Mason Pocklington - The Martian

I chose the Martian as my reading for this week, because I had seen the movie previously and thought it was interesting. I re-watched the movie and then read the book to see what was similar and different between the two. What I thought was interesting was how normally, a book and the movie made based on it are often-time very different from one another. I was surprised to see that the two were pretty similar as far as the movie plot and arc. The only big change I noticed was that the ending was more dramatic in the movie than it was in the book. Which makes sense, since movies often overdramatize to keep audience members on the edge of their seats.

As usual, the book format of the story has more interesting details, and more small moments that aren't as "cinematic", which makes it a more interesting read than watch.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mason Pocklington - Annihilation

For this week's reading I read Annihilation, and also watched the movie out of class to be able to compare. As far as the week's topic of "weird" goes, the movie seems to hit the mark more than the book did. The definition of "weird" as I have understood it to have translated into the modern day is simply different or unexplainable. This can be demonstrated more efficiently and with more opportunity in visual terms than written terms. The movie has more opportunity to visually demonstrate just how "weird" Area X is by using things such as colors, creatures, videotapes and watching people react to it all. The book differs in the movie from how it deals with "weird", though. In the novel, the team relies on journals of others and writings from the biologist to express to the audience how Area X is described and interpreted. However, in visual form, the movie had no need for journal writings to express just how "weird" the X was.
Read more

Mason Pocklington - Night Circus

Night Circus is an interesting novel about love, choice and magic. A big theme of this book was forbidden love. As mentioned in the briefing, this type of fantasy is meant to help teens learn the world around them, so the idea of forbidden love applies here. As the apprentices were meant to duel, with only one surviving, the idea of making love over war is a theme that applies in our real world as well. Also, the circus itself is important. Where on surface level it might seem like a good thing, the characters quickly realize that it has a much darker undertone. Keeping with the idea that this novel is supposed to help teens in real life, you can see that what you could take from this novel is to not trust things on their surface value. Similarly, how each of their respective mentors is controlling, which brings the idea of teens rebelling against both authority and what they're told. Another thing that backs this argument up is that how the mentors are more focused on besting the
Read more

Mason Pocklington - Akata Witch

For this week's reading I read Akata Witch and really loved it! Back in the day I was really into Harry Potter, and found this to be similarly delightful. One of the prominent things I noticed about this novel was how the character that was considered "different" by society, (being albino), was also secretly actually different in that she had magical powers, (Leopard). The theme of female empowerment is rightfully present in this novel, as it shows Sunny learning, progressing, overcoming obstacles and finding her place in society, (i.e. being magic). During the beginning of the novel even, Sunny is presented as different. When she made the decision not to use the switch on her classmates hands the reader could see that she views the world in a different light. She comes across as empowered by knowing her core values - what she likes and doesn't, for examples candles - and her overall confidence, even though she's lonely at school.  The archetype of witches - or
Read more