Fresh off its 10 year anniversary, the buzz about how unbelievable Interstellar has resurfaced. The words “best of all time” and “goat” have been spotted several times across social media. So, having only ever experienced it as background noise, it was time to give it a fair viewing. Of course, I was blown away by the film itself, but I made special note early on. If you haven’t seen the film, this won’t ruin it.

Let me first just say, it’s a cinematic masterpiece, pairing mind-bending science with deeply human story. But one of the film’s most underrated triumphs doesn’t take place in space—rather in a field of corn. In a movie that explores a future where humanity is struggling to sustain itself, the choice to center the story around a dwindling crop is pretty thematically profound. But what makes it even more remarkable is how the production team turned this narrative challenge into a real-world asset—by actually growing their own corn.