To start off, the book this film was based on was made up of 384 pages. That makes the approximately 500-day story easier to tell with more in-depth and nice details.
This film goes for only 2 hours and 22 minutes (end credits taking up about the last 10 minutes), which isn't as much time to tell the original 'The Martian' story. It's a shame...but I wouldn't have adapted it into a series either. It would felt too dragged out and boring. Sometimes book stories are just made for books.
The film felt too fast-paced, rushing through a lot in the time it has. That however killed a lot of the interesting plot-points. For one, being alone on a planet far away didn't feel that far away, and it certainly didn't feel like it took long until he made contact again. The Pathfinder mission also didn't seem like a difficulty, which in the book was both a high stress and relief moment - aswell as the RTG. The Iris probe also didn't seem as huge as it should have. It was supposed to be this massively important supply to a stranded man who desperately needed it. The launch scene just made it feel so small. In the book I felt so immeresed and invested even in this probe, and once it exploded in orbit I felt devastated, understanding all of the people in mission control. The movie took that off in just a few seconds, felt nothing.
Also!: The mission to the MAV felt too easy...way too easy. There was barely any difference in the feel from the Pathfinder mission's distance to the MAV's. In the book it was a long, long, long ride. Mark went through many struggles of both loneliness, cramped space, restricted amounts of food supply and even crashing the rover (which after several days was somewhat fixed).
Long before the MAV mission started, there was also a problem with Pathfinder, which rendered contacting NASA impossible. So on his way to the MAV, a storm was ahead of him. This storm couldn't NASA say anything of (because the communication broke). He therefore had to manually find his way which was intense, tedious and stressful. But in the end felt way more rewarding when finding the MAV than in the movie.
But as I stated before, the book was long and films tend to not go beyond the 2-3 hour mark to not bore the audience. So these scenes and plot lines were probably cut for "the better". Idk...7/10 seems fair. 9.5/10 for the book!
This film goes for only 2 hours and 22 minutes (end credits taking up about the last 10 minutes), which isn't as much time to tell the original 'The Martian' story. It's a shame...but I wouldn't have adapted it into a series either. It would felt too dragged out and boring. Sometimes book stories are just made for books.
The film felt too fast-paced, rushing through a lot in the time it has. That however killed a lot of the interesting plot-points. For one, being alone on a planet far away didn't feel that far away, and it certainly didn't feel like it took long until he made contact again. The Pathfinder mission also didn't seem like a difficulty, which in the book was both a high stress and relief moment - aswell as the RTG. The Iris probe also didn't seem as huge as it should have. It was supposed to be this massively important supply to a stranded man who desperately needed it. The launch scene just made it feel so small. In the book I felt so immeresed and invested even in this probe, and once it exploded in orbit I felt devastated, understanding all of the people in mission control. The movie took that off in just a few seconds, felt nothing.
Also!: The mission to the MAV felt too easy...way too easy. There was barely any difference in the feel from the Pathfinder mission's distance to the MAV's. In the book it was a long, long, long ride. Mark went through many struggles of both loneliness, cramped space, restricted amounts of food supply and even crashing the rover (which after several days was somewhat fixed).
Long before the MAV mission started, there was also a problem with Pathfinder, which rendered contacting NASA impossible. So on his way to the MAV, a storm was ahead of him. This storm couldn't NASA say anything of (because the communication broke). He therefore had to manually find his way which was intense, tedious and stressful. But in the end felt way more rewarding when finding the MAV than in the movie.
But as I stated before, the book was long and films tend to not go beyond the 2-3 hour mark to not bore the audience. So these scenes and plot lines were probably cut for "the better". Idk...7/10 seems fair. 9.5/10 for the book!