Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

George Taylor One cannot make steak with a hamburger budget. I wish this lame attempt to bring one of the greatest Science Fiction novels to the screen had the budget for hamburger! Badly directed, terrible effects and sets, horrible cast with the exception of Darren McGavin and Bernie Casey, this is a horrible attempt. Just bad enough to be on the SyFy channel today. Really. I wish IMBD. would give in and let zero stars be a rating.

AaronCapenBanner Based on Ray Bradbury's intriguing novel, told over a span of many years, and involving many different stories and characters, does not translate well to film, or in this case, a three-part TV version, which stars Rock Hudson, Bernie Casey, Roddy McDowall, Barry Morse, and Darren McGavin, among others.Film tells how Mars came to be colonized by Earth people, and the efforts of the surviving martians to deal with this, before they become extinct. Good cast tries, and though it has some atmosphere, and is reasonably cerebral, it just isn't as thoughtful or imaginative as the novel; and the Darren McGavin character becoming a "cowboy" diner host/owner is too silly for words( I would rather have seen you as Carl Kolchack Mr. McGavin!)

dehayden I would like to address my comments to the ignorant comments made by the new yorker and Laplander. they have a vestigial elements for brains and a mocking sense of verbiage that takes ironic for brilliant critiquing. for the last time MORONS: THIS IS NOT STAR WARS, TRANSFORMERS, ARMAGEDDION, DEAP IMPACT. you want to talk about stupidity, let's talk! the idiotic dialog I heard in transformers is enough to make you wrence. "it's just you and me mega tron"! one transformers job is he must get the nerd's peccadillo's to his grease monkey girlfriend, science fiction at it's most profound! Armageddon: a Juvenal attempt at film-making with that vehicle bouncing on that meteor like balsa wood. deep impact: starts off like a lifetime film about a woman who hates her husband, then somehow, after the impact, millions are on the white house lawn with freeman giving mundane dialog about how they will rebuild. the simpleton minds here are the ones who demand style over substance, mundane over the profound, and cube steak over fillet mignon. putzs, the special effects were poor maybe because NBC had the big budget, buck rogers at the time and if this film flopped in the ratings, then they had nothing to lose. it is a powerful film that can only be enjoyed by people who prefer substance and not SFX. I too saw this when I was nine and was glued to my set. true part 2 is the weakest in the link and hudson's reaction to the deaths of his comrades on the monitor was a bit over-the-top. never said it was perfect but as substance goes, right along with star trek(1979) and silent running(1971). these people were problem born in the late 80's early 90's, hence the source. d hayden

Sebastian1966 First off, Ray Bradbury is my favorite author, and CHRONICLES is one of my favorite books (really a collection of short stories). So, getting my own bias out of the way...onto the miniseries. First, it's adapted by Richard Matheson (another favorite writer of mine--more bias! Sorry!). Taking the disjointed collection of short tales about colonizing Mars and trying to turn it into a cohesive whole couldn't have been easy. And in many places, the right choices were made. In other places, they were not. First, the casting; Rock Hudson sleepwalks through the lead as Col. Wilder (the only thread connecting the stories in this version), giving an uninspired, lifeless performance (This from the lead actor in SECONDS? Inexcusable). Bernie Casey as the tortured Spender (the astronaut who goes 'native') is a vast improvement. Others include Roddy McDowell and Fritz Weaver as a pair of missionaries; both do decent turns here. There are many others in the large cast, resulting in a mixed bag of performances. The music, like the acting, oscillates wildly; from corny, dated disco cues (yech) to haunting woodwinds and choral effects (evoking a dream-like quality; very well done!). The production design is a (seemingly) deliberate, low-tech approach. Particularly, the abandoned Martian structures with their sharp, stony angles reminiscent of bleached, dried bones; truly looking like a "dead" alien city. The Martians themselves look a lot like David Bowie's MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (straying far from Bradbury's accounting) for a more ethereal look. Ignoring scientific accuracy in favor of Bradbury's lyrical romanticism and metaphor was a bold, true choice for the material. Frankly, there aren't many other ways to adapt these tales; which really are reflections on humanity rather than ruminations about aliens (as the best sci-fi tales usually are). Large chunks of dialogue remain true to Bradbury's prose, but the less faithful scenes tend to stand out rather badly. The early rocket miniature effects sequences are crude and poorly shot(even by early '80s standards); they should have been cut out or reduced to a few lines of dialogue. Special effects were not the miniseries' strong suit, and should never have been highlighted! However, just seeing these stories come to life in any way was entertaining; and compared to what little network sci-fi TV was on at the time (BUCK ROGERS for example), it was an oasis! But after seeing some of the Martian tales redone(somewhat better; with a smaller budget)a few years later for the cable TV series RAY BRADBURY THEATER, one can't help but wonder, 'What if?' I still feel there is a way to bring this book to life, perhaps as a cinematic series of unrelated vignettes (like TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, only better I would hope). If done well, it could signal a new era for anthology films; like the classic TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) or BLACK SABBATH (1963). No need to link the stories (especially in such a ham fisted way as the use of the Col. Wilder character was). Just let the Bradbury tales work their magic for a new generation of moviegoers or TV viewers. The mini-series is not really that bad. It's just that, while watching it, you can't help wondering how it could've been so much more!