Viewed initially 8 years after broadcast, I was quite impressed with this "Mars" opener, appreciating the documentary-style approach adopted. The early 1950s sci-fi movies like "Rocketship X-M" and "Destination: Moon" similarly took such a tack, and I much preferred it to the more recent melodramatic space movies, certainly the trend in the wake of "Alien"'s success.
I recall when "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released how much it affected me -watching it several times in the Cinerama format, even sitting up close to the screen for the immersive effect of the Curved screen, similar to attending a play in Theater in the round seating. I also remember how Kubrick edited the movie after early screenings, cutting out much of Gary Lockwood's footage on the voyage as being redundant and slowing down the movie -Keir Dullea's daily activities sufficing. In this fashion, I thought it was a great idea to skip entirely the 7-month trip from Earth to "Mars" in this series, taking us directly to the drama of the hazardous landing, without acclimating the viewer to life in space, as Kubrick and so many other movies over 50-plus years have given us that vicarious experience.
Casting Jihae in a leading role was a great choice: her granite-chiseled features are so different and commanding, compared to the traditional beauties in space that femme roles have delivered from Zsa Zsa Gabor through to Sigourney Weaver, etc.
Elon Musk's on-screen importance in the documentary sections of this first episode had me wondering. Clearly, as of 2016 he was a central figure in the proposed "man living on Mars" project due to Space X's importance, and he seems quite reasonable here. But flash-forward several years and we have Musk's obsession with X (f/k/a Twitter) quite disturbing as diverting his attention from Mars to instead becoming a leading backer of misinformation. Do we need a right-wing nutcase in charge of such an important project?-obviously not. And the series' choice of 2033 as date of a manned Mars mission was clearly way too ambitious a projection.
I recall when "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released how much it affected me -watching it several times in the Cinerama format, even sitting up close to the screen for the immersive effect of the Curved screen, similar to attending a play in Theater in the round seating. I also remember how Kubrick edited the movie after early screenings, cutting out much of Gary Lockwood's footage on the voyage as being redundant and slowing down the movie -Keir Dullea's daily activities sufficing. In this fashion, I thought it was a great idea to skip entirely the 7-month trip from Earth to "Mars" in this series, taking us directly to the drama of the hazardous landing, without acclimating the viewer to life in space, as Kubrick and so many other movies over 50-plus years have given us that vicarious experience.
Casting Jihae in a leading role was a great choice: her granite-chiseled features are so different and commanding, compared to the traditional beauties in space that femme roles have delivered from Zsa Zsa Gabor through to Sigourney Weaver, etc.
Elon Musk's on-screen importance in the documentary sections of this first episode had me wondering. Clearly, as of 2016 he was a central figure in the proposed "man living on Mars" project due to Space X's importance, and he seems quite reasonable here. But flash-forward several years and we have Musk's obsession with X (f/k/a Twitter) quite disturbing as diverting his attention from Mars to instead becoming a leading backer of misinformation. Do we need a right-wing nutcase in charge of such an important project?-obviously not. And the series' choice of 2033 as date of a manned Mars mission was clearly way too ambitious a projection.