dumbing down the book spoiled the screenplay

Rating: 1/10 (4 January 2018)

I read the book and also listened to the audiobook several times now. The charm of the story for me is, that it heavily emphasizes the Science in Sci-Fi. The whole thing is (mostly) sound and very well explained, so even technical illiterate readers can follow.
For this movie someone decide to dumb down the content and take shortcuts and - surprise - mistakes, failures and plot holes ensue and some things simply make no sense anymore (just look at the goofs list - you could make a book out of them). Then again some scenes were unnecessarily added to confuse even further to make up for plot twists that were cut.
This messy screenplay can't be saved by the cast. Most of the characters are but a faint shadow of their book selves. Take crewman Vogel for example. Would anybody have guessed him to be German, if it wasn't for the patch on his suit? Jeff Daniels seems to wear a stiff neck and all the characters interactions feel like packed in cotton. Those guys should be passionate and fight for their opinions especially since the lives of astronauts are on the line and depend on their decisions. They are highly trained specialists in their field of work and have to fight against political red tape. Non of this was in the movie. They could have had a more passionate discussion about a burgers or football.
And don't even get me started on the props. Think about airplane furniture and then shave that down even more to get rid of any unnecessary gram, while barely preserving basic function. Where was that in the movie? The Hub looked like it was built to house colonists for decades and not to serve as a pressurized shelter for a two month mission. The movie-Hermes consists mostly of large corridors without any purpose and large window panes. A spaceship like this would never be approved.
I could go on forever, but it all boils down to this: Andy Weir went to great length to make the plot and every action the protagonist take plausible and get his book scientifically correct. That's what I love about it and why I was looking forward to the movie. And then I got handed this stupid, dumbed down, senseless piece of trash.