Having read the book will help you enjoy the movie. The plot closely follows the book, but it doesn’t have time to fully explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. The book is mostly the main character’s internal monologue describing his process and reasoning while troubleshooting one problem after another. The movie just shows him doing all that stuff with no explanation.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Anyone else feel like the book moved at kind of a breakneck pace compared to The Martian?

Like, The Martian went through this whole thing about using ASCII instead of the alphabet with the speak and spell...to communicate with people Watney knew personally. Meanwhile Grace and Rocky just...learn each other's languages. "I wrote a program in about 6 hours."

[–] uncommoncorvid@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago

i'm pretty sure in the book, it's started that weeks or months have taken place between those points. i could be misremembering though