(no subject)

[pensnest]

Beast and I happened to notice a trailer for The Martian playing when we turned on the television a couple of days ago, so we watched it yesterday.

I enjoyed it a lot. A very decent version of the book—which I liked very much—with pretty good choices made about what to keep and what to leave out. There were a few things which I might not have picked up on had I not read the book, as they were very minimally done; and perhaps the sheer challenge of the situation wasn't quite as emphatic in the movie as in the book—mostly because you can't really have characters explaining to themselves how hard everything is, I suppose. Or going into all the details about how to turn Martian soil into something fertile by the application of human waste. Etc.

And I actually approved of the alterations to the dramatic final part of the rescue—in the book, the commander quite rightly says no and finds a different way, but for a film to forego the Iron Man moment would have been a shame.

And how nice it was to have an action movie with nary a gunshot fired, and lots of people being incredibly smart and thinking their way out instead of bludgeoning through difficulties with brute force and ignorance.

Comments

[glitteryv]

Although I liked the movie a lot, I prefer the book version a lot more. Perhaps it was the fact that we did get to see Mark face problems and solving them. I mean, by the time of the rescue, I had not idea how things would end.

The movie pretty much glosses over a lot of the issues Mark faced. OTOH, we got a lot more interaction on Earth as well as with the Ares 3 crew. Also, yeah, the last part of the rescue did worked better on the movie.

About the one thing I didn't like was that ridiculous epilogue. It was kinda jarring and felt totally unnecessary to me.

And how nice it was to have an action movie with nary a gunshot fired, and lots of people being incredibly smart and thinking their way out instead of bludgeoning through difficulties with brute force and ignorance.

Yes! Like one critic said, it was really nice to see science being embraced instead of becoming a matter of suspicion.

[pensnest]

I think I have to forgive the thin-ness of the on-Mars story because while it's riveting in the book, it would be an awful lot of "character tells himself why he's doing stuff" in a movie. Or, possibly, people on Earth musing about how difficult it's going to be for him to do stuff, which doesn't sound any better. I agree the book is better—Andy Weir has the knack of being able to make the explanations really fascinating.

The epilogue works for me, 'cause I think the film needs something, it doesn't seem quite right for it to end on the same high point that the book does. And I'd rather see Watney talking to future astronauts than doing the chat show circuit and Being The Most Famous Man In The World, which is probably what would happen...

[wenchpixie]

I loved the film - Science! Hurrah! - it's delightful that it was not violent, just clever people being clever and it paying off.

[pensnest]

Yes, indeed! And though it was considerably simplified, it felt as though the science made sense. Not like 'we made dinosaurs!' or 'we're gonna destroy a giant meteor' etc.

[turps]

I really enjoyed the film, too. Despite having read the book I still felt tense watching.

And I completely agree with your last sentence.

[pensnest]

I did, too! I was quite surprised at how well the tension got me, considering I read the book (and besides, you cannot kill Matt Damon).

Yay intelligent people!

[spikedluv]

I enjoyed the movie quite a lot, but there were parts of the book I liked better. I loved that we got faces to the names, the actors were all quite brilliant. Matt Damon was wonderful as Watney.

While reading the book I was like, man, too much science! Watching the movie I was like, man, we need more science! If I hadn't read the book, there were some things that would've been so very confusing -- like why he needed to cut a hole in the top of the rover to fit in the thingamabob, because they never said in the movie.

Some of the foreshortening I liked -- the machinery so he didn't have to build a stone ramp, for example. I wished they hadn't cut out all of the mishaps he had no the way to the other drop point, though.

I may be in the minority, but I ~hated the alternate ending wrt Lewis going out to get Mark instead of Beck, who was their EVA specialist. I did like the epilogue, though. I think I like the movie-book combo fandom. And the movie did give me my first threesome that I'm now a huge fan of,so there's that. *g*

[pensnest]

I'm glad I read the book first, because the film did skate over a lot of the Whys. (It also didn't do a lot to signpost the relationship between Beck and Johannson.) But I think it would have been quite difficult to explain the science of what Watney was doing because, really, nobody wants to watch a movie in which the main character explains things to himself... so I thought the film managed as best it could.

I didn't approve of the commander going out instead of Beck, because a smart commander gets her best people to do the jobs they're trained for. I can see the emotional payoff, but I think they could have done it better if they'd done it properly. Still, it's mostly a film about intelligent people being really competent, and that's lovely to see!