Three Science-Fiction Survival Films

The Martian

In 2035, the crew of the Ares III mission to Mars is exploring Acidalia Planitia on Martian solar day (sol) 18 of their 31-sol expedition. A severe dust storm threatens their Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and in the ensuing evacuation, astronaut Mark Watney is struck by flying debris and presumed dead. Facing imminent peril, the remaining crew takes off for their orbiting vessel, the Hermes, which will then return them to Earth. Watney awakens after the storm, having narrowly survived his injuries. As he recovers within the crew's surface habitat ("Hab"), he begins a video diary to document his thoughts on survival. Unable to communicate with Earth, his only chance of rescue is the next Mars mission in four years, when Ares IV will land at the Schiaparelli crater. The Ares IV MAV has already arrived on the site in preparation for the mission. With this timeframe in mind, Watney's main survival concerns are food and travel. Being a botanist, he cultivates a potato garden inside the Hab using the crew's bio-waste with Martian soil, and creates water from leftover rocket fuel. He also modifies a rover for the journey to Schiaparelli.
On Earth, NASA satellite planner Mindy Park notices Watney's activity from recorded satellite images, and suspects he must be alive. NASA director Teddy Sanders releases the news to the public but decides not to inform the Ares III crew en route to Earth, over flight director Mitch Henderson's strong objection. Watney explores the surrounding terrain and studies his maps, but he quickly journeys out to retrieve the Pathfinder probe, hoping to restore its communications. Mars missions director Vincent Kapoor realizes this strategy, and quickly visits Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) director Bruce Ng to use their replica of the probe. The agency makes contact with Watney and instructs him to link Pathfinder to the rover, where he can now communicate by text. With this breakthrough, Henderson is finally allowed to inform Watney's crewmates.
As Watney enters the Hab on one evening, a leak in the airlock causes an explosion that injures him and destroys the potato garden. Although he repairs the airlock, he is again threatened by starvation. NASA scrambles to procure a resupply ship for Watney, with Sanders ordering routine safety inspections bypassed to expedite the mission. This oversight results in catastrophe as the ship disintegrates shortly after launch. The China National Space Administration decides to offer a launch vehicle – originally intended for the Taiyang Shen space probe – to resupply Watney. Astrodynamicist Rich Purnell devises an alternative plan: send the Taiyang Shen launcher to resupply the Hermes, which will then use Earth's gravity to "slingshot" back to Mars two years earlier than Ares IV. Sanders flatly rejects the idea, considering it too risky for the Ares III crew. Henderson surreptitiously sends the proposal to the crew, and they unanimously vote in favor and divert the Hermes. Sanders is forced to support them publicly, but demands Henderson's resignation after the mission.
After waiting several months, Watney embarks on the long journey to the Ares IV MAV. He plans to use it to rendezvous with the Hermes, but needs to lighten the load considerably by partially dismantling the cockpit. He takes off to orbit, but the Hermes crew find that they remain too far away and moving too fast to retrieve him. Commander Lewis quickly improvises to explode the airlock in part of the ship, resulting in air violently escaping and slowing them down. Lewis also pilots a tethered Manned Maneuvering Unit to personally reach Watney, but they are still too far apart. Watney quickly improvises by piercing his pressure suit, and propels himself with the escaping air, reaches Lewis, and manages to hold on. NASA and spectators across the world all celebrate the successful rescue.
After returning to Earth, Watney becomes a survival instructor for astronaut candidates. Five years later, as the Ares V is launching, those involved in Watney's rescue are seen in their current lives watching the launch footage.

Edge of Tomorrow

In 2015, an alien race known as "Mimics" lands in Germany and swiftly conquers much of continental Europe, killing millions. By 2020, humanity has formed a global military alliance, the United Defense Force (UDF), to combat the Mimics. However, victory remained elusive until the recent Battle of Verdun, which was secured by the celebrated war hero Sergeant Rita Vrataski.
In Britain, the UDF amasses forces for a major invasion of France. General Brigham orders public affairs officer Major William Cage to cover the offensive from the front line, but the inexperienced and cowardly Cage attempts to blackmail Brigham into rescinding the order. Brigham has Cage arrested, demoted to Private and sent to the military base at Heathrow Airport to join the invasion as infantry, where he is assigned to Master Sergeant Farell and the misfit J-Squad, who dislike and belittle him. The following day, the invasion forces land on a French beach but are ambushed and massacred by Mimics. Cage uses a Claymore mine to kill a larger "Alpha" Mimic. Bathed in the Mimic's blood, Cage dies during the ensuing explosion.
Cage suddenly awakens at Heathrow, realizing he is reliving the previous morning. He makes failed attempts to warn against the invasion, and experiences multiple loops in which he dies on the beach only to awaken again at Heathrow. With each loop, his combat skills and knowledge of the battlefield improve. He tries to save Rita's life so she can lead them but, after recognizing his apparent prescience, she allows herself to die, ordering Cage to find her on his next loop.
Cage quickly convinces Rita of the reset because she gained the same power after exposure to an Alpha's blood. Her loops enabled her, an initially inexperienced soldier, to win at Verdun, but a later blood transfusion removed the power. Rita takes Cage to Mimic expert Dr. Carter, who explains the creatures are a superorganism controlled by a single, gigantic "Omega" Mimic. Whenever the Alpha Mimics are killed, the Omega restarts a loop and adjusts its tactics until the Mimics win. Rita realizes the Mimics allowed the UDF victory at Verdun to make them overconfident in their new exoskeletons and lure them into overcommitting their forces in retaking Europe, allowing the Mimics to exterminate most of the resistance.
Cage spends many loops training with Rita so they can reach the Omega, but he begins to care for her and struggles after seeing her repeatedly die. He experiences a vision of the Omega hidden in a German dam, and he and Rita seek it out. During the journey, the pair bond, but Rita remains distant, having seen someone she cared about die hundreds of times at Verdun. She eventually determines that this is not the first loop in which they approached the Omega. Cage reveals that she always dies before reaching the dam, regardless of his actions, and he is unwilling to kill the Omega and end the loops if she remains dead. Upset, Rita attempts to leave but is killed by a Mimic. Despondent, during the next loop, Cage travels to the dam alone. He discovers the vision was a trap and is ambushed by an Alpha, and Cage drowns himself before it can remove his power.
To find the Omega, Cage and Rita sneak into General Brigham's office and pressure him into handing over a prototype transponder designed by Carter. Having used it to locate the Omega beneath the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, Cage is knocked unconscious during their escape and given a blood transfusion for his injuries, removing his power.
Rita frees Cage, who then uses his detailed knowledge of J-Squad to convince them to help destroy the Omega. They fly to Paris, where the squad members sacrifice themselves to ensure Cage and Rita reach the Louvre. Cornered by an Alpha, Rita kisses Cage, lamenting that she does not have more time to get to know him. The Alpha kills Rita and mortally wounds Cage, but he drops several grenades that destroy the Omega, which not only kills the Mimics, but also bathes Cage in its blood.
Cage reawakens before his first meeting with General Brigham, and witnesses a news announcement that all Mimics are dead following a mysterious energy surge in Paris, before returning to Heathrow and finding Rita. Oblivious to his identity, she inquires what he wants; Cage chuckles.

District 9

In 1982, an extraterrestrial mothership arrives and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. Inside, an investigation team finds over a million starved insectoid and crustacean-like aliens and the South African government voluntarily relocates the asylum seekers to a refugee camp called District 9. 28 years later, District 9 becomes both a ghetto and a shanty town, and humans come to view the aliens, derogatorily called "prawns," as filthy, violent animals who bleed resources from them. The Prawns have been systematically reduced to second-class citizens there and have been known to consume canned cat food.
Following unrest between the aliens and humans, the government hires the Multinational United (MNU), a large defense contractor, to forcibly relocate the extraterrestrials to a labour camp outside the city. Piet Smit, an MNU executive, appoints his son-in-law and MNU bureaucrat, Wikus van de Merwe, to lead the forced relocation. Meanwhile, three aliens, Christopher Johnson, his young son CJ, and Paul search a District 9 refuse dump for Prawn technology; Christopher has spent the last 20 years synthesizing fuel from their contents. They finally fill an entire container in Paul's shack as the relocation begins, but when Wikus comes to serve Paul a notice, he finds the hidden container and accidentally sprays some fuel into his face. Koobus Venter, a cruel MNU mercenary who is speciesist against the Prawns, kills Paul.
Wikus begins mutating into a Prawn, starting with his left arm that was injured after the exposure. He is taken to an underground MNU lab, where researchers discover his hybrid DNA grants Wikus the ability to operate Prawn weaponry, which is biologically restricted from humans. When there, Wikus discovers the grisly medical experiments, including vivisections the scientists were performing on the Prawns. Seeing the potential for profitable weapons research, Smit orders Wikus's organs to be harvested for genetic material. Wikus, however, overpowers the lab personnel and escapes. While Venter's forces hunt him, a fake news story is broadcast claiming Wikus is a wanted fugitive, who has contracted a contagious disease from copulating with extraterrestrials.
Wikus takes refuge in District 9, finding Christopher and the spaceship's command module dropship concealed underneath his shack. Christopher explains that the confiscated fuel is needed to reactivate the dropship, which can then dock with the mothership. This would allow Christopher to rescue his species and return home, and cure Wikus with the equipment onboard. Encouraged by a phone call from his wife, Tania, Wikus steals powerful alien weapons from Obasanjo, a Nigerian crime lord who believes that eating Wikus' alien arm will grant him alien abilities.
Wikus and Christopher attack the MNU and retrieve the fuel from the underground lab, where Christopher is horrified by the vivisections and other brutal medical experiments the MNU has performed on his species. Returning to the shack, Christopher decides that he must leave Earth immediately and return with help, therefore he must postpone curing Wikus's condition for up to three years. Unsatisfied with that answer, Wikus knocks Christopher unconscious and attempts to fly the module to the mothership, but Venter has it shot down. Venter captures Wikus and Christopher, but Obasanjo's gang ambushes them and abducts Wikus.
CJ, who remained hidden in the dropship, remotely activates the mother ship and a mecha alien battle suit in Obasanjo's base. The mecha suit guns down the Nigerian gangsters; Wikus enters the mecha suit and attempts to escape on his own. However, when he overhears Venter's order to kill Christopher, Wikus has a change of heart and returns to rescue Christopher from the mercenaries. Heading towards the dropship, the two come under heavy fire; Wikus decides to stay behind and fend off the mercenaries, buying time for Christopher and CJ to escape. Christopher promises to return and cure Wikus. After all of the other mercenaries are killed, Venter finally cripples the mecha suit, but several Prawns kill and dismember him before he can summarily execute Wikus. Christopher makes it into the dropship with CJ, and the dropship is levitated via a tractor beam back into the mothership, which finally leaves Earth.
Wikus disappears, the MNU's medical experiments are exposed to the public, and the aliens are moved to a labour camp called District 10. Tania finds a handcrafted metal flower on her doorstep, giving her hope that Wikus is still alive. Wikus, now fully transformed into a Prawn, is shown in a wrecking yard crafting more flowers for his wife.