Saturday, October 3, 2015

The Martian

I read the book The Martian awhile ago on a friend's recommendation. I absolutely loved the book. I cannot say enough good things about it. It was funny and serious at the same time. It had accurate science, but not enough to overwhelm those of us who are not astronauts. I read the almost the entire book in one sitting, ignoring everything else I had to do that day. I've recommended it to almost everyone I talk to about books.

The thing I remember most about the book, was that almost every other chapter was the main character, Mark, saying "**** I'm going to die." There was an overwhelming sense of doom. It gave the impression that it was a very serious situation filled with an overwhelming amount of problems. He inventively came up with a brilliant sciency solution.

When I finished the book it had that satisfying feeling of that being the great book. One of the best I've read in a long time.

Today the movie was released. (Technically anyway, it seemed to be playing yesterday evening well before midnight.) I have been looking forward to it since it was announced. I enjoyed the movie, but it did not give me that feeling of having just seen something awesome. The movie was mostly true to the book. They didn't change too much. One semi-major thing, but overall not huge amount.

What the did do was leave out a bunch of things. Maybe it was for keeping down the special effects cost? Maybe for time? The effect of this was removing the impending doom. Not something one usually expects from Hollywood, usually they add this for no reason. It also removed a lot of the cussing. The two main things I remember from the book...

The movie wasn't disappointing, but I can't say I loved it.

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