The Martian: 8 Easter Eggs, In-Jokes And References You Need To See

4. The Best Lord Of The Rings Joke EVER

This is it. The biggie. The Martian's belly-laugh. A reference so awesome it threatens to overshadow the brilliance of the rest of the movie. Purnell's plan to use the Hermes to save Watney is dubbed Project Elrond, a homage to the The Council of Elrond from The Lord Of The Rings intended to highlight the sensitive nature of his idea. Despite being a beloved novel and timeless movie series, some of NASA's high command don't quite the reference. And so we get a scene where Sean Bean, who obviously played Boromir in the film version of that exact scene, must explain the whole idea of the Fellowship. This is a joke that's already pretty funny in concept, highlighting the various mentalities coming together to save Mark, but with such genius casting it becomes something bigger. If your screening didn't erupt in a wave of cheers then something was seriously wrong with that audience.