Based on a novel by Andy Weir
SPOILERS!!!! (This is NOT a book review, so don’t read this if you don’t want to know the exact story in one single page)
LOG ENTRY: August 22, 2016
Okay, movies are usually better than books, and this is no exception. And you can believe me because I watched The Martian twice, once before reading the book and the other time just to compare the two. I’m not saying it was a bad movie adaptation. Actually, it would probably be one of the best movie adaptations ever created. The movie has an amazing cast (Matt Damon, Mackenzie Davis, and Sebastian Stan) and vivid visual effects. Matt Damon was a great fit for Mark Watney, who gets stranded on Mars by himself with extremely limited resources.
And you’re probably thinking, “I’m done. There can’t be anything worse than this.” Well, the thing is, it actually can. Everyone thinks you’re dead and when things are about to get better, they get worse to the point where you just want to kill yourself because Mars is just trying to kill you. There is no chance of survival on Mars without plenty of supplies, but Watney was able to because of his humorous personality. Damon did a fantastic job of portraying Mark Watney. Well, I thought Damon’s Watney was too serious for the first 20 or 30 minutes into the movie, but after a couple of scenes, Damon just became Mark Watney. He was super humorous like the original one in the book. That’s when I really started to like Damon’s Watney.
Visual effects were beyond my expectations. I’ve seen many science fiction movies, and I have to say The Martian is the best science fiction movie I’ve ever seen in my life with its impressive visual effects. Even in these days, where advanced technology takes place in almost every movie, creating a lesser known planet on the screen can be challenging.
Here’s the similarities between the original Mark Watney and Damon’s. They both swear. I know this may sound stupid, but believe it or not, cursing is an important element of both book and movie. It is also a part of his character and what makes the book so entertaining. Damon’s Watney doesn’t quite curse a lot as Watney in the book, but he does pull it off pretty well. If you want to know how much Mark Watney curses, here’s some proof: Watney starts off the book by saying “F***ed. I’m f***ed.” If I was on Mars by myself, with so many ways to die, I would be a curse queen.
Even though The Martian is considered as one of the best movie adaptions ever created, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have any mistakes.
Some mistakes that I’m really pissed about were (SPOLIER ALERT): the movie skips over a ton of sols, which are like days on Earth. One time they skipped over 7 months and let me tell you, a LOT happened in between those 7 months. I already knew he wasn’t going to die during those dangerous 7 months, but sometimes he had to take some risks to get where he wanted to be. Compared to the movie, the book felt a lot longer because it described every incident in much more detail. The book made me feel like I was there with Mark, going through everything he had gone through on a separate planet. I think the book tells Mark Watney’s story much better, because sometimes words are stronger than moving pictures. Even though I was technically 140 million miles away from him, I could feel his joy and pain in my heart while reading.
For the most part, the book did a much better job than the movie. This is pretty common for any book to movie adaption. However, the movie gave the characters closure by showing what happened to them after Mars. This delivered a message: whatever happens, at one point, life moves on. Unfortunately, the book did not use this same ending, and I wish it did. The movie’s ending felt like the last chapter of a book, while book’s ending was more unpredictable in a negative way.