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Tom Kalbfus

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Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Discrepencies between The Martian book and movie

One thing I noticed is that in the book The accident that strands Mark Watney occurs on Sol 6, but in the movie, it happens on Sol 18, does anyone have a clue as to why they changed the date on which this occurs for the Movie?
In the book Sol 16 is Thanksgiving, a Sol is 1.025957 days long, the Movie establishes the year to be 2029.

Here is the calendar month for November 2029, and it shows that Thanksgiving falls on the 22nd. So when did Aries 3 Arrive? Subtract 16 sols from November 22nd and we find the arrival date on November 5th. subtract 180 days for transit time and we have the date May 9th, 2029.

This is the position of the planets on May 9th 2029.

This is the position of the planets on July 4, 2029, as the book says the journey takes 124 days and that falls on July 4.

This is the position of the planets on November 5th, 2029 Arrival day
Now tell me, if we use the year 2029, do you see anything wrong with these planetary alignments?

On what year could the mission described in the Martian have occurred?
I used this website to determine the planet positions:
https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-05-24 08:01:58)