This is a story about a man down on his luck in the most extreme way possible.

Astronaut Mark Watney has been left behind on Mars after a dust storm causes his team to abort their mission.

After being struck by debris and lost out of sight, the other astronauts think Watney is dead, so they must make the quick decision to leave him behind.

Then Watney has to figure out to survive on Mars and make contact with NASA to alert them that he is still alive.

His rescue becomes a race against time even though it takes as long as 549 days because “space time” is scary and not ideal.

Like many movies nowadays, “The Martian” is based on an epistolary-style novel by Andy Weir.

It’s written in log format as Watney chronicles his accidental adventure, which is similar to how the story got its start.

Weir began this work as a series of entries on a website, written as if he was the main character Watney himself.

Eventually he began selling it in novel format on Amazon for just one dollar.

He wanted it to be as cheap as possible for his readers. Now “The Martian” is a $2.4 million box office hit.

The detail that went into writing this book is fascinating and inspiring.

At one point, Watney must convert rocket fuel into hydrogen and water, which is extremely dangerous, and Weir didn’t gloss over this aspect.

The empirical formula for this is even in the book. Weir also wrote a program to help him determine when Earth and Mars were closest to each other for the astronauts’ mission duration to be as short as possible. Which is ideal when going anywhere in space.

The movie delivered the same amount of detail by teaming up with NASA. All of the technology you see in the movie either already exists or will exist in the next couple decades.

The movie progressed well and got straight to the point. For a movie that is literally about a man stranded alone on Mars. Similarly, every page of the novel will have you on the edge of your seat.

There is a lot of action in the novel, more than in the movie. But the writers did a great job selecting scenes the audience needs to see without overloading us with action and effects.

One thing that really stood out to me about the movie is how diverse the cast is. There were women and people of color in very prominent, unstereotypical roles. They were written as real people, not just the “token.”

Weir focuses on the mental and emotional aspects of his characters, giving the readers and screenwriters the chance to fill in a beautifully diverse cast controversy-free.

Remember when the first “Hunger Games” movie cast was announced? There was huge controversy over characters’ skin tones because it didn’t match what was in the book.

It makes movies much more fun when we can avoid that. And “The Martian” was definitely as much fun to watch as it was to read.

So enjoy both and don’t compare them too much. Books and movies are two completely different mediums of entertainment.

“The Martian” delivered in both of them.