The movie is out!

I went to see it last night. The theater was about 2/3 full. No spoilers (even under the spoiler tag), I promise. If you want to go into the movie blind, just ignore the rest of this. I thought it was a good movie. Lots of laughter. A couple really heartbreaking bits. There were definitely changes from the book. The casting was good. I think the Ares III/Hermes crew was less crucial to the movie plot than the NASA people on the ground. I guess it was that way in the book; but I don't remember it being that way. Donald Glover was cast as Rich Purnell. Other than Matt Damon (who, I admit, pulled off the Mark Watney character very well), I think Glover was brilliantly cast. And don't stand up until the credit roll. I can't wait to see what others think of the movie!!

Thanks! Making my plans for the weekend now!

It is in our local theatre! Hopefully we can find a chance to go while it is still here.

I have the 3-D option. Opinions?

I can't wait to see it! Hopefully this Sunday.

>4 2wonderY: 3D makes me sick as a three-day drunk. The glasses are never large enough to fit comfortably over my own glasses. I have seen articles that say the movie is made to be 3D (and not just the 3D cinematography).

Saw it last night and loved it!

My only plot quibble was that it appeared that Martinez went on the next Ares mission. I think this choice was simply to show the audience that the crew was forgiven for their mutiny. But considering that Martinez had a very small child and had just been gone about two years, he had no business going on another long-duration mission, in my opinion. OK, so it's his choice -- but I don't believe he would have made that choice.

On the other hand, I know that NASA likes to mix flown-crew with rookie-crew on shuttle and space station, but still ... astronauts can turn assignments down.

Other than that, I thought they made good choices about what to leave out (the second dust storm when Watney realizes his solar cells aren't charging as quickly as they should, for example).

I also thought they didn't take advantage of the most emotional moment of the book for me -- the moment when Mindy (Park?) realizes that Watney is alive. Also, the reactions of people when she tells them. They rushed through that.

All this being said, I thought it was outstanding and would like to see it again.

>7 amysisson: I agree with your points. I was also irritated slightly by Martinez flying back out. Although, it was a really neat tie-in to have the next Ares mission shown. It worked really well as an epilogue. I'm pretty sure I'm going to see it again in the theater.

My kids and I all love the book, and we really enjoyed the movie. My husband hasn't read the book, and thought the movie was too long. He also has been asking us about why or how certain things happened in the movie, like why Watney didn't die when his suit was punctured, and the airlock explosion. I was impressed with how much of the movie came directly from the book, although they obviously had to leave a lot out because of time constraints. And of course, a lot of the science explanations wouldn't have translated well. I thought they could have included more of the humour that was in the book.

I completely agree with >1 lesmel: about Donald Glover as Rich Parnell. His performance was a real highlight for me. And, like >7 amysisson:, I was bothered by Martinez going on the next mission. I also thought the Ironman thing was kind of silly, but my son said it was cool.

>9 SylviaC: Argh! That's the other thing that annoyed me! In the book, the commander is much more forceful and uh, commanding. Jessica Chastian is all emo. Although, heh. Iron Man!

I agree there was need to simplify the story, but there were a few scenes that were dropped that seemed missed opportunities. Mindy's discovery, Yes! Mark's efforts to get the solar panels on the rover. Also Chuck and Morris, the number crunchers who talk about probabilities with Vinkat Kapoor.

What did you think about the casting for Venkat Kapoor? No offense to the actor, but he didn't live up to my image.

ps: When I preview my message, spoiler works, but when I post it I can read the whole thing. ????

>11 2wonderY:

I really liked Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor, but I have a soft spot for him anyway.

Also thought the size and "youngness" of the astronaut training class at the end was odd. The last astronaut class selected had 8 people in it. I think we were supposed to get that the world is now 100% Behind Space Travel = increased budgets = we get to step up our game. But most astronauts these days are seasoned pilots or Ph.D.'s, so having them all look young 20-something struck me as off.

I loved that they had the Chinese astronaut on the next mission, with the Chinese man and woman standing in JSC mission control (yay, cooperation!) but I hope it wasn't so subtle that people missed it. In the book, if I recall correctly, the Chinese really hesitated over whether to help, and a condition was putting a Chinese astronaut on the next mission. Which honestly I don't think would be an unreasonable request under those circumstances.

>11 2wonderY: Maybe the spoiler thing is because you click it in preview and it stays open? testing: test test test Nope. The spoiler bit closed once I hit Post Message. Weird.

>11 2wonderY: & >12 amysisson: I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor as Kapoor, although, I struggled a little because the accent didn't mesh with what I'd heard in my head through the entire book

>11 2wonderY: Do you have LT set to show the old site design? I know that can mess with spoilers. The setting is on the right side of your profile page.

I see spoiler blanks on my message after I renew the page. I was just worried that I had done it wrong and all readers could see what I had tried to cover.

>13 lesmel: In the audio book, Venkat is most definitely Indian. I see that the movie people first tried to cast Irrfan Khan, but he wasn't available. And someone in a chat suggested Kal Penn. That would've been lovely.

>16 2wonderY: OH!!! Irrfan Khan would have been THE ULTIMATE. He has a part in Jurassic World that I didn't even know about; and I loved his scenes. I don't know that Kal Penn looks old enough to fit the Kapoor part; but that would have been good, too!

I finally saw the movie over the weekend. It was awesome! I agree with everything that's been said in this thread thus far. It did throw me off that Venkat Kapoor was a non-Indian actor, but it doesn't really matter.

I kind of wanted the other events (Watney crashing the rover into that crater thing, the other sandstorm that blew up after he lost communication with NASA so he had no way of knowing the storm was coming...) to be included in the movie just because it further shows how many obstacles Watney had to overcome to stay alive and get back to the crew. But, of course, I understand those things needed to be cut or the movie would've been pushing four hours.

The ending bothered me a bit just because that part about Watney leading the training course for future astronauts and Beck and Johansson getting married, having a baby etc. etc. was not included in the book. (I agree that Martinez had no business going on another mission but almost definitely wouldn't have done so in real life). I always like it for movies to be as true to the book as possible. And, yes, yay for cooperation with China! They probably should've included the deal that a Chinese astronaut be included with American astronauts on the next manned space mission because otherwise viewers who did not read the book wouldn't know that and it's a way to further show the cooperation between the countries. But it was still a great movie and my science-y engineer SO loved it too!

The book version's heavy-handed pro-nuclear power bias has been mostly but not completely shoved aside in this film version.