10 things we learned from The Martian

…In fact, it’s cold as hell. So sang Elton John and it’s a lesson the makers of The Martian have taken to heart. Okay, so American astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) chooses to raise potatoes rather than children when he’s left for dead by his NASA crewmates on the Martian surface, but it’s close enough. And the temperature drops so low that at one point, poor Mark is forced to cozy up to a barrel of spent nuclear fuel to keep warm, which sounds pretty hellish to us.

Portents weren’t exactly auspicious for The Martian. The source novel, originally self-published by computer programmer Andy Weir, was readable but hardly a masterpiece. And then there was director Ridley Scott, whose last decade—from A Good Year to Prometheus and Exodus: Gods and Kings—has been a far cry from his genre-defining classics like Alien and Blade Runner. But he’s pulled it off: This is Scott’s best film since Gladiator, while Weir’s clunky prose is electrified by Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard’s sparky script.

Of all the trials thrown at Matt Damon while marooned on Mars, perhaps the most gruesome is when he he’s forced to open up a bunch of packets filled with his crewmates’ waste, stick the contents in a big bucket and mash it up with a stick. There are no nutrients in the Martian soil, so he needs the poo to make his potato plants bloom. But Matt doesn’t complain (or, apparently, feel the need to wash his crops). If they ever need a spokesman for the soiled potato industry, look no further.

In real life, NASA has made a concerted effort to introduce racial diversity into the space program. In The Martian those strides appear to have been rolled back. With the exception of Michael Peña’s wisecracking pilot Martinez, the crew of the Mars ship Ares 3 is strictly caucasian. Sure, the folks at the film's Mission Control are a fairly mixed group, but it’s not quite the same if you’re not in outer space. What do we want? Off-world equality! When do we want it? Sometime in the coming century!

As The Martian unfolds, the parallels with Steven Spielberg’s gritty WWII movie become increasingly clear. Both films involve expensive and risky missions to rescue Matt Damon (though The Martian doesn’t dig quite as deep into the moral murk as Ryan did). Both salute American pluck and ingenuity, and can be watched with your Dad on a Sunday afternoon. And both feature slightly unnecessary epilogue sequences involving flags.

The parallels between Ridley Scott’s film and Alfonso Cuarón’s genre-redefining 3-D space flick were inevitable. Both movies were working with the same special-effects technology, so they’re bound to share a common aesthetic. And yes, The Martian features a preponderance of floating debris, immersive starscapes and astronauts in suits spinning wildly. But there are deeper similarities, including a dedication to scientific realism, a salute to NASA’s achievements and a fair amount of slightly unconvincing, awkwardly crammed-in backstory.