Red Planets

Abstract

The desert in the South of Jordan is a popular location for multimillion-dollar productions of science fiction films. The combination of vast arid lands and lucrative tax rebates offered by the Royal Film Commission make the Jordanian desert a desirable backdrop for expeditions to hostile extraterrestrial planets. Dune (2021), Mission to Mars (2000), The Martian (2015), Last Days on Mars (2013), Transformers (2007), and The Red Planet (2010) are a few of the feature film titles produced by American companies and filmed in Jordan’s Wadi Rum. This article argues that the cinematic portrayal of worlds ravaged by resource scarcity and climate peril too often sustains the perception of the desert as an unruly, lawless, and dead land. While the environmental humanities often aim to shift the scale of our historic lens to bear witness to the entire earth, this article reflects on the stakes of further abstracting the specificity of geography and extending the colonial imaginaries of wasteland. Reflecting on the process of capturing images of landscapes in the Middle East, the article considers desert locations as unique “extractive zones” wherein the topsoil is captured and circulated as high-definition images. Thinking of filmmaking as extractive means defining images as materials, and considering the laws, labor, and cultural imaginations merged in this process.