Big space dramas are becoming a trend. In 2013, Gravity was a huge success for Alfonso Cuarón, earning ten Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. A year later, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) proved to be a commercial and critical success, receiving five Academy Award nominations. The last few years also saw a range of other space-based films of varying seriousness, from Jupiter Ascending (2015) to Elysium (2013), Prometheus (2012) and Ender’s Game (2013), to name a few.

Ridley Scott’s newest space drama, The Martian (2015), is based on the novel of the same name by Andy Weir and stars Matt Damon in the lead role as astronaut and botanist Mark Watney. After a fierce storm occurs during a manned space mission to Mars, Watney is presumed dead and the crew returns to Earth. Having actually survived, Watney has to figure out how to stay alive on the planet, equipped with only meager supplies and a brain full of scientific knowledge. His solutions are ingenious. In Watney’s own words, he must “science the shit out of it” in order to figure out how to survive on Mars.

Because Interstellar, a space film prominently featuring Matt Damon, was a big hit just last year, Damon was initially concerned about taking the role in The Martian. But Ridley Scott convinced him that it would be a totally different type of project. Damon recounted, “I went in to meet him [Ridley Scott], then I signed on really quickly. I went in and I said, I really love this script, but my only hesitation is I’ve just done ‘Interstellar,’ in which I played a dude stranded on a planet. It might be weird if, after taking a year and a half off, I played another dude stranded on a planet. I explained ‘Interstellar’ to him, and he said ‘The movies are totally fucking different, this is going to be fucking fun. Let’s do this!’ He was so infectious, I couldn’t really say no to him.”

Andy Weir’s source novel is widely praised for its scientific authenticity—something that sets it apart from most science fiction. You can read more about the scientific accuracy of the story here. Interstellar toyed with the theoretical concepts of wormholes and futuristic conscious robots. Gravity required exaggerated scientific principles to make sense. By contrast, The Martian is rooted in reality, and intense amounts of research went into the source novel’s science.

On the subject of The Martian’s uniqueness, Matt Damon says, “One of the biggest differences is it’s primarily me on my own for a lot of it. That’s the big challenge. It has all the bells and whistles of NASA and the b-side of the story, the rest of the world trying to get this guy back. But the other half of the movie is me and Ridley on Mars, so that part’s different. You start there, there’s that mystery-what happened, how did he get left there? The mission part is the b-side, trying to figure out how to get back. So, structurally it’s different to [anything] that’s ever been done.”

From his description, it feels like The Martian will be more reminiscent of 127 Hours (2001) than Interstellar, or akin to a Cast Away (2000) set in space.

There also tends to be quite a bit of seriousness in science fiction films of late. The Martian bucks this trend and offers quite a bit of comedy, as Weir’s novel is full of humor that translated into the script. In a Reddit AMA, Weir described the story as “Astronaut stranded on Mars must MacGyver his way out of problem after problem.” The humor is coupled with science, character depth, and suspense to keep the narrative moving forward.

Upon deeper examination, The Martian is not some grand, sweeping space epic. It’s a survival story at its core - about an individual trying to survive a situation that seems grand and impossible to a regular person but is rooted in fully believable possibilities. With nuanced and superbly acted performances by the entire cast,The Martian artfully depicts the most intimate and personal narrative of all - that of human resilience and the immense value humans place one Earthly life. As a result, it distinguishes itself from the space films that have dominated in recent years and honors the written text to create an original drama.