In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war. The blood red planet has long served as a sight of awe for both our ancestors and today's generations.
Mars is the also the god of agriculture--which is a perfect transition into our protagonist, Astronaut Mark Watney of the Ares 3 Mars Missions who, after a freak accident, is presumed KIA and left behind by his fellow crew members who were evacuating the war planet from a powerful storm that threatened tipping their launch. Watney was the team's engineer and botanist; which perfectly suits him for being left behind on the planet of agriculture... where nothing can grow.
The motion picture premiered for general audiences October 2nd and was adapted by the novel of the same name written by Andy Weir. Weir's story of publishing The Martian is a story in and of itself. He first published it a chapter at a time on a personal site for free. His readers asked it be put on Kindle where he had to charge a 99 cent minimum. After that it quickly climbed up to Amazon's top charts and he was approached by Crown Publishing and sold the rights where it then hit #12 on The New York Times bestseller list.
Mark Watney is played by Matt Damon, who last year starred in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar where he plays the (sort of) antagonist "Dr. Mann." Did wittle Matt want some redemption after almost killing all of mankind?
In general, the movie left out a lot of the articulately described "science stuff." Weir painstakingly researched the hell out of orbital mechanics, conditions on Mars, the history of manned spaceflight, and botany for the book. And he does an amazing job of explaining stuff in the book to where people like me with zero science knowledge can follow the general logic, but aren't bogged down trying to understand string theory, time travel, and relativity like with Interstellar.
Plus, all of the science Weir uses is real. He didn't rely on technology that doesn't exist. There is no hibernation sleep machine, or black holes-- the spaceship described in The Martian, while nonexistent, does conceptually make sense based on the technology we know today.
There were times in the book when I felt occasionally bogged down getting a particles chemistry lesson right after Watney gets blown 100 yards away in the airlock and is dazed from a lack of oxygen. Like we get it: no oxygen bad; hole in helmet, bad...
So in that respect, the movie helped bridge past some of those things in a more "show not tell" fashion.
So while I generally liked the super scientific stuff in the book, I get why it was omitted from the movie. Minor adjustment.
The movie omitted Watney first using rocks to spell out messages using morse code for the satellites to pick up. Again, pretty minor.
One major deviation has to do with Pathfinder. In the book, Pathfinder is a major moment because he's finally able to communicate with Earth. Even when it's only through the long monotonous process of Hex letter codes, it's better than nothing. Then Watney writes some computer code all hacker style and gets to send long typed text, but only from inside the rover. I mean, sending long texts from inside a small enclosed space is basically how I communicate my normal day-to-day life. Not only can he have all of NASA's geniuses working on problems for him, he gets to at least talk to people. In the book, Weir really hits hard on Watney feeling like, even if he died, being able to talk to someone made it seem so much easier than going alone.
So, with Pathfinder being such a big deal, when Watney accidentally shorts out Pathfinder with the drill in the book, it is a huge loss. He no longer has any help in figuring out how to transport all the vital life support equipment, and also can no longer communicate with fellow human beings.
But that wasn't in the movie...
In the book, you really get the sense of everything going wrong constantly. It's comically written that way. One second he's burning the nitrogen to make water and it works great, then you turn the page and he's half blown the Hab up.
The movie does make the situation seem bad, especially when the first resupply shipment fails and NASA has to tell Watney he's basically going to starve. The movie didn't evoke the same "this guy can't get a break" feeling the book left me feeling throughout. The Apollo 13 motion picture with Tom Hanks did a good job of showing how one after another things went wrong-- first not enough oxygen, then too much carbon dioxide, then the parachutes possibly being frozen... I felt Pathfinder dying would have been easily done filming-wise and would have made a bigger impact on the dire situation storyline.
After Hermes resupplies with the probe using the Chinese rocket, everything with Watney basically is a montage in the movie. He works on the rovers, he eats some potatoes--rinse and repeat. None of the details in the book where he calculates how many solar cells and how to bring the purifiers or the tent he builds using walls from the Hab is shown.
When he makes the trek to Ares 4, it's portrayed as taking a little family road trip to Wally World. Piece of cake.
The movie left out the awesome sand storm. In the book with Pathfinder getting destroyed, NASA can't warn him. Watney uses the other space suits and cameras to place all over the Mars region and observe where the storm is moving and get ahead of it. That would have added another 20 minutes to the film, so I get why they left it out. They also leave out Watney rolling the rover on the homestretch to Ares 4. Again, I get why they left it out, but it was super suspenseful in the book.
The last point has to do with a major change. When Hermes is going to intercept Watney in Ares 4 the movie and book are the same. Hermes is first too far so they use their reserve fuel to close the gap but then their velocity is too fast, so they have to make a bomb to blow the airlock to create a reverse thrust to brake.
In the book, one of Watney's fellow crew members retrieves him using the MAV with minimal problems. But the movie changed it by having Commander Lewis go out to retrieve him since she always felt responsible for leaving Watney behind. Lewis gets as far as the tether will reach but is still short of Watney. So Watney pokes a hole in his glove and uses it as a makeshift thrust like "Iron Man" and dramatically zig-zags to Lewis. Watney grabs the tether and both him and Lewis start spiraling around fast as Lewis frantically keeps hold of the tether so Watney is not thrown off into the space void.
She eventually grabs hold of him and they both slow and finally are embracing face to face, floating, and performing a almost "space slow dance" with the tether line rotating around them looking like a colorful streamer used by ribbon dancers. It's one of the more beautiful shots in the film with them surrounded by black but the red of mars juxtaposed over their shoulders and the orange tether extending off--like the red planet finally releasing the leash on him back to his crew.
The book concludes with Watney getting back on Hermes, everyone greeting him and saying how bad he smells, and it pretty much ends. I never liked the book's ending.
The film concludes with Watney back on earth as he heads to a class for new NASA recruits where he jokes but talks about how in order to live you have to be prepared to die or something of the sort... He asks for any questions, everyone's hands shoot up and it fades to black. Pretty cliche, but better than where the book left it off.
Overall the movie was entertaining and I enjoyed it. The book was a super quick read and I can't stress enough how well it's written in that you "get" the science stuff, but it's not overwhelming.
Is there anything else I missed? Do you like or dislike how the movie changed the rescue from Ares 4? How'd you like the ending? Are you like me and want to go study botany now? Comment below!
