It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.”
The planet’s famous red color is from iron oxide coating everything. All around me there was nothing but dust, rocks, and endless empty desert in all directions. But there’s a difference between knowing it and really experiencing it. “Mars is a barren wasteland and I am completely alone here. Even when the book does attempt to give Watney some humanist soul-searching, that kind of thing gets turned into a science lesson. Mark even makes a “that’s what she said” style “joke” at one point. For this reason, you might wonder why Joss Whedon wasn’t hired to adapt the screenplay. The only way to describe the “voice” of this character is to think of merging all the one-liners from Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer into one character who thinks in backchatty aphorisms all the time.
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The novel’s story is told primarily through diary entries of one Mark Watney, an astronaut who has been - through a series of unfortunate events - stranded on Mars. And if we’re talking about The Martian as a piece of literature - which may be admittedly very unfair - it fails. If we think a quotidian, well-researched tale of extraterrestrial survival which was 100% accurately researched is the only way to do good science fiction, then why even bother with the “fiction” part? Why not just watch science documentaries on real space travel? Or to put it another way, are salivating proponents of The Martian so narrow with their definition of science fiction, that they dismiss any story which gets something scientifically “wrong,” for the purposes of telling a good story? Should we stop reading Asimov all together because some of his information was out of date? I guess the original Star Trek is a waste of time since they incorrectly predicted the future of the 1990s? Now, I love Phil Plait’s blog Bad Astronomy as much as the next armchair science enthusiast, but science criticism is not the same a literary criticism. I find this line of thinking not only patently closed-minded, but also hopelessly reductive. This kind of things leads people to say things like “Greatest Science Fiction Novel EVER!” because, apparently, the only way to have good science fiction is to have the science be damn near 100% accurate. If you do a Google search for “Martian Book Review,” you’ll find a deluge of breathless headlines all praising how wonderfully researched the science and engineering of the book seem to be. Further, the popularity of the novel - and the reasons people overwhelming cite that it’s good - highlights the challenges science fiction still faces in terms of being taken seriously as literature. The central character of the novel - Mark Watney - is fundamentally unrealistic to the point of almost preventing a thoughtful reader from finishing the book. And I say this, because the next thing I’m going to say might be a little rowdy. And also, compliments to him for writing a compelling page-turning story.
Nor do I disrespect the by-the-bootstraps story of the way author Andy Weir self-published the various installments and how that popularity gave rise to the existence of the novel and subsequent mainstream book deal. The popular novel The Martian? Not so much.ĭisclaimer time.
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No matter what you think of him or his films, there’s one thing Ridley Scott knows how to do in cinema: make us believe in real people in real danger. Because there’s no way The Martian the film will be “worse” than The Martian the book. But will Ridley be as happy of his own handiwork for his hotly anticipated new sci-fi flick, The Martian? I’m going to bet that he should be. On the director’s commentary to the Blu-Ray of the 2012 film Prometheus, Ridley Scott aggressively compliments his own movie numerous times, usually punctuating certain scenes with phrases like “looks good, innit?” or “that’s brilliant.” This is real and it’s hilarious. Sign up for our newsletter to get submission announcements and stay on top of our best work.
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