Monday, July 26, 2010

MARTIAN CHRONICLES (1980) TV Guide Ads

More ads from my collection, this time for the 1980 NBC miniseries, The Martian Chronicles, starring Rock Hudson.

I enjoyed this three-part television miniseries adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic novel/story cycle as a kid, and when I bought the DVD a few years ago, I enjoyed watching it again. Helmed by Logan's Run director Michael Anderson from a teleplay by the great Richard Matheson, The Martian Chronicles was something of a television event back in the Winter of 1980. It's far from perfect - the effects are remarkably primitive for a post-Star Wars production, and the adaptation lacks much of Bradbury's poetry - but it has a fascinating cast, an occasionally eerie atmosphere, and was remarkably ambitious for its time.

I expect I'll be writing a full review one of these days.

5 comments:

  1. I remember my family gathering in the living room to watch these when they first aired. I was very, very young (like, five) so I didn't really understand what was going on, but the barren visuals had a huge impact on me. It wasn't until I saw the series again years later that I realized that many of my drawings and doodles over the years had unconsciously drawn on motifs from the Martian Chronicles' set design (the martian masks, too).

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  2. I, too, was very young, but I had the advantage of having a Bradbury fan for my mother. I was entranced by the Martians, and also terrified of them. But they were so quickly out of the series.

    The last time I viewed the series, many years ago, I too noticed the primitive sets and effects. But it was a very passable adaption of what was one of my favorite reads.

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  3. I didn't catch this when it originally aired on NBC. No, my experience with it was during a high school trip to Germany in April 1983, dubbed in German, after an evening at Munich's Hofbrauhaus, and my first experience ever being drunk. I was trying to retranslate it back into English and it just wasn't working.

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  4. I hope you get around to reviewing this. I was twelve or thirteen when it aired and I have seen it twice since. Still love it dearly. It captures a certain wistfulness and melancholy that I don't often see anymore. The miniatures work was astoundingly bad but the sets and the actors and the soundtrack and even the narration all make it highly watchable. I probably would hate any attempt at a remake.

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  5. Was there anything Bernadette Peters didn't turn up in back then? She came out of the faucets hot and cold.

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