Andy Weir made me tear up with relief.  He also got me through New Mexico.  I recently took a cross-continent road trip with my wife.  After twelve days of travel, we now live in Austin.  Road trips normally grind down my patience till I am a sullen bear of a husband.  Mark Watney’s struggles to stay alive and travel 3200 km on Mars made all of my travel woes insignificant.  Technically I traveled farther, but I never ran out of ketchup.  I’ll start with the book.

I listened to this book as an audio book.  The reader for the Audible version was fantastic.  R.C. Bray commands so many different accents and characters.  But, Bray’s interpretation of the characters taints my view of each character.  The story itself is stressful and exhausting.  People with a heart condition should allow for breaks to relieve built up stress.  There were several times that I fist pumped when one of the several likable characters succeeded in the face of death by implosion, fire, jettison, starvation, explosion, infection, etc.  Weir’s story is simple.  One guy versus one planet.  The only criticism I would have of the story is that the human administrative drama of how to reveal details about Watney’s survival is unnecessary and distracting.  Weir devotes story space to use white collar drama to spell out “Astronauts have to be brave” whenever there is an astronaut on a deserted planet actually being brave.  This space could have been devoted to more buddy-scenes or communication between Watney and the crew or even provide a more fleshed out epilogue.  The plot ends abruptly with Watney, a character who has spelled out every step he will take every hour, not answering the question, “How will I survive now?”  The closing message of “Humanity bands together” is a very surprising Star Trekian theme out of a book that I thought would be Castaway in space.

Speaking of Castaway, I knew that Ridley Scott’s 2015 film would have to maroon lots of content and have more straightforward plot structure than the book.  Overall the plot choices and big decision to follow fairly linear plot progression were perfect.  Matt Damon’s performance was good, but I felt that he brought too much self-doubt to Watney – except for the space rescue scene, which was probably not Damon’s call, but it was so fun.  Watney’s cockiness and humor is his main defense mechanism in the novel; whereas, Damon’s Watney is more well adjusted and survives by connecting to his crew.  This hurts the basic story of one guy versus one planet.  The main plot difference in the film pertains to Watney’s ability to stay connected to earth and his team.  This would have played into the theme of “Humanity bands together” if the movie’s extended epilogue went that direction; however, the closing theme of the movie is “Pioneers are going to pioneer.  Try hard.”  I laughed harder at the Council of Elrond scene more than I ever have at any fourth-wall awareness in any film.  Sean Bean blew my mind.

So which is better?  Weir’s novel is a wonderful suspense filled survival story.  Ridley’s film is better than any popcorn level teamwork film.  However, both stories are supposed to be about survival.  Survival stories are most compelling when you aren’t sure if the characters will survive.  Weir never lets the reader take Watney’s survival for granted. Ridley’s montage filled adaptation skimps on loneliness and desperation.  The novel wins. Also, you should watch your back around Boromir.