We’re years, if not decades, away from being able to send humans to Mars, but that hasn’t stopped the entertainment industry from imagining what humans might encounter on the red planet.
In the 1960s film The Angry Red Planet, Mars is redder than you’ve ever seen and inhabited by an unfriendly giant bat-spider. In Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990) the red planet is a colony on the brink of war with a strong population of mutants. If we learned anything from the film John Carter, a 2012 adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel, it’s that humans have almost unlimited abilities on Mars and human-looking Martians/Barsoomians speak with a British accent.
But Hollywood’s most recent portrayals of Mars or even its colonization have been less about the green-skinned, head-exploding creatures of Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! (1996) and more about what the planet would realistically look like after we arrive and terraform it.
I’m talking about movies like James Gray’s Ad Astra, where Brad Pitt, en route to Neptune, finds himself making a pit stop at an oppressive and charmless Martian colony. Or TV shows like MARS, a National Geographic docudrama that blends interviews with real scientists, astronauts and other Mars experts with the fictional story of the first crew that lands on Mars, in 2033. These kinds of titles, while leaning on fiction, also confer an idea of what the future of Mars colonization could end up looking like.
“You can’t portray Mars in purely fanciful ways anymore without straining suspension of disbelief,” Andy Weir, author of the 2011 best seller The Martian, tells me. He says modern-day people are too well-educated about the realities of the planet.
More science in science fiction
That increased authenticity, and increasingly more educated audience, could be due in part to the collaboration filmmakers seek with space agencies like NASA. Last year alone, NASA worked with the makers of 30 television programs and 19 feature films, including Ad Astra, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Star Trek: Picard.
The agency even vets scripts, working back and forth with filmmakers. “Not everything becomes accurate, but it’s at least a bit more accurate than it would have been had they not contacted us,” Bert Ulrich, NASA’s Multimedia Liaison, tells me during a phone conversation. NASA gives production teams access to footage and imagery.
“I think it’s definitely possible to make a story that’s 100% correct in terms of science,” Weir tells me when I ask if it’s fair to say Hollywood stories about space are always going to contain some scientific imprecisions. Weir’s book was the source material for a 2015 Ridley Scott movie with a star-packed cast led by Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain.
Both the book and its cinematic adaptation take dramatic license, though. As Ulrich points out, there are no sandstorms on Mars like the one shown at the beginning of The Martian, which initially strands Watney on the planet. NASA suggested the filmmakers opt for a lightning strike instead, but Ridley Scott decided to stick to the story of the sandstorm. “We were fine with that. We understand that artists are artists,” says Ulrich.
Brad Pitt in Ad Astra.
Twentieth Century Fox
The Martian isn’t the only offender. Former NASA astronaut and USC Professor Garrett Reisman tells me about the teardrop that rolls down Brad Pitt’s face in Ad Astra. James Gray, the movie’s director, was perfectly aware that’s not possible in zero gravity, but he decided to leave it and ignore the laws of physics because it looked good. “Brad Pitt was expressing such amazing emotion,” Reisman, who was a consultant for the film, explains in a phone conversation. “Nobody ever goes to a movie for the orbital mechanics. They go for the story.”
And stories need to be appealing, thought-provoking and human in a way that resonates with the audience and piques people’s interest.
CNET CULTURE NEWSLETTER
Movies to music, toys to technology, entertain your brain.
During the presentation of the second season of MARS in front of the Television Critics Association, executive producer Ron Howard spoke about the need for a balance between facts versus storytelling in the show. “Our desire is to deal with science in as accurate a way as we could, as well-researched a way as we could. But also to make a great show,” he said. “We’re not unwilling to take a few leaps.”
He was referring to the fact that the show toys with the idea of life on Mars, even though no definitive proof has been found. MARS also broaches the subject of death and loss, and one of its characters becomes pregnant, too. And here’s where human relationships and good old-fashioned drama come into the science fiction equation.
Sex in space
Not everything in Hollywood’s new wave of Mars and space representations is necessarily naturalistic. As author Mary Roach describes in her book Packing for Mars, “[t]ake away or greatly reduce the force of gravity, and thrusting just pushes the object of one’s affections away.” That’s to say that sex in space isn’t necessarily what we’re used to experiencing on Earth.
“If you want to see some hilariously lame zero-g sex scenes, check out the porno film (The Uranus Experiment),” Roach recommends via email after I inquire whether she’s seen the sex scenes from The Expanse. I’m curious about their accuracy. The Expanse is based on the series of novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck and is set in a future where the solar system has been colonized by humans.
Roach hasn’t watched The Expanse, but she throws more light on the subject of weightless intercourse and its practicability in her book, implying that it’s hard to imagine that absolutely every astronaut has resisted the urge when given the opportunity.
Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham and Steven Strait in the fourth season of The Expanse.
Amazon Prime Video
“I don’t think there’s any question that it’s physically possible,” Reisman says when I inquire about the subject of sex in space, but he notes he hasn’t tried it or talked to anyone who has. “Just based on the sheer kinematics and mechanics involved … There’s no reason why it couldn’t work.”
Or, as astronaut Roger Crouch told Roach for her book, sex in space is a matter of the imagination of the participants. “The Kama Sutra couldn’t start to cover all the possibilities.”
Those words would tickle any Hollywood producer.
A boring affair?
The thing is, when we finally make it to Mars, it remains to be seen how much the planet will look like what Hollywood has represented. The astronauts probably won’t look as dazzling and perfectly bearded as Pitt’s character did in Ad Astra after a long journey back to Earth inside a spaceship. It’s unlikely they’ll sound half as witty as Mark Watney did in The Martian. And hopefully, no human feces will be used as potato fertilizer.
Weir tells me the first settlers on Mars will take things very seriously and nothing will be left to chance. “There will be setbacks, but it’ll probably be a boring, successful affair,” he says.
Reisman doesn’t necessarily agree. For the former astronaut, something as complex as going to another planet always comes with the element of surprise and challenges. “It’s never going to be as predictable as you might think,” he says.
However close to a Hollywood production Mars ends up being, Reisman says there are signs the story will keep going, and he highlights the money, resources and time devoted to Mars by people such as Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson.
“They want to make science fiction real,” Reisman says. And space tourism sounds like the perfect sequel for this story.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
