avoids by choosing to survive. Some of the best films show deaths but intentionally keep the dealer of death off screen (e.g., Alien). In The Martian, there is only one character in death's grip during most of the action. So if he dies, the audience may be tempted to conclude that the whole effort to survive was not worth the hassle. That's not the right message to send to a planetary audience that is in reality faced with a choice every day in world politics and policy. Namely: "Is the daunting effort to sustain the human species on this planet worth it if it's going to take a lot of work, willpower and ingenuity, not unlike the effort undertaken by Matt Damon's character?" If that's too much of a stretch, consider how things would turn out if there were two trapped Martians and only one of them dies. That death could serve all sorts of dramatic purposes. You could have the victim be a pessimist and a slacker so that the message becomes: "see what happens when you slack off and lose your will to survive?" That story is in danger of being way to contrived and moralizing. No, I'm confident that such a scenario, if considered, was rejected for legit reasons