Day 365: So which was better, the book or the movie? I have to tell you, it was "six of one, half dozen of another." Both have their strong points and weaknesses, and where one falls down, the other substantially supports it. The novel is monolog/dialog-driven and focuses primarily on Mark Watney's log entries, heavy on conversation, with no descriptions of interior or exterior environment. The reader gets very little fuel for the imagination, or as I put it to one friend, "It's like watching TV on paper." However, the lack of descriptive writing in the book is counterbalanced in the film's remarkable filmography (some of the best I've seen), but the thought processes detailed in the novel are lost in favour of a flurry of hard-to-follow action sequences in the movie. Overall, the film gives a better sense of the timeframe of events, jumping between the venues of Mars and various agencies.
In the movie, the protagonist's mental efforts with respect to problem-solving are unvoiced; the audience understands that he made miscalculations which caused his plan/plans to fail, but the hard science behind the failures is lost. The fast action of the film has you gripping the arms of your theater seat as you experience the suddenness of each potentially catastrophic event in real-time, and while the book is a can't-put-it-down work, the movie doesn't allow you time for breath, let alone popcorn.
The science in the book is well-researched and believable, and that is where Hollywood made its major mistake: they changed the ending, adding a showy but scientifically flawed last-minute maneuver. Even if I could have suspended disbelief for that deviation, the omission of one of the more spectacular milestones of Watney's Martian sojourn was a great disappointment, especially since the time which could have been used to include it was filled instead with an epilogue not included in the the novel. Still, I find myself willing to overlook Hollywood's unfortunate tendency to stamp everything with their own signature, and in conclusion I can only advise my followers to read and see for themselves. Do both. You won't regret it.
