Many have complained of the obvious blunders made in this movie. Instantaneous communication. A one man crew followed by another. An overall feeling of depression and failure. An untested and un-perfected device. One man's desire to give up everything for one moment of wonder.
I didn't think this movie was terrible. In fact, if we were looking at a man's hallucination as he died in the desert, it was just this side of brilliant. This is how I'm going to approach it. The closest movie like it might be "Love." You have an untested invention on a one man ship piloted by a man who, as far as I know, isn't an astronaut. He has the training, but it seems that since he makes many mistakes and doesn't seem to have the "stay on mission" attitude, then he's the invention creator who just happens to want to be the first living creature on Mars and ends up on a one man ship bound for his destination. He's being followed by a woman astronaut who is also in a one person crew ship. This just doesn't make sense unless you're dying in the desert and making it up as you go along.
The second ship's gyroscopes stop working so she has to turn around. The man at the space station tells him to give up. He's not going to give up though, not until he reaches Mars. It's interesting that his contact at "Mission Control" is the friend who was waiting for him to come back from the desert.
The strange nebula and cloud sequences reminded me of the cloud sequences in the "Flash Gordon" movie. Definitely not something you'd encounter in our solar system. In fact, as he edged closer to madness and death, none of it made sense. Then he finally reached Mars and seemed to come to his senses. Is this some final push to envision what the planet would look like? It was a relatively simple landing after such a journey fraught with mistakes.
I choose to regard the movie in this light because I don't believe the writer would make such obvious blunders in a story that was well acted and filmed. And so I give it a strong 6 stars.
I didn't think this movie was terrible. In fact, if we were looking at a man's hallucination as he died in the desert, it was just this side of brilliant. This is how I'm going to approach it. The closest movie like it might be "Love." You have an untested invention on a one man ship piloted by a man who, as far as I know, isn't an astronaut. He has the training, but it seems that since he makes many mistakes and doesn't seem to have the "stay on mission" attitude, then he's the invention creator who just happens to want to be the first living creature on Mars and ends up on a one man ship bound for his destination. He's being followed by a woman astronaut who is also in a one person crew ship. This just doesn't make sense unless you're dying in the desert and making it up as you go along.
The second ship's gyroscopes stop working so she has to turn around. The man at the space station tells him to give up. He's not going to give up though, not until he reaches Mars. It's interesting that his contact at "Mission Control" is the friend who was waiting for him to come back from the desert.
The strange nebula and cloud sequences reminded me of the cloud sequences in the "Flash Gordon" movie. Definitely not something you'd encounter in our solar system. In fact, as he edged closer to madness and death, none of it made sense. Then he finally reached Mars and seemed to come to his senses. Is this some final push to envision what the planet would look like? It was a relatively simple landing after such a journey fraught with mistakes.
I choose to regard the movie in this light because I don't believe the writer would make such obvious blunders in a story that was well acted and filmed. And so I give it a strong 6 stars.