I'm curious, on a few posts you said you were specifically considering PHM movie canon, and not the book. I read the book before the movie came out, and I had mixed feelings about it. But it seems like people love the movie. Is the movie significantly different from the book on aspects like characterization, themes, relationship development, etc?
After Punct read the book, we kind of discussed them in contrast and the sense I get is there are enough differences in tone and events and characterization that to me it feels like it's better to consider them almost like... the difference between translation and adaptation. The movie is based on the book of course but is ready and willing to cut and change anything that doesn't improve the movie. There's zero sense of "owing" the book to portray it with complete accuracy.
So the differences between them shouldn't be viewed as "incorrect" but simply different artistic choices.
Also I have spoken at LENGTH (esp here and here and here and here and at this point i could write a journal just on this movie) about the film's cinematic language to use audiovisual elements to convey emotional truths. There are sequences in PHM that rely on the medium itself to even convey, and because the people involved in making this movie cared so fucking much about the craft of filmmaking, it's one of the best movies I've seen in a while. Not because a Unique Auteur Vision, but because they decided to make Rocky as a physical puppet, they got my man Daniel Pemberton to do the music, they decided to build the tungsten lamp lighting rig, they used practical effects every time it was feasible, they built the "i'm having a moment" sequence practically.
Even if PHM were Andy Weir's best book (and as someone who read the Martian, I'm not certain it is), there is a specific collaborative magic that happens when you gather some of the most talented people across so many disciplines and go "let's make some beautiful art."
Also, due to being a more collaborative artform, the movie has the chance to incorporate a broader repertoire of viewpoints. Because of that, the film is able to soften and sand off what I would consider Weir's hang-ups or weak points as a writer. I don't even think he's a bad writer (the book of The Martian is far superior to the movie which is shocking bc it's a fucking Ridley Scott movie, what happened there) but the decisions the movie makes honestly make a lot of sense to me as improvements or refinements.
like not to be totally blunt about this but andy weir designed a whole alien species for his book and even wrote a supplemental document to explain his cool aliens more, and left off 99% of the questions any sociologist/historian/anthropologist would ask. which isn't a crime, but it is telling, if you get me.
ALSO TO BE TOTALLY CLEAR and maybe this should have been at the top whoops but what I mean to say is: I am much more interested in engaging with the movie analytically than the book. Not that I think the movie is more canon than the book. I simply think they are two separate canons that you may choose to engage with separately or together. What I'm saying is that in several of these posts, I am uninterested in book-specific rebuttals because I'm not analyzing the book.
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