The Martian (film), directed by Ridley Scott

As I said in my review of the book, I was very much looking forward to this adaptation. If you want a spoiler-free recommendation, I will say the film did not disappoint and will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

For the rest of this space I'm going to discuss the differences between the book and the movie, so let that serve as your warning if you prefer surprises left intact.

First I'd like to address the elephant in the room: Yes, Matt Damon also played a stranded astronaut in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, which also starred Jessica Chastain. So let's pretend The Martian is like Murph Cooper went back to rescue the unethical Dr. Mann! Oh, did I just digress into spoiling a whole other movie? Rest assured, Damon's character here is completely different from Mann and you won't be comparing this film to Interstellar while sitting in the theater.

The first difference from the book, I noticed in the very first scene. Andy Weir's book begins on Sol (solar day) 6, but Drew Goddard's screenplay has the fateful sandstorm occur on Sol 18. I couldn't think of a reason that this minor change was made

The next difference was made in the interest of keeping a PG-13. Due to the MPAA's arbitrary guidelines for strong language (that's a whole different blog post), it can vary how many uses of the F-word are allowed in a PG-13 movie. It would seem The Martian was allowed exactly two instances and used them up in the first five minutes. The rest of Mark Watney's moments of colorful language, given free reign in the book of course, were either censored in text with dashes, translated via other characters' euphemisms, and in one case silenced by the vacuum of Mars. I'm not going to say it was necessary to hear all the F-bombs, but the edits of them seemed all the more obvious and occasionally jarring, considering much of the dialogue was taken verbatim from the novel.

Some aspects of the adaptation process were absolutely necessary and welcome, such as making Watney's daily written logs into video logs, which is preferable in the visual medium of film. There were a few too many scenes of characters reading aloud while they typed or received messages, but this was justified by the other characters in the room needing to hear what the correspondence said. It was also a little awkward when NASA authorities were shown making important decisions very quickly without much deliberation, while in the book a few days were allowed to pass. There are also fewer obstacles encountered during Watney's journey from Acidalia Planitia to the Schiaparelli crater. In the book he encounters another sandstorm, a loss of communication with NASA, and a devastating tumble of his rover into the crater, which are not depicted on-screen. However it is understandable to do this for more economical storytelling so these were understandable sacrifices.

The largest changes come during the rescue sequence at the end of the story. In the book, Watney makes a joke about flying around like Iron Man by poking a hole in his spacesuit glove, while in the movie he actually carries out this plan. At the same time, the movie's Commander Lewis (Chastain) goes outside the Hermes to grab Watney herself, but in the book this is done by Dr. Beck. One aspect that gave me a laugh was that the whole crew comes to join Watney after he's pulled in; this must be a nod to the quote in the book in which Watney says: "If this were a movie, everyone would have been in the airlock, and there would have been high fives all around. But it didn't pan out that way."

The screen version also adds an epilogue after Watney is rescued, similar to something Weir says he had in the first draft of his book, and deleted when he decided it felt too artificial to introduce a time jump. However, in a movie it doesn't feel unnatural to see what each of the crew members did after they returned to Earth.

Overall, the movie stuck pretty close to the book, and those making it clearly put as much research into the scientific accuracy as Andy Weir did. The few tweaks made by the filmmakers can serve as an example of the right way to adapt a text to the screen. Both the book and the film are proof that science fiction can be intelligent and realistic, while remaining highly entertaining.

Fresh off the Boat by Eddie Huang

ABC's Fresh off the Boat is the first show about an Asian American family since Margaret Cho's All-American Girl from the mid-90s. The earlier show gets a nod when the Huang family is watching it in their season finale. Overall, Fresh is a cleverly funny show that deals with the struggles of the Huang family to fit in with American culture. However, being on a broadcast network like ABC prevents it from being as direct and biting as Eddie Huang's memoir of the same name.

Huang himself narrates each episode, a tactic comparable to The Wonder Years but maybe closer in tone to Everybody Hates Chris, for which Chris Rock narrated stories based on his own childhood. Eddie Huang is a unique personality, proclaiming himself a "rotten banana" because of the way he relates to hip-hop music and black culture. He always felt ostracized in school for being Asian and for eating "stinky" Chinese food for lunch, and ever since hearing Dr. Dre's album The Chronic, he has felt affinity for the struggles expressed in rap. Huang never shies from discussing racism and stereotypes; after all, his title is a phrase commonly used derogatorily toward immigrants.

The TV series focuses on Eddie at the age of 12, when he and his family have just moved from DC's Chinatown to Orlando, Florida, when his father Louis wanted to open a restaurant. Of course the book has a much longer view of his life, reaching to the present day when Eddie opened his own eatery. What the show captures well from the book is Eddie's preoccupation with being cool, from getting the latest music and shoes (Jordans) to wanting his mother to pack more American food for his lunches. But of course the series, being an ongoing sitcom, has to flesh out the rest of the family and include more humor, which is where it strays from Eddie's real life/memoir.

In Fresh off the Boat the book, there are details like the physical abuse Eddie sustained from his father, which will certainly never be depicted on ABC. I cannot see the network allowing a "very special episode" involving Randall Park's Louis beating his son, on a show that is mainly focused on comedy, as much as Eddie Huang may want to see that topic addressed.* It is readily apparent that the show was created by the same woman who helmed the off-the-wall Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23.

This is another book that I feel benefits from hearing the audiobook, read by the author, if you can get your hands on it. Since the slang-and-metaphor-heavy prose is very much written in Eddie's "voice", hearing his actual voice helps to understand his intended meaning, as well as getting the proper pronunciations for the sprinklings of Chinese. Although he dabbled in standup comedy, it's clear that he was always meant to become a chef, since his strongest memories are tied to food, and his descriptions of meals are as evocative as any Michael Pollan book. His is a unique and compelling point of view, and even if the show waters down the events of his life, it's worth watching for a perspective that is underrepresented by the media as a whole.

To buy the book, related merchandise, or to learn more about Eddie Huang himself, check out the website for his Manhattan restaurant BaoHaus.

*Eddie Huang Gives 'Fresh Off the Boat' a "B"; Pushes for Domestic Violence Arc

Snowpiercer: Movie vs Book

In the midst such a harshly white winter, it seems like a good time to revisit one of the most talked about movies of last winter. No no, I don't mean Frozen. Snowpiercer is the rare post-apocalyptic action movie that does something original. It is pretty unusual, and occasionally over the top, but worth a look. Be warned, I discuss a few spoilers.

The only survivors of a new ice age are stuck on a very long train that continually circles the planet on a very long track, in the hope of someday finding livable land. The backstory of how an attempt to counteract global warming resulted in the world freezing is briefly summarized in a few words of text at the beginning, and delved into more during a classroom scene halfway through. I was glad they didn't tack on the opening and closing monologues that Harvey Weinstein wanted, as that would have patronized the audience too much.

Chris Evans plays the protagonist, Curtis, who has been living in the neglected tail section and makes his way forward through the train cars to confront the oppressors at the front. In contrast with Evans' more famous character Captain America, Curtis often insists that he is not a leader, but of course he proves otherwise. In order to get further in the train, Curtis rescues Namgoong, a security expert, from the prison section. Nam is played by Song Kang Ho, who had previously worked with director Joon-ho Bong on the Korean monster movie The Host. The most prominent antagonist, Mason, is played by a heavily uglified Tilda Swinton, in comical coke bottle glasses and buck teeth.

Curtis confronts the reality of the class inequality between the tail and the front cars of the train. While the tail section eats protein bars made of insects, further along are sustainable food supplies that would be plenty to be distributed. The tail section has cramped, filthy quarters while their counterparts live cleanly and comfortably.

I didn't notice during the credits for Snowpiercer that it was based on a graphic novel, but one of the benefits of working in a library is sometimes I notice books or media that I wouldn't have known existed. So one day a patron was checking out the two volumes of the English translation of Le Transperceneige, and having enjoyed the movie I wanted to check out its source material.  I came to realize the film only takes the basic framework of the book; the idea of the Snowpiercer on its neverending track, the class inequality throughout, and a leader who worships the perpetual motion engine that keeps the train moving. It doesn't use any of the same character names and tells an original story overall.

The first volume, written in 1982 by Jacques Lob and subtitled The Escape, tells a fairly straightforward story of a rebellious tail section inhabitant and his female companion. Proloff and Belleau have their heads shaved and are accused of spreading a virus to the rest of the train after leaving the tail section, but although they may be carriers, they show no symptoms. It's somewhat predictable when they fall in love. The main plot driver here is that the train is slowing down and the leaders plan to disconnect the tail section from the train, and don't want the inhabitants to know they don't plan to evacuate it first. Ultimately, Proloff is convinced to become the new caretaker of the engine for the rest of his life.

The second volume of Snowpiercer, The Explorers, was written by Benjamin Legrand between 1999 and 2000 after original writer Jacques Lob died. This part actually depicts the adventures of a second train on the same worldwide track, sometimes called the Icebreaker, but other times referred to as Snowpiercer 2. Clearly this would be the simplest model for making a sequel to the film, as there would be no obligation to use the same actors but there could still be a reference to Curtis having existed and the change he brought to the underprivileged. The leadership on the Icebreaker constantly conduct "braking tests" and keep the inhabitants fearful of a head on collision with the original Snowpiercer. It is later revealed that there is a personal aircraft on board that can scout ahead, and that there is a second engine that can pull the train in reverse, so the reality is there has never been danger of that collision. One part that was especially preposterous was a trek off the track over a frozen body of water, to seek the source of music that is heard on the radar. However I was impressed that this volume told such a different story using the same post-apocalyptic train premise.

One thing that made the graphic novel a little hard to get through was the style of the word balloons, which were all connected by white space so I was sometimes unsure which character was speaking. For all I know, this may be common in French comics. The fact that it's entirely black and white and often violent reminded me of The Walking Dead comics. The source material for Snowpiercer is definitely not essential for fans of the movie since the content is so different, but it was interesting to think about how the director used the premise and the themes to fuel his own vision.