Mars Attacks: Satire or Suck?
Brad Simpson
I've seen Mars Attacks three times now, and I'm still debating on whether I
really like it or not. There are some parts in the movie that are
brilliantly funny (blowing up Congress, the heads in love), but I couldn't
decide if some parts were satire or were actually just cheesy. The
situation where the two kids are home shooting video game aliens and then
later get a real gun and shoot real aliens: is this satire or is it a lame
plot development. I thought there were many characters that were
underdeveloped and just not very funny: Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox, Jim
Brown, etc.. I appreciated the parody of how other disaster / alien movies
have tons of characters that we are supposed to relate to, but they could
have been given better lines. I think this was a good movie that could
have been made great with a script rewrite.
ELFMANIAC
Brad Simpson wrote:
>
> I thought there were many characters that were
> underdeveloped and just not very funny: Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox, Jim
> Brown, etc..
In my opinion Brown was well rounded compared to the "character" driven
perfs of Annette Benning and Pierce Brosnan.
He may not be the best actor in the world, but his character called for
him to be an ex-athlete...
> I appreciated the parody of how other disaster / alien movies
> have tons of characters that we are supposed to relate to, but they could
> have been given better lines. I think this was a good movie that could
> have been made great with a script rewrite.
That is what I have been thinking. Having watched the film 6 times - 4 in
theaters and 2 times on video, the script's jokes are not holding up as well.
What is holding up is Sylvia Sidney, Jack Black and the undeniable Martin Short.
Their characters call for less linguistic humor and more physical which
saves them from the weak Johnathan Gems script.
elf...@ibm.net
Danny Elfman's MUSIC FOR A DARKENED PEOPLE
http://members.tripod.com/~ELFMAN
AbeScott
After being grilled under hot lights, Brad Simpson wrote:
> I thought there were many characters that were
> underdeveloped and just not very funny: Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox,
Jim
> Brown, etc..
WHAT??? Danny DeVito has one of the (If not the) funniest line in the
movie!!!
"Hey! Your Tom Jones right? 'It ain't unusual' Tom! Tom!"
That It AIN'T Unusual line cracks me up every time....
As for Fox......he was not funny. That is why we felt so good when the
martians fried 'im!!!
Abraham Scissorhands & Lil' Remmy
::) <----This be remmy
--
"Cloning is unetchical. Man is trying to be god."--Dr. John Carol, PHD.
"God Shmod, I want my monkeyman!'--Bart Simpson
"So, I says blue M&M, red M&M, they all wind up the same color in the
end."-Homer Simpson
1-718-387-6962
Skusfile
Even though i also wonder why Burton made Mars Attacks into a comedy (the
cards weren't humorous) i'm glad he did. I loved Mars Attacks and feel
that it was highy underated. Besides the same cast minus the comedy would
have really sucked.
Paul Dossett
Skusfile (skus...@aol.com) said:
>Even though i also wonder why Burton made Mars Attacks into a comedy (the
>cards weren't humorous) i'm glad he did. I loved Mars Attacks and feel
Excuse me? The cards are full of black humour. Perhaps you missed the
inherent absurdity of the martian frying a child's dog in front of him and
giant bugs running about abducting women?
>that it was highy underated. Besides the same cast minus the comedy would
>have really sucked.
Sure, it was underrated, because the general populace don't seem to
understand satire or black comedy..
--
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Knut Sjurseth
> A dummied down version was released last year. I believe the name of the
film
> was INDEPENDENCE DAY or something? ;)
You call ID4 a satiorical comedy???
-Knut-
ELFMANIAC
ID4 was more of a homage to bad movies than to sci-fi ones...
Robert...@teleport.com
> >Even though i also wonder why Burton made Mars Attacks into a comedy (the
> >cards weren't humorous) i'm glad he did. I loved Mars Attacks and feel
> Excuse me? The cards are full of black humour. Perhaps you missed the
> inherent absurdity of the martian frying a child's dog in front of him and
> giant bugs running about abducting women?
> >that it was highy underated. Besides the same cast minus the comedy would
> >have really sucked.
> Sure, it was underrated, because the general populace don't seem to
> understand satire or black comedy..
>>>>
Nope. It's not that "the general populace (doesn't) seem to understand
satire" it's that you have to have more than a half an ounce of brains to
understand satire, i.e. you have to be able to see that things aren't what
they seem to be. I recall seeing Dr. Strangelove on Nov. 23, 1963 and
only myself and two of my friends were laughing so hard that our sides
ached, the rest of the audience took it as a s-e-r-i-o-u-s film....huh?
Of course JFK had his brains blown out the day before, but, come on
folks....
The same thing happened when I saw Mars Attacks!, only about 1% of
the audience caught on that it wasn't just another "alien invader" movie,
it was a COMEDY, and we've got Poppin' Fresh in the White House....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FoslRock
I remember when I saw ID4 in the theatre. A chill was running up and down
my spine.
The damn air conditioning was on arctic blast and there was too much ice
in my drink.