First
Publicity Image
With
only FIVE months to go until the movie MISSION TO
MARS, M2M, is released, the first publicity image
has been released. The image probably depicts the
first, ill-fated, Mission to Mars at the flag planting
ceremony. You'll notice the Mars Lander
directly behind the two astronauts planting the
flag.
The
below article appeared over at Yahoo.com.
Hollywood
Renews Love Affair With Mars
By
Steve Gorman
LOS
ANGELES (Reuters) - The last time the Red Planet
loomed large on the big screen -- during the 1950s
and 1960s -- it was the Martians who typically visited
Earth. This time around, Earthlings are venturing
to Mars.
Decades
after little green men menaced Earth in such movies
as "The War of the Worlds," "Invaders
from Mars" and "Mars Needs Women,"
Hollywood is conjuring up at least three new films
and a TV mini-series that envision the first human
expedition to Mars.
The
Walt Disney Co. plans a release next March of "Mission
to Mars," which director Brian De Palma ("Blow
Out," "Mission: Impossible") is shooting
in Vancouver. Antony Hoffman is making his feature
film debut "Red Planet" (Warner Bros.),
which is filming in Australia and Jordan and is
due out by next summer.
And
James Cameron, who won a raft of Oscars for the
blockbuster "Titanic," is producing and
co-writing two Martian adventures -- a 3-D film
for Imax and a five-part mini-series for the Fox
TV network -- both planned for the spring of 2001.
The
flurry of Mars-themed movies comes amid renewed
public and scientific interest in the Red Planet
generated by NASA's unmanned Pathfinder mission
two years ago and the Mars Polar Lander's arrival
this December. The crash of the Mars Climate Orbiter
on the Martian surface made headlines last month.
Aerospace
engineer Robert Zubrin, author of the bestseller
"The Case of Mars; The plan to Settle the Red
Planet and Why We Must," is a co-producer with
Cameron for the Imax film and a consultant on the
Disney project. He says Mars has long captured the
popular imagination because of its relative nearness
and some similarity to Earth.
MARS:
A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE?
"It
is the planet, other than Earth, ... where life
has the best chance," said Zubrin, founder
of the Mars Society, a group advocating manned exploration.
"It's got water, it's got carbon, it's got
nitrogen. The temperatures on Mars are cold, but
they're not too cold. It's far away and not too
far away. We can get there in six months. That's
how long it took explorers to get to Australia in
the 1800s."
The
day Pathfinder landed on Mars in 1997, there were
100 million hits on NASA's Web site for the mission,
he said.
"It's
nothing new," said Donald Reed, founder and
president of the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy
and Horror Films. "Mars is out there. Someday
we're going to be on it."
Indeed,
Cameron, a proponent of human space exploration,
sees his film and mini-series as a chance to build
greater public support for NASA funding and a manned
mission to Mars.
"I
want to make humans-to-Mars real in the minds of
the viewing public," he told the Mars Society
in August. "I want to show it as a fantasy
they can achieve, not 'someday,' but soon, in a
tangible near future of years rather than decades."
But,
rather than building plots around fantastic encounters
with aliens, the makers of all four new projects
are striving for fact-based fiction focusing on
the challenge manned exploration of Mars poses for
science and the human condition.
Stranded
On Mars
"Mission
to Mars," which Zubrin says has NASA's stamp
of approval, stars Tim Robbins, Gary Sinise, Kim
Delaney and Don Cheadle in a story about astronauts
sent on a rescue mission after members of the first
expedition to Mars are stranded.
While
the film attempts a scientifically credible depiction
of space exploration, elements of the story are
speculative.
"The
Disney movie tries to be as realistic as it can
be in the context of an adventure where one goes
out into the universe and discovers fantastic things
that one had never expected before," Zubrin
said. In that way, he added, the story emulates
the 1968 sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey."
(TOLD YOU
SO Bert)
"Red
Planet" also uses the premise of man's first
mission to Mars going awry, with one astronaut (Carrie-Anne
Moss) forced to decide whether to attempt a death-defying
rescue of a stranded crew member (Val Kilmer) or
obey orders and return to Earth without him. The
film also stars Benjamin Bratt, Tom Sizemore and
Terence Stamp.
Hoffman,
the director, told the Los Angeles Times that while
he intends to make the movie technically realistic,
he ultimately lost NASA's support because of a storyline
in which one astronaut kills another.
"The
system breaks down," Hoffman was quoted as
saying. "They (NASA) didn't want that. And
while I really wanted NASA's approval, I said, 'It's
more important dramatically to get what I need than
it is to get the little logos on the ships."'
The
Disney and Warner Bros. films reportedly are budgeted
for $75 million to $80 million each. The makers
of both have tapped the expertise of NASA and the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Cameron,
a technophile who prides himself on his attention
to detail, has said he plans to bring "documentary
accuracy" to his Imax film and the Fox mini-series.
While
the scripts will differ, the movies will share props
and sets to maximize production value. Both will
chronicle an imaginary but realistic 500-day mission
to the Martian surface, capped by the discovery
of living bacteria, Cameron said.
"The
challenge, and the attraction, of these films is
to be able to project ourselves into the living
experience of the first Mars landing team. We want
to make it experientially real."
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