(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Astronauts, and their robotic dog AMEE (Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion), search for solutions to save a dying Earth by searching on Mars, only to have the mission go terribly awry.”
Surprisingly, I’ve seen Red Planet (2000) more times than any one person should ever need.
Now, don’t take that as an assessment of its quality because – in all honesty – this little picture is occasionally a bit of mess. The script attributed to Chuck Parrer and Jonathan Lemkin never quite figured out what it wanted to be, sometimes feeling like a homegrown space adventure where Artificial Intelligence – not unlike The Terminator – has found us inferior and sets out to rule the Martian roost. Still, in other spots, Planet tries very hard to be that ubiquitous SciFi/Romance – a rarity if ever there were – where two star-crossed souls find themselves against the backdrop of space exploration. But the sad thing is that there are even more places wherein this 100+ minute morality play has all the makings of an episode of the classic Star Trek, albeit one where not every member of the crew makes it out alive.
The difficulty is presenting a story with so accommodating an aesthetic is that audiences tend to gravitate more strongly toward a cohesive whole they can either identify with or – minimally – understand the plain stakes. It’s for this reason that I’ve spent so much time with Red Planet: I wanted desperately to understand why it didn’t coalesce around a central narrative, so I sat through it (on DVD over the years) a few times. Thankfully, this isn’t the only project I’ve done this with, but it is one whose central shortcomings still elude me to this day. And, yes, that’s frustrating.
Essentially, Planet starts out with the standard Hollywood trope: in the near future, we’ve pretty much destroyed Earth and need to establish colonies elsewhere, the most obvious planet of which would be Mars. For reasons these future scientists don’t understand, our terraforming efforts from afar have broken down, mustering up the need to send a ship and a crew to the world to investigate. Space – being forever an inhospitable host – throws several monkey wrenches into the mix once the crew arrives, forcing the specialists into a somewhat ‘crashed landing’ situation while the brave female captain Bowman (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) stays in orbit trying to repair their craft’s damage for the return voyage. On the surface below, the men – Chantilas (Terence Stamp), Santen (Benjamin Bratt), Pettengil (Simon Baker), Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), and Gallagher (Val Kilmer) – succumb to differing threats one-by-one, leaving them in a race for survival against the elements and a murderous robot gone haywire owed to no fault of their own.
Now, I’ve spent a bit of time with this new release from Arrow Films – one of the best distributors in the business – in hopes of uncovering some glint of information to help me better grasp why the flick has never quite worked for me. The only thing that I came across – which was really more an affirmation of things I already knew to a small degree – was that some elements of Planet’s final story kinda/sorta emerged while it was actually in production. For those of you who didn’t know this, it was an effort heavily plagued by – shall we say? – cast disagreements, arguments so heated that both Kilmer and Sizemore refused to appear on set together at any time. (I’ve even read that restraining orders were taken out on each other, but I’ve never seen that substantiated.) If you’ve seen Planet, then you realize what difficulties this created as their two characters – and their planet-bound friendship – arguably carry the second half of the picture.
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Astronauts, and their robotic dog AMEE (Autonomous Mapping Evaluation and Evasion), search for solutions to save a dying Earth by searching on Mars, only to have the mission go terribly awry.”
Surprisingly, I’ve seen Red Planet (2000) more times than any one person should ever need.
Now, don’t take that as an assessment of its quality because – in all honesty – this little picture is occasionally a bit of mess. The script attributed to Chuck Parrer and Jonathan Lemkin never quite figured out what it wanted to be, sometimes feeling like a homegrown space adventure where Artificial Intelligence – not unlike The Terminator – has found us inferior and sets out to rule the Martian roost. Still, in other spots, Planet tries very hard to be that ubiquitous SciFi/Romance – a rarity if ever there were – where two star-crossed souls find themselves against the backdrop of space exploration. But the sad thing is that there are even more places wherein this 100+ minute morality play has all the makings of an episode of the classic Star Trek, albeit one where not every member of the crew makes it out alive.
The difficulty is presenting a story with so accommodating an aesthetic is that audiences tend to gravitate more strongly toward a cohesive whole they can either identify with or – minimally – understand the plain stakes. It’s for this reason that I’ve spent so much time with Red Planet: I wanted desperately to understand why it didn’t coalesce around a central narrative, so I sat through it (on DVD over the years) a few times. Thankfully, this isn’t the only project I’ve done this with, but it is one whose central shortcomings still elude me to this day. And, yes, that’s frustrating.
Essentially, Planet starts out with the standard Hollywood trope: in the near future, we’ve pretty much destroyed Earth and need to establish colonies elsewhere, the most obvious planet of which would be Mars. For reasons these future scientists don’t understand, our terraforming efforts from afar have broken down, mustering up the need to send a ship and a crew to the world to investigate. Space – being forever an inhospitable host – throws several monkey wrenches into the mix once the crew arrives, forcing the specialists into a somewhat ‘crashed landing’ situation while the brave female captain Bowman (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) stays in orbit trying to repair their craft’s damage for the return voyage. On the surface below, the men – Chantilas (Terence Stamp), Santen (Benjamin Bratt), Pettengil (Simon Baker), Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), and Gallagher (Val Kilmer) – succumb to differing threats one-by-one, leaving them in a race for survival against the elements and a murderous robot gone haywire owed to no fault of their own.
Now, I’ve spent a bit of time with this new release from Arrow Films – one of the best distributors in the business – in hopes of uncovering some glint of information to help me better grasp why the flick has never quite worked for me. The only thing that I came across – which was really more an affirmation of things I already knew to a small degree – was that some elements of Planet’s final story kinda/sorta emerged while it was actually in production. For those of you who didn’t know this, it was an effort heavily plagued by – shall we say? – cast disagreements, arguments so heated that both Kilmer and Sizemore refused to appear on set together at any time. (I’ve even read that restraining orders were taken out on each other, but I’ve never seen that substantiated.) If you’ve seen Planet, then you realize what difficulties this created as their two characters – and their planet-bound friendship – arguably carry the second half of the picture.
In his interview available on the Arrow Films’ release, special effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun details the extent to which the Kilmer/Sizemore feud derailed the production. The man also highlights precisely how some digital challenges were resolved on the set; and he expands upon the lengths to which he had address a good number of these creative issues on the fly. To the man’s credit, his work rather seamlessly pulled a lot of these loose ends together – so much so that I suspect the majority of the audience was properly fooled – but because his account also clarifies that some trickery had to be resolved whilst the feature was actively being shot, there is the lingering suggestion that some elements were changed so that producers could stay under budget.
Of course, I’ve absolutely no way to know today precisely how much of this imaginative problem solving ultimately effected the end product; but – as a reasonable person – I’m willing to venture a guess that it did require significant course corrections. Planet always felt to me like there were – for lack of a better phrase – band-aids applied to cover up the scars here and there because there was no way to halt production entirely and let the healing begin. No development moves organically from one to the next; and – thematically – the finished product feels very much like it was pasted together more out of necessity than anything else. As a consequence, Moss’ voiceovers – while interesting – only serve to frame a rather impromptu romance between her and her subordinate, never quite justifying the reason for their attraction except that … well … she’s hot and so is he.
I don’t often do this, but I think Planet could’ve been better received had this actually been a Star Trek-style fable. Imagine that some Earth corporation or institution in the distant future had set about the business of locating suitable worlds of expansion (someplace vastly further out than merely Mars); and – just like happens in the existing script – that science mysteriously fails. Necessarily, a captain and crew would’ve been dispatched to investigate, only to uncover some new menace or emerging science forcing mankind to rethink its place in the cosmos while racing against the clock to get out alive. While that thing has been done before, it generally interests ticket-buyers when it’s done right; and such a simple change could’ve been the foundation for a new SciFi franchise.
Red Planet (2000) was produced by Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, NPV Entertainment, The Canton Company, Mars Production Pty. Ltd., and Zaman Productions. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Arrow Films. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, wow. Seriously, Planet was always a pretty good-looking film technically, but this 4K upgrade both looks and sounds incredible. While the space fire sequences are still a bit underwhelming (they’re just so obviously CGI), Okun and his team truly put the lion’s share of their budget to excellent use throughout, as did the costume and set designers. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Finally, Planet is getting its due, and Arrow has produced some interviews, a visual essay, and some deleted scenes (nothing revelatory) to give fans something worthy of the investment.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended except if you’re considering the upgrade because this is definitely worth the purchase.
While some might suggest that there are a myriad of small problems that keep a flick like Red Planet (2000) from truly achieving anything significant, I tend to chalk its general failure to being a film that didn’t know what it wanted to be. Part space adventure, part psychological drama, and part morality tale, it isn’t quite Star Trek enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with that franchise; and yet it shares some of the same storytelling DNA which suggests perhaps that was a better way forward. That and a whole lot of bad press in the industry trades portend that maybe this little film was never ever going to go boldly where no one had gone before, and instead it sits where it is – on our big blue marble – waiting to be discovered and appreciated for what it is … which is pretty forgettable.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Arrow Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray copy of Red Planet (2000) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
Of course, I’ve absolutely no way to know today precisely how much of this imaginative problem solving ultimately effected the end product; but – as a reasonable person – I’m willing to venture a guess that it did require significant course corrections. Planet always felt to me like there were – for lack of a better phrase – band-aids applied to cover up the scars here and there because there was no way to halt production entirely and let the healing begin. No development moves organically from one to the next; and – thematically – the finished product feels very much like it was pasted together more out of necessity than anything else. As a consequence, Moss’ voiceovers – while interesting – only serve to frame a rather impromptu romance between her and her subordinate, never quite justifying the reason for their attraction except that … well … she’s hot and so is he.
I don’t often do this, but I think Planet could’ve been better received had this actually been a Star Trek-style fable. Imagine that some Earth corporation or institution in the distant future had set about the business of locating suitable worlds of expansion (someplace vastly further out than merely Mars); and – just like happens in the existing script – that science mysteriously fails. Necessarily, a captain and crew would’ve been dispatched to investigate, only to uncover some new menace or emerging science forcing mankind to rethink its place in the cosmos while racing against the clock to get out alive. While that thing has been done before, it generally interests ticket-buyers when it’s done right; and such a simple change could’ve been the foundation for a new SciFi franchise.
Red Planet (2000) was produced by Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, NPV Entertainment, The Canton Company, Mars Production Pty. Ltd., and Zaman Productions. DVD distribution (for this particular release) has been coordinated by the fine folks at Arrow Films. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, wow. Seriously, Planet was always a pretty good-looking film technically, but this 4K upgrade both looks and sounds incredible. While the space fire sequences are still a bit underwhelming (they’re just so obviously CGI), Okun and his team truly put the lion’s share of their budget to excellent use throughout, as did the costume and set designers. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? Finally, Planet is getting its due, and Arrow has produced some interviews, a visual essay, and some deleted scenes (nothing revelatory) to give fans something worthy of the investment.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended except if you’re considering the upgrade because this is definitely worth the purchase.
While some might suggest that there are a myriad of small problems that keep a flick like Red Planet (2000) from truly achieving anything significant, I tend to chalk its general failure to being a film that didn’t know what it wanted to be. Part space adventure, part psychological drama, and part morality tale, it isn’t quite Star Trek enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with that franchise; and yet it shares some of the same storytelling DNA which suggests perhaps that was a better way forward. That and a whole lot of bad press in the industry trades portend that maybe this little film was never ever going to go boldly where no one had gone before, and instead it sits where it is – on our big blue marble – waiting to be discovered and appreciated for what it is … which is pretty forgettable.
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Arrow Films provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray copy of Red Planet (2000) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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