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book was better

2015-10-25 23:30:12.743548+01 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

The book was better, and the previews made me remember why I don't go see many movies, but The Martian[Wiki] was actully pretty good.

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#Comment Re: book was better made: 2015-10-26 16:52:43.132357+01 by: Dan Lyke

The problems I had with the movie were... well... here's some:

  1. A good bit of the Hermes EVA stuff pulled me right out of the story. Dude coasting along the outside of the vehicle without a tether? Why? It didn't really increase the dramatic tension any, it was just kind of a "yeah, we casually EVA without tethers, except when we're actually strapped into some sort of maneuvering units", sort of blew the believability.
  2. The casting of women. I realize that I've no basis for saying "that looks like an engineer", but the few women amongst the NASA engineers were token, and played more for looks and PR. It's like "really? We're telling an inspirational story about the future, and the best we can do is put women in roles of eye candy?"
  3. The film-making felt clumsy at times. At some point there's a shot of somebody's naked ass, it's meant to be Watney's, there to contrast with the early buff-ness, but it doesn't feel like Damon (the face is carefully eclipsed), and rather than being really demonstrative it feels tossed in. Like "oh, yeah, we need to show that he's kind of starving and this is taking a physical toll, let's throw some shots in there" rather than finding a way to make that a part of the story.

I enjoyed it, but I felt like I was seeing the book through a filter that was more limited than my own, and I turn to SciFi for trying to expand my filters.