Matt Damon in Ridley Scott's 'The Martian' Of all the television series and movies I've reviewed in these posts, most of them take a very dim view of human nature. A fundamental aspect of drama is conflict, and most conflict comes from flawed people making questionable choices. Sometimes there are good reasons for those choices, and sometimes there are not so good reasons, but the primacy by which most of these stories revolve is that when one strips away the artifice of civilization and society, human beings are selfish animals that will rip one another apart when things go to shit, whether that be in your standard fictional apocalypse or a full-blown zombie one. While the news reminds us every day of our cruelty and injustice to one another, the truth about human nature is a bit more muddled.