I'm used to much more bleak and grounded sci-fi, where everything wants to kill you and nothing can be trusted. It was pretty refreshing that this was more about the cruelty of nature, than the dangers of first contact.

And the way they portrayed first contact as far as finding common ground and mapping language was decently well done. Some movie-convenicent liberties were taken around Rocky unexplainedly learning to understand English without needed counter-translation, and the grammar of his language being able to convey intonation and pauses through translation and then tts

Good amount of suspense kept. And the VFX and cinematography was beautiful. I found out afterwards that there were 0 green screens or CGI actors involved - all live sets and animatronics!