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

3. The Many Apollo 13 References

Moreso than any other movie in, well, ever, The Martian feels designed to be described as "X meets Y". Cast Away, Gravity, Interstellar, even Prometheus; there's elements of them all in here. But perhaps the biggest comparison point is Apollo 13. This isn't that surprising given author Andy Weir's history in science, but the sheer number of events from The Martian that feel directly cribbed from Ron Howard's film (or the real events that inspired it) is ridiculous; on Earth NASA test out Mark's options using only what's available to him in the Mars module, the nail-biting finale sees the heroes take massive scientific gambles based on luck and, biggest of all, the plan to slingshot the Hermes around Earth to get the speed to return to Mars is exactly the same as how Jim Lovell and co. used to Moon's gravity to get home. This is no doubt to do with the book and movie's strict accuracy to scientific fact - if NASA did this in 1970, they'd probably do similar things in 1947 - but is still pretty cool all the same.