Discuss The Martian Chronicles
Discuss → TV Shows → The Martian Chronicles → General
It's a cryin shame......
posted by rooprectSTAFFMOD on November 26, 2023 at 6:53 AM
It's a cryin shame that they didn't have the budget for better special effects, because otherwise this is a pretty faithful adaptation of Ray Bradbury's book (so far, I'm halfway through).
I'm reading the book and watching the miniseries one chapter at a time, and I'm noticing scene-for-scene how close it is, with a lot of the dialogue taken directly from the text without any changes. Even beyond that, I'm really impressed at how some of the actors delivered their lines. Of course there's some of that 80s tv tendency to be melodramatic, but on the whole it's really fun seeing and hearing the words come off the page.
So far my highest praise goes to Bernie Casey, probably best known for his minor roles in the 80s romps Bill & Ted and Revenge of the Nerds, but here in Part 1 "The Expeditions" he gives a great nuanced performance as Maj. Spender. It's a tough role, and even in the book it's sorta hard to believe that a careered officer would suddenly go rogue, but Bernie Casey pulls it off in a very believable and sympathetic way. Unfortunately Bernie Casey died in 2017 after a stroke. I think this may be his greatest acting role.
There were a few unnecessary bits that the tv writers threw in, such as the Earth scenes (not in the book) that tried to give this episodic story more of a continuous plot. I guess we can forgive that since most 80 tv viewers wouldn't have the patience for 6 hours otherwise. The biggest failing is the special effects, the rockets in space which look so toylike that they turn the whole production a bit campy. Disco music didn't help either.
But other than that, at least as far as Part 1, this is a really good show! The look of the martians, especially "Mrs. K" in the opening, is really amazing--gold contact lenses! (their eyes are simply yellow in the book). I love the way the opening chapter is done like a 1 act play on a tight stage, very minimalistic which is exactly how Bradbury wrote it.... The Martian Chronicles First Expedition
Reply by rooprect
on January 31, 2024 at 8:40 AM
Just finished watching the whole thing and wanted to add more...
The show has an anticlimactic vibe which is probably why it failed to grab TV viewers in 1980. But I really enjoyed it. The best happens right in the beginning, Part 1 - The Expeditions. That's the part I talked about above with tons of suspense, drama & action ...and the best chapter, The Third Expedition, with Bernie Casey as the astronaut who goes rogue and starts killing off the men on his team. I feel like that could've been an entire movie by itself.
After that everything becomes (deliberately) anticlimactic. The expeditions have established a colony and the Martians are "conquered". So the remainder of the show, and Bradbury's book, is a series of vignettes about humans adapting to Martian life. These are like fables about the folly of humans. The book is very dark and sarcastic, but that might've been too much for 80s TV so we get a considerably lighter version here. Detestable characters like the trigger happy cowboy Sam Parkhill are played with more comedy than malice. Here Darren McGavin plays Sam Parkhill in a way that makes us actually like him. In a way, that packs a harder punch when Sam gets his come-uppance, and Darren proves he can switch from comedy to tragedy on a dime. "Tell me Colonel, what's half of nothing?"
At the end of Part 2 the colonization of Mars (and the entire human race) is declared a failure, so things get even more anticlimactic in Part 3 as we focus on the few lone stragglers left. This is where the show, and again Bradbury's book, gets really introspective. There is almost no action as things become more poetic and soul searching. I'm sure this disappointed the 1980 TV audiences who were at the time watching flashy shows like Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, not to mention in theaters The Empire Strikes Back was released that year. This show was doomed, but I think that's what makes it such a bold effort.
The final scenes with Rock Hudson coming to grips with the future of the human race, his spirituality, the curse of Spender, and finally meeting his martian are almost Kubrickian, the way they warp your mind without any obvious answers. In fact, now that I think about it, this entire show is a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey which hits us with tense drama (the HAL story) and then wraps up with a cryptic denouement that seems to drag on, even though that's where the ultimate statement is being made.
Overlooking the lousy special effects and some hammy 80s acting, I think this series is a win. To anyone who's read the book, this is a must-see because I think it does stay faithful, aside from taking the edge off Bradbury's black coffee sarcasm with some 80s saccharine. To the average scifi fan........ eeeeeh you may not dig it so much, but you may enjoy its campiness. Oh... and Barry Morse (Victor from Space: 1999!) pulls off a great American accent... I almost thought they might've overdubbed his voice). I'm sure I'll be watching this again. Overall 7/10.
Reply by movie_nazi
on July 6, 2024 at 4:27 PM
Believe it or not, I watched this on its original run when I was 7 years old. Most of it went over my head but I do remember a lot of it especially from the first episode The Expeditions . In fact, that might have been the only episode I watched because I did not remember anything from the other episodes. For a TV movie, I think they did an excellent job!
I thought it was pretty clever how they left it ambiqitous as to whether or not it really was Spender (Bernie Casey) casuing all that havoc. Remember when that one guy goes, "I don't see any Martians." and Spender goes, "Don't you?" and then blasts him. I thought for sure he was one of the Martians pretending to be him but then when he got shot he didn't turn into a Martian. The weird part was that on the next episode Wilder (Hudson) has a conversation with someone where he states maybe Spender was under someone's control adding more WTF fuel to the fire.
The story that really creeped me out was of the one where the Martian would pretend to be someone's dearly departed. It was so creepy that people were willing to overlook the fact that it was not really their loved one. That's fuckin' nutso.
The Bernadette Peters one was funny and made me think she musta had some industrial powered vibrator to not even contemplate wanting to get laid. All she needed was a handy man. đ
The second expedition one kinda frustrated me that the astronauts were not clever enough to figure out that what they were witnessing was an illusion but then again they were sending guys up there that were a bit too young to be sending on a mission like that. Wasn't one of them 24? Like yeesh, dude barely out of college and you are sending him on this crazy expedition?
Anywho, overall I did enjoy it and was plesantly surprised with the writing. That Darren McGavin character, my god, your typical neaderthal knuckle dragger. I guess they thought they needed right wing representation on Mars (spoilers, they didn't).
Reply by rooprect
on July 6, 2024 at 5:40 PM
Great recap, naz! Youâre right itâs hinted that Spender couldâve been a martian doing a mind trick, and that adds to the mystery. I guess the reveal is like you said, when Spender is shot he doesnât turn into a martian so we realize it really was him all along.
Bernadette Peters story lmao! Great comic relief with that story. I believe in the book she turns out to be really fat and obsessed with eating, and thatâs what makes the guy head for the hills. The movie softened it, made it less cruel and more surreal (with her being obsessed over her own looks, even though thereâs nobody else on the planet!). I actually think the movie improved on the story with that angle, definitely made it funnier. I suppose hinting that she had an industrial strength vibrator wouldâve been a bit much for prime time tv đ
I agree the creepiest one was the martian who becomes the loved one of whoever looks at him. Kinda upsetting and dark. Again the movie added an interesting bit that wasnât in the book: when the martian hides at the church and in the eyes of the preacher itâs Jesus on the cross. Surprisingly bold for 1980s tv⌠The implication is that the church is worshipping a false god of their own imagination. And even when âJesusâ begs the preacher to release him from his suffering, you can see the preacher doesnât want to.
I also saw this at a young age, maybe not on its premiere but in a rerun, and most of it went over my head. I just remember being dazzled by the 1st expedition, seeing York landing in his spaceship (which was done with zero special effects, just clever camera placement) and of course martians with gold eyes. Itâs funny to watch it decades later and realize this show had some deep stuff to think about.
Reply by movie_nazi
on July 6, 2024 at 6:07 PM
OMG I forgot about that! That was creepy! I don't know if that he didn't want to but just couldn't. He had ingrained this idea of Jesus in his brain so deeply that it was difficult to let go of it. The false god thing also comes up when he meets the Martians in a form of those glowing lights (some form of communicator, I take it) and he promises them to build them a church in their honor and they were like, no no. We are beyond such silly beliefs. I mean, they were a bit more diplomatic in their messaging but something to that effect. Pretty darn brave for 1980 for sure.
This definitely had a lot of deep vibes and the story of the robot family reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone Twilight Zone, Season 1, episode 7 where they leave this guy on a deserted planet to serve his prison time and just so he wouldn't go mad they shipped him a female android. By the end of the episode his sentence gets reduced and he cried like a baby when they said he couldnt take her with him. A lot of this shit is a deep examination of the human psyche and how it perceives companionship and comraderie. Its essential for one's well being and it is taken for granted when you have it. You take that away and people start to lose their marbles.