As talk of Beetlejuice 2 sets the world of pop culture abuzz with excitement, Mars Attacks fans are pondering a possible return of their favorite pulp sci-fi "evil is fun" touting lunatics from Mars. While Tim Burton's star-studded film from 1996 delivered a bombastic roller coaster ride of sci-fi comedy, there may be an opportunity to re-imagine the property that allows for the missing horror element of Mars Attacks that was a staple of the original Topps trading cards, but mostly absent from Burton's PG-13 movie.
Likely a trade-in for such a fantastic cast, overt gore may have sent Mars Attacks even further into the realm of cult status. When it was later learned that the production began with a practical FX and stop-motion animation pipeline, fans were forced to reassess what could have been. Unfortunately, CGI in 1996 pales in comparison to what's possible now, and the resurgence of practical FX that we are seeing suggest that a better marriage between the two could hit the mark much closer today. Add to that a green light on excessive gore, and Mars Attacks is worth revisiting for a potential feature film or streaming series.
While the Tim Burton film certainly has its place in the annals of pop culture history, a gorier re-imagining of the big brainy psychopaths would likely be a welcomed addition to its weird legacy. In many ways, the shameless aspect of the Martians as brutal murderers of men, women, children, and pets alike speaks to a baseline fear of extraterrestrials that brings to surface a number of provocative, if not outdated, elements that studio executives are forced to wrestle with. The absurdity of the boomer generation certainly comes to mind, forcing us to laugh at ourselves in ways that are important in digesting our shortcomings as a fearful species floating around on a rock in space. At the same time, we may one day be forced to confront a harsh reality that an alien species may not share a semblance of our human values. The challenges this presents on a philosophical level could be great thematic material to explore in a new iteration of Mars Attacks.
Let us explore the possibilities.
Mars Attacks in Other Media
Amidst the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Topps popular trading cards hit the shelves, delivering a sci-fi/horror narrative to collectors who probably felt compelled to hide the excessively violent media from their mothers. The story proposed an Earthly invasion by a cruel species of aliens, very much in the spirit of 1898's War of The Worlds by H. G. Wells, but kicking down the conservative walls that may have held the violence at bay. The Martians are forced to abandon their homeworld due to an unavoidable cosmic calamity and target Earth as their new dwelling. Cards depicted tasteless levels of gore; Martians bursting through bedroom windows to abduct women, killing cats and dogs while children watched in horror, and burning the flesh off countless civilians and soldiers. Horrible human experiments were shown conducted in Martian laboratories, as well as giant man-eating insect creatures from their homeworld unleashed on human populations (not present in Burton's film).
The narrative culminates in an earth force counter-attack where a volunteer army of humans ultimately get the upper hand and delivers the Martians a taste of their own medicine in the form of bullets and bayonets. Martian blood was red in the original series, turned green in Tim Burton's far lighter approach to the material. Robert A Heinlein's Starship Troopers also comes to mind, which was adapted into an ultraviolent 1997 film by director Paul Verhoeven and serves as a litmus for the kind of content you might expect from a more tonally accurate take on Mars Attacks.
The Mars Attacks brand continues to live on in the specialty demand for print media, which dwindles from time to time in the modern era but seems to have a passionate resurgence every few years from an audience hungry for nostalgia and the physical satisfaction of tangible media consumption. Comic Book crossovers have happened under IDW publishing between Mars Attacks and Popeye, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Judge Dredd, and even Red Sonja!
The sadistic ETs, given the iconic language of "ACK ACK!" by the Tim Burton movie, live on in a spirited realm of creativity by fans and artists alike who have elevated the brand to a kind of legendary status among pop culture gurus. While film studios may have been hesitant to revisit the bizarre brand over the last few decades, considering the Tim Burton movie was a bomb upon its initial release, there may be an opportunity in today's streaming economy to find the right budgetary range and tonally accurate approach. It's possible with the right formula, the brand may better resonate with the fan base that felt the big-budget Warner Bros. movie left out the most important ingredient to make Mars Attacks pop on-screen; lots and lots of relentless and brutal gore.
Is It Time for True Alien Terror?
Jordan Peele's upcoming film Nope appears to be leaning back into fears around extraterrestrials, though considering Peel's previous films, there may be more surprises in store for how the subject is handled. The approach to aliens in cinema tends to go one of three ways. There's the baseline fear of the unknown, arguably the most popular take with countless examples. Then there are the hopeful and magical Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. model that Steven Spielberg helped to establish. A third flavor also exists, far less popular, which is a kind of an in-between assessment of the phenomenon that can't be deemed god or bad, forcing audiences to confront a more ambiguous take on extraterrestrial life.
This more calculated meditation on the subject brings titles like 1989's Communion and 1994's Roswell: The UFO Coverup to mind. Fans of this approach may enjoy the TV series event Intruders from 1992. 2016's Arrival may be the benchmark for a thoughtful approach to space aliens. All this to say, do your homework on the subject, and then maybe we can feel less guilty about a camp-filled gorefest that could arrive in the form of a Mars Attacks remake. This way, when the aliens do arrive and turn out to be cinephiles like Joe Dante proposed in 1985's Explorers, we can show them there's a whole range of cinema on the topic and maybe laugh at the absurd ones together à la Paul from 2011.