Come Thanksgiving, the “Wicked” movie will hit theaters which is a movie adaptation of a musical/play adaptation of a book, all of the same title. Well, technically the movie releasing this November is part one of a two part movie, so I guess it is actually “Wicked: Part One” (which is something the trailers really haven’t hinted at and is news to me!). At any rate, I’m guessing there are people out there who have seen trailers, think it looks interesting and have found out about the book origin.

I wanted to use this inaugural book versus movie piece to warn everyone the book is nothing like the musical and the movie is based on the musical, so don’t expect the same thing at all! To give a comparison, it would be similar to watching “The Lion King” in order to get the storyline of “Hamlet.” While the two have a lot of basic things in common, they are ultimately nothing alike. I’m not saying to never read the book, just a warning to say they are two very different things.

Right, on to the main topic! I decided to start off with a movie that is quite possibly the best book adaptation I’ve ever watched. Here is the book versus movie-adaptation we’ll actually focus on:

MOVIE: “The Martian” (2015, PG-13, 142 min, watch it: DVD, Max)

Andy Weir originally self-published this story in serial form on his blog. A physical book was first published in 2011. If you go to a book store to find it, most likely they’ll have it in the Science-Fiction section, possibly just in the Fiction section. What I personally really love about the story is that Weir researched and discussed topics with specialists to make it as accurate as possible and I find it to be neither science-fiction nor science fact, yet, but rather what I would call “science possibilities.”

In short, though the story is fantastical about an astronaut stranded and surviving on Mars, there isn’t anything in the book that made me stop, take pause or even question that it could happen. The trials and tribulations of the fictitious astronaut Mark Watney aren’t things that need to be made up with the imagination but are real dilemmas that would face someone in a similar predicament. This isn’t a horror story with contrived situations people find themselves in or a suspense story filled with people making the worst possible life decisions. This is a story about a man trying desperately to survive when the environment he is in is in every way hostile towards his continued existence.

How does the movie do in adapting this technologically and scientifically driven story? Quite well. I honestly forget that Ridley Scott directed the movie since no alien is trying to launch itself from Watney’s stomach (Scott directed “Alien” for anyone scratching their head). He managed to take the story in a great direction visually and created a compelling environment for the stranded Watney. There are certainly many changes from a lengthy book to a lengthy movie, but none of them negatively impact the movie experience.

For instance, there is very little information in the movie on how Watney is able to take all the mechanical equipment from the hab and put it into the rover and still get enough energy to run everything. How he figures this out is a huge plot point in the book. Does one really need to hear how he was able to use the nuclear device he dug up placed in a tub of water and hooked up to the oxygen reclamator in a way that was able to save him most of the electrical needs that device was taking by turning off its heater? I bet some people had their eyes gloss over just reading that sentence. Now imagine Matt Damon taking several minutes of dialogue to explain that to you in the movie. Doesn’t exactly drive a nearly two-and-a-half-hour movie in a forward direction.

So, do I miss those technical aspects now that I know they are there? Absolutely. Andy Weir did a brilliant job putting this story together and to see it technically gutted on screen in many ways is sad. However, I think the movie is a brilliant middle ground of keeping the basics of the science intact while making the movie accessible to anyone and everyone regardless of their scientific and technical knowledge.

Where I have a small issue with the change is the ending. The movie changes things quite a bit from the book. I don’t want to spoil this for anyone who is wanting to read the book, so I’ll just say Watney doesn’t get to play Iron Man. Realistically, the book ending is slightly anticlimactic to me, both in comparison to the rest of the book as well as in comparison to the movie ending.

So, is this what to watch or what to read for you? You honestly wouldn’t go wrong either way. The book is a compelling read that will go quickly (despite some very technical moments to wade through) and the movie is a compelling watch that will go quickly (despite some long-winded technical explanations from Matt Damon). If you read the book and never watch the movie, you’d be missing out on a stunning visual transformation from the page to the screen. If you watched the movie and never read the book, you’d be missing out on an even more engaging and tense situation for Watney as he fights to survive in the harsh environment of Mars. Choosing to do neither means you’d miss out on one of the most interesting survival stories I’ve encountered. My suggestion? Choose both.

Kent Kraft is someone who enjoys both reading and listening to books (he read 34 books and listened to 18 audiobooks last year, read 18 and listened to 28 so far this year). In the next installment of “To Watch or to Read” he will put book, audiobook and movie adaptation in a head-to-head-to-head matchup. He also hopes saying “both are good!” wasn’t perceived as a copout in the first installment of this feature!