timespace coordinates: 2020 – ’21. Texas / first manned mission to Mars / the Cydonia region / Earth-orbiting World Space Station / Mars II rescue mission / REMO (“Resupply Module”) orbiting Mars
Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise, left), Terri Fisher (Connie Nielsen, center) and Mars One Commander Luke Graham (Don Cheadle, right) watch an extraordinary living diorama of planetary history in Touchstone Pictures” adventure/drama, “Mission To Mars.” Photo credit: ILM Touchstone Pictures
Mission to Mars is a 2000 American science fiction adventure film directed by Brian De Palma, inspired by Disney‘s theme park attraction of the same name. The film depicts the first manned Mars exploration mission going awry; American astronaut Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) helps to coordinate a rescue mission for a colleague. Principal support actors were Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O’Connell, and Kim Delaney. This movie came out the same year as another Mars-themed film, Red Planet (2000). Both were unsuccessful, critically and commercially.
All the ships were based on actual NASA aircraft and used materials from real aerospace companies. The filmmakers received NASA’s most up-to-date plans for a Mars mission when making the movie. Effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman says this is a “hardware film.” Almost every location in the movie had to be created from scratch because it didn’t exist in the real world. The crew used over 14,000 gallons of paint to spray the soil “Mars red.” That dust is blown by 10 massive 350-horsepower wind machines. The crew reflected copper light onto the actors to mimic the orange atmosphere of the Martian sky.
The appearance of the “Face on Mars”, as well as the alien hologram, were modeled after the work of the famous Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncusi, especially his “Sleeping Muse”(1910).
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