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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Seriously Retro, September 22, 2004
Seriously Retro!
I've a soft spot for this one, having watched it the first time around in 1980 (which is when it reached the UK). No doubt that it's the power of Ray Bradbury's original stories that carries it.
In a sense, you've got to switch off your brain to enjoy this. Or perhaps I should say you should switch of your Left Brain: the logical, analytical part. For example, we all know now that people can't breathe on the surface of Mars without space suits. Let it go! If you can't do that then don't bother with this DVD. Switch on your Right Brain (imagination) and you've a chance of enjoying this... just a chance though!
First, let's get the bad stuff out of the way. The special effects are bad. I know that they didn't have CGI etc then, but this was 2 years after Star Wars, or in a TV sense, a year after Battlestar Galactica. I'd have expected a major US network to have at least bettered Dr Who or Blake's 7 standards; but they didn't.
The pace is very slow. Sometimes that lets the stories unfold at a natural pace, but a lot of the time, you're tapping your fingers, thinking "get on with it!". In this regard, Bradbury was scathing in his comments at the time: "it's boring, they've made it boring", he said. And he had no doubt where the blame lay, saying that Michael Anderson had directed it "underwater". He wasn't wrong.
And often, the acting doesn't help. Rock Hudson has never been the most exciting actor in the world, and he's particularly dull here. Sure, he does integrity and trustworthiness just fine, but there were times that I felt his character needed a little more fire in his belly and Hudson doesn't provide it. The rest of the cast is variable, to put it mildy. At one end, Bernie Casey is just fine as Spender, and Nicholas Hammond, best remembered as a rather plastic 70s Spiderman, is equally good as the leader of the second expedition. At the other end, Roddy McDowell is just plain irritating as Father Stone.
Now the good stuff!
The sets are great, and the Martians themselves are wonderfully "other wordly", helped by the fact that they are used sparingly.
Plotwise, there's some good changes been made. I know that people here have referred to Bradbury's work as a "novel" but it's not: it's actually a collection of loosely connected short stories. Screen writer Richard Matheson sensibly drops some of the more unworkable original stories, such as "Way Up In The Middle Of The Air" (negroes in the American South climb into a spaceship to escape their white oppressors) and also the original second expedition story, where the earthlings' "first contact" is with a Martian lunatic asylum!.
His masterstroke is to unify the work by beefing up the role of Colonel John Wilder (Hudson) so that he appears in nearly all the stories. (In Bradbury's book, Wilder appeared in only two of them). In one story, this change actually manages to improve on the original. I refer to the story (spoiler ahead!) of the Martian who changes shape, according to the wants and desires of the human person that's nearest to him. In the mini series, the Martian ends by changing back to his actual form, because he bumps into Wilder (not in this story in Bradbury's book). Wilder is the only person on Mars that actually wants to meet a real, live Martian.
A sentimental 4 stars.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Eerie and thought-provoking, if uneven, July 22, 2007
I first saw the "Martian Chronicles" miniseries as a child -- before reading Bradbury's book -- and it's made an indelible impression on me. Many of the special effects don't hold up, and the pacing of some of the scenes is glacial. I can understand Bradbury's criticism that the miniseries was boring. But the score is wonderful, and the production design is unforgettable -- the geometric structures of the Martian cities, the frightening masks that the Martians wear, etc. Despite the lapses in effects and budget, and the obviousness of the location shooting (no red sky, etc.), the miniseries achieves a distinctive look and feel. There is nothing else like it in sci-fi television.
Some of the sequences simply don't work. I always fast-forward through the endless scenes of the two priests wandering in the desert looking for glowing spheres; and the "Genevieve Selsor" sequence with Bernadette Peters is uninteresting as well. But the adaptation of "And the Moon Be Still As Bright," with Bernie Casey indelible as Spender, still works. In a later segment, Wilder's nighttime meeting with a ghostly Martian from the past (or future?) retains an elegiac tone, and provides a pretty good manifesto on how life ought to be lived. Elsewhere, there's a sand-ship chase sequence that looks cheesy, but those spooky zoom shots of the masked Martians as they pursue Sam Parkhill still unnerve me. Parkhill's discovery of nuclear war on Earth -- viewed through a telescope -- is a memorable moment, powerfully scored. And the "second expedition" sequence, with the astronauts somehow finding themselves in Green Bluff, Illinois, rather than on Mars, reaches a climax that is still downright frightening.
It's hard to say how much of the miniseries I am viewing through the lens of nostalgia -- I am, perhaps, being more forgiving than it deserves. But to those seeking offbeat sci-fi offerings, this is worth a look.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
** Not for Star Wars Fans! **, January 18, 2005
I am a classic Ray Bradbury Sci-Fi enthusiast. The way that man can explain the way a cool Martian breeze smells just does something to me! Bradbury transports me there ... and this mini-series, while very dated, is classic Bradbury. If you like the old Sci-Fi stuff and are a Ray Bradbury fan, then enjoy. You will love it. If you want to see light sabers or warp drive, then don't even go there.
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