Movies or shows about Colonization of Mars or the Moon?
- Thread starter Dream
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Well, the ultimate story about the colonization of Mars is a book trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. Which is very realistic. I know it's not what you asked for, but if you're interested in Mars colonization at all, then it's a must-read. (There have been various unsuccessful attempts to develop it as a TV series. The latest version is under development at Spike TV, which is apparently making an aggressive push back toward scripted series. J. Michael Straczynski is slated to write it, with Game of Thrones's Vince Gerardis producing.)
There are a number of movies about exploration missions to Mars, like, well, Mission to Mars or The Angry Red Planet, but not many about actual colonization. The only thing I can think of for that is the 1980 miniseries adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, scripted by Richard Matheson and starring Rock Hudson. It's not that well regarded, but I thought it was okay.
For Moon colonization, there's an obscure 1973 BBC miniseries called Moonbase 3, created by Doctor Who's producer Barry Letts and story editor Terrance Dicks in between seasons of DW. It's a lot more realistic than DW, more an adult-oriented character drama. Some of the science is silly to modern eyes, but it was reasonably solid for its day.
There are a number of movies about exploration missions to Mars, like, well, Mission to Mars or The Angry Red Planet, but not many about actual colonization. The only thing I can think of for that is the 1980 miniseries adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, scripted by Richard Matheson and starring Rock Hudson. It's not that well regarded, but I thought it was okay.
For Moon colonization, there's an obscure 1973 BBC miniseries called Moonbase 3, created by Doctor Who's producer Barry Letts and story editor Terrance Dicks in between seasons of DW. It's a lot more realistic than DW, more an adult-oriented character drama. Some of the science is silly to modern eyes, but it was reasonably solid for its day.
There is the Doctor Who episode "Waters of Mars" where the Doctor visits the first Mars Base Bowie One. Naturally things go south there rather fast.
Oh, those movies are hardly comparable to the Mars Trilogy; their science is far more fanciful and their scope far more narrow. One of them has some kind of ancient-astronauts, humans-evolved-on-Mars rubbish going on, doesn't it?
'Moon Zero Two' is a fairly good film about a colonized Moon. You have all the trappings of a city and just plain working people making a living. The plot is more about a criminal enterprise that is taking place there with the Moon City as the environment.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064691/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064691/
I'm looking forward to "The Martian".
There's the movie Moon, of course. Not about colonization in the standard sense, but it is about maintaining a permanent human presence there, in a way.
And I was in no way trying to compare them to the excellent "Red, Blue and Green..." That is why I described them as "...the Hollywood version...". Meaning "the Hollywood version" of what the OP asked for; "...movies or shows about...Mars or the Moon." The are just that, "Holywood", but many found them entertaining.
^Ah, okay. The "version" was confusing, because it implied that they represented the same kind of story as the Robinson trilogy. I just wanted to make it clear how distinct they were, so nobody would get the wrong impression.
Agree.
Space:1999(1975-1977) is worth watching. Alpha Moonbase and it's fleet of Eagle Transporters establish high-level production designs. Like 2001:A Space Odyssey with it's Clavius Moonbase.
With some of the same FX artists involved in both. I agree, Space: 1999's tech designs blew Star Trek out of the water. It had terrific effects, relying on wire-flown ships and in-camera composites rather than bluescreens, but still remarkably sophisticated.
But it's essentially two different shows. Season 1 is a surrealist fantasy with a thematic focus on the limits of human knowledge in a vast and mysterious universe. It's totally unbelievable, often silly, but if you get what it's going for, more a sort of Twilight Zoney surrealism taking place in an unknowable and borderline-mystical universe rather than a more straightforward space-opera narrative like Star Trek, then it can be pretty interesting. Season 2, on the other hand, is pretty much just pure cheese. They brought in Fred Freiberger (of ST's third season) to retool it and make it more "American" and action-oriented, and it basically had all the excesses and absurdities of ST season 3 writ large.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say your intention was a movie portraying a colony/presence on the moon/mars since you mentioned Total Recall.
That being the case, here's some others:
2001 A space odyssey, Iron Sky, Ghosts of Mars, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Doom, Moon, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, First Men in the Moon, John Carter.
Some of these are really bad. But they depict people living in these locations.(except robinson crusoe)
That being the case, here's some others:
2001 A space odyssey, Iron Sky, Ghosts of Mars, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Doom, Moon, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, First Men in the Moon, John Carter.
Some of these are really bad. But they depict people living in these locations.(except robinson crusoe)
Those aren't all colonization stories, though. John Carter, for instance, is about just one guy going to an already-inhabited Mars. Ditto First Men in the Moon -- they just go for a visit rather than colonizing.
There was Bryan Fuller's failed pilot movie High Moon, which aired on Syfy last year and was very loosely based on a young-adult novel called The Lotus Caves by John Christopher. It was about a Lunar colony, but it was pretty terrible.
There was Bryan Fuller's failed pilot movie High Moon, which aired on Syfy last year and was very loosely based on a young-adult novel called The Lotus Caves by John Christopher. It was about a Lunar colony, but it was pretty terrible.
John Carter was a Planetary Romance. Carter was one individual who was interacting with the native populations.
There's also 'Star Cops' a six (?) episode series from the BBC that I think only ran once or twice on my local PBS station in the mid-80s. It dealt with early settlements on the moon and Mars and enforcing the jurisdiction with multinational law enforcement agency.
Did you read my preface?
And before you say it was a human colony... You do remember the last 30 minutes of the movie right?
Yes interacting with a presence on Mars.
I'm just offering titles that may or may not fit in with his criteria. If I want to get real literal, Total Recall is not about colonizing because the colony already exists. So lets not debate semantics with each other ya?
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