Mission to Mars (2000) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Is there life on Mars?

The wonder and humanity of the spirit of exploration return in Mission to Mars. And there’s some aliens that might just be long lost relatives as well.

First Impressions

The trailer for his film has a group of astronauts discovering what they believe to be water on Mars. On the surface of the planet there is some kind of sand-cyclone that sucks in one of the crew. A trio of astronauts discover a hidden white room that allows them to take their helmets off and view a holographic map of the solar system. Apparently life on Earth began on Mars, and humans have discovered the secret. There’s also a number of shots that pay homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Time to stay on mission.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

In Dickinson, Texas on June 9, 2020, a number of astronauts for an upcoming mission to Mars gather for a barbecue with their families. The mission commander, Luke Graham (Don Cheadle), says goodbye to his son and speaks with former mission commander Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) who was scrubbed from the trip after the loss of his wife. Thirteen months later in the Cydonia region on Mars, the crew of Mars I discover what they think is ice in a nearby mountain. Investigating with their sonar seems to trigger a giant sandstorm which kills at least three of the four-person crew, and buries Luke in debris. In the aftermath of the storm, a giant mountain-sized face is visible on the surface.

In the World Space Station, the site of Mars Mission Control, flight director Ray Beck (an uncredited Armin Mueller-Stahl) makes the decision to use the already prepping Mars II as a rescue mission, after some coaxing from mission leader Woody Blake (Tim Robbins). Woody also convinces Ray to allow him to take Jim along with his crew, which includes his wife Terri (Connie Nielsen) and pilot Phil Ohlmyer (Jerry O’Connell). It takes them almost 6 months to get to Mars orbit for a rescue.

The crew tries to keep it light with Woody and Terri practicing a dance in zero-gravity. This makes Jim nostalgic and he retreats to his quarters to watch an old video of his wife and himself, who were slated to be on Mars I together before she passed. On approach the ship is hit with micrometeorites which puncture the breathable spaces and injure Phil’s hand. Woody goes EVA to help seal the puncture before they lose air pressure. As they ignite their engines for landing, a leak in the fuel line causes an explosion sending them spinning.

They devise a plan to use an orbiting reinsertion module (REMO) to land on the planet. Unfortunately, without engines Phil can only get them one kilometer from the vehicle. They space walk towards it using their suit thrusters. Woody latches the tether to the orbiting vehicle but is going too fast and bounces further away, now having insufficient propellant to get back. He orders Terri not to come after him, and removes his helmet, killing himself, to ensure she stays on mission.

On the planet the remaining three astronauts find Luke still alive, having survived by growing plants in the HAB. Luke tells of discovering a signal on the planet which they realize can be decoded as a strand of DNA with two missing base pairs. Using the small remote-controlled  rover, the crew transmits the “answer” to the puzzle, which opens a doorway in the side of the head. Luke, Terri, and Jim go investigate while Phil repairs the ERV launch vehicle.

Inside the structure, the group discovers a holographic orrery of the solar system that shows the destruction of a verdant Mars by a comet strike. A group of spaceships leave the planet for universes unknown, while a final one seeds life on Earth. A simulated Martian offers the crew to come with them. Jim accepts the offer while Terri and Luke return to the ERV and take off with Phil. Jim is placed into an alien spaceship and rockets outside the solar system for worlds unknown.

“There’s pressure in here.”
“Above Mars atmospheric? That’s impossible.”
“We’re millions of miles from Earth inside a giant white face. What’s impossible?” – Terri & Jim

History in the Making

Mission to Mars was director Brian DePalma’s first (and only to date) science-fiction film, and his last film of the 20th Century. It was the first of a small group of four sci-fi films between 2000 and 2001 that dealt with trips to or life on the planet Mars. It was also the second film based on a Walt Disney theme park attraction, but not the last. It revisits sci-fi themes that had not been present for years and reinvigorated interest in the red planet, with its use of stronger scientific principles and special effects.

As discussed in the film last week, Ghosts of Mars, the years 2000 and 2001 had a small resurgence of films that take place on Mars. Mission to Mars kicked that off, with the titles Red Planet, and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie following. These were the first films to take place on Mars since 1990s Total Recall. And that film was the first to deal with Martian exploration since the 60s. When science-fiction films began gaining massive popularity in the 1950s, Mars was a popular destination and location for aliens to come from. Titles like Rocketship X-M, Invaders from Mars, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and the classic The War of the Worlds all used the idea of Mars as both a destination for exploration as well as the fear that unseen alien invaders might be lurking. Then for about 40 years, sci-fi films moved on and started exploring dozens of other interesting ideas. So what made Hollywood so interested in this planet once again?

The interest in Mars had really never subsided. It was still a planet that got discussion in comics, television, and novels. But this mini-resurgence of interest in our nearest planetary neighbor may have come from the real-world launch of Mars Pathfinder, a NASA rover that landed on the planet in 1997 to explore and send back imagery and data from the red planet. It was followed by the less successful Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2 which were unable to complete their missions. Currently Curiosity and Perseverance rovers remain deployed and active on the planet, sending back imagery and data for scientific study. And that’s what Mission to Mars is primarily about. The exploration of new scientific venues and seeing what else is out there.

Genre-fication

As a film about a manned expedition to Mars, the film can’t help but reference what has come before it. Early films about space travel took many liberties with realism of what life in a rocket might be like, or how well another planet might support life. But what they all agreed on was that Mars had red soil, a red atmosphere, and there was usually some kind of alien species that lived there. Often this species was malevolent, and human curiosity would get the better of us, learning that it was best not to meddle in things that we didn’t understand. Mission to Mars attempted to bring some realism back to sci-fi films, by taking everything new about the fourth planet and crafting a film that would attempt to direct future storytellers in new directions.

Curiosity in what the galaxy has to offer was an important theme in 50s and 60s science-fiction. Some of those stories also punished people for exploring the unknown, but that’s a tale for another time. The last great film that sent people out into the universe for exploration (not related to some dystopian reason for survival), aside from the Star Trek franchise, was 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that film, the discovery of an artifact on the moon is linked as the next milestone in man’s evolution. A mission to Jupiter is interrupted by beings of a higher dimension inviting a man to take the next step forward in the discovery of the meaning of human life. Mission to Mars strives to make some of those same themes relevant again in a modern world.

Taking it to another level, Mission to Mars pays homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey in several ways, along with a couple other famous sci-fi films. Visually the film has many nods to the classic Stanley Kubrick film. The most prominent is the long take inside the rotating midsection of Mars II, where Phil is walking in place as the ring revolves around him. DePalma built a rotating set, as had Kubrick, and incorporated Gary Sinise into the scene sitting in a chair reading a magazine. The ring does a full rotation with Sinise staying in the same position, creating the illusion of a gravity centrifuge. The film also name checks Flash Gordon, the space-faring pulp hero, in the guise of a rocketship pendant that Woody wears. Terri gives the pendant, which looks like the iconic looking rocket from the 1930s film serials, to Jim before he sets off on his mission to the unknown. Additionally, when the Martian craft departs the planet, it leaves a smokey trail through space, which is another nod to the special effects from the old films–created by the sparklers used to create the engines on the model. Even other elements of the film seem to recall the interactions and communications with the amicable aliens of The Abyss, notably the snake-like appearance of the sandstorm, and the breathable fluid that Jim enters into for his trip into space.

Societal Commentary

Mission to Mars attempts to discuss two of the biggest themes in science-fiction: what makes humans human, and where did we come from. Even without the sci-fi elements presented in the third act, the film clearly shows the drive and determination of humans to explore and survive. In that way, it’s very similar to Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 that came out five years earlier. That film is a drama based on actual events behind the launch and incident that occurred on the Apollo 13 mission to the moon. The way that the astronauts were portrayed in both films depicts a strong and determined individual that fights the odds even when everything else is against them. When something goes wrong with their capsule, Terri, Woody, Jim and Phil must come up with clever and creative ways not to die. Luke concocts a way to stay alive on the surface of Mars for up to a year without any knowledge of a rescue mission. That takes some determination.

The film also depicts arguments for and against sending married couples into space. There’s no doubt on long voyages that two individuals that are in a relationship would be able to cope with a number of the psychological constraints of living in confined spaces with minimal human contact. Their existing relationship would help drive them by allowing each to feed off the others energy. The film shows that Jim went to pieces after Maggie died. So much so, that he was scrubbed from the mission. However, the opposite is true. When Woody floats off into space, Terri defies orders and puts her life, and the others at risk as she attempts to save him. It’s only his sacrifice that prevents her from dooming an already perilous mission. If they had not been married, then the torment from this moment may not have been as great.

But all of these dangerous hurdles end up getting Jim into the orrery on Mars where he’s able to be offered a choice. He can return with his teammates, or risk everything and explore a new world as a guest of the progenitors of his species. He proves himself the best part of humanity as he fulfills not only his dream, but his wife Maggie’s dream as well. Her mantra was all about being an explorer. “To stand on a new world and look beyond it to the next one.” This is a common theme in many sci-fi films about exploration. Some humans have a selfless quality that seeks not the thrill of adventure, but the discovery of the unknown, regardless of the peril. Mission to Mars presents that quality in spades for these brave souls that risk everything to find out what is out there.

The Science in The Fiction

One of the biggest mysteries of Mars, outside of the Schiaparelli canals discovered in 1877, has to be the “face on Mars” which was visible in a series of images taken of the Cydonia region by Viking 1 in July, 1976. The images show a series of mountains on the planet with one appearing as a humanoid face, complete with eyes, nose and thin mouth. The released photo, coupled with renewed interest in UFOs and other unexplained phenomena in the mid-70s led to speculation of lost civilizations on the planet. Photos taken of the same area of Cydonia at later flybys indicate that it is just a raised section of ground with some divots on it, that when cast in shadow correctly become face-like. It’s been chalked up to pareidolia, which is the human need to impose meaningful perception on arbitrary objects, like seeing a face in random spots. Mission to Mars ran with this idea, that a race of humanoids once lived on the planet, to create a plot point about a giant face that was uncovered by a sandstorm, and the missing link to human history.

Mission to Mars also attempts to present a science-fiction film about astronauts utilizing more science-factual elements. Characters mention that they are “a hundred million miles” from home, which is the approximate distance to Mars (it’s about 140 million miles), as well as the length of the trip from Earth orbit to Mars being approximately 173 days (quite a bit more than the few hours or day that it took in Rocketship X-M). They also use ingenuity to detect a micro-leak in their ship’s hull by squeezing out a bag of Dr Pepper soda and watching where it leaves the ship. Unfortunately, as with most space films, there are certain realities that are ignored for the sake of drama and efficiency. The biggest flaw may be the spacewalks and acceleration of the suit packs to get the crew from the damaged Mars II to the REMO. Newton’s laws are woefully ignored for the sake of drama.

The Final Frontier

I had seen Mission to Mars at least once before, because there was one scene that I immediately recalled this viewing. Woody and Terri have a weightless dance to the Van Halen song, “Dance the Night Away.” It’s a fun and obviously memorable scene that showcases some of DePalma’s use of long takes and creative camerawork. In fact, there’s several moments in the film that use long takes with lots of camera moves that are very much DePalma’s trademark. The end of the intro sequence at the barbecue has the camera following characters around the backyard, panning to and fro, and then somehow raising up in the air to look down on them. An impressive moment when the viewer realizes, “how did the camera get up here?”

One thing that audiences may not know about the film is that it’s one of at least six films based on a Walt Disney attraction. It followed 1997s Tower of Terror, a television movie with Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst based on the Disney’s Hollywood Studios ride, which is not as well known as the films based on The Pirates of The Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, or The Jungle Cruise. This film is based on a ride of the same name which first appeared in Disneyland in 1955 as Rocket to The Moon. It was retooled and renamed as Mission To Mars in 1975 due to the numerous trips to the moon, thereby creating a new location and adventure. Audiences walk through Mission Control and get information about how a real spaceflight to Mars would occur, before sitting in a circular stadium seating venue watching a video screen on the floor. Simulated changes in gravity would occur through the inflation and deflation of the seats. The ride eventually shuttered in 1992 and is now the Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port in Tomorrowland.

Mission to Mars did a lot to keep space exploration and more intelligent sci-fi in the public eye. It may have been an inspiration for Andy Weir’s book “The Martian,” which was turned into a film in 2015, directed by Ridley Scott. More to come on that film later on Sci-Fi Saturdays. Audiences were probably interested to see Sinise leading this group of actors, having previously appeared in Apollo 13. At least in this film he’s not permanently grounded. For most of these actors, this was their only sci-fi film to date. Tim Robbins would return in a slightly different sci-fi film in 2005 with Steven Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds. Don Cheadle would take a different route and become known as James “War Machine” Rhodes in the sci-fi adjacent super hero films of Marvel Studios. Jerry O’Connell is probably the only actor to have more success in the genre. He had appeared in the parallel worlds TV series Sliders, on Fox, and is currently playing Commander Jack Ransom on Star Trek: Lower Decks. Having a cast of non-sci-fi regulars certainly helps the believability factor in the film.

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