After reading the book a month earlier, I wanted to wait a bit for the reviews to come in before deciding if I’m going to watch the movie. As it turned out, most of the Broken Forums members who watched it loved it but I’m not so sure that the response in Malaysia is as good, given how quickly the cinemas over here have switched it out in favor of newer releases. In any case, that kind of recommendation is good enough for me.

I’m guessing that there’s no need to summarize this one so I’ll start off by saying that this is remarkably faithful to the novel, much more so that any other adaptation I can think of. My one problem with the adaptation is that they use supporting actors and actresses who are too familiar. Jessica Chastain again, after appearing together with Matt Damon in Interstellar? Michael Peña, who seems to be Hollywood’s default go-to man whenever they need a Hispanic? I’d much rather see some fresh faces in these roles. As I’ve written before, I’d attribute the high fidelity of the adaptation at least partially to the fact that Andy Weir probably wrote the novel with its filmability in mind so that very few changes had to be made. They even kept the space pirate, Council of Elrond and disco jokes. Obviously they took out many of the problems that Watney had to solve in the book and even so at two and a half hours this is still a pretty long movie.

This is most evident in the seven month-long rover journey that is smooth and problem-free over completely level terrain as opposed to the grueling and scary trial it was in the book. But I think the most important change is that in the movie, Watney remains in contact with NASA after he retrieves the Pathfinder probe whereas in the book, he makes a mistake and fries it so that NASA has no way to talk to him until he reaches the Ares 4 MAV. In the book, this greatly increases Watney’s sense of isolation as well as the dramatic stakes as Watney has no idea what NASA is planning and must stoically trust that they have things well in hand Earth-side. It’s one thing to describe the problems he has to Earth and carry out solutions devised by the combined scientific prowess of the entire planet. It’s another thing entirely to rely solely on his own personal wits. Other omissions include many of the explanations of the technical background behind the problems and their solutions as well as character development of the rest of the crew of the Ares 3 mission.

Still, despite these problems, I feel oddly compelled to say that this may be actually be better as a movie instead of as a book. This is because as a book it needs to compete against a very rich field, but as a hard science-fiction movie, it’s kind of in a class of its own. The science isn’t perfect, particularly as it glosses over how Mars has a much lighter gravity than Earth, but it’s as rock solid as you can expect in a major Hollywood movie. I particularly liked the no-nonsense way in which the vast difference in energy needed to reach different orbital altitudes is presented as a huge obstacle. Take that Gravity. Moreover, there is no extraneous human drama or magical thinking. All problems are concrete ones that are solved through science and human ingenuity. As many reviewers have said, this is as pure a paean to the power of science and engineering as you could want, a theme that is refreshingly rare in cinema.

I missed out on the last few Ridley Scott movies due to the awful reviews they garnered, but I’m glad that he still has it in him to make a solid, good film. Personally however instead “I’m going to science the shit out of this planet”, I think a more appropriate motto might be “I’m going to MacGyver the shit out of this planet.”