A bit of a change of pace for this What’s the Difference? with Wisecrack diving into the key difference between the Netflix version of Death Note and the Manga and Anime.
I was first exposed to Death Note via the Japanese live-action film adaptation. It was an intriguing and decent film (with some pretty dodgy CGI for Ryuk). That lead me to watch the Anime TV adaptation, which is excellent, if just a bit heavy handed. I have to admit to reading very little of the Manga because I kinda felt like the Anime had covered it really well.
When I saw they were releasing an American version of Death Note on Netflix, I was all over it. I didn’t expect the dense and loquacious Anime, but was thinking they’d remake the film adaptation with better CGI, no subtitles (because Americans don’t read), and star some former Disney child actors looking to do something gritty but lucrative to make sure the mouse didn’t throw their souls into the volcano under Disney Land. What we got was 90 minutes of garbage.
On the Wikipedia page for the American Death Note film, it is described as “loosely adapted from the Japanese Manga”. The word loosely is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that description.
The above video does a pretty good job of covering what the film does wrong. Not different, wrong. The film really does feel like someone saw that Death Note was successful, so they bought the rights, got a director to read the elevator pitch for the series (kid gets the power to kill people by writing in a demon’s book), and thought that was all they needed to do. Everything about it is a failure to understand what Death Note was about. The characters are shallow and lack any value to the story. The story lacks any substance. And they managed to turn one of the most compelling sequences from the Anime into a chase scene involving the wrong characters.* Because every American film needs a chase scene… In short, they made a bad film and an even worse adaptation.
The main thing to remember about Death Note is that they’ve already made a very good adaptation with the Anime.
* See this video that discusses the scene from the Anime I’m referring to.
How does Netflix’s Death Note adaptation hold up to the original?
The anime version of Death Note, which is a faithful adaptation of the original manga, is one of our all-time favorites. So how does it compare to the not-so-beloved 2017 Netflix version? Let’s find out in this “Book” (aka Anime) vs. Film: Death Note
This month’s What’s the Difference? from Cinefix looks at The Kingsmen and it’s comic origins in Mark Millar’s comic.
While I can remember reading Mark Millar’s Secret Service, I can’t remember having enjoyed it. I’m not actually sure if I read the whole first run. I do remember thinking that it was an interesting if average take on the suave spy genre.
Needless to say, I was somewhat surprised when The Kingsmen arrived in cinemas. Secret Service didn’t exactly strike me as worth adapting. Bond had been reinvigorated, Vin Diesel’s XXX had come and gone*, and Austin Powers had mined a couple of jokes to death over three movies. Did we need this movie?
Yes.
And it was a surprisingly good movie. Not to mention, it also manages to be an adaptation that, I think, improves upon the source material. I think the “Kingsmen” aspect, as mentioned in the video, was certainly part of what elevated the movie above the source material.
I think if there is anything to learn from Secret Service being adapted, it is that a good adaptation will fully realise the potential of the source material. That doesn’t require faithfulness, but rather an understanding of the themes and ideas.
* And then came back again. Why, I’m not entirely sure.
This month, CineFix are discussing the excellent Snowpiercer and its comic book origins in What’s the Difference?
If you haven’t watched Snowpiercer then I recommend you do.
I kinda meant right now.
Go. Enjoy.
For everyone else, I think Snowpiercer did a number of interesting things. The first one was showing us Chris Evans looked good with a beard… I mean, that Evans could do more than Captain America. The second one was to usher in a mainstream filmic conversation around class and society that has been lacking in the public space despite a growing divide between the rich and the rest of us. The Occupy movement and the Global Financial Crisis fallout hadn’t been entirely ignored, but this did raise and further attention. The third was that a revolution is the only way forward out of a decaying system that Korean cinema is where a lot of interesting storytelling and action is to be found.
Once again I find myself with another book I have yet to read despite my enjoyment of the movie adaptation. If only there were more reading hours in the day.
Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is taking the world over, but in 2013 the Korean filmmaker ended the world with his dystopian action masterpiece, Snowpiercer. Set on a train carrying the last of humanity around a planet in the midst of a self-made ice age, Chris Evans leads a revolution against the trains elite class. While the film shares plenty with the 1982 graphic novel Le Transperceneige on which it’s based, Bong Joon Ho aims his satire in a different direction. So tuck into a protein bar and find your place on the train because it’s time to ask What’s the Difference?
Whenever I hear about one of my favourite novels being adapted for the big screen, or the moderate screen that fits in my house, I’m wary. Not wary in a “I hope they don’t mess this up” kind of way, but wary in a “They had better not mess this up” kind of way.
Well, one of my favourite novels was adapted for a TV show (again) and I’ve seen the first season. And I have thoughts…
I was very wary of clicking play on the trailer for the BBC America Dirk Gently series. I removed all sharp objects from my immediate vicinity before watching. If you’re a fan of Douglas Adams’ novels, you may want to do the same. Out of wariness.
Well, at least they won’t be butchering Dirk Gently, because I’m not sure that this is Dirk Gently.
This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a book adaptation with the lead character portrayed by someone who doesn’t physically match the role. I’m talking about Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Twice. Anyway, I’m not sure that Samuel Barnett really fits the Svlad Cjelli (aka Dirk Gently) middle-aged, overweight, poorly dressed, loser mould.
He is portrayed as a pudgy man who normally wears a heavy old light brown suit, red checked shirt with a green striped tie, long leather coat, red hat and thick metal-rimmed spectacles. Source
And after viewing the first season, I’m even less convinced this was a portrayal of Dirk Gently. Okay, so clearly Max Landis and his team are going for more of a “youth” vibe. Landis obviously thinks that the only way to write a quirky character (quirky being code for annoying bellend) is to have them bounce off of the walls with manic energy. Which is not something a pudgy middle-aged guy in a dirty suit does.
Then we have not-MacDuff. Elijah Wood is portraying a character named Todd. He’s meant to be more of an everyman for us to relate to (see video below for discussion). So no symphony of nature, no Susan, and no hallway couch. Todd’s relationship to “Dirk” is the typical cliched odd-couple, with the non-quirky character being inexplicably fond or loyal to the person ruining their life.
So two characters that aren’t that great* who get up to weird adventures. Right? Well, the adventures are… kinda… dull. Douglas Adams had Dirk save the world from a ghost of the people who created life on Earth, and the Norse Gods who are a bit peeved about not being admired anymore. Landis has Dirk investigating gifted people swapping bodies… and stuff.
I’m really not sure what Landis was going for. But then again, I’ve watched Bright, which leads me to conclude Landis probably doesn’t know what he’s trying to do either.
After watching this panel discussion you’d be forgiven for thinking that everyone involved had a good grasp of the material they were adapting. Landis professes to being a big fan of Douglas Adams’ writing… Yet his takeaway from Dirk Gently is manic energy guy running around being weird. The panel discusses capturing the essence of Dirk Gently, but I didn’t see the loser conman and his intricate adventures that really were holistic.
It often baffles me why screenwriters diverge so far from the source material – it feels as though I discussed this recently. Do they buy the rights but forget to buy a copy of the book for the screenwriters? In this instance that doesn’t appear to be the case. Is it just that they aren’t usually looking to do a direct adaptation but more of an “inspired by” screenplay? In which case, why buy the rights and use the character names? Landis did moan about the lack of original ideas in cinema – but this is also the same guy who talks up sequels to films nobody wanted to see. Are writers trying to avoid a direct comparison between book and adaptation? Again, why buy the rights, since the screenwriters clearly have an idea for a movie/TV show and the source material is essentially made irrelevant?
In many instances, a direct adaptation would make more sense. Beloved books would often be best served by being faithfully adapted to please fans and appeal to new fans. The source material has proved itself already: so use it! Some changes are necessary, either for run-time, or translation between mediums, but this can still be done faithfully. So why doesn’t it happen more often? I personally suspect that the screenwriters aren’t being asked to do faithful adaptations for a variety of reasons, including having bosses who don’t care about the source material. In the case of Landis, I question his abilities… I sat through this adaptation, his movies Bright and American Ultra, and think it is fair to conclude his abilities are lacking.
Maybe one day we’ll see a good adaptation of Douglas Adams’ work.**
Yeah, this adaptation wasn’t much better.
*The characters aren’t that great, but the acting is on point. So can’t blame the actors.
**Yes, I am aware of his various radio plays and the old Hitchhiker’s Guide TV series. I can’t even remember what the latter was like it has been so long since I’ve seen it.
This month’s What’s the Difference from Cinefix compares the book sequel written because the movie adaptation was successful and the director wanted more source material to ignore. Jurassic Park: The Lost World.
Honestly, I can never keep it straight in my head which parts of the novels ended up in which movie. As mentioned in the video, the opening scene of The Lost World was actually from the first book. There are other examples, like the “birdcage” scene in one of the other movies was in the first book… I think.
One thing is for certain: Spielberg knows how to make a film. He knows how to build tension, he knows how to establish sights, sounds, and characters so that sequences hang together, and he knows not to have a talking dinosaur in an aeroplane.
Yes, this is an actual scene from Jurrasic Park 3. Take a moment.
But The Lost World is an example of one the worst reasons you write or film a sequel: because the first one was successful. I don’t know exactly what Spielberg’s motivations were for the sequel – maybe he was under contract, maybe he needed a new wing on his house – but the film was dull. It was trying to recapture the lightning bottled in the first film. The same can be said of the book. Crichton didn’t originally want to write a sequel and was only convinced by Spielberg saying he’d give him lots of money that he would be keen to direct a movie adaptation of the sequel if one were written.
I’m on record as not being much of a fan of Michael Crichton’s books. He has a tendency to write solid thrillers that act as vehicles for anti-science rants by a raisonneur or mouthpiece. There is nothing wrong with doing this, per se, but science is awesome, so make sure your criticism is on point. Or don’t, depending on whether you want to impress me or someone who thinks chakras are a thing.
Needless to say, I was a fan of the first film, less so the book. The sequels… Put it this way, I haven’t bothered watching the new ones starring Chris Pratt yet.
PBS Digital Studios have a new video series It’s Lit! which is part of The Great American Read, an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading. Featuring one of the premiere video essayists in Lindsay Ellis, this series should be brilliant.
The first video briefly discusses a topic I’ve frequently discussed here, what makes a good adaptation and why the book is so often regarded as better.
Lindsay has very concisely summarised why movies so often don’t make for good or faithful adaptations of the source material. But she also touches on why they can sometimes improve the book, or make an adaptation that uses the source material in an interesting way to tell a different story.
This month’s What’s the Difference? from CineFix delves into one of the few Stanley Kubrick films I’ve enjoyed.
Everyone remembers Dr Strangelove but very few remember Red Alert, the novel that was the basis for Kubrick’s adaptation. Peter George’s book was an early nuclear war thriller and having got there first tended to be copied (or is that emulated?) by many other authors. This was an important point since Kubrick and George decided to sue the production of another movie based upon a nuclear war thriller that was deceptively similar to Red Alert. I’m not exactly sure why this was important as George teamed up with Terry Southern to change the super-cereal novel into a timeless satire.
Did you know that Dr Strangelove was originally going to end with a pie fight? Apparently, the farcical element involved in that was deemed too silly for a poignant satire, despite how metaphorical it was to the destruction of the human race. I guess many would have missed that point. Comedy needs to take itself more seriously if people are to get the point.
I think Dr Strangelove is a great example of a movie being better than the book. The way it does this is by not taking the source material seriously. What would have been another by-the-numbers thriller was elevated by satirising war. Landing not long after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film managed to capture sentiments of the absurdity of mutually assured destruction and the ineptness of the cabals of military and political elites deciding fates.
This month in CineFix’s series What’s the Difference? they cover Oldboy. Live octopus not included.
Not having read the Manga, I don’t really have much to add to the above video. The film is amazing. It redefined “off-the-wall” and managed to make it compelling watching.
Let’s not talk about the Spike Lee remake. Because it wasn’t very good. Although, because it is an American adaptation of a South Korean adaptation of a Japanese work, it can be interesting in an intercultural sense. This article is very interesting in that regard.
In keeping with my monthly series of posts on book adaptations – Book vs Movie – I thought I’d share this CineFix video as my last post before the Festive Break. They cover a lot of great adaptations, even mentioning a few I was unaware were adaptations.
Thanks to my readers and commenters for dropping by this year. I hope you all enjoy whatever Holiday tradition you celebrate. Best wishes from me to you.
Now let’s argue over whether this video has missed any of our favourite movies based upon books.
Do you prefer a Chianti or an Amarone to accompany human liver and fava beans? This month CineFix ask the question in their What’s the Difference? on Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.
I’m going to be controversial here and say that the movie, Silence of the Lambs, was better than the book. That’s right. I’ll give you some time to warm up the tar and pluck the chickens.
That isn’t to say that the novel is bad, far from it. In my original reviews of Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I noted that they were great stories, very interesting and layered (thematically, compositionally, etc), and gave us a charismatic villain for the history books. But I wasn’t a fan of the writing. Some passages were on point, especially some of the dialogue that was pretty much lifted straight into the movie, but other parts felt like they were letting down the team.
Compare that with the cinematic classic and you can see which one stands taller. The themes, particularly the sexism, are more subtle yet more omnipresent (camera angles and shot staging vs inner monologue). The tone of the film is brought to life, and how could it not be with Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter exuding menace and demonic magnetism, and the brilliant cinematography – the night vision scene is unmatched.
It’s a pity none of the movie sequels managed to capture the same magic. I’m yet to read the rest of the Hannibal Lecter novels, so it would be interesting to hear if they managed to continue the magic, or if they slowly drained of life with each thin slice.
This month CineFix do the episode of What’s the Difference? you’ve been waiting for. No, not The Game of Thrones differences. The sex scene differences of The Game of Thrones.
People are often surprised when I tell them I’m not a fan of The Game of Thrones. But after abandoning both the first book and first season, there isn’t much that could get me interested in coming back.
Some people have tried to convince me that there is plenty of nudity and sex in the books and show. I like to point out that 4% of the internet is porn. When I’ve tried pointing out that most of the characters either die or aren’t protagonists you want to follow, the response is always Tyrion Lannister is awesome…. So that’s one character. I can see why many people love both the books and TV show, but just not for me. Unless it is in a highlights reel format.
Thug Notes summary and analysis of A Song of Fire and Ice.
Wisecracks comparison to The Sopranos and Interregnum
Before anyone starts, I’ve always thought The Hobbit sucked. I was never a fan of the book, so even a semi-faithful movie adaptation was going to underwhelm me. But there are lessons to be learned by writers (and readers) from The Hobbit movies.
Recently I had a series of posts (1, 2, 3) about The Lord of the Rings movie adaptations, in which I discussed how much I enjoyed them. The movies managed to be awesome and cut out the long waffly bits. The movies were better than the book. But what about the 3 movie adaptation of the 1 book story? Well, here’s a 6 video discussion of the 3 movie adaptation of the 1 book story!
Just Write/Sage Rants dissects the flaws in The Hobbit movies. The videos highlight some of the more important aspects of storytelling and payoffs for the reader, and how they weren’t well handled.
Nothing quite like comparing one of the best movies of all time with its source material. This month CineFix do with What’s the Difference? on The Shawshank Redemption.
It’s odd that I have read Stephen King’s The Body but haven’t read Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, given that they shared space in the same collection. But then I don’t often read novellas and short stories, as I prefer novels. I often think that shorter stories make for easier movie adaptations as the filmmakers don’t have to trim material the same way. Of course there are two problems with that thinking:
It assumes that filmmakers actually read the source material (see here, here, here, here….)
It assumes that filmmakers aren’t quite content to stretch source material out to fill as much cinema time as possible, no matter how bad an idea that is. *cough* The Hobbit *cough*
I recently saw a listicle that suggested Shawshank was one of the movies you should have in your collection. That is clearly wrong. If you can’t turn on the TV and catch it on rerun then your TV is broken or you have found Die Hard on instead. Why own it? Which brings me to possibly the only real gripe there is to be had with Shawshank, and that is its over-popularity. Exactly how many times can it play on TV before people start becoming annoyed? At what point does the audience start to groan at what was once a great movie? Can great art remain timeless if you beat everyone over the head with it? I fear the answers.
Time for some ultra-violence with this month’s instalment of CineFix’s What’s the Difference?
Video: A Clockwork Orange – What’s the Difference?
I can’t remember if I read the book or watched the movie first. A Clockwork Orange was a novel in my parents’ collection of novels, which is why I turned out so well. I do remember the novel wasn’t as easy to consume as the movie, mainly because you can interpret spoken language more easily than understanding the lexicon employed in Burgess’ written words.
This may be a somewhat shocking statement, but I’m not much of a fan of Stanley Kubrick’s films. I always found them somewhat bland, as though there were a lot of empty space on the screen. As such, there are parts of the film I find to be bordering on dull, and others that strike me as weird and hammy (such as the scene with Alex’s parol officer). Meanwhile, the book managed to be entertaining and yet critical of youth culture whilst discussing free will.
It is ironic that I would enjoy a book that is critical of “kids these days”. But the fact that it was written in 1962 only further proves my point that complaining about the younger generation has been a popular pastime for old people since the invention of young people. Oh, and free will probably doesn’t exist.
Did you know that the cult classic, The Warriors, was based on a novel? How about that the novel was based on the ancient Greek tale Anabasis? Cinefix explain in this month’s What’s the Difference.
I can’t really comment much on this instalment as I’ve not seen the entire movie, nor read either the novel by Sol Yurick nor Xenophon’s tale. But it is interesting that even a cult action film about street gangs has pedigree origins. This reinforces a point I’ve often made here; that we shouldn’t be snobby about the things other people like. We might like to think that our subjective taste is better but often we don’t even appreciate how biased we are in that taste. A book/movie about a gang on the run could be one person’s retelling of a Greek tale, or it could be another person’s mindless genre piece. Or it could be both.
Whenever I hear about one of my favourite novels being adapted for the big screen, or the moderate screen that fits in my house, I’m wary. Not wary in a “I hope they don’t mess this up” kind of way, but wary in a “They had better not mess this up” kind of way.
I was very wary of clicking play on the video below for the new BBC America Dirk Gently series. I removed all sharp objects from my immediate vicinity before watching. If you’re a fan of Douglas Adams’ novels, you may want to do the same. Out of wariness.
Well, at least they won’t be butchering Dirk Gently, because I’m not sure that this is Dirk Gently.
This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a book adaptation with the lead character portrayed by someone who doesn’t physically match the role. I’m talking about Tom Cruise playing Jack Reacher. Twice. Anyway, I’m not sure that Samuel Barnett really fits the Svlad Cjelli (aka Dirk Gently) middle-aged, overweight, poorly dressed, loser mould.
He is portrayed as a pudgy man who normally wears a heavy old light brown suit, red checked shirt with a green striped tie, long leather coat, red hat and thick metal-rimmed spectacles.#
Okay, so clearly Max Landis and team are going for more of a “youth” vibe. Maybe Barnett will gain weight and change to wearing drab clothes over the course of the series… But that doesn’t explain the car seen in the clip. Gently was famous for not having any money, since his clients never paid him, and subsequently owning a car that reflected that fact. Whilst I’m not really sure what brand/model of car that one was, it did look expensive. Does that mean Gently is now a successful conman? Did his psychic powers finally allow him to back a winning horse? Or are Americans more gullible of conmen if they have British accents?
Then we have not-MacDuff. Elijah Wood is portraying a character named Todd. He’s meant to be more of an everyman for us to relate to (see video below for discussion). So no symphony of nature, no Susan, and probably no hallway couch. I’ll let the hobbit pass. For now.
Even after watching this panel discussion I’m still wary. Landis professes to being a big fan of Douglas Adams’ writing, but this is also the same guy who talks up sequels to films nobody wanted to see. The panel discusses capturing the essence of Dirk Gently, but I’m not seeing the loser conman aspect from that trailer.
It often baffles me why screenwriters diverge so far from the source material – it feels as though I discussed this recently. Do they buy the rights but forget to buy a copy of the book for the screenwriters? In this instance that doesn’t appear to be the case. Is it just that they aren’t usually looking to do a direct adaptation but more of an “inspired by” screenplay? In which case, why buy the rights and use the character names? Landis did moan about the lack of original ideas in cinema. Are writers trying to avoid direct comparison between book and adaptation? Again, why buy the rights, since the screenwriters clearly have an idea for a movie/TV show and the source material is essentially made irrelevant?
In many instances a direct adaptation would make more sense. Beloved books would often be best served by being faithfully adapted to please fans and appeal to new fans. The source material has proved itself already: so use it! Some changes are necessary, either for run-time, or translation between mediums, but this can still be done faithfully. So why doesn’t it happen more often? I personally suspect that the screenwriters aren’t being asked to do faithful adaptations for a variety of reasons, including having bosses who don’t care about the source material.
I’m still very wary of this Dirk Gently adaptation. They had better not mess it up!
This month the Cinefix team are covering the differences between The Bourne Identity movie and book. So this will either be a super short episode or a super long one.
I read The Bourne Identity not long after seeing the movie. Yeah, I’m that guy. I’m frequently that guy. Anyway, I have always referred to the movie as being nothing like the book at all. Aside from a few names and the amnesia thing, there is virtually nothing similar about the two works. I have often wondered if the screenwriters got handed the book and only got as far as the blurb on the back cover before producing their screenplay. Let’s just hope Ludlum was able to cash his cheque* before he typed his last ‘The End’.**
Apparently Robert Ludlum was inspired to write a spy novel involving an amnesic because he briefly suffered from the condition himself. There’s a joke here somewhere about the screenwriters forgetting to read the novel, but I wouldn’t stoop that low. I mean, who is to say they even realised they were being asked to do an adaptation, this is Hollywood after all.
Most action fans love the Bourne movies. At a time when there was a move away from gritty and realistic action, Bourne came along and gave us a tense, gritty, and “realistic” action movie. The book is not heavy on the action and gives us a more traditional spy story about flushing out an assassin with counterintelligence and operations. Comparing the two is really quite unfair. But one area I think the book is superior is in the answer to “Who is Jason Bourne?” In the movie we see Matt Damon struggle to come to terms with not knowing and wondering what sort of man would have his skills. But we know. And he knows. The answers he finds don’t really give him any new information: yeah, you were an assassin dude. In the book the answers are more complicated and more satisfying for the hero: yay, I was bait to capture an assassin.
Without this film we would have not had Matt Damon bringing Mark Watney to the screen. Let’s celebrate by rewatching one of the best car chase scenes of all time:
*now there’s a saying that is appropriate to the time being referenced but is now as apposite and relevant as a broken record.
This month’s CineFix edition of What’s the Difference cover the Ed Brubaker comic that inspired the Captain America: Winter Soldier movie.
Unlike Civil War, I managed to read the Ed Brubaker series of comics before watching the Winter Solidermovie. Obviously there are a lot of differences, especially in terms of the expanded universe and “realism” of the movie world. The comics have decades of plots, sideplots, overlapping arcs from other parts of the Marvel Universe, characters, and general junk that is impossible to pack into a 2 hour movie. I actually find the way Marvel and DC have their stables of comics overlap and exist in the same universe to be annoying. The movies are starting to head that way as well, what with Age of Ultron essentially spending a third of its run time building the associated Thor, Ironman, Captain America, etc, movies.
One of the differences not really covered in the CineFix video is the other Captain Americas. That’s right, several other Caps wore the…. cap. Anyway, while Steve Rogers was chilling (Bucky too, but in a separate location) America didn’t want to lose its figurehead so they had some other people fill the role. From memory, at least one of them was integral to the plot, despite being no longer all there. This part of the plot also fed into the series that came immediately after Winter Soldier, with Bucky donning the costume and hefting the shield. For anyone about to complain about spoilers with that last sentence, try not to think about what could have happened to Steve Rogers to require Bucky to become Captain America.
In my original review for the Winter Soldier movie I commented that the writers had managed to capture Brubaker’s cold war spy story feel. They did this with very little similarities between the comic and movie. In some ways I think the movie is better, certainly I like the Steve Rogers of the film more, and they hadn’t quite gone overboard with the expanded universe stuff at that time, but in others the usual restrictions of the shorter format lessens the possible storytelling (Crossbones, the other Captain Americas, the relationships). Two very different stories were told but I still think this was a good adaptation.
Potatoes and Pirate-Ninjas: the reason you will read this book.*
I’m late to the Mark Watney appreciation society, since I only heard about this book as a result of the movie trailer. I guess at least I didn’t find out about the book after watching the movie and wondering if it was based on anything. The blurb essentially sums up the novel “Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first men to walk on the surface of Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first man to die there.” There you go, premise done.
To say I enjoyed this book is an understatement, as I usually hate novels that try to be hard sci-fi. I mean, if I want to read a physics text book I’ll grab the one on my shelf, not some of the “plausible” made up stuff that hurts my needless exposition aversion gland. So to find a hard sci-fi story that manages to be so entertaining was no small feat. The humour was a big part of the reason for the enjoyment. I felt that this addition was very important to not only the characterisation of Watney the space-nerd – because nerds are normally only funny to laugh at – but also in how too many novels would have taken the same premise far too seriously.
So now I’m looking forward to the movie. This should adapt very well to the big screen, and Matt Damon seems like a great choice for Watney. Hopefully Ridley Scott won’t go all Prometheus with The Martian and we’ll have a great adaptation.
Another great breakdown of the differences between the book and the movie from Cinefix. This time it is Alan Moore’s Watchmen.
If I’m honest I’d have to say I prefer the movie over the book in this instance. I liked both, but I thought the changes they made for the movie made for better spectacle and entertainment. Obviously that wasn’t Moore’s original intention, so it is unsurprising that fans were annoyed with these changes. I felt that Snyder’s adaptation remained relatively faithful to the source material whilst also creating a film that cinema goers would enjoy. This is the hard path to tread in any adaptation: making sure the film works but remains true to the source.
Of course Snyder managed to make a film that people didn’t watch in the cinema and that fans of the book complained about. Guess there is just no pleasing some people.
Tyson Adams 