i loved that book and the movie. none of the things that are bothering you bothered me at all.
That's wonderful!
I've not finished the book yet, and it's not
things (plural), I'm simply expressing my preference for 3rd person narrative and youl'll have to accept that.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book all the way through. The movie was good too, but they had to skip over a lot a details to make the movie length it is. While watching the movie, I filled in a lot of gaps with my knowledge from the book.
There is always a challenge to transistion from book to movie when it involves what the character is thinking, and the explanations he provides as to how things work. But for story telling purposes, I think from the explation stand point, 1st person for this story is effective, because by means of a log entry, he has a good reason to describe his thought processes, technical operation of equipment, and how he reaches the conclusion and decides on the actions he takes, although that can also be written as a third person narrative.
Generally speaking, one of the drawbacks of documentary filming or first person narrative, is that it's harder to express the big picture of events with many things happening at once. It's a singular view which for a person marooned by themselves is appropriate in a story like this, the drawback is you are reading "history" not current events.