The Martian Chronicles: The 1980 film and the book...

[Starkers]

I loved the 80s serial. It had a great alien feel to it, didn't they film on Malta or somewhere else a little out of the ordinary? Fantastic musical score as well. The budget was low but I could get past that. Don't think its ever been released on (R2) DVD.

 

[Starbreaker]

I love the book; read it in one sitting. This also led to me to read about 100 other Bradbury short stories that week.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Bits were "remade" as part of the half-hour Ray Bradbury Theater (low budget anthology series) in the late 80's.

The first expedition where the Martians recreate an ideal Earth town just to kill off the astronauts (the final shot shows a martian hand like those in the 50's WAR OF THE WORLDS movie)

There was the one with the 2nd(?) Earth expedition who Martians think are crazy martians (was that even in the mini series?). Martians looking basically human here.

David Carradine is the guy in the third expedition who turns on the others (or was he a Martian appearing as him? I don't remember.).

John Vernon stars as the father whose "son" comes back to him and his wife, but the son is really a Martian.

No, the second expedition with the crazy Martians wasn't in the 1980 series with Hudson....(I do vaguely remember seeing a clip of that episode from the Ray Bradbury years back, though. I'm guessing it was probably on the Sci-fi channel).

 

[Chess Piece Face]

Loved both of them. And I also love the Fahrenheit 451 movie, as well as the fantastic Slaughter House Five movie (Vonnegut, not Ray, I know).

Those crazy old sci fi movies rule.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

I like the miniseries but it seemed like they only had a $1.98 budget for the special effects.

And they were shitty as hell; Bradbury called the rockets 'flying phalluses (penises) that looked as if they belonged in a 1934 Buck Rogers comic strip'.

 

[JediKnightButler]

Don't mean to *hijack* the thread (if that's what I'm doing) but I seem to remember reading a Ray Bradbury story about astronauts that travel to another planet only to find out that appears to be identical to their own but they later realize that their memories/images are being manipulated by aliens- kind of like what the Caretaker was doing from ST:VOY. Was this part of the Martian Chronicles stories- or something else entirely?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

It was ... the story, within the The Martian Chronicles, was called "The Third Expedition."

 

[Temis the Vorta]

After seeing that lousy list of sf/f shows in development for 2010-11, I really have to wonder why anyone won't give The Martian Chronicles another try.

 

[Greg Cox]

Because it's basically an anthology, and there hasn't been a hit anthology show for years . . . .

 

[JediKnightButler]

It was ... the story, within the The Martian Chronicles, was called "The Third Expedition."

Thanks for the info!

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Anytime. The Martian Chronicles is a solid example of sci-fi as art so I'm more than happy to spread the word about reading, enjoying, and appreciating it.

 

[JediKnightButler]

Anytime. The Martian Chronicles is a solid example of sci-fi as art so I'm more than happy to spread the word about reading, enjoying, and appreciating it.

I think I'll definitely check it out. I read some of the summaries of the stories on Wikipedia (thanks for the link) and they sounded very intriguing. I like good "Twilight Zone-ish" stories.