Mars Needs Moms
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 The movie that killed ImageMovers Digital and cancelled many projects with Disney, including the Yellow Submarine remake and the Roger Rabbit sequel.
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Mars Needs Moms is a 2011 American 3D computer-animated science-fiction adventure film based on the Berkeley Breathed book of the same name, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and ImageMovers Digital (the last film produced by ImageMovers Digital before it was re-absorbed back into ImageMovers), and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and was directed by Simon Wells. The film premiered at El Capitan Theatre on March 6, 2011,[1] and was released to theaters on March 11, 2011.
Plot
Milo is a 9-year-old boy who has a lot on his mind; he has monster movies to watch, comic books to read, and all other kinds of fun stuff to accomplish. He definitely does not have time to do homework or eat his vegetables. He's getting tired of his mom nagging him to do these things, and his mom is tired of nagging. But just as Milo is telling his mom that life would be more fun without her, Martians kidnap her. Milo stows away on their spaceship, determined to launch a rescue.
Why It Needs to Be Sent to Mars
- The film demonstrates a cursory understanding of the source material, apparently drawing elements from other extraterrestrial-themed movies, which results in a lack of originality. For example, the plot revolving around aliens requiring women on Mars is not novel, as it was previously explored in 'Mars Needs Women'. Moreover, it makes numerous changes to the original novel.
- In the book, Milo has a younger sister, whereas in the film, he is portrayed as an only child.
- The manner in which Milo is punished, leading him to disown his mother, differs as well. In the book, he is sent to his room for dyeing his sister purple and creating a mess in the laundry room. In the film, his punishment comes after he refuses to eat his broccoli, feeds it to his cat, and then lies about it.
- The portrayal of Milo's rejection of his mother differs between the book and the film. In the book, Milo's behavior is more understandable and less disrespectful; he questions the specialness of mothers while shedding tears in his bedroom, indicating his initial lack of understanding. In contrast, the film depicts Milo as misbehaving in his bedroom and speaking back to his mother with the infamous line, "my life would be so much better if I didn't have a mom at all." When comparing the two, Milo's dismissal of his mother in the film comes across as significantly ruder and more disrespectful than in the book.
- In the book, Milo is portrayed as a mischievous yet insecure boy, about 5 to 6 years old, who feels neglected by his mother and lacks an understanding of a mother's responsibilities towards her children. He is also more endearing in the book. The film, however, strips away many of Milo's redeeming features, removing his insecurities but retaining his mischievousness, aging him up to 9 or 10 years old, and portraying him as a lazy, spoiled, and defiant child.
- Milo's mother's portrayal differs between the book and the film. In the book, she is initially shown as a domineering and unreasonable mother who expects her son to perform tasks akin to a servant, including taking out the trash, eating his vegetables, and doing yard work. Conversely, in the film, she is depicted as more relaxed, asking Milo to take out only one bag of trash rather than a heap, and she takes on most of the household chores herself, such as doing laundry and vacuuming, which contrasts with the book and casts Milo's attitude towards her in a more negative light in the film.
- In the book, Milo and his family have a dog as a pet, but the film adaptation shows them with only a cat named Cujo. This alteration appears to serve the purpose of justifying a scene where Cujo vomits the broccoli fed to him by Milo, leading to Milo's trouble. While dogs can indeed eat unseasoned broccoli, cats can also consume broccoli, rendering this change in the film superfluous.
- In the book, the Martians are depicted with whimsical character designs, portrayed as bald aliens with blue, pink, and green skin. However, the film adaptation strips away this vibrancy, presenting them as dull and oddly-faced beings instead.
- While the concept of motion capture animation is intriguing and has been successfully implemented in films like The Polar Express, Monster House (notably their only film to sidestep the uncanny valley), Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol, the animation in this particular movie falls short, with poor execution, lack of appeal, and cringe-worthy moments.
- The producers should have realized that motion-capture animation is still a work in progress and, while it's been mastered in current-gen games, this one is plain abysmal.
- Due to the subpar and unappealing animation, the action sequences come across as poorly executed, disorganized, and unsatisfactory.
- Given that the humans are meant to appear realistic, recording them in live action using green screens would have been more sensible. This approach would not only have improved their appearance but also could have been more cost-effective.
- Bafflingly, they got Seth Green, a fully grown adult, to mocap Milo, a kid. He even voiced him until he was dubbed over by an actual kid, Seth Dusky. The Seth Green voice can be found in the trailers until on 29th May 2020, Justin Wilton (Cinephile Studios) was ripping the Blu-ray of the movie for his review until he found the Seth Green audio in the language files and posted it on Soundboard.
- There is very little world building, which leaves more questions than answers.
- Extremely highly uncanny and awful designs for the characters, like the Martians looking more human than the actual humans, with one exception, even for ImageMovers standards.
- Speaking of the Martians, their designs are oddly sexual with characters like Ki having unusually large rear ends and wide hips.
- Milo looks and sounds too old to be a 9-year-old and his mother sounds too old to be a mother of a 9-year-old. Not helping is the aforementioned Seth Green mocap for the former.
- Many of the characters come across as bland, mediocre, uninteresting, underdeveloped, and difficult to empathize with.
- Milo's mother is portrayed as a traditional domestic mother, often perceived as lacking complexity.
- Gribble, the lonely orphan, finds companionship with the help of Milo.
- Milo comes across as a particularly disagreeable and irritating character, whose interests seem limited to an enthusiasm for zombie films.
- Ki, the benevolent Martian hero.
- Milo's father only appears at the beginning and the end of the film, and not much is known about him.
- Two-Cat portrayed as a robotic spider-cat.
- While Gribble and Ki aren't particularly unlikable characters, their issue lies in a redundant and clichéd relationship subplot that fails to contribute to the overarching story.
- Many unfunny, obnoxious, weak, and lame attempts at humor that barely get a laugh. (e.g. Martian hatchling peeing on the Supervisor in the end credits and Cujo vomiting, though we don't see it on-screen, thankfully.)
- The Martians have no subtitles, even when Milo is wearing a translator.
- Numerous scenes that go on for far too long.
- For example, when Milo tells his mom that he doesn't want a mother, she looks sad and shocked and the scene holds for too long. The same thing applies with Number 8.
- The dialogue is laughable and poorly written, especially the notorious scene at the beginning of the movie where Milo tells his mother, "My life would be so much better if I didn't have a mom at all!" This line is shockingly heartless for a child to say to a parent, and it's so tasteless and disrespectful that it completely erodes any sympathy for his character.
- The film portrays a society where political agendas are forcefully introduced, and there is a clear sexist and racist bias against male Martians. In this society, female Martian infants are raised by nanny bots, reflecting technological advancement, whereas male infants are relegated to the lower levels, cared for by adult male Martians. This narrative could be interpreted as promoting misandry and feminist propaganda.
- The rationale given for this decision, which has been described as both absurd and nonsensical, is that the males were relegated to a lower status due to being "too emotional."
- Several errors, like Milo's Mom told him that cats are not supposed to eat vegetables. Cats can actually eat some vegetables like cooked/steamed broccoli and some others.
- There are also errors in the film like Milo's weight was less on Mars than Earth, which would be correct. However, when Gribble and Ki are on Earth, their weight should be higher than on Mars - by a factor of approximately three. This would have made it impossible for them to walk or really move around at all.
- Massive loads of unnecessary and unneeded filler and padding.
- The Supervisor is a dull and lame antagonist that added in the cast, with incredibly petty and lazy motives, and only has a few comprehensible lines near the end of the film, even in instances where her dialogue should technically be understandable to Milo and the audience, compared to Metal Beak from Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, who is actually very threatening and excellent antagonist. Also, similar to The Ant Bully and The Lorax, she is only in the movie so the writers should find an excuse to make the book into a film.
- Speaking of Legend of the Guardians, the changes may be dislike from some fans of the book, but at least it tries to follows the storyline of "The Capture", "The Journey" and "The Rescue", while this movie isn't.
- Tons of unnecessary pop-culture references that don't fit in a PG rated movie, like how Gribble mentions The Terminator and Top Gun, or even how Milo mentions the Nintendo Wii.
- Forced whimsical moments like when Milo is amazed by all of the worlds of trash he sees. PhantomStrider says for Top 10 Worst Disney Movies: It's-it's not even whimsical! Why is there whimsical music playing!? It looks like he's standing in the fires of Hell! How is this even remotely whimsical?!
- Mediocre morals that horribly botches, especially that cats can eats human food, such as broccoli where it makes them sick.
- With a title as childish as Mars Needs Moms, its surprisingly very unpleasant and dark. Like how the scenes where the Supervisor holds the blaster showing a "target lock" on the child's head, which can be frightened for target audiences.
- Lazy directing of Simon Wells, who created the Time Machine and better movies, like The Prince of Egypt.
- It's pretty much the reason why Disney killed ImageMovers Digital as a company, as the disaster performance of this film, along with the poor box-office performance of the studio's previous film, A Christmas Carol (which was released a year and four months prior to this), led to the cancellation of many projects with Disney, including the Yellow Submarine remake and the Roger Rabbit sequel.
- On that note, in a similar manner to Batman & Robin and The Last Airbender, this movie is also notorious for ruining the reputations and, to a lesser extent, careers of people who were involved in the movie (e.g. Seth Dusky and Elisabeth Harnois), due to the film's negative reception and failing at the box office, as well as killing off the studio ImageMovers Digital (mentioned above).
Redeeming Qualities
- The ending is heartwarming.
- In the movie's conclusion, Milo redeems himself by apologizing to his mother for his earlier words and begins to truly value her.
- Gribble's design is actually pretty good.
- Gribble being quite an expressive character, can have his comical to funny moments due to his voice inflections.
- The soundtrack is at least great by John Powell.
- The voice acting is at least decent, namely Dan Fogler.
- The backstory of Gribble's bad childhood was very touching.
- While stilted and awkward, the animation is realistic and is pretty good in some scenes, like it was taken from a video game cutscene.
- Gribble (if annoying at times, but still forgivable), Two-Cat, and Ki are quite likable characters.
- It has a good and solid message about respecting your parents (even for some of its contradictions).
- Decent visual effects for the most part.
- Some humorous moments include Gribble accidentally pressing the wrong button and the scene where Milo's mother, after being rescued, wakes up, takes in her surroundings, and then screams to "wake up."
Reception
Critical response
Mars Needs Moms received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike who praised the visuals, set design and cast, but criticized its story, characters and "unsettling" character animation, with critics saying that it "suffers from a lack of imagination and heart". It is considered one of the worst Disney animated films. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 37% approval rating with an average rating of 5.00/10 based on 116 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "The cast is solid and it's visually well-crafted, but Mars Needs Moms suffers from a lack of imagination and heart.". On Metacritic, the film had a score of 49 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. By Letterboxd, the film collected 1.9/5 score.
Box Office
Mars Needs Moms was a huge box office flop, and the worst financial loss for a Disney-branded film. It earned $1,725,000 on its first day, for a weekend total of $6,825,000. This is the 22nd-worst opening ever for a film playing in 3,000+ theaters. Adjusted for inflation, considering the total net loss of money (not the profit-to-loss ratio), it was still the fourth-largest box office failure in history. In 2014, the Los Angeles Times listed the film as one of the most expensive box-office disasters of all time. On March 14, 2011, Brooks Barnes of The New York Times commented that it was rare for a Disney-branded film to do so badly, with the reason for its poor performance being the unoriginal premise, the style of animation, which fails to cross the uncanny valley threshold, and negative word of mouth on social networks, along with releasing it on the same week as Battle: Los Angeles which had more hype with the general movie goers. Barnes concluded, "Critics and audiences alike, with audiences voicing their opinions on Twitter, blogs and other social media, complained that the Zemeckis technique can result in character facial expressions that look unnatural. Another common criticism was that Mr. Zemeckis focuses so much on technological wizardry that he neglects storytelling." It was the second and last film from ImageMovers Digital before the company was shut down by Disney, and reverted to simply ImageMovers. ImageMovers Digital had previously been reported to have Calling All Robots, a Yellow Submarine remake, a Roger Rabbit sequel, and The Nutcracker in development. Disney dropped all of these projects following the box-office failure of Mars Needs Moms, and shut down the studio, like said before. In fact, even Zemeckis was free to greenlight the remake of Yellow Submarine to other studios, but he gave up after that.
Videos
Trivia
- Just like A Christmas Carol, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas and Tinker Bell, It is one of Disney’s only CGI animated films without Walt Disney Animation Studios or Pixar.
- The failure of this movie was the reason for the "of Mars" being dropped from John Carter's title.[2]
- As mentioned above, this movie is infamous for being a huge box office disaster, and also one of the biggest box office bombs in history. This was one of Disney's biggest flops along with John Carter.
- According to actress Brie Larson, she auditioned for the role of Ki.[3]
- Seth Green described doing the motion-capture as physically demanding work: "A lot of running, jumping, falling, hitting, spinning. I wore a harness for, like, 85 percent of the movie. It was uncomfortable." After spending six weeks outfitted in a special sensor-equipped performance-capture suit while simultaneously performing Milo's lines, Seth Green's voice sounded too mature for the character and was dubbed over by that of 12-year-old newcomer Seth R. Dusky.
- Due to this film's failure, Seth Dusky, Milo's voice actor, hasn't acted or starred in another film or had any major roles in other projects. For the remainder of his career, he shifted to doing mostly additional voices and ADR voiceover for the feature films: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Hop, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Ice Age: Continental Drift, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. His last acting role to date was guest starring in an episode of the short-lived Nickelodeon sitcom Wendell & Vinnie in 2013. Mars Needs Moms was Dusky's only project to date in which he had a major role. It's safe to say that this film had likely wrecked Dusky's career as an actor.
References
- ↑ https://www.hollywood.com/general/mars-needs-moms-world-premiere-60022856/#/ms-6770/9
- ↑ https://www.indiewire.com/2011/12/andrew-stanton-explains-john-carter-name-change-says-girls-wont-see-a-movie-with-mars-in-the-title-114517/
- ↑ https://www.hit.com.au/story/brie-larson-reveals-all-the-film-tv-roles-she-has-missed-out-on-160867
External links
Mars Needs Moms at the Internet Movie Database
Mars Needs Moms on Rotten Tomatoes
Mars Needs Moms on Metacritic
Mars Needs Moms on Letterboxd
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