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Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964)
Posted on: January 9, 2021
- In: movies | Vintage SciFi
- 16 Comments
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964) Directed by Byron Haskin, written by Ib Melchior and John C. Higgings, starring Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, and Adam West, 110 minutes long.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect with Robinson Crusoe on Mars. I knew this movie was from the 60s, I knew it was a modernized/scifi version of Defoe’s 18th century novel Robinson Crusoe, and I knew this movie filmed and released before we actually knew what the surface of Mars was really like. And that’s all I knew.
I wasn’t expecting a good movie.
And you know what? Compared to movies that came out in the last ten years, well, yes, Robinson Crusoe on Mars sucks. BUT. like many classic works, you have to adapt your lens, to see it the way people at the time may have seen it. Once I realized this movie wasn’t about about being stranded on a realistic Mars, but a movie about a man who was stranded somewhere inhospitable, and what he went through to survive, the movie and the story gets far more enjoyable. And the special effects were pretty darn good for the time! So check your 2020 expectations at the doors, folks.
Did you read Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in high school? I didn’t, and had to look it up on Wikipedia. The big plot points of the original are fairly straightforward – experienced sailor gets shipwrecked and makes it to an island where he believes he is alone. How to survive if no one comes looking for him because no one knows he’s alive? Yeah, anyway, he finds that cannibals are using this island to kill their prisoners. One of their prisoners escapes, and he and Crusoe become allies. Not being able to understand the man’s language, Crusoe names him Friday and starts trying to convert the guy to Christianity. Friday is viewed as a loyal servant. They save more of the prisoners and kill the cannibals. Eventually they are rescued.
Knowing the plot of the original Robinson Crusoe makes plot moments in this movie make SO MUCH MORE SENSE, I’m just sayin’!
What Robinson Crusoe on Mars does very, VERY well, is showing the desolation and loneliness that Kit Draper is facing on Mars. With only the friendly monkey Mona for company, Kit has to stave off the fears that no one knows how to find him, and that he may never hear another human’s voice again, or see another human again, and there’s a very high chance that he will die alone and far from home. The scenes of him just walking, and walking, and walking, on desolate plains that are completely devoid of life were quite effective. The hobbies he invents, to cope with all the nothingness, were relatable in this current day and age of social distancing.
- In: movies
- 4 Comments
Finally! I’m writing a spoiler-free post! There might be some easter eggs in this post, but no spoilers. that means you can’t put spoilers in the comments either.
We went and saw the Annihilation movie last weekend. I knew it was going to be different from the book (and oh boy was it different), and I was nervous the screenwriter was gonna screw it up and that I’d hate it.
Good news! I freakin’ loved it!
And now for a spoiler free discussion about some huge that is way different in the movie than in the book. I am of course, talking about the ending. You know, that big climactic scene with the big climactic music where the biologist finally reaches the geographic goal of the expedition and gets some exposure to what the hell is actually going on.
This climactic scene is drastically different than anything that happens in the book, and there are two items in the scene that sort of take the place of other things that happen much earlier in the book.
Anyway.
The big climactic scene with the big climactic music?
I fucking loved it.
It was surreal, it was shocking, it was mindblowing, it was beautifully done, it was violent but somehow peaceful it was claustrophobically overwhelming it didn’t require or ask for my understanding.
ok, but why did I respond so positively to that scene? I can’t get it out of my head, I really had this very strong reaction to it, like there was this weird magnetic pull, like I was staring into a black hole or a supernova. It felt like the first time I saw the Milky Way, that i had to grab onto something because I was afraid i was going to fall off of the Earth and if I did it would be ok because I’d be falling towards that.
I’ve been thinking about it, trying to figure out why that scene worked so well for me.
After thinking about it for a few days, I finally figured it out.
The big climactic scene has hardly any dialog. It’s all non-verbal communication and physical movement, with moments that border on interpretive modern dance. it was all motion and sound, no words to muddy anything. I was drawn to that scene for the same reason I loved the first episodes of Samurai Jack: minimal dialog.
And I guess I often find words needlessly distracting, they box me in, I have to figure out what the inflection and context mean. don’t get me wrong, i love words, i love books, i love reading. But spoken word sometimes doesn’t work for me (or it works too well – I get all distracted by the pitch of the person’s voice and the shape of the syllables). With minimal dialog in that climactic scene, I was finally able to focus on the bigness of what was happening. I could focus on it on my own terms, with my own interpretation.
in my opinion, the lack of dialog was a brilliant choice. Your mileage may vary.
Have you seen Annihilation? did you like it? If you didn’t read the book, and went and saw the movie, did it make any sense to you? Even though it was very different from the book, I feel like the movie was a stack of easter eggs for fans of the book.
no spoilers in the comments, please.
- In: coming of age | movies
- 6 Comments
Up In The Air and The Devil Wears Prada are basically the same movie, and they aren’t what you think they’re about.
I adore Anna Kendrick, and I’ve seen Up in the Air about 10 times. I laugh at all the travel scenes, because I’ve been there done that (and the St Louis airport has some surprisingly nice restaurants). Up In the Air is a good, but not great movie. And with The Devil Wears Prada who can say no to an all-star cast of Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt? So these are obviously two really fun movies for me. These two movies are supposed to coming of age stories about young women who chase a dream career and blah blah blah . . .
Coming of age story? Yeah, well, they aren’t about that at all. Imma gonna spoil the plots for you, okay? Both movies have nearly identical plots, that among other things, are pretty predictable. So I don’t feel like I’m actually spoiling anything important here.
Anna Kendrick in Up In The Air
the Little Red Reviewer 
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