The story “The Martian” is a compelling drama about astronaut Mark Watney who gets stranded on Mars after an aborted mission, and has to struggle to survive until NASA can rescue him. It was self published by Andy Weir in 2011, and was a best selling science fiction publication. This led to its development as a film in 2015 directed by Ridley Scott and featuring Matt Damon as the lead actor. It quickly topped box office sales and received great reviews from almost all critics. But beyond all of the success, these two versions of the story have some important differences that change their purpose. The written text “The Martian” informs the audience on Mars exploration while the filmic version simply entertains the audience because of the varying …show more content…
The book includes an incredible amount of description of Mark’s scientific survival processes. Almost the entire book includes his logs from the mission that display specifically what he is doing to help him survive on Mars. In particular, there is one instance from page four through five where Mark goes into profound detail about how his suit kept him alive through the storm; he even stated “As [my] blood reached the site of the breach, the water in it quickly evaporated from the air flow and low pressure, leaving a gunky residue behind. More blood came in behind it and was also reduced to gunk. Eventually, it sealed the gaps around the hole…” Another part of the book, at page 142, featured a third person narrator flashing back to the MAV launch the Ares III crew made when they aborted the mission, in which they stated detail like “The retaining clamps ejected from the launch gantry, falling to the ground. Seconds later, preignition pyros fired, igniting the main engines, and the MAV lurched upward.” Because the book has so much intricate detail like this, it serves better the purpose of informing the audience more on how realistic Mars exploration