Last March saw the theatrical release of Mars Needs Moms and Paul, two science-fiction comedies with adorable, computer-generated alien protagonists, now out on DVD. Audiences didn’t need much of either, it turned out, but the filmmakers drew on the collected history of the genre.
Paul is the most chock full of references. On the DVD commentary, co-writer and co-star Simon Pegg remarks over the opening scene: “This is very much a sort of throwback to the beginnings of Back to the Future and Poltergeist and other films that begin with a tracking shot and a dog.”
By the time the story moves to Comic-Con, the allusions come too quickly to count. Orcs from The Lord of the Rings, Buck Rogers robots and Star Wars slave girls pile up faster than Wookiees at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
There are nods as well to Star Trek, Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, even Mac and Me, but mostly to “grey aliens,” the pot-bellied, big-eyed dome-heads most of us think of when asked to imagine extraterrestrials. Paul, a classic grey voiced by Seth
Rogen, explains why: “Over the last 60 years the human race has been drip-fed images of my face on lunch boxes and T-shirts … so in case our species do meet, you don’t have a … spaz attack.”
Director Greg Mottola had never worked with a computer-generated being before. “Trying to direct an animated character feels kind of like giving an actor direction via Twitter from the other side of the globe,” he says. “You tell them something and then you find out three months later what it looks like.”
Producer Robert Zemeckis had more immediate feedback on the set of Mars Needs Moms, which was made using the motion-capture technique he pioneered on The Polar Express, Beowulf and A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey. But it was only when the film bombed at the box office that he got the real message — audiences weren’t coo-coo for mo-cap.
Mars Needs Moms made only US$21-million in North America, against a budget of US$150-million, effectively shutting down Disney’s motion-capture facility. A planned mo-cap remake of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine has been cancelled.
It’s still a sweet story, about a boy from Earth (performed by Seth Green, voiced by the much younger Seth Dusky) whose mom (Joan Cusack) is kidnapped by aliens. He follows her to the red planet to rescue her and foment a Martian revolution. Perhaps it will find a bigger audience on the small screen.
It’s probably one of the only films to feature a Martian dialogue coach. Director Simon Wells (grandson of author H.G.) says the actors ad-libbed their alien-language lines until they had something that sounded right. Coach Stephen Kearin would then write it down. “We had onstage a huge wall chart that had phrases for almost every example we needed in the movie.”
Email: cknight@nationalpost.com Twitter: chrisknightfilm
NEW DVD RELEASES
Repeaters ★★★½
Jumping the Broom ★★★
Mars Needs Moms ★★★
Gunless ★★½
Paul ★½
Your Highness ★
Also new this week
The Battle of Algiers (Criterion)
The Fox and the Hound, 30th anniversary edition
The Last Godfather
Super
Top Gear 16
New this week to Blu-ray
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Source: National Post
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