camera shot

where you watch
both George Clooney

and Sandra Bullock
float around space,

and you have these images
of how small a human

can be in front of
the entire planet,

and then the camera
will spin around

and you'll see
how small a human

is in front of the vastness
of the universe.

Can't beat the view.

That movie really
brought people to space.

It showed them not only
what the view looked like,

but also what it felt
like to have the view,

and that was so important
to me to be able to share

because the view
is unimaginable.

It was so clean and pristine,
it almost hurt your eyes

because the edges are
so sharp,

and it's giant.

So, what do you like
about being up here?

The silence.

When I was living up
on the space station,

my little brother met
Sandra Bullock's brother-in-law.

He said, "Well, you know,
my sister-in-law's

making this movie. Maybe
your sister would talk to her."

And my little brother said,
"She's been up there

for a couple of months
with five guys,

and I think she'd love
to talk to Sandra Bullock."

How feeling?

Like a Chihuahua
that's being tumble-dried.

Some of the things
that she wanted to know

were what's it like for me
when I wake up in the morning,

what's a hard thing,
what's an easy thing,

so that she understands how
she can make space look real.

Sandra, I thought,
looked purposeful

and not like a newbie.

Space travel has been
a science-fiction theme

for a long, long, long time.

It is really fantastic
the lengths

that the early
science-fiction writers went to

to get a space craft
from the Earth even to the moon.

George M�li�s was
originally a stage magician

who got enamored

with the brand-new art form
of cinematography.

And not only, did he invent
the science-fiction movie,

he essentially invented
movie special effects.

And it was really based
on the two giants

of science fiction
at the time...

H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

Jules Verne provided
the plot and story

for the first half of the movie

with his
"From the Earth to the Moon."

The second half was based
on H.G. Wells'

"The First Men in the Moon."

Early depictions of
space travel show characters

just moving about freely,
opening up the door,

and walking out into space
with no trouble.

But within a couple decades,
things change pretty quickly

in cinematic depictions of,
outer space and space travel,

so, as early as the 1920s,

you have films like
"Woman in the Moon"

by Fritz Lang,

where characters
are strapped into their seats,

and as the ship
is taking off,

they can feel the pressure

of the g-force on their chests,

struggling to breathe
as they lift off.

And then you've got
writers that worked

for John W. Campbell Jr.

When he began editing
"Astounding Science Fiction,"

who were held to a standard
of scientific verisimilitude,

and that's when you
start getting realistic,

believable space adventures.

No time for count-off!
Stand by.

Fire!

Tell us about this trip
to the moon.

Do you... Do you think
this is possible?

Yes. Yes.
It's quite possible.

-We're here, aren't we?
-Yeah.

Not only are we here,
but,

it can be done.

It can be done
as soon as anyone

is willing to foot
the bill to do it.

Robert Heinlein was the guru
of hard science-fiction,

but I think,
before that and beyond that,

he was the guru
of logical science-fiction.

Heinlein asked the question...

Which is the classic hard
science-fiction question...

How do you do it?
How do you solve that problem?

Even today, that's a key theme
in science fiction.

The pre-chain reaction
is out of control.

We're rapidly expanding.

Multiple satellites are down
and they keep on falling.

The Cuar�ns wanted to
recreate the good, the bad,

and the ugly of space travel.

Look, we need to get
the hell out of here.

-All right.
-You need some help there, Matt?

-No, don't wait for us.
-It's stuck!

One of the things
I discussed

with the Cuar�ns
was the Kessler syndrome

and the notion
that a destroyed satellite

can lead to debris,
which destroys more satellites

and more debris.

Space debris is a real concern
for any spacecraft

that has to travel through
low Earth orbit today.

Explore.

At the speeds debris can travel,
a small object like a bolt

can hit you
with the kinetic energy

of a howitzer round.

The film "Gravity"
is visually compelling

because it really sets up
the unforgiving dynamic,

how just the smallest step
in the wrong direction

is going to send the entire
series of events tumbling.

And it only takes that much.

No!

The only really
big mistake they made

in that movie is that, if you
were up on a space station,

the last thing you'd do
is let George Clooney go.

There's a lot of secrets
in the universe.

We don't know anything.

That's the one thing
I do know for sure.

But we've gotta get
out of our solar system.

We've gotta get
to another solar system.

Yeah, but Einstein says
you can't travel

faster than the speed of light.

Science fiction
is basically saying

there are no limits.

-That's right.
-Think outside the box.

-No matter what somebody tells you...
-Right.

No matter
what you've learned,

throw all that away and say,

"I can do anything
I wanna do.

You're in a completely
different universe."

Traveling through hyperspace
ain't like dustin' crops, boy.

We sometimes forget
that space

is cosmologically big.

Traveling to the rest of
the universe would take

tens, thousands of years
with current technology.

The reason we measure them
in light-years

is because it takes
that long

for the speed of light
to travel that distance.

Faster-than-light travel is
the holy grail of space travel.

And right now,
it's the "baloneum" that we...

Baloneum is that stuff you
make up to make the story work

and it's different
from "handwaveum,"

which is how you distract

the reader or the viewer,

but... and it's not "unobtainium."

That's a diff...
But baloneum is that stuff.

If we had the right baloneum,

we could make
faster-than-light travel work.

So, here is a perfect
limitation for an artist.

You can't go faster
than light speed.

How are we gonna get around it
to explore the universe?

Science-fiction writers said,

"Okay, well, we have
to create a speed

faster than light speed."

Are you ready to say
goodbye to our solar system?

Execute jump.

I'm not sure
what's wrong here.

Is the parking brake on?

Compressor.

What a rush.

And with that rush,
science fiction

launches an age of exploration.

We're down
to 0.3896th of light speed.

"Forbidden Planet"
is one of those rare,

big-budget
science-fiction movies

from a time when most
science-fiction movies

looked pretty cheesy.

It's very easy to see
many of the things

that later science fiction,

specifically "Star Trek,"
if not directly took from,

was certainly inspired by.

The ship
on "Forbidden Planet"...

It almost looks like
the saucer section

of the Enterprise
without the rest of it.

These discs
that they stand on...

It looks just like
the transporter.

It definitely looks like
the designers of "Star Trek"

looked at this and said,

"Boy, this is
a beautiful-looking movie."

"Forbidden Planet" is
definitely less diverse,

which makes "Star Trek" special.

Space, the final frontier.

The importance of "Star Trek"
is that it brought space

into the living rooms
of Americans

and people really
across the globe.

It made space accessible.

"Star Trek" was a classic,
humanistic vision

of a kind of utopian future
that you l-live and let live.

These are
the voyages

of the starship Enterprise.

Gene Roddenberry
said he wanted

to do an all-inclusive series
in space

with all the ideas
that could more easily be done

in science fiction in the '60s
than in realistic fiction.

To boldly go
where no man has gone before.

So, you could deal with
controversial issues,

but they weren't controversial
because they're distanced.

They're not us.
That's not our own society.

We did wanna get into
racial issues, sexist issues,

that were going on at the time.

And I think it opened a door
into an alien world

that people could say,
"Yeah, I get that."

It offered lots
of story opportunities

to tell stories about

things going on
right here on Earth.

This is no game,
Captain.

Half a million people
have just been killed.

There's an episode called
"A Taste of Armageddon"

about these two planets
that have...

That are conducting
a virtual war.

Computers, captain.

They fight their war
with computers, totally.

Computers don't kill
a half-million people.

Deaths have been
registered.

Of course, they have
24 hours to report.

To report?

To our
disintegration machines.

At the very end of it,
Kirk says...

We're human beings

with the blood
of a million savage years

on our hands.

But we can stop it.

We can admit
that we're killers,

but we're not
going to kill today.

So all of these
different stories,

they all had a social message
buried in them.

Gene knew what he was doing,

the writers knew
what they were doing.

It's up to you.

"Star Trek" was a way of saying,

"Look, we can do better.

Things, the way they are,

it's not necessarily
the way they have to be."

What about the cast
of the show?

I'm told that NBC only wanted
white males on the bridge.

No women, no blacks.

When I brought in
a mixed-racial crew,

both the network
and Desilu Studios,

which had it at that time,
came in, saying,

"What are you doing?!

You're going to ruin us!"

I can tell you what happened
to me the first time

I saw "Star Trek."
Really, before "Star Trek,"

there were no people
of color in the future.

We didn't really
exist at all anywhere,

and Gene Roddenberry
created this group

where this beautiful
black woman,

not a mammy,
was head of communications.

Captain, I'm picking up
a sub-space distress call,

priority channel.
It's from Space Station K7.

So to see her in that position,
for me,

was, like, extraordinary.

And it's why
I went to Gene

The Next Generation,"

was because of what
Nichelle Nichols showed me,

which was that I had
a future in the world.

What about you?
Do you speak Romulan, cadet?

Uhura.
All three dialects, sir.

The day that I met
Nichelle Nichols,

I was very nervous

because that was
a first time for me

to step into
someone else's shoes.

And she suspended
any kind of judgment.

If anything,
she handed me that torch

and she said, "Run with it."

The jamming signal's gone.

Transport abilities
are reestablished.

The main attribute
that "Star Trek"

gives people is hope.

May we together become greater
than the sum of both of us.

What I took from
the original series

was the love
humanity is able to have,

even if it's set in a time
that they may never recognize,

they may never meet,
the strive for that is tangible.

Live long and prosper,
Spock.

Live long and prosper.

The cultural importance
of the "Star Trek" franchise

can't be underestimated.

We've had, to date, seven
different series, 13 films,

and hundreds of novelizations,
comic books, board games,

video games, costumes.

Fans love "Star Trek"
because it does suggest

that there will
be opportunities for us

to meet each other in space
and to learn from each other.

The most powerful
message, to me, of "Star Trek"

was just the idea that, by
stepping out into the universe,

we put our old problems
behind us

and we become better people
through cooperation

and, you know, believing in
a certain set of values.

It's a very romantic notion,

it's a very idealistic notion,

but that's a universe
I wanna go live in.

I wanna go get on a starship,

I wanna be part
of the Federation.

"2001,"
as far as I'm concerned,

is the best science-fiction
film ever made.

It is the quintessential
what space travel is.

Yeah.
And it looks great.

You know, it's... it's...
It's... it's just...

It's impeccable the way
they put it together.

The discovery coming overhead
endlessly is basically...

Right.
The precursor

of the... of the opening shot
of "Star Wars."

Right.
It stunned everybody, myself included.

Probably "2001" had more of an
influence on me than I realize.

But at the same time,

I was completely stoked
by that movie.

It's brilliant.

I think "2001" opened up
films to be a much broader

and interesting canvas,

in terms of what space travel
might be like,

than anything that had
been shown before.

Everything was believable,
even though we'd have

our jaws on our laps
in amazement,

but everything always
had a reality to it.

That's absolutely the most

meticulously accurate
science-fiction

movie between Arthur C. Clarke,

the hard science-fiction writer,

and Stanley Kubrick,
the visionary filmmaker,

who thought this image
was all you need.

Let the audience figure it out.

In that sense, everything
was a surprise

and a visual entr�e
of unbelievable significance.

But it's really not the...
The filmmaking part of it.

It's the "let's go
into outer space" part of it.

-That, too. That, too.
-And we have the reality now to deal with it,

which is why Mars is
becoming more of a thing,

but we have
to get people to say,

"This is a fun adventure."

Yee-haw!

I guess I was probably
11 years old when I...

When I first saw "Star Wars."

It was the most
magnificent experience

I had ever had in my life.

My... My mind was, you know,
searching for those answers

and the world
and you're hungry

and I looked at "Star Wars"

and I j... I knew I wanted
to live in that world.

I've been chasing "Star Wars"
for my entire career.

"Star Wars" is a landmark film

in the history of
science-fiction stories

about space because it opened up
the excitement

and the adventure of traveling
from planet to planet

and made us all want
to go there with the heroes.

-Take 555. Take two.
-Action.

We built the cameras,
we built the optical printers,

we had built the miniatures
all under one roof,

which was kind of unusual.

We could fabricate metal,
we could do machining,

the chemistry
for the explosions.

It was a whole litany
of things that were new.

The first shot in the movie
was sort of the touchstone

for whether it was
gonna work or not.

It had a miniature
of the Star Destroyer,

which was three feet long.

When we saw it,
everybody went,"

It's great."

That is a shot of pure awe
where suddenly, as a viewer,

you're just knocked out
by the potential of space

and where this movie could go.

This was revolutionary.

It really felt like you
were standing there.

And the ship was
coming overhead.

It was so transformative.

Talk about what
your influences were

that fed into the creation
of "Star Wars."

As much as "Star Wars" seemed to
just leap from your forehead...

No.
Fully formed,

it had roots that any...

Anybody in the
science fiction world knows.

Nothing, nothing,
nothing in this world

pops into your head
fully formed.

It's an accumulation of all
the things you've seen,

and then, when you go
to regurgitate it

into your own thing,

you take
all the best parts.

The roll-up... that was
taken from "Flash Gordon."

The angle that it rolls
up the screen

with the way the text
was arranged.

Even the number of ellipses.

And he was very much influenced
by the movies of Akira Kurosawa.

So, in terms of cowboy films,
Lucas was very influenced

by John Ford's "The Searchers,"

which contains a scene
that very much mirrors

the scene where Uncle Owen
and Aunt Beru are murdered.

Martha!
Martha!

Uncle Owen!
Aunt Beru!

That definitely helped fuel
this notion that "Star Wars"

is a space Western.

One of the things that was
really critical in "Star Wars"

was, again,
this sense of adrenaline

and the idea
of trajectory in space.

Almost there.

And that brought some of that
visceral quality back to it,

sort of the idea
of having that rush.

I can't shake him!

And you know,
it's interesting.

The closer you get to something
that speed, the faster it feels.

It will be just like
Beggar's Canyon back home.

So that was really the idea
behind the trench

for the Death Star.

Let's get people
down into a space

that's traveling
at an extreme speed

and give you the excitement
that you get

when you do it for real.

I mean, there's so many
great shots in "Star Wars,"

but I think if there's one
that makes my heart ache a bit,

it's Luke seeing
the two suns set.

It just has this very
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

kind of wistful vibe to it.

That was a shot
that I can relate to

as a teenager in Texas.

That is a shot that I think
any kid can relate to.

This idea of "What is next
for me and how do I go?"

There's this yearning that
makes this space story

feel like something
that's happening to us.

One of the reasons
why I made "Star Wars"

was it's made
for 12-year-olds.

It appeals to everybody, but it
was still made for 12-year-olds.

We were all 12 once.
And I tell people,

"Don't underestimate
12-year-olds.

They're smarter than the rest of us."
Right.

They get stuff
much faster than you do.

-Yeah.
-And the whole point was to get them to allow to think...

To allow them to think
outside the box.

The whole thing is
subjective and dream-like.

Yeah, who said
Wookiees can't fly?

Well, I said they can fly.
Yeah.

I said, "I'm not gonna
obey the rules."

If you can imagine it,
you can do it,

-but if you can't imagine it, you can't do it.
-Yeah.

-Because...
-It's the prison of your own mind, again.

It's that prison
of your own mind

that allows you to do it,
and you can enjoy that

and come up
with really crazy stuff.

Yeah,
just look at Chewbacca.

Well, I can guarantee you
there's no Wookiees in space.

How do you know?

You single-handedly
revolutionized science fiction

in pop culture
with "Star Wars," 1977.

'Cause it had been three decades
of downer stuff...

Dystopian stuff,
apocalyptic stuff,

and science fiction
was making less and less

and less money every year
and then, all of a sudden,

you came along
with another vision.

One of wonder and hope
and empowerment,

and boom!

"Star Wars"
is a space opera.

It's not science fiction.

And because it's really
just, you know,

one of those soap operas,
only in space.

Yeah, but it's more than that.
Well...

And you know... And you know it is.
All right, all right.

It's... It's a neo-myth.

But it's... yeah, yes.
It fulfills the role

that myth
played in society.

Yeah, it is.
It's mythology.

But you took it
to a new level.

No film that I can think
of had the used future idea.

The future was always shiny,
it was always perfect,

it always had just been
unwrapped on Christmas morning

'cause it was kind
of this optimistic ideal.

And you said, "No, the future
has to have been lived in

for thousands of years,"

so the Sandcrawlers
are all rusted

and things are
kind of broken

and it looked like
it had been lived in.

So where did that idea
come from?

'Cause there was no
precursor to that.

I just felt that it's gotta
look like it's a real place.

The transition from the
science-fiction space travel

of the '60s to the '70s...
Aggh!

It probably reflects a wider
shift in culture at that time,

the sort of general cynicism
of the '70s

has kind of infected
this vision of the future

and it's like, "Okay,
if we get into outer space,

probably giant corporations

are still gonna
be running everything."

And that's when you get
to movies like "Alien."

Where you have a spacecraft

that looks like it's been
through the mill.

Things are leaking, steam's
running out of broken pipes,

it's grimy,

and the place is a mess.

Look, I'm not gonna
do any more work

till we get this
straightened out.

Grant, you're guaranteed
by law to get a share.

And it's, I think,
no accident

that, in a lot of these films,

it's the
military-industrial complex

that are the real monster
in space.

This could
cause trouble for us

on all the other
mining operations.

That could put my people
out of business.

Don't worry.
He's a dead man.

From the moment that
humans set off to lands

that they'd never been to
before, immediately what follows

that is you see all of
the normal human problems

that we have in societies
transposed to other worlds.

Which means you're going
to have labor problems.

You're going to have hazardous
environments for workers.

You're going to have
all kinds of things

that reflect what might be

the reality
of outer-space exploration.

At some point, corporations are
going to have to get involved.

At some point,
maybe the government

will have to take over,

and lead to something
like a militarized society

like "Starship Troopers."

We break net now and
take you live to Klendathu

where the invasion has begun.

It's an ugly planet,
a bug planet.

Aaaah!

When Paul Verhoeven
and I were talking one day,

"What movies would
we like to make?"

He said, "Well, I've always
wanted to do a movie about,

like, what it was like to be,
you know,

15 years old
in Nazi Germany in 1935

when nobody knew
it was bad yet."

It was a pretty
interesting idea.

It came to me the idea,

based on being a young boy

when I was occupied
by the Germans,

of course, in... in Holland,
which...

Which was fascist, clearly.

Or Nazis,
whatever you want to call it.

I said...
I remember saying to him,

"Well, they won't let us
do that."

But then I thought,
"'Starship Troopers.'

We can do that."

Based on the book
by Robert Heinlein.

Really is a...
Kind of a political tract

and fairly conservative
political tract where he said,

"If people who had been
in the military ran the world,

it would be fair and right."

He really felt that
the kind of mentality

that was encouraged
in the U.S. Army

was extremely important
for making boys into men.

"Starship Troopers" is an
important science-fiction movie

because it's one
of the few movies

that warns us that humans
may bring

the worst of themselves
into space

rather than the best
of themselves.

Burn 'em all!

We really tried to bring in
a level of criticism

about what these
people are doing,

especially in the newsreels,

continuously telling
to the audience,

"You like these people.

These are your heroes
and heroines.

By the way,

they're probably fascist."

And what's fascinating

about these
patriotic newsreels...

They're very
shot-for-shot similar

to "Triumph of the Will."

It's this galaxy
now and always!

The movie I wanted to do was
a movie about war and propaganda

and why we go to war and what
happens to us when we do,

but I wanted to tell it,
you know,

almost like a 1950s B-movie.

"Starship Troopers" is
Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee

go to outer space,
fight giant bugs,

and become Nazis was
my kind of logline.

Kill them!
Kill them all!

The story of humankind
is exploration

is followed by colonialization
and exploitation,

so we've always done this.

He figured
that he could get an alien

back through quarantine

if one of us
was impregnated.

I don't know which
species is worse.

You don't see them
each other over

for a damn percentage.

And I think what you see
in science fiction is,

as we reach out
into the universe,

we take all of
our baggage with us.

My parents thought
that television...

And this is back
in the early '50s...

-Yeah?
-Was the worst influence,

so they prevented me
from watching television.

I could only watch, like,
Jackie Gleason,

-"The Honeymooners."
-Yeah, right.

And so I started
to imagine my own shows.

I couldn't watch television,
I would just dream up something

-for myself to enjoy.
-Yeah.

And that's what kids do when
they're exercising

their natural ability

to create worlds
that don't exist.

I mean, I remember when I saw
"Mysterious Island,"

in...
In the third grade.

I raced home and started
doing my own version

-of "Mysterious Island."
-Yeah, yeah.

So I think that's
the creative impulse.

You take it in.
Y...

I don't wanna copy it
in a slavish fan way.

Yes.
I wanna create my own version of it.

It was... it always had to do
with a pencil

and a piece of paper
and, of course, later,

the 8-millimeter movie camera.

But you were processing
the world back out

in the form of something visual.
Exactly.

That... that...
That... that's a blast

'cause, you know,
you do the same thing.

When I sit down to storyboard,
I come up with my best ideas

in the process of
making my sketches.

I mean, ideas that weren't
even in the script

and weren't even in my imagination...
Right.

Will come out
as I'm actually drawing.

The science-fiction artists
are often overlooked

in the history
of science fiction.

But artists have
influenced authors

in their own right
because they're...

You know, they're
bringing their ideas

and characters to life visually.

But you think back
to everything you

probably have visualized
about science fiction,

you're probably going back
to what a science-fiction artist

has done.

Chesley Bonestell is considered
the father of space art

or astronomic art.

He started producing
in the 1940s.

These paintings that were
extraordinarily realistic.

You'll find, even today,
astronomers, astronauts,

astrophysicists, engineers
who will say that,

you know, they got into doing
what they're doing

because, as kids, they were
inspired by Chesley Bonestell.

The great advantage
of science fiction

is that you can draw anything
on this vast canvas of space.

It's all open, you know,

for you to throw
your own imagination in.

With world-building,
you are creating

a society from scratch,

a planet from scratch,
a people from scratch.

They may not look like people
like you or me,

but they are people.

Every plant that you see

in that remarkable forest
on Pandora...

Even if you see it
for half a second,

has an English name,

a Latin name, a Na'vi name,

and probably a two-page
description on its ecology,

on how it reproduces,
on how it's used by the Na'vi.

So if you're gonna go
into that much detail,

then you're not gonna
skimp on the language.

You've got to make sure
that everything

really holds together.

And the language I wrote it,

it's like 400 words.

And I make a little dictionary.

And that was interesting
because the only two person

who can speak the language
at the time was...

Was Milla and me.

We were kind of fluent
after a couple of weeks.

What is your name?

That's her name.

I think there's like
a first, middle,

and last somewhere in there.

Don't ask me which.

Working with Luc Besson,
who wrote and directed

"Fifth Element"...
It changed my life.

Just seemed so realistic to me,

which I was really impressed by.

It's the white page
that you can write everything.

You can make everything
beautiful again in space.

I like the fantasy of it.

I, like, just take a subject,
like the law,

the police, the food.

Good fortune for you.

And then I start writing,
you know, 10, 15 pages on each.

And then you give that
to the actors

and it gives some life
and polish on the story,

even if you never talk about it.

Science fiction is probably
the best way to open your mind

about everything,

and sci-fi is just an oil

so the doors open easier.

It doesn't like

So hard to push.

Space is the biggest canvas
to write whatever you want

and to push all the limits
because, by definition,

future doesn't have a limit.

Or if there is one,
we don't know it.

When I was eight
or nine years old,

I was obsessed with
creating different planets,

creating these worlds
and these universes and...

And building them up from the
ground, even at that young age.

And I wrote up the visuals of
"Guardians of the Galaxy."

Hundreds of pages of documents
with the different cultures

and what they do
and how do they think.

We are creating a world in
outer space based on real rules

that is still filled
with imagination and fantasy.

Yeah.

Yeah!

When you're dealing
with a raccoon and a tree,

you are, in some ways,
dealing with space fantasy,

but, within that, let's say
there is a talking raccoon.

What would it be?

And how would it be?

And I came up with
Rocket Raccoon

is a result of
experiments on his body

to turn him into something
that's designed to kill.

Ain't no thing like me
except me.

I am Groot.

Yeah, you said that.

Groot's the most
popular character

from "Guardians of the Galaxy."

He's probably the soul
of the movie.

I mean, I remember
like it was yesterday.

We were getting ready
to shoot this scene

where Groot grows into
sort of like this nest

and protects us
from this impact

that was just going
to completely kill us.

That day when we're shooting
that scene, that...

We couldn't stop crying.

This character that
doesn't even exist,

but risking his life
for mine, was very moving.

Why are you doing this?

It's very much of
a Christ story.

You have this character
who gives his life

and is born again.

We...

are...

Groot.

"We are Groot"
is the line of dialogue

that every single other thing
in the movie is hanging on.

It's about seeing a raccoon
and a human being

and a green assassin
and a big oaf,

and they find a family with
each other for the first time.

An outer-space family.

That's what makes it
science fiction,

is that it's
an outer-space family.

Today, it is you who will
learn the power of Mars.

Tomorrow, it will be
the whole world.

You're dreaming.
Is it about Mars?

The angry red planet.

We're heading straight
for Mars.

Mars is burning up.

Good God.
I'm on Mars.

50 years ago,
space is

an extraordinarily
hostile environment

and then we go through the
trajectory of science fiction,

which includes exploring
the rest of the universe.

But the solar system is now
very much within our reach.

The closest Mars ever gets to us
is 36 million miles,

which doesn't seem so huge when
you think about light-years.

It's a tiny distance
by comparison.

Stories like "The Martian"
make us believe

that we can and will do this
in our own lifetime.

I gotta figure out a way
to grow three years'

worth of food here.

On a planet
where nothing grows.

In "The Martian," what you see
is a smart person

actually acting smart.

Using his brain
to solve problems,

instead of a lightsaber
or a ray gun.

They say that, once you
grow crops somewhere,

you've officially
colonized it.

So, technically,

I colonized Mars.

One of the other great things

that Andy Weir's "The Martian"
does

is make the experience

seem like an everyday
experience, almost.

You can see yourself
as Mark Watney.

He doesn't power
through problems

without hitting a hitch.

He hits every
single hitch there is.

And you get to see him
work through them,

and you find yourself thinking,
"I could do that."

So, it's inspirational, but
it's also just very practical.

I forgot to account
for the excess oxygen

that I've been exhaling

when I did my calculations

because I'm stupid.

The whole story is just one
prolonged cascade failure.

Basically, his solution
to this immediate problem

leads to the next problem and
the next and the next and so on.

I would say that
the problem-solving style

of Arthur Clarke

and also Robert Heinlein
influenced

how I wrote "The Martian,"

although I would say one of
the biggest influences

on "The Martian"
was Apollo 13,

both the real event
and the movie.

This is Houston.

Say again, please.

Houston, we have a problem.

My father is
a particle physicist

and my mother is
an electrical engineer,

so I was pretty much
doomed to be a nerd.

There is one joke where they
tell him everything he's typing

is being broadcast live
to the entire world.

Yeah?

In the novel, he says,
"Look! A pair of boobs!"

and draws, like,
these ASCII art boobs...

That's open parenthesis, period,
"Y," period, close parenthesis.

They didn't put that
in the movie.

They just had everyone
and look up and go,

My God.

As if he'd written something
really profane.

In the face of
overwhelming odds,

I'm left with only one option.

I'm gonna have to science
the out of this.

I'm gonna have to science
the out of this.

How... What does
that mean to you?

Well, it equates with his
thrill of terror, saying,

"I'm... I'm either gonna
die here or I can survive."

-Yep.
-And so he leans heavily on what I call gallows humor.

"I'm not gonna think
too much about this.

I'm gonna take it
day by day, hour by hour."

-Yeah.
-And "I'm gonna have to science the out of this"

to get my survival going.

-That kinda humor...
-Yeah.

Probably keeps in check
terror and fear

-which will stop him functioning.
-Right, right.

Do you know
what I got out of it?

We're all that guy.
Are...

That our state right now
of affairs on Earth...

-Yeah.
-Is such that we have no choice

but to "science
the out of it"...

-Correct.
-In order to survive.

That's a good...
The threat's in front of us.

Yes.
Our threats that will be solved...

That are...
That are caused by technology,

for the most part, and they need
to be solved by science.

Yes. That's a good point.
Yeah?

I think the drive
for the realism of "The Martian"

is the fact that we will
get to Mars quite soon,

so suddenly it's come
right back to our doorstep,

that we now have the technology

and are building
the sophisticated means

for getting to Mars
and colonizing Mars.

That's why "The Martian"
is... is important

and why it has
that realism to it.

This is space.

It does not cooperate.

At some point, everything's
gonna go south

and you're gonna say,
"This is it."

Now, you can either accept that,

or you can get to work.

If we don't figure out how
to get to Mars and live there

and then build
another spaceship

that can go to another
solar system...

-Yep.
-We're toast.

We're toast.
Yeah. In the long term, we are.

And to... And to say, yeah,
we've only got a million years

to figure this out.
We better...

We're way
behind schedule here.

So you have to get people
to sort of buy into the idea.

And if we didn't have these movies...
Yeah.

To say,
"This is an adventure,

-this is really gonna be fun"...
-Yep.

Do you think we'd be
dumb enough

to go in a spaceship
off to Mars

where there's nothing there
but a bunch of red dirt?

-Yeah.
-No, it's like the adventure,

the whole idea of it.

We have to do this.

The human race
depends on it.

Well,
thank you for doing this.

My pleasure.
This has been an amazing brain jam.

Yeah, well, this is all
I have to do now.

And I don't get to
do it very much.