Mars Attacks!
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Mars Attacks! |
| Original title | Mars Attacks! |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1996 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tim Burton |
| script | Jonathan Gems |
| production | Tim Burton, Larry J. Franco |
| music | Danny Elfman |
| camera | Peter Suschitzky |
| cut | Chris Lebenzon |
| occupation | |
| |
Mars Attacks! is a science fiction - film comedy of director Tim Burton from the year 1996 . It was produced by Warner Bros. The film was first shown in Germany at the Berlinale on February 22, 1997.
action
Thousands of flying saucers are heading for the earth . The White House advises. Professor Donald Kessler, chairman of the American Space Academy, believes that this highly developed civilization is peace-loving as such. He convinces US President James Dale to welcome the Martians. Dale sends a welcoming committee to the Nevada desert , where a UFO lands and some aliens disembark in front of the world's press and hundreds of civilians . The human-like beings, however equipped with a disproportionately large, freely visible brain, proclaim that they are pursuing peaceful intentions. One of those present then lets a dove of peace rise, whereupon the Martians first shoot the dove and then cause a massacre among the audience. The present US military is powerless against the radiation weapons of the aliens.
President Dale is appalled, but Kessler assumes a cultural misunderstanding by the possibly terrifying dove - so the Martians are invited again to speak in the Capitol before Congress. But there, too, the Martians shoot and extinguish all life. Kessler is kidnapped by the Martians in their UFO, where medical experiments are carried out on him and on reporter Natalie Lake. A Martian disguised as a woman enters the White House and the bedroom of the presidential couple, but can be shot by bodyguards. A UFO crew storms the White House, killing First Lady Marsha Dale , among others . Dale allows himself to be persuaded by General Decker, who was suspicious from the start, to launch a nuclear missile into space. However, the Martians intercept the rocket, which is already exploding, and inhale the helium produced in the chain reaction , and then speak in a raised voice.
Now the aliens, from the air and the ground, begin to destroy cities and wipe out countless human lives. They manage to break into the presidential bunker and kill General Decker and the other staff there. Dale initially remains alive and tries to negotiate a diplomatic solution, but is also killed. When a young man named Richie Norris flees the invasion with his senile grandmother Florence, he accidentally discovers that the Martians' brains explode in the yodels of Slim Whitman's Indian Love Call , and this is the case with all loud, high-pitched music. This method spreads rapidly, and people defend themselves, eventually celebrating Richie Norris and Grandmother Florence in the rubble of Washington, DC as saviors of the world.
Cast and dubbing
The German-language dubbing was done at Rondo Film, Berlin based on a dialogue book by Arne Elsholtz , who also directed the dialogue .
Reviews
James Berardinelli criticized on ReelViews that there were too many characters in the film, the plot was too thin and not funny enough. The editing is poor, the first half of the film is "painfully" slow. However, Berardinelli praised the portrayals of Natalie Portman, Rod Steiger, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jim Brown.
"Chewing gum collector's pictures from the early 1960s inspired Burton to create this great, colorful nonsense. Conclusion: Still the funniest cinema apocalypse. "
“The film was conceived by Tim Burton as a kind of 'Independence Day' at camp level. The naive cult films of the genre are the inspiration for a cynical variety program of American complacency that varies the same ideas and jokes too often to be saved from uniformity and boredom. "
Awards
Danny Elfman won the Saturn Award in 1997 for film music . The film was nominated in six other categories for the same award, including for directing, for the screenplay and for "Best Science Fiction Film". The film was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award in four categories , including Jack Nicholson and Danny Elfman. The film was also nominated in 1997 for the Hugo Award , the Art Directors Guild Award and the MTV Movie Award .
In 1997, the film was in the preliminary round at the Academy Awards in the category of Best Visual Effects , but was not nominated.
The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the rating "valuable".
background
The film is a tribute to the US Alien - and science fiction - comics and B movies of the 1950s. In particular, one can clearly see the influence of Tim Burton's great role model Ed Wood and his film Plan 9 from Outer Space . Above all, however, he records the first War of the Worlds film: The initially unsuspecting curiosity of people and the miraculous rescue after all earthly weapons have failed (the original Martians die, according to HG Wells, from earthly bacteria, which is humorous here due to the yodelling country music is satirized) are clearly the leitmotifs from this film. He also satirizes newer science fiction films like Independence Day (which in turn also uses motifs from War of the Worlds ).
With his soundtrack, Danny Elfman reproduces the typical film music of the old B-movies, in particular by using the Theremin instrument .
The Martians were partly represented by puppets and partly by computer animation. It was difficult for many actors to act as there was virtually no evidence of acting with digital characters. However, all dead Martians depicted at the end of the film can be seen as plastic dolls.
The cast list includes a variety of Hollywood greats like Jack Nicholson (in a dual role as American president and real estate shark), Glenn Close as first wife, and Natalie Portman as her daughter. Pierce Brosnan plays a scientist caught up in positive prejudices who stands next to reality, and Sarah Jessica Parker plays a journalist. Also starring: Danny DeVito , Martin Short , Annette Bening , Barbara Eden , Michael J. Fox , Christina Applegate , Jack Black , Tom Jones , Joe Don Baker and Pam Grier .
particularities
There is a whole series of bizarre and humorous interludes through comic-like scenes, in which, for example, a dove of peace is killed with a radiation weapon, the Martians inhale the helium of an exploding hydrogen bomb to make their voice sound an octave higher, or they play country music ( by country legend Slim Whitman ) the green brain bursts - an idea from the film Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the Godzilla film Command from the Dark .
Tim Burton took inspiration for this film from trading cards that came in chewing gum packs when he was a child. The trading cards were issued by the Topps Chewing Gum company . Since the pictures showed brutal scenes, they were removed from the market after a short time.
In the United States, the film failed to meet the star cast's commercial expectations.
The hotel in which Art Land is located, which was attacked by the Martians in the film , was actually destroyed. It was one of the many old extravagant hotels in Las Vegas that were to be leveled as part of an urban renewal. The demolition was coordinated so that the scenes could be recorded and incorporated into the film appropriately.
The Godzilla scene, which can be seen in the film, is originally from the movie Godzilla vs. Biollante from the year 1989 .
The boy Richie Norris, played by actor Lukas Haas , wears a black T-shirt under his open, red checked cotton shirt with the cover of the 1984 album Acid Bath by the English gothic rock band Alien Sex Fiend printed on the chest.
Web links
- Mars Attacks! in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Mars Attacks! at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Mars Attacks! at Metacritic (English)
- Mars Attacks! in the online film database
- Overview of collecting pictures from Topps Chewin Gum
- Comparison of the cut versions VOX afternoon - FSK 12 , RTL 2 afternoon - FSK 12 by Mars Attacks! at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mars Attacks! In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on February 17, 2020 .
- ^ Review by James Berardinelli
- ↑ Mars Attacks! on tvspielfilm.de
- ↑ Mars Attacks! In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ 7 pix set to vie for 3 Oscar f / x noms
- ↑ Mars Attacks! on fbw-filmbassy.com