Line #28 Film/MissionToMars


1	!!!'''[[DuelingMovies You may be looking]] for ''Film/RedPlanet'', which released in the same year.'''
2	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mission_to_mars_2000.jpg]]
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4	''Mission to Mars'' is a 2000 science fiction film directed by Creator/BrianDePalma, depicting a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin mission to Mars]] that gets into trouble and the ensuing rescue mission. It was inspired by the [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney theme park attraction]] of the same name that closed eight years before the film was released.
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6	The astronauts--commander Woody Blake (Creator/TimRobbins), Jim [=McConnell=] (Creator/GarySinise), Terri Fisher (Creator/ConnieNielsen), and Phil Ohlmyer (Creator/JerryOConnell)--are sent to find out what happened to the first expedition to Mars which sent a garbled DistressCall. They encounter a lot of challenges, including some in flight turbulence... in space! Where they have to do a perilous EVA repair. Mars itself is a treacherous planet, and the survivors of the previous expedition are not what they expected.
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8	!!This work features examples of:
9	%%* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler: Off he goes at the end.]]
10	* AngelicAliens: [[https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--c3e0P8Iv--/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_675,q_80,w_1200/rvxcrdrocif0ixhcofp0.jpg The Martian (a hologram)]] revealed at the end of the film, who remained behind to seed Earth with life when their race fled Mars after a meteor collision devastated the planet. They're tall, regal, feminine, and their dress and skin a strong orange in color, with InnocentBlueEyes.
11	* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
12	** Phil's DNA model spins on its own around a center of gravity - impossible considering each individual candy would be going in a circle around nothing.
13	** When Terri furiously accelerates with her jetpack towards Woody but is told to not waste its fuel and end up stranded with him, she just stops in place with a few light puffs in the opposite direction, when realistically she would need to burst backwards for just as long and powerfully as her blastoff in order to stop.
14	* BenevolentPrecursors: [[spoiler: The Martians, for seeding the Earth with life and leaving an artifact that will take one of their successors to their new home]].
15	* BittersweetEnding: The crew gets to go home [[spoiler: but Jim leaves on the ancient spacecraft to reach the Martians in their new home]].
16	* BlackDudeDiesFirst: {{Inverted\|Trope}}. In the initial tangle with the whatever-it-is on Mars, Luke (the black dude in question) is the only survivor.
17	* BrokenAce: Jim. He and his wife Maggie were huge Mars enthusiasts and trained together for the first human mission until an illness took her life and crippled Jim's spirits to the point he got rejected from the program for refusing psych evaluations. In spite of that, Woody insists on having Jim as his co-pilot because he's still one of the best astronauts they got.
18	* CentrifugalGravity: The Mars missions each use a ship with a rotating habitat area for centrifugal gravity generation. The gang had a lot of fun dancing Zero-G style in the central hub! Apparently, the cockpit module also served as a lander and return vehicle, leaving the question of whether or not the cockpit would re-couple with the drive section possibly left in orbit or if the astronauts would spend the return voyage completely in zero gravity.
19	* ChekhovsGag: The comedic scene Phil making a DNA out of M&Ms in zero gravity later gives Jim a EurekaMoment when he realizes the true meaning of the DNA with missing parts from the Face's signal after scattering some M&Ms on the floor. The movie beats the viewer over the head with it by going as far as to FlashbackCut to the earlier scene that foreshadowed it.
20	* CollapsingLair: [[spoiler: The Face on Mars is torn down as Jim's ship departs.]]
21	* ContinuousDecompression: After the micro-meteoroid storm hits the ship slowly decompresses until all the holes can be located and sealed.
22	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The fate shown of one of the crewmates on the ''Mars I'' voyage; he gets spun around so fast his head liquidates into blood[[note]][[FreezeFrameBonus if you slow down or pause the scene at just the right time, you can see his face]] [[UncannyValley is practically streching itself unnaturally]][[/note]], then his body gets torn apart.
23	* DisproportionateRetribution: It might be just a bad case of [[BlueAndOrangeMorality alien thinking]], but [[spoiler:murdering Luke's team over "sending the wrong answer" with a killer sand tornado instead of simply not doing anything and not letting them pass makes the Martians a bit less 'Benevolent' Precursors.]]
24	* DistressCall: Luke sends one after the twister of the Face on Mars kills his whole crew leaving him stranded.
25	* DramaticSpaceDrifting: [[spoiler: Woody's corpse, after he kills himself via freezing in the vacuum of space]].
26	* EasilyForgiven: [[spoiler: The protagonists including Luke never bring up the fact that the Martians, alien thinking or not, still caused the deaths of the innocent people of ''Mars I'''s team for assuming that their radar signal was an attempt of breaking in.]]
27	* ExtyYearsFromPublication: The movie came out in 2000 and takes place in 2020.
28	* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Luke Graham is consoling his son, Bobby, he mentions that he is more than happy to read along with him in ''Literature/TreasureIsland'' while he is on his mission, and is eager find out how Ben Gunn got marooned. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Graham ends up in pretty much the same situation, just on Mars instead of a desert island.]]
29	* GoryDiscretionShot: We’re spared seeing the fate of the first astronaut that gets sucked into the sentient vortex. [[CruelAndUnusualDeath The second one, on the other hand…]]
30	* HeroicSuicide: [[spoiler:Poor Woody takes off his helmet, rather than watch his wife make pointless attempts to save him and possibly doom herself at the same time.]]
31	* HopeSpot: [[spoiler: Terri's grappling hook turning out to be just a few feet away from Woody's grasp, much to her dismay.]]
32	* IChooseToStay: [[spoiler:The Martians left a spacecraft that can [[StayWithTheAliens take a future visitor to their new home]]. Jim salutes his companions and decides to boldly go himself]].
33	* InnocentInnuendo: Much fun is had at the expense of a guy who refers to himself as a "Stick Jockey".
34	* IWantMyJetPack: In 2020, man still hasn't stepped foot on Mars nor has NASA made the ''[[Film/TwoThousandAndOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]''-looking centrifugal gravity stuff a reality. Of course, since 2020 has come and gone, it makes it all AlternateHistory now.
35	* LonelyPianoPiece: Rather, Lonely ''Electric Guitar'' Piece: "A Heart Beats In Space".
36	* LookBehindYou: Done in a spooky way, ''TWICE!''
37	* {{Martians}}: The movie's Martians are tall, feminine, peaceful humanoids who left Mars to escape the havoc caused by a massive meteorite impact.
38	* MoodWhiplash: Early on the heartwarming/funny banter between Woody, Luke and Jim comes to a screeching halt when the latter comments that his late wife Maggie would've loved to see them just one more time, and gets visibly emotional about it to the point he excuses himself out to go get another beer.
39	* MyLifeFlashedBeforeMyEyes: While [[spoiler: taking off on the Martian spacecraft, Jim]] sees a series of memory snippets, including some earlier scenes of the movie and [[spoiler: the time spent with Maggie]], which makes him smile in a "All my choices and life events brought me here" way.
40	* NarratingTheObvious: The holographic sequence that shows the history of Mars and the birth of life on Earth could've been a pretty good piece of SilenceIsGolden storytelling backed up by Music/EnnioMorricone's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwMbmW9ith4 A Martian]]''... if it wasn't for Jim, Terri and Luke needing to chime in with [[SarcasmMode acute]] observations such as: "That's where they went!", "Look, one stayed behind!", "They seeded Earth!" etc.
41	* NeverTrustATrailer: The trailer focuses on the early line of "there might be water/life on Mars," but nothing in the trailer suggests that the A Plot would be a rescue mission.
42	* NoOSHACompliance: While OSHA's jurisdiction over the Mars mission spacecraft and hab is debatable, the fact that there are many lapses in basic design safety aren't. Among the most glaring:
43	** Computers that require atmosphere to work is a major safety fault. In the event of life support failure, the humans have enough trying to kill them -- having their computers slowly going Daisy Bell on them sure isn't going to help anyone.
44	** Not protecting critical propulsion hardware (not to mention fuel-carrying lines) at all. Whipple shields should've been guarding almost every square inch of the ship, as they do today with much of the ISS.
45	** No crew refuge in the ship. Without pressure bulkheads, the ship's interior cannot be compartmentalized, which means any loss of pressure anywhere will (and does) affect the entire ship.
46	** No systems or checks in place to monitor fuel flow rate and pressure for any transients that would indicate leakage, nor a flow-rate failsafe to shut down the fuel line.
47	** No failsafe or alternate verification method to voiceprint. [[spoiler:Jim leaves his helmet off while the bloody ship is ''depressurizing'' apparently because he has to tell the computer who he is to shut down the inertial gravity rotation.]] The computer should be able to accept this over a suit radio (except, of course, [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the computer was going hypoxic at the time]]), so that might not have worked either. A password would've sufficed if people were really paranoid about astronauts knocking the A/G offline for a prank.
48	* NotEnoughToBury: Luke shows the grave site he made for his fallen crew explaining that he only found Renée's (the one who got the visor smashed by a rock) body and couldn't help but make two more human-sized mounds for the others he didn't find due to them being torn apart by the Face's killer vortex.
49	%%* OhCrap: Many instances.
50	* OminousPipeOrgan: Used throughout the score when the micro-meteorites damage ''Mars II'' causing an endangering decompression that complicates the crew's arrival to Mars.
51	* OnceGreenMars: [[spoiler: Mars used to be very Earth-like until a huge asteroid impact decimated its surface forcing the Martians to abandon it.]]
52	* OnlyAFleshWound: The micro-meteor storm is heralded in when Phil gets one straight through his hand. This barely slows Phil the rest of the movie, whose hand seems to be in good enough condition to lug the sled across Mars and be trusted to launch and fly back to Earth by himself.
53	* {{Precursors}}: The Martians. [[spoiler: {{Subverted\| trope}}, the are actually OriginalMan... and [[{{Panspermia}} everything else on Earth has Martian origins]] as well.]]
54	* ProductPlacement: Notably for Dr. Pepper and M&Ms. Pennzoil seems to have sponsored the Mars buggy they travel in.
55	* TheRadioDiesFirst: The one bit of technology this universe can't seem to get right is any sort of communication with Earth.
56	* RaceAgainstTheClock: In the finale, the characters cracking and exploring the Face on Mars' secret have a limited time to do so as a massive martian dust storm is approaching and Phil is given orders to take off with the repaired ERV before the storm hits, with or without them. Luckily, no one is left behind, [[spoiler: save for Jim.]]
57	* RagnarokProofing: [[spoiler:The Martian building and spacecraft work fine and are sparkly clean despite ''millions'' of years.]]
58	* ReentryScare: Woody sees reflected on his wrist mirror that a piece of equipment behind him burns up when it enters Mars' atmosphere, [[spoiler: giving his HeroicSacrifice a BetterToDieThanBeKilled angle to it.]]
59	* RuleOfDrama: Jim's excuse for not immediately getting a helmet when the ship is depressurizing is so there is danger involved. If he did put a helmet on the team could have taken their time on sealing the breach.
60	* RussianGuySuffersMost: The movie subverts the BlackDudeDiesFirst rule by having Luke survive the Martian twister, but his poor teammate Sergei Kirov doesn't have such luck.
61	* SanitySlippage: The sole survivor of the Mars disaster, who had his entire crew perish in front of him and spent a whole year trapped on Mars ''[[TheAloner alone.]]'' His reaction to seeing Jim is to scream "YOU CAN'T BE HERE!" and attack him, clearly thinking that he's finally [[GoMadFromTheIsolation lost his mind]].
62	* SecretTestOfCharacter: [[spoiler:The face was waiting for someone to put the missing pair of chromosomes in the Martian DNA. If it gets a wrong answer (such as the radar the ''Mars I'' crew scanned with), it triggers the vortex to defend itself.]]
63	* SendInTheSearchTeam: The second team is sent to find out what happened to the first one after they send out an S.O.S.
64	* ShoutOut:
65	** The ''Mars II'' spacecraft resembles the ''[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey Discovery]]'', especially on the inside, and even has a talking computer. The black rectangular door inside the white and brightly lit interior of the Face on Mars also harken back to the Monolith and the final part of ''2001'', alongside the rotating wheel space station and the design of the spacesuit helmets.
66	** The [[spoiler:Martians being the precursors of humanity]] is similar to the subjects of ''Film/QuatermassAndThePit''.
67	** The breathable liquid [[spoiler: Jim gets submerged into inside the rocket that will take him to the Martians]] is reminiscent of the one seen in ''Film/TheAbyss''.
68	* SingleTear: [[spoiler: From the holographic Martian.]]
69	* SmurfettePrinciple: Both Mars missions have only one single female astronaut per crew (Renée in Luke's and Terri in the rescue team).
70	* SpaceIsCold:
71	** [[spoiler:Woody removes his helmet in vacuum to avoid dying from re-entry. His face is totally frozen before the helmet's even fully off.]]
72	** Liquid fuel flash freezing as it leaks out into space, when in reality, it would flash ''boil'' from the lack of external pressure.
73	* SpaceIsNoisy: Scenes set outside in the vacuum of space still have audible noises as if there was an atmosphere.
74	* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Despite the imminent pressure loss in the hull, Woody and Terri take time for cutesy goodbyes.
75	* TooDumbToLive:
76	** The first crew's reaction to the [[BuffySpeak tornado monster thing]] that's pulverizing rock formations less than a hundred feet from them is to stand there staring in slack-jawed wonder instead of running like any sane person would. Sure enough, it ends up killing everyone but Luke, who at least uttered an [[OhCrap "oh my god"]] upon seeing it.
77	** To a lesser extent, [[SubvertedTrope since it proves to be safe]], Luke, Terri and Jim immediately taking off their helmets inside the Face on Mars just because there's breathable air in it is very hazardous because they're still in an alien environment and could've exposed themselves to something nasty.
78	* TragicKeepsake: The ComicStrip/FlashGordon necklace.
79	* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UccsxuP8Tk8 This trailer]] could've avoided showing stuff about the reveals inside the Face on Mars.
80	* WhiteVoidRoom: The inside of the Face on Mars mainly looks like this, though it also has a darker room with the holograms.
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82	-->''"Have a great ride, Jim."''

Context Film / MissionToMars