Keep Hoping Machine Running

When a movie is based upon a book or graphic novel, there's three ways of comparing it to the original source material: not as good, did it justice, or better than. It is very rare that a movie is better than the source material.

For me, this movie was better than the book.

Several books - for me - do justice to the source. To name a couple, the 1973 Michael York/Richard Lester Three Musketeers, V For Vendetta: those did a pretty darn good job of representing the source material and bringing it to life. Let's ignore what Lester and the producer was doing to the actors behind the scenes... Then you have the movie adaptation of Alan Moore's comic series Watchmen, which massively deviated from the source material.

This movie was one of those very rare occasions where I feel that the book was much better than the movie, and lots of people think the book is pretty darn great.

I did not like the book Project Hail Mary. I wrote about this last year. I liked The Martian and enjoyed the movie, then last year I read Artemis and PHM back to back and realized they were a combination of Dr. Who and perhaps Mary Sue: a hero who could do absolutely anything.

It really turned me off, to the point that I had very little interest in seeing the movie. But Russet wanted to see it, and I like spending time with my wife, so last night off we went.

And I have to say that the team did an excellent job of adapting the book and turning it into something that was much more palatable for my taste: he's not a GOAT or a JOAT, he's really good in his field and has some understanding outside of that, but he ain't The Doctor. The movie is long at 2:50, and I did have to bail at one point for an extended pee break, fortunately at a point where there was no big action going on and I remembered from the book what was likely to be happening.

I had some minor quibbles of things that I would have really liked to have seen included, but it was already a pretty darn long movie, it didn't need to be made longer.

I am hoping that the same production team might adapt Artemis and make it more palatable, that may or may not be possible. We shall see. I'm sure there will be a clamoring for it since with the success of The Martian and now PHM, the bidding on anything written by Andy Weir will definitely be heating up.

Definitely recommended if you like contemporary space science fiction.

Oh, almost forgot to mention: nothing in the end credits, so once they start rolling you're safe to run for the restroom.


On a side note, have I mentioned the web site/smart phone app Run Pee? You can look up a movie, and it will tell you during what scenes you're safest to run off to the bathroom. Useful information to be armed with. The one problem with this app is it seems to update all the freaking time, so load it before you leave home and be prepared for a bit of a wait until it's ready to be queried.