The 5 biggest differences between 'The Martian' book and movie
Warning! Major spoilers for The Martian, book and movie version, follow.
Aside from Gone Girl last year, The Martian was probably the most loyal book adaptation that Hollywood has put out to date. Most of the dialogue was lifted straight from the book, and even most of the (very technical, often confusing) science made it into the movie. And most importantly, the snark, the wit and the foul-mouthed nature of the famous Mark Watney (Matt Damon), best botanist on Mars, was the shining core of the film -- just like he was meant to be.
After sitting through the nearly three-hour movie, we have few complaints. But, for the record, here are some of the book things that the movie missed:
1. Aquaman
In one of the most hilarious transitions in the book, Venkat Kapoor (Vincent in the movie, and played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) wonders about Mark's state of mind soon after they find out that he's alive and alone on Mars. Immediately, we do get a peek into Mark's state of mind, which is him being driven mad by the illogical nature of Aquaman's power. Instead, in the movie we get a shot of Mark bemoaning Commander Lewis' disco -- which, okay, is important because the movie's disco soundtrack was perfect.
After some searching, it turns out that they used that line, but in a web-exclusive scene. Still hilarious.
2. Mindy Park is not Korean-American
Let's start with the fact that Park is the most Korean last name you will ever run into. Not only is it a historically Korean surname ranging back thousands of years, but if you open any high school yearbook and look up the people under the name Park, you will see an ocean of Korean faces. In the movie, Mindy Park was played by a very white, very blonde Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire). While she was perfectly fine in that role, and we guess it's to be expected from a director who cast white Australian actor Joel Edgerton as an Egyptian, it's still noticeable enough to be annoying.
3. Things don't go wrong nearly as much
Mark escaped a lot of near-death experiences in the movie. Sure, the Hab blew up a couple times and sure, his crops died, but those are just a few of the many ways that Mars tried to kill our favorite, snarky astronaut. There was that dust storm that he had to drive through when he was journeying to the Ares 4 landing site, that time his rover flipped over when he drove down a crumbling ramp, and that time he lost all communication with NASA shortly before he started his 100-day road trip. It kind of takes away some of the genius credit from Mark -- he does innovate and engineer a lot of the renovations himself -- but at least we got the nickname Captain Blondbeard out of it.
4. Iron Man is a go
In the book, Mark never got to live through his dream of flying around like Iron Man when he was being rescued by the Hermes crew. Though the pick-up went through a couple of the same hiccups as the movie, and Hermes did have to blow a hole in their ship, it was Beck and Vogel who rescued the surprisingly still Mark. In the movie, though, Lewis takes the spotlight to rescue Mark, but when her tether doesn't let her reach Mark's spinning MAV, Mark pulls an Iron Man and launches himself straight at her. The sequence was made even better by the fact that the Winter Soldier himself (Sebastian Stan, who plays Beck in the film) was watching over them.
5. Professor Mark Watney?
In a completely invented scene in the movie, Mark Watney ends the movie by lecturing a class of inspiring astronauts about the key to survival on a desolate planet. The book has long ended before this point, so it was probably just an excuse to get lift some more of the great dialogue from the book into the movie. And it was nice to catch up with the rest of the crew and NASA folks when there wasn't an astronaut in dire trouble.