The Martian

[Devil 505]

Do yourselves a big favor, and see this film. I also highly recommend the novel to you readers out there.

And if you have seen it then you know that Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man. That's a fact.

[CptTrips]

I liked the book.

[rogwar]

Looking forward to seeing the movie.

[zack1234]

Is based on true events?

[Swoop]

Yes it is Zack.  In fact it's a training video being used by NASA to educate it's trainees on extra-planetary survival.

[zack1234]

Like the supossed Apollo landings?

[Ripsnort]

Yes it is Zack.  In fact it's a training video being used by NASA to educate it's trainees on extra-planetary survival.

[ghi]

You made me curious, I watched the trailer;  encourages organic farming

[Yankee67]

Brought my 11 yo daughter.  She loved it, although it had some salty language.  (She's got science in her blood.  She did a science project on general relativity when she was 9, and aced the math and science standardized tests this past spring.)

[Mano]

I d/l'd the kindle version today     

[caldera]

Does Matt Damon say "there is a moment -" and gets sucked out the airlock?  He was a dbag in Interstellar.

[Yankee67]

Book obviously has a lot more detail than the movie.  They cut a bunch of stuff out to get it down to a 2 hour or so movie.  I also liked the book's portrayal of Mark Watney better than the movie.  In the book he's more of a hardcore astronaut uber-geek.

[Zoney]

I read the book.  It was one of those "lose sleep must read more" kind of books.  Very well written, plenty of tasty science stuff to make it hard science fiction, not fantasy.

I took my wife to the movie Saturday and it was money well spent, thoroughly enjoyable.

Of course the book was better.  Partly because there was more of it, things that portrayed the boredom he would feel and the desolation, and the loneliness.  You can only do so much in a 2 hour movie.  The book had enough material to have been a 1 hour, 40 installment TV series, but a lot of it would have been him just driving, and recharging, and eating, and driving, and recharging....ad infinitum.

Go see the movie, you will be entertained, take your kids that are over 12 or so, there is some swearing, but maybe, just maybe one of them will be inspired.  That my friends, is what Hard Science Fiction is all about.

[Devil 505]

Well said Zoney.

There were also more mishaps that Watney faced in the novel - and the ones that were cut in order to streamline the script were the exact ones to skip. So I have to give the screenwriter major credit for recognizing which events were expendable, as they either took too long to unfold or to solve. Each of those events worked well in the novel, but would have killed the pacing of the film, especially the two which occurred in route to Schiaparelli crater.

[Citabria]