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Comment by satvikpendem | Hacker News Reader

I read the book and really enjoyed it, but I heard the movie isn't really like the book, especially not enough of the science stuff unlike the Martian movie which does indeed have more of the science stuff. Those of you who read the book, what do you think of the movie?

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It’s a movie, not a book. The audio book is 16 hours runtime. The movie is 2 hours. Some things were always going to be left out. The details of the science stuff was one of them. It works better in a book narrative where the process is told than a movie where it’s visual and you have to show.

The Martian book has more of the science process than PHM book does to begin with.

The movie hit all of the primary points but never got into the details. If you read the book you can fill in the details. I imagine that a lot of people watching the movie didn’t know why some things were happening. Maybe some will be interested enough to read the book or the audiobook. If not, they had a good experience in the movie anyway.

It’s still a really good movie.

What bugs me about the editing in the movie is they gave only a couple of seconds of screen time for key plot elements like the nitrogen resistance breeding and how/why this would cause issues for Rocky. It made the last 20% of the movie less coherent for anyone who hasn’t read the book.

I read the book on release and loved it. The main themes and plot points are present in the movie, though it's overall a bit less nerdy and a bit more comical than the book. I think it is easily one of the best, most enjoyable sci-fi movies released this decade.

> I think it is easily one of the best, most enjoyable sci-fi movies released this decade.

I completely agree. I didn't read the book but the science the made sense to me. But then maybe I was able to fill in details mentally.

You've read the book. You don't need the science.

Heck, you don't even need a plot that hangs together. When I was a kid I had trouble figuring out why i loved the original Dune movie while everybody else hated it.

It was a bad movie because the plot didn't hold together. But the visuals and the characters were awesome. As an adjunct to the book it was great. It just didn't stand alone.

Hail Mary as someone who has read the book is a different experience than someone who hasn't. It brings the book to life.

Andy Weir (the author of the book) has a Producer AND Writer credit on the movie and had some say what bits to take out and what to change.

The changes worked really well for the movie, they changed some subtle bits, compressed others but the emotional core is still there and Ryan Gosling makes it work - the dude can act.

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