this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Maybe less popular here, and definitely a closer call, but The Martian. Damon’s performance elevated Watney, the book’s Rover drive started to drag, and dear god you could just FEEL how uninterested and inexperienced Weir was during every single scene in the book involving anyone not named Mark Watney. Those scenes were still mostly bare bones plot progression in the movie, but the script doctors and professional actors made them much more palatable.
The movie’s ending was even less plausible than the rest, with the lampshade of picking an idea that book-Watney had rejected, and the book just had more of the “I’ma science the shit out of this!” Robinson Crusoe in space competence porn, and that was cool.
So like I said, there are points in favor of both, but I think the movie was a bit better than the book.
Hard no on the Martian. They skipped out on a lot of details of the journey because of time. I agree with their choice as far as movie pacing but that chunk of the book really showed off the dangerousness of Mars.
The really, really big reason the movie isn’t better though is because of the ending. That garbage Hollywood ending with him rocket boosting back to the ship was so stupid. It couldn’t ever happen and the whole idea of the action hero ending ran contrary to the theme of the story.