The Martian

About a year ago one of the guys in my office stopped by my cube while I was working late to tell me about this great new audiobook he's listening to. Turns out it got made into a feature film.

Last week I powered through the audiobook myself while at my desk. In fact, I finished it on Friday just in time for the movie to hit theatres that day.

How was the book? Pretty damn good although it does fall into a couple of traps. First, at times it derails into a lot of science talk. I'm perfectly good with that; I'm an engineer. But that's a double edged sword - while I an appreciate the science talk I know a good chunk of it already and don't want to sit through it again.

The second fault is one of the problems with a story like this. So Mark Whatney is trapped on Mars all by himself and his daily existence is fighting to survive, It's essential to the story. This type of narrative needs adversity, in this case Man vs Nature. Well, Man vs Mars. But there gets to a point where one most thing goes wrong for Whatney and I reach a fatigue where I become numb to Mars just shitting on Whatney again and again.

Otherwise it's a great story, one worth reading. The science is (mostly) sound, the writing snappy, and Whatney is full of great monologue in the form of his mission logs, which are the bulk of the book. He's funny, nerdy, and full of pop culture. In short, he's super relatable for the target audience.

So how's the movie? Matt Damon is perfect for the role of Whatney. The cinematography is fantastic and does an amazing job of showing the fantastic Martian landscapes while evoking Whatney's loneliness. He is the only man on the planet, after all.

But the biggest thing here is Ridley Scott. When he's on, he's on and here HE IS ON. This film actually makes up for PROMETHEUS (but only just). THE MARTIAN really showcases Scott's  ability as a director and his ability to share his vision.

Sadly, the movie's not entirely perfect, especially compared to the book. Most of the book is on the screen. All the major beats and incidents are there except one, which would have ruined the pacing and made the movie way too long. The other big difference is the ending. I don't want to go into details, but I liked the book ending much better even if the movie's ending works better as a film.

Overall the biggest praise I can give this film is that it's in the league of 2001 for really showcasing hard science fiction and media like STAR TREK for being inspirational. Not just that, but somewhere this is a 12 year old girl that will see this movie and decide she wants to go to Mars. And she will.