One of the major events in SF television in 1980s was the screen adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s classic SF novel, The Martian Chronicles. It was turned into a three part miniseries starring, among others, Rock Hudson as a spaceship captain and Roddy McDowell, who had also played one of the chimps in the original Planet of the Apes, as a Roman Catholic monk. The novel’s really a collection of short stories, and I think it was originally published as such before being collected and published as a single volume in one of the American SF magazines. I think it may first have been published over this side of the Atlantic as The Silver Locusts, from its description of the armada of ships carrying human colonists to the Red Planet.
The book follows the colonisation of Mars from the initial expeditions, who are killed off by the Martians, through to the flood of humans and the establishment of towns, the decline and extinction of the indigenous Martians. A nuclear war breaks out on Earth, and the human colonists are recalled, leaving only a few survivors. Earth becomes a dead planet. In the book’s final chapter, ‘The Million Year Picnic’, a father takes his family away from their home, telling them they’re simply going away on a picnic. His children play with the fish in the old Martian canal. As they travel, the father tears up and destroys all the books on economics, philosophy and so on. When I read it at the age of 15 or so, I though the story was about the dad wanting to make a clean break with a terrestrial past and culture that had failed them, and to make a genuinely new start on this alien world.
It’s quite a strange book. Brian Aldiss describes the excitement and wonder Bradbury produced in his young readers in the Trillion Year Spree. He describes Bradbury’s stories as like folktales, and their writer as a magician. It struck me a while ago that Bradbury is probably best understood as a Fantasy writers, who uses the props and tropes of science fiction. There’s also a poetic quality to his work. There used to be a comics shop back in the ’70s and ’80s called ‘Dark they were and golden eyed’, which I think is a description of the Martians from the book. The Martians, for example, also have guns which fire bees instead of bullets. The lone Martian, who enters a human town, takes on, against his will, the personalities and appearance of individuals from the minds of the humans around him. That shapeshifting also appears in a ’90s episode of Red Dwarf, where a female GELF takes on the appearance of each of the crewmember’s idea of the most beautiful female. Krtyten, the robot, see a female mechanoid. The Cat, however, who is immensely vain, just sees himself. Back to the Martian Chronicles, there’s a sandship, which sails through the Martian sand like a ship through the waves. There’s a similar ship in Michael Moorcock’s Fantasy novel, Elric: the Dreaming City. One of the stories involves a human, Tomas Gomez, on his way to a housewarming at one of the new colonies, meeting a Martian driving a vehicle that looks like a jewelled praying mantis. Time can play tricks on Mars, and when Gomez offers the Martian a cup of coffee, it passes through the Martian’s hands and he is unable to pick it up. At the same time, Gomez cannot touch a knife thrown to him by the Martian. The two also see different views of the surroundings. The Martian sees his home city on the shore of a lake, lit with carnival lights, boats and beautiful singing women. Gomez, however, sees only ruins, and the lake itself has been dry for 4,000 years. The Martian, on his part, doesn’t see Gomez’s new human town. They both accuse each other of ghosts, then each suggests the other comes from the past. It is not the Martian’s civilisation that is extinct; it is the humans’, and the ruins he sees may be those of his culture 100 centuries hence. However, Bradbury states that they talk together as old friends, and part with each wishing to meet the other again, and seeing their view of their cities and towns.
The first video, ‘Forgotten SciFi: The Martian Chronicles’, from 3Brew Entertainment’s channel on YouTube, is a short piece running through scenes from the series giving a good taste of the overarching story.
This second video from trekxx’s YouTube channel is of the series’ adaptation of the chapter ‘Night Meeting’ and the encounter between a human and a Martian. There are changes. The praying mantis vehicle doesn’t appear; the Martian simply materialises from out of some ruins. There’s also a monologue by the Martian as he gives their guiding moral philosophy. It’s a simple one – live well, luxuriate in life, work with the world and respect it, destroy nothing, harm nothing, do not sully or harm anything beautiful. It’s not in the book, but it fits the tone of the story. The human himself, at least in this snippet, isn’t on his way to a festival in the new human colony. He’s simply somebody who hoped that one day he’d meet a Martian.
The Martian Chronicles, from what I remember, weren’t a critical success. One of its drawbacks, according to the critics, was that it was adapted too late. When Bradbury wrote it in the 1950s, probes hadn’t yet reached the Red Planet and so it could still plausibly be imagined as having a blue sky, a breathable atmosphere and canals, if not an intelligent indigenous race. That was destroyed when the Mariner and later, the Viking probes, showed that it was a cratered desert, whose Carbon Dioxide atmosphere was so thin it was virtually a laboratory vacuum and so closer to the Moon than Bradbury’s vision or the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The special effects were also considered poor. I think this was a problem shared by other SF TV series, like Doctor Who over here, after Star Wars raised the bar with its highly spectacular and convincing effects. The TV series suffered by comparison, faced with a task of producing convincing effects without the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster. This have been solved by giving TV SF comparably expensive budgets. When Star Trek: The Next Generation aired in the late ’80s and 90s, I think it has a budget of $1 million per episode. The revived Dr Who, I think, has or had a budget of a £1 million, while Disney is believed to have spent $280 million on the Star Wars series, The Acolyte.
Worse than this, the series was described as boring, and Clive James took the mick out of it in one of his TV reviews in the Absurder.
Regarding these criticisms, the comments about the series for these and other clips show that it is still very fondly remembered. The commenters state that the special effects have stood up well. I’m not sure about this, but think that they should probably not be judged too harshly because they were of their time. The story is well received. One commenter said that it couldn’t be make now, as it was too cerebral and humane, which is precisely why it should be remade. I think this is a good point. The Martian Chronicles is definitely a classic, and while you don’t need an IQ like Einstein’s to read and enjoy it, it does come from the tradition of SF as the literature of ideas. It does offer something different. Instead of just action, ‘Night Meeting’, for example, is just a story of two men from vastly alien races meeting as friends, with the melancholy subtext that each believes the other comes from an extinct race, to whose civilisation belong the ruins that the human sees.
It reminds me somewhat of the Star Trek: TNG episode ‘The Inner Light. In this episode, the Enterprise picks up a probe from a previously unknown race. The probe zaps Picard with a ray, and he is transported back in time as a leading scientist and citizen in the probe’s civilisation. This is dying due to the planet’s star heating up. Picard’s character, the scientist, is tasked with keeping the water supplies flowing and morale up for as long as possible, to keep hope alive all the while as the darkness of extinction gathers around them. And so he designs fountains, and is helped in his endeavours by a small child. The episode follows the scientist as he ages. Finally, the probe’s message completed, the ray breaks off, Picard comes to and tells the rest of the crew about his experience. The scientist, whose memories Picard has adopted through the probe, used to play the recorder. When the crew open the probe up, they find this very instrument and the last scene is of Picard practising playing it.
It’s a superb episode, and rightly won an award. I was wondering the other night who I would get to direct it if it was remade. Ideally, I’d choose one of the writers or directors of this and other, similar episodes from Star Trek, although they’d probably be too long in the tooth now. Alternatively, I wondered about Terry Gilliam as the sandship reminds me very strongly of the bizarre and baroque machines in his movies.
I also don’t think the setting on a habitable Mars with breathable atmosphere, canals and so is necessarily a handicap. It could be explained away as an alternative Mars in another universe, or simply accepted as Fantasy. Much of SF is terribly dated in its predictions of the future. For example, in one episode of Classic Trek, Kirk explains humanity’s progress across space. I think we were supposed to have got to Alpha Centauri, just four light years away, in 1994. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of the stories, and the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. People will accept the inaccuracies, if there is a good, entertaining story. Classic Trek is out on DVD and is still very much enjoyed, and so, I believe, is the Martian Chronicles.
One thing I think the miniseries did well was portrayal of the Martians and the ruins of their civilisation. The makeup for the Martian in the ‘Night Meeting’ segment isn’t elaborate – he’s bald, with golden eyes and no ears, but well done. The character’s white robes seem related to Roman and ancient Greek togas and the connotations they carry for ancient civilisation, and the ruins look Martian. There are large stone spheres and giant crystals. They look alien, and what you’d expect of a culture that built vast canals to bring water to a dying planet.
I think the Martian Chronicles, or one or two of the stories from it, could be remade. I think the obstacles to it, apart from its datedness, which I don’t think really matters, is probably changes in cinematic taste, or perceived changes. I think the Martian Chronicles may well be regarded as too slow and literary for a global audience. But that isn’t to say that it couldn’t, and the resulting remake wouldn’t be a quality production.
Tags: 3Brew Entertainment, ancient greece, Ancient Rome, Brian Aldiss, Clive James, Dr Who, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Mariner Probe, Mars, Nuclear War, Planet of the Apes, Ray Bradbury, Red Dwarf, Rock Hudson, Roddy McDowell, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Treki, Star War, Star Wars: The Acolyte, Terry Gilliam, The Martian Chronicles, the Moon, The Observer, Trillion Year Spree, Viking Probes, Youtube
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