Best movie of this year hands down!

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I saw parts of this in the 1980s and thought it was the worst kind of TV dreck. Watching it now, I wasn't disappointed: it's still dreck. Yeah, if you're into TV with all the bad acting combined and trite dialogue, maybe it'll seem reasonable to you.But if TV seems an insipid place, you may find this unbearably tediously painfully DD (Monty Python for deadly dull). It so boring you don't even get angry. It's like watching Ponderosa but there's a space colony in Nevada, I mean Mars, and talk and staring and just nothing.There's probably a negative effect eg. it's so bad you lose brain cells. Avoid it. Watch something exciting, maybe a Discovery Channel special about why ice melts more slowly at lower temperatures.Run away from this.

This is a British production, made in 1979. The same time as UK's Dr. Who. The production values are almost identical. Of course, there was whimsy in Dr. Who, that made the cheesy effects campy. But still, there they were. As for the implausibility of a Martian atmosphere and climate like earth's, Bradbury wrote these stories before 1950, when such was considered possible. The producers made a creative choice to retain the conceit that Mars was like Nevada, so the characters wouldn't have to wear space suits all the time.Those who trash this miniseries because of its production values miss its point. What the Martian Chronicles have going for them are terrific story lines, which the technical problems unfortunately obscure. I can't help thinking Rod Serling took a page from them when he came up with Twilight Zone, with its emphasis on people rather than the technology.Also fascinating is how the near future is projected. As in 2001: A Space Odyssey, our advancement into space was wildly optimistic, not because it wasn't possible, but because in reality we've lacked the character to see it through. The fact that we should have settlements on Mars by now, if not manned missions to Jupiter, but don't, speaks to how contemptible we are, in choosing rather to pursue personal gratification, while accommodating the barbarous primitives among us. At the end of the Martian Chronicles is an affirmation of what we could yet be, if only we'd decide to stop wallowing in the gutter and once more reach for the stars. Too bad this message is lost on today's fatuous audience.

I would like to address my comments to the ignorant comments made by the new yorker and Laplander. they have a vestigial elements for brains and a mocking sense of verbiage that takes ironic for brilliant critiquing. for the last time MORONS: THIS IS NOT STAR WARS, TRANSFORMERS, ARMAGEDDION, DEAP IMPACT. you want to talk about stupidity, let's talk! the idiotic dialog I heard in transformers is enough to make you wrence. "it's just you and me mega tron"! one transformers job is he must get the nerd's peccadillo's to his grease monkey girlfriend, science fiction at it's most profound! Armageddon: a Juvenal attempt at film-making with that vehicle bouncing on that meteor like balsa wood. deep impact: starts off like a lifetime film about a woman who hates her husband, then somehow, after the impact, millions are on the white house lawn with freeman giving mundane dialog about how they will rebuild. the simpleton minds here are the ones who demand style over substance, mundane over the profound, and cube steak over fillet mignon. putzs, the special effects were poor maybe because NBC had the big budget, buck rogers at the time and if this film flopped in the ratings, then they had nothing to lose. it is a powerful film that can only be enjoyed by people who prefer substance and not SFX. I too saw this when I was nine and was glued to my set. true part 2 is the weakest in the link and hudson's reaction to the deaths of his comrades on the monitor was a bit over-the-top. never said it was perfect but as substance goes, right along with star trek(1979) and silent running(1971). these people were problem born in the late 80's early 90's, hence the source. d hayden

Ray Bradbury, author of "The Martian Chronicles", was reportedly deeply disappointed in this TV adaptation of his work, and it's not hard to see why. Perhaps he expected an A-list production, and it's clear from the look and feel of this brief miniseries that it was a low budget production. The visuals --- effects, costumes, and props --- are cheap and stagy; some of the dialogue is hokey, and the characterizations are thin.In spite of all these flaws, there's an atmosphere of mystery and tragedy suffusing the story that almost manages to overcome the cheap feel of the production. At its best, it's like watching a stage play with few props, using your imagination to fill in the blanks. Rock Hudson is much better than you might expect --- he certainly tries his best, and he has a few good moments.Bradbury's book was a collection of linked stories, not a novel (in fact the British edition originally deleted two stories and substituted two other Bradbury tales in their place --- one of those is dramatized here, starring Roddy McDowall). So it's hardly surprising that an adaptation of it would be equally episodic and would have some inconsistencies.Still, you get a good feel for the lost Martian civilization, dying in the shadows as Earthmen take control of the planet. Some of the best of Bradbury's stories survive, and this is a lot of fun if you accept it on its own terms.