Question: Are the scenery we see of Mars on the film 'The Martian' actual replicas of the planet itself?

Claudia Bonfio answered on 4 Jun 2018:

When “The Martian” came out in 2015 we didn’t have many clues on Mars. “The Martian” scenery mainly represents what we thought Mars would look like, an immense dry desert.
Indeed, many Martian landscapes contain features that are familiar to Earth ones, like river valleys, cliffs, glaciers and volcanoes. However, now we know that Mars has an exotic side too, with “alien” landscapes. For example, at the Martian South Pole, the polar cap is made of carbon dioxide (dry ice), which is not naturally present on the Earth!