YMMV / Mars Needs Moms

• Adaptation Displacement: The film is so infamous that few know it was originally a children's book by Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County fame.
• Adorkable: Ki tends to be very cute, owing to her generally upbeat and excitable nature and her earnest attempts at using outdated 60's slang to connect with Milo and Gribble.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The movie's hilarious title is merely the tip of the iceberg, as it is actually much darker than one would be led to assume as it turns out the mothers in question are not just kidnapped, but vaporized for the sake of obtaining their knowledge in raising children; further reinforced by its rather depressing implications, as seen below. The notoriously offputting animation does nothing to help matters.
• Bile Fascination: Its notoriously creepy animation and legendarily bad box office take have certainly made it this. And if that wasn't enough, reviews like those from The Mysterious Mr. Enter more than likely contributed as well.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Milo's mother is this, due to being one of the few characters who actually looks appealing.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Milo's mother giving him her space helmet after the Supervisor breaks his. Keep in mind, she just woke up and found herself on the surface of Mars, but she still isn't fazed enough to let it keep her from saving her son, even if it means asphyxiating in the process. Luckily for her, Gribble is able to retrieve the helmet intended for his mother in time to save her.
  • In the end, Gribble chooses to stay on Mars with Ki, helping the other Martians assimilate back into some of their old lifestyle. Those Martians are the same people who took his mother away from him, but he stays and helps them because he recognizes how they've been conditioned by the Supervisor, and wants to prevent another kid from having to experience the same things he and Milo did.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Some of the aspects of Martian culture, like how the males are discarded, are extremely similar to Gazorpazorp from Rick and Morty, which is most likely a coincidence considering how the actual episode is intended to parody Zardoz.
• Inferred Holocaust: Sure, Milo saved his mother and got home but there's the small issue of the evil fascist regime that's been in power on Mars for decades. During which time they've been casually throwing baby males into the garbage to fend for themselves, training the females to be unquestioning enforcers, executing dissenters and murdering countless human women. All apparently carried out by Martian society at the whim of one individual's insanity. The past evil deeds and problems facing Mars are unlikely to be instantly solved by revealing society was built on a lie. Somewhat averted in that they have Gribble and Milo (and his mom) to guide them through the internet connection.
• Narm: After Milo wakes up his mother moments before being vaporized and she has a moment to realize what's going on, she lets out the whiniest, most awkward scream of terror imaginable.
• Nightmare Fuel: See here.
• Paranoia Fuel: Many have stated that after watching the movie as kids, they refused to leave their parents' side and tried not to be obedient to prevent aliens kidnapping them. Naturally, many parents came to hate this movie because of that.
• The Scrappy: In a movie full of Scrappies, Gribble is probably the character audiences hated the most.
• Uncertain Audience: A likely factor in the movie's critical and commercial failure. The film's central premise of "Martians are so bad at parenting they need to kidnap human mothers to teach them" is pretty wacky and whimsical-sounding, ideal for a kids' film. However, the revelation that the Martians kill the mothers they abduct to extract their parenting skills - which is presented in a serious manner - along with Martian society being a blatantly sexist totalitarian dystopia, is all quite dark for a movie aimed at children. The end result is that the story is both too silly for older audiences but too disturbing for little kids.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: While the Motion Capture itself dips pretty deep into Unintentional Uncanny Valley, the overall visuals are far more beautiful.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • The hype makes it sounds like a comedy, but the kidnapped mothers get their brains drained before being vaporized. No wonder Gribble didn't want to tell Milo the truth behind why he's on Mars.
  • Milo's mom almost gets vaporized to provide memories for the new generation of Nanny-Bots, then Milo gets shot in the foot with a laser and suffers not from excessive blood loss from GETTING SHOT, but will now die because his helmet broke, and then his mom pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save him, almost dooming her.
  • This is actually one of the reasons that the movie bombed so hard at the box office: a lot of kids didn't want to see a movie about how aliens might kidnap and murder their mom.

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