Script Review

So far, I have been unable to locate the script to the movie RED PLANET. I've looked high and low, online and in conventions. I've asked and begged people for the script.

All to no avail.

I will find the script, even if I have to brave the multiple servers around Yahoo's forbiddon flame or in the deepest, darkest, FTP site on the net.

However, the following review was provided by Stax over at FlixBurg. Thanks Stax!

By: Stax

Stax here with my reaction to Jonathan Lemkin's screenplay of RED PLANET, due out in cinemas June 16, 2000! The May 20th, 1999 version I read was a revised sixth draft of Chuck Pfarrer's original screenplay. This 108-page script still bears the film's original title of MARS, which was recently changed to avoid confusion with the competing MISSION TO MARS. RED PLANET is still shooting in Australia under the direction of Anthony Hoffman (a director of commercials making his feature film debut here). Its impressive cast includes Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss (THE MATRIX), Tom Sizemore, Terence Stamp, Benjamin Bratt (formerly of LAW & ORDER), and Simon Baker Denny (the doomed Matt Reynolds in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL). Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow, whose last big genre joint venture was THE MATRIX, will distribute and produce this film, respectively.

     RED PLANET recently garnered some bad buzz across the Internet and even in the mainstream media for a rumored (and promptly denied) on-set feud between stars Kilmer and Sizemore. The feud, so goes the rumor, was so bad that the two have sworn out restraining orders against one another. It apparently all began over an exercise machine! This sort of widespread (and unfounded?) bad press is the last thing a big production already facing stiff box office competition needs. (The second is probably a lukewarm script review by some jackass webmaster.) I personally don't quite believe this rumor or, if it does have some factual basis, that it is as intense as the story suggests. Kilmer (who is no stranger to bitter and long-lasting on-set feuds) and Sizemore worked together previously on Michael Mann's HEAT. I've read several past interviews with Sizemore where he came to Kilmer's defense whenever the topic of his "difficulty" was broached. Sizemore claims to have never heard of a bigger load of hogwash about a guy he had so much fun working with; of course, Sizemore went onto suggest that maybe Val was just on his best behavior because you don't act up around fellas like DeNiro and Pacino. Well, I sure hope Tom isn't eating his hat right about now. Now, onto the next biggest and newsworthy obstacle RED PLANET faces in coming to the silver screen.

     As you may have expected, RED PLANET, like M2M, is about the perilous first manned mission to Mars during the early part of the 21st century. There are indeed many similarities between the competing sci-fi epics. The best comparison I can draw after reading both scripts is that M2M will be closer to DEEP IMPACT and RED PLANET will be more like ARMAGEDDON. I can hear fans and detractors of both films howling already. Allow me to elaborate. I'm one of the few who enjoyed DEEP IMPACT somewhat more than ARMAGEDDON. Because of Michael Bay's direction, the latter film just seemed like two and half hours of shots made solely for the trailer. In fact, the whole movie just seemed to me to be like a two and a half-hour commercial to a better film that never materialized.

     Like DEEP IMPACT, M2M will take itself more seriously and approach its subject matter with a more philosophical and (I dare say) even melodramatic tone than RED PLANET will. In contrast, RED PLANET is the glib thrill ride of the two where the story occasionally stops to ask Big Important Questions About Life just long enough for the Next Big Action Sequence to kick in. In this way, RED PLANET is like ARMAGEDDON. Furthermore, RED PLANET is being directed by first-time helmer Anthony Hoffman whose most well-known prior efforts were the Budweiser commercials of Super Bowls past. With a music video/commercials director in charge, I think you can safely bet that this film will seem like a pseudo-Michael Bay effort. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself but I believe this analogy will hold true given the two screenplays I have now read. Of course, I could be wrong.

     Despite its overly glib tone at times, RED PLANET does deliver some decent chills and thrills throughout. It is sort of like THE LOST PATROL but set on Mars. In the end, however, RED PLANET struck me as a rather formulaic sci-fi film bolstered by a reader-friendly script doctor's best efforts. The last ten pages or so are pretty ridiculous and the main character is the same in the end as he was in the beginning: a smart-ass fish out of water. And I don't mean just by being on Mars! Robbie Gallagher (Kilmer) is "the space janitor," a top-notch mechanic who is the only non-astronaut on this mission and who must win the respect of his more distinguished compatriots. I found it really difficult to believe that the powers that be would place Gallagher on the team to begin with, despite his experience repairing elaborate engines for the armed forces and for professional racing. Doesn't Space Command have any of their own mechanics to call upon for this well-planned-ahead of time-mission?! This plot device sort of worked in ARMAGEDDON when the roughnecks had a skill that was required in order to successfully complete the rescue mission. Robbie has no such desperately needed skill although he shows quite a knack for being able to make a radio out of an old unmanned NASA probe the crew discovers. But this makes him like the Professor on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND or MACGYVER than with a matinee hero like Bruce Willis. Robbie is just the smart-ass of the group and remains a relatively static character throughout the tale. And while it will be nice to see Kilmer again show his keen comedic talents, the character seemed more appropriate for a smarmy comic like Bill Murray than for a Leading Man-type. Robbie does have some pretty witty one-liners from time to time but because he is so under-developed and perpetually glib it was tough to accept the true gravity of his situation. Thus, I never really bought that Robbie's life was ever truly in peril despite all the obstacles Lemkin and Pfarrer threw in his way.

     The plot to RED PLANET, like M2M, can be boiled down to this. Early in the next century, after the Earth and humankind have been doomed by the environmental sins of the 20th century, NASA sends its first manned spacecraft to Mars in the hopes of either discovering something on the "red planet" that could help heal Earth, or to see if Terran colonies could be established there. If the recent string of costly failures of the various Mars probes is any indication, this maiden voyage will be a disaster that ensures that not all the crew will return home. The last act, like the finale of M2M as well, shows how those crew members who have managed to survive Mars try to resurrect their junked ship and get the hell back to Earth. SPOILER WARNING: If this shocks you - which it really should NOT because it is the staple of EVERY space exploration movie - there IS indeed life on Mars. M2M and RED PLANET, however, have placed their respective Martians on totally opposite ends of the food chain. RED PLANET actually has the far more plausible discovery of the two and I greatly appreciated that marked difference between these two otherwise quite similar plots. (Each script also has one or more of the crew perform the Final Noble Sacrifice in order to save a fellow crew member, a familiar moment in war films.)

     RED PLANET reminded me a lot of some old Westerns. It is a man vs. nature story about survival against all odds in a hostile environment where the protagonists are victims not just of the elements but of the natives as well. The plot to RED PLANET, though, also reminded me of any number of STAR TREK episodes. Remember the classic series episode where Spock's shuttle craft landing party gets marooned on that barren planet and then proceed to fight with the native life forms -- and each other -- in order to stay alive? There were several variations of this storyline just in the original STAR TREK series alone. This familiarity is a difficult obstacle for a genre movie like RED PLANET to overcome; I won't be too sure how much RED PLANET will have succeeded in making itself seem fresh until I see it onscreen. Perhaps Anthony Hoffman will inject this amiable but relatively familiar story with such visceral intensity and splendor that RED PLANET's narrative shortcomings will be forgiven?

     There is also a woefully under-developed subplot about a renegade service robot from the Ares that is now hell-bent on destroying Robbie. This sequence is expendable and completely out of the blue. What set the robot off? Why is it after Robbie? Why did we need any of this? It was laughable, really; it reminded me of that LOST IN SPACE episode where Robby the Robot goes bonkers. Robbie has no clue about the robot's "surviving" the crash and its vendetta against him until the climax. I have gone back and re-read this part and still cannot locate the moment when Robbie knows the robot is after him. This conflict just sort of appears out of thin air. To add insult to injury, Robbie dispatches of the robot in the lamest and simplest manner possible. ATTENTION ANTHONY HOFFMAN AND EDITORS: CUT THIS SUBPLOT!

     The best thing Lemkin (THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, LETHAL WEAPON 4) does in this draft, and this could have been in Pfarrer's (NAVY SEALS, THE JACKAL, BARB WIRE) earlier versions as well, is to use a flashback structure. The script starts with the ship's (the Ares) disastrous aborted landing on Mars. It then follows the jettisoned crew's attempts to survive on the barren and perilous planet surface. Meanwhile, mission commander Kate Bowman (Moss) is stranded in orbit on the crippled Ares, not yet aware that her crew has survived as she tries to repair the Ares and return home. On the ground, the macho Lt. Santem (Bratt) leads the glib Robbie, the sage Chantilas (Stamp, in a terribly under-utilized role), the brilliant Burchenal (Sizemore), and the secretive Pettengill (Denny). At several points the story flashes back to the Ares' flight from Earth to Mars so that we can get to know the characters and their relationships somewhat better. Fortunately, these flashbacks work for the most part and add some meat onto the bones of an otherwise lean story. When back in the present, the story also cuts between Kate on the Ares and behind-the-scenes at Mission Control in Houston. The flashbacks cease once Act Two ends and the point then is to start killing people off and making it even more difficult for our heroes to escape the red planet. What the flashbacks only adequately accomplish, however, is the establishment of a romantic subplot between Bowman and Gallagher. Despite some of their cute moments together, I never bought their relationship. It just felt like a standard issue, tacked-on romance to give Robbie something other than his next one-liner to occupy his mind. Bowman is a military vet, an ace pilot, and mathematics wiz; Robbie's a smart-ass grease monkey and proud of it. I guess opposites attract but I was never convinced that Robbie was as head over heels in love with Kate as he claims to be in Act Three given the rather tardy and skimpy subplot that was provided. The very ending of this draft, in particular, was more appropriate for a James Bond movie than for this particular life or death struggle. It reminded me of the ending of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, OCTOPUSSY - well, all of the Bond films actually. And, much less so, of SPEED where Keanu and Sandra start getting jiggy with it on the tarmac. Just seemed too juvenile and transparent a Hollywood ending for even a familiar genre vehicle like RED PLANET to have. I hope they have a chance to come up with something fresher for any possible re-shoot.

RED PLANET is pretty much the emotionally shallow albeit adrenaline-pumping piece of summer entertainment I expected it to be. A middle of the road effort calculated to appeal to the broadest possible audience. There's nothing wrong with some empty calorie movies now and then but I guess it just seems like there isn't much else on the menu these days, especially coming from Warner Brothers. Granted, RED PLANET could have been far, far worse. The script's main strengths are its taut pacing and its use of flashbacks; its biggest weaknesses are its overabundance of one-liners and its under-developed main character. While RED PLANET does have some genuinely funny moments in it (the most hilarious being some powerful and timely jabs at the legacy of Microsoft), that glibness ultimately detracts from the danger and horror the crew faces. Just when you want to suspend your disbelief and be scared of what the crew endures, there is some pithy pop-culture reference or smarmy throwaway joke made. It undercuts the tension to the script's eventual detriment. If the main character of Robbie had been given more depth and more of an interesting background or point-of-view then that could have helped raise the story up a few notches and to have overcome some of the plot holes and narrative weaknesses. Alas, that was not the case here.

This draft of RED PLANET provided adequate yet familiar entertainment, nothing more or less. I will still see the final film despite its script having not provoked much of a reaction (pro or con) from me because I just like science-fiction films in general. RED PLANET also boasts a very cool (but, I assure you, an under-utilized) cast. I also want to see if Tom Sizemore and Val Kilmer are seen only in separate shots for most of the film (as the nasty rumor mill has suggested). This recent draft of RED PLANET was like what visiting the red planet itself might one day be like: initially exciting and mysterious but eventually one realizes they are in the middle of a desolate wasteland and will start looking for a way back home. There are, of course, much worse ways to spend a weekend afternoon than to go and see RED PLANET; of course, there are much better ways, too. -- STAX