Watched The Martian

We watched The Martian tonight. Having recently read the book, I was, surprisingly, eager to watch the movie. Yes, yes, the book was better, but I find interpretations of books as movies to be interesting, sometimes fascinating. The director has a story to tell visually in a short amount of time (making, of course, mini-series a better, but less profitable, choice for telling longer stories), and has to choose what to include and what to discard, what is important to telling the story and what is inconsequential. The interpretations are, of course, open for debate, and always loudly criticized by purists and readers.

I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't completely true to the book, but was close enough to be fun. The ending was made MORE DRAMATIC, which was unnecessary given how exciting the book was, but, hey, Ridley Scott. The movie was also a rushed version of the book: you lose both the sense of urgency the book conveys (the man is starving to death, isolated, and in mortal peril for a long time), and the sense of humour of the book.

Still, lots of fun.