The missed opportunities of Ridley Scott’s ‘The Martian’
The past few weeks I have spent my nights reading Andy Weir’s book “The Martian.” Once I finally finished the book, I allowed myself to see Ridley Scott’s theatrical version of the movie also tiled “The Martian.” I will not give spoilers for the movie and I will try to be as ambiguous as possible about events in the novel. To put it lightly, if you haven’t read the book you will enjoy the movie because you don’t know what you are missing.
For one, the 72nd Golden Globe Award nominations were announced and “The Martian” was categorized as a comedy. After I was done yelling at the TV screen, I sat down and thought about it. Mark Watney is a very optimistic character with a great sense of humor and this is what makes him such a remarkable character. Even though the theatrical version is full of comedians, Scott did not make the movie as comedic as the novel.
There are a few comical elements in the novel that did not make it into the film. Personally, I am upset the Aquaman joke did not make the cut. Also, in the book Watney watched hours of “Three’s Company” not “Happy Days.” I don’t know why they made that change, it’s really not important but it bothers me that they changed it. Watney also designated his own theme song as “Stayin’ Alive,” by The Bee Gees. This seemed like a suitable theme song since Mars was constantly trying to kill him. This did not make it into the film either. Damn Lewis and her disco music.
Scott did make some great choices with the cast but he did not utilize them as well as he could have. For example, in the novel, Mitch Henderson, Sean Bean’s character, is a socially-awkward, abrupt jerk. Everyone knows that SeanBean can play that role well but his character in the movie seemed meek and wimpy. And c’mon, how come there are no memes about the Council of Elrond joke?!
I am a huge advocate of reading the book then watching the movie version so I understand that there are directorial decisions that are made and there are reasons behind those decisions. Not everything can be shown on the big screen like it is told in the novel because there is the issue of running time. “The Martian” had a screen time of 2 hours 24 minutes; that’s pretty long for a movie about a man stuck on a planet all by himself. Scott was able to condense the journal entries into montages but he cut out some explanations. I feel like the audience members were lost since they didn’t know the math and science behind the actions taking place on screen.
The one thing that I am going to have to talk to Mr. Scott about is the absence of the drill fiasco scene from the movie; this lead to a chain of events that happened differently in the movie than they did in the novel. *Book Spoiler alert* In the novel, Watney sets the drill down and nixes his communication with NASA right before he goes on his journey to Schiaparelli and there’s a giant dust storm heading right his way. So all hope is lost, then he’s saved, then all hope is lost again, then he’s saved. It’s an emotional roller coaster.
Scott tweaked the ending a bit but it was completely justified. The ending in the book had a nice wrap up but the end of the movie felt that it had much more closure to it. The movie is great but I would highly recommend everyone to read the book. I haven’t felt that many emotions while reading a book in a long time. I’m going through book withdrawals; I can’t find anything that can compete after reading “The Martian.” Do NOT watch the movie and then read the book; this story does not work that way.
Trailer courtesy of 20th Century FOX
