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Just watched it the other day. Stayed true to the book in the very broad strokes, but lots of differences when you look closely. Didn't like the choice of making him a goofy, clumsy, socially awkward idiot; I feel like they went way too far with that.
I would have loved to see more of a progression with Ryland's interactions with Rocky. He meets him, then like 2 scenes later, he's got a voice synthesizer hooked up with an essentially complete Human - Eridian dictionary. Would have been nice to include a montage, at least. It just all felt so rushed.
Anyway - I give it like a 6.5 - 7 out of 10. It's ok, but probably not one I'm going to want to watch again. It's no "The Martian".
What about stratt? Her personality seems much mellower in the trailer than from the book
Yeah - she was definitely way more chill in the movie than in the book. The two characters were similar, in the way that a dragonfly is similar to a dragon.
That sucks. I liked her borderline kim Jong un personality.
She has much less screen time in the movie than in the book. They don't dedicate any time to her being given carte blanche from every government in the world to do whatever she thinks she needs to do to get the job done, laws, resources, and money be damned. So it does make less sense in that context to make her such a hard-core "fuck you, do what I say" type. Her movie incarnation still has an edge, and is still stand-offish, but she clearly has a soft spot for her team, including Grace. I honestly think that it leads to a more satisfying moment when she finally betrays his wishes and forces him into the mission. If you weren't already in the know, it comes as a total shock that she would go to those lengths, where I don't think it was really surprising in the book, given what you have already seen from her.
It was a directive choice, and I think it was the right one given the time constraints and narrative structure of the movie. But I agree it would have been fun to see her telling the worlds' authorities to get in line or get the fuck out of her way. As someone said though, that still exists in the book. It just didn't fit into the movie that way.
I think the shocker in the book was her actually her making herself emotionally vulnerable during her betrayal. It's okay, it's their choice, but I would have loved seeing an HR manager type lady peacefully asking for help, and going full stratt mode after rejection.
I enjoyed PHM the novel maybe 10-20% more than the Martian, but I enjoyed the film version of PHM maybe 50% more than the Martian film.
The main character in both novels is pretty goofy. Hell one of my favorite parts in both books is when the guys at NASA have figured out Mark is still alive and stranded on Mars. They are all freaking the hell out (onviously) and one of the directors tells everyone to stop and think about what Mark must be thinking right now while all alone on a inhospitable planet. Cut to his inner monologue criticizing Aquaman comics because "whales aren't fish. How does he talk to them? It makes no sense."
I thought one of the weaker points in the Martian was that they lost some of that goofiness. In the novel he uses his humor to cope with the situation. It helps him persevere. It gives him heart to keep going. And it gets harder for him to keep his good humor towards the end as his situation gets bleaker and harder, which makes it feel all the more dramatic to the reader. They kept a bit of humor at the beginning (a few dad jokes like being the best botanist on the planet hyuk hyuk) and that humor does decline in the movie as his situation worsens. But it was not goofy enough at the start to make the absence of it as stark and apparent later.
I love that they keep the humor in PHM. Not only do I not think it's detractive at all, I think it adds a ton to the heart and endearment of the film, particularly for the Grace-Rocky bromance. And it fits very well with Grace's character, someone who no one has taken seriously, who is full of doubt about his own abilities, etc. Also he's not clumsy and awkward when he's with his class, when he's teaching, and when he's doing real science. It makes him seem way more competent at those things, because he is. That's his element. He's only awkward outside of that element.
They also did a good job with Grace coming off as awkward in a quirky but believable way. Often a similar character is either full robot or like changed into the Fonz. Here he seems fairly sociable, but can't really perform in front of the room, and doesn't know what to do at the party. But one-on-one he's at ease and has no trouble bonding.
It's not book-accurate, but it seems like a more nuanced way to depict an awkward nerd than we usually get and I appreciated that.