Friday, March 15, 2013

Mroski Mars Attacks


In Mars Attacks, Tim Burton uses conflict between man and Martian to satirize the military, as well as science fiction as a genre.  One of my favorite jokes was the flip of how most movies portray generals in conflict.  When the aliens first arrive, they obliterate what looks like a thousand people in a number of minutes.  Immediately, the people assume that it was a “cultural misunderstanding” and attempt to make up the issue, while General Decker is suggesting an offensive attack.  Instead, the government decides to let the aliens into their congress!  Obviously that turns into a big snafu and we are left with the president again suggesting that they try to make peace with the Martians.  By this time, General Decker is literally screaming at the president for war and the president scolds him for it.  It’s really funny because normally the warmonger general in a movie is the bad guy, or at least the stupid guy who makes everything go to hell.  In this case, he is the voice of truth.  Instead of satirizing the overzealous general, Burton takes a poke at the government as it tries again and again to make amends with an overtly bloodthirsty race of Martians. 
                It also pokes at the government in another way.  The Martians seem invincible and no one knows how they are going to get rid of them.  The government tries everything from diplomacy to nukes and everything in between to stop the slaughter, but nothing works.  The government tries so much stuff, they neglect something as simple as the “Indian Love Song.”  After the world is nearly annihilated, we find redneck Richie and his senile grandma about to be killed before they accidentally discover that her god-awful music is the only thing that can kill the Martians.  I think that Burton uses this instance to tell his audience not to trust their government as much as they do.  In a big crisis, we also have to have a plan.  This contrasts greatly with Independence Day, when the government is the end all be all to the human race.  

3 comments:

  1. I loved General Decker in this movie because, like you said, he is the stereotypical “Let’s just blow up everything and hope for the best” type of person and I love how Burton incorporated that into this movie. Blowing everything up seems to be the general plan that America has when things either don’t go our way, or we have no other ideas left in the hat. Burton is showing that government is not as effective as it is supposed to be, especially with that state of mind. What is really ironic is that what kills the aliens is a love song so maybe Burton is saying that in order to get rid of some of the violence in the world, we just all need to love each other. The warmonger general and the love song are exact opposites of each other, which is funny, because in the end blowing everything up doesn’t work and the only thing that does is a silly love song.

    -Tara Malay

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  2. Taylor,

    The two jokes you mention are ironic. At the end, General Decker was the one who was right. All the pseudo-scientific arguments presented by Professor Kessler were absolute shaizen! The Martians weren’t civilized, they were kids with powerful guns, and so they had to be destroyed at war before they would kill all people. The fruitless attempts to make peace with the Martians reveal the government’s foolishness in a mock that is exquisitely done. However, what is even more ironic is that when the government finally realizes they have to fight the Martians, they don’t know how to do so. Their biggest shot, the nuclear bomb, is absorbed by one of the little aliens like if it were helium from a party balloon. After seeing Richie and his Grandmother kill the Martians with the “Love Indian Song” we understand that the government might not always be the solution to certain crises.

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  3. Tim Burton really shows how useless and undetermined a government can be through Mars Attacks. Everyone would have wished that their president is a badass alien slaughtering pilot that the president in Independence Day is, but seems like that’s not the case with this movie. In this movie the president is very un-influential and indecisive and doesn’t do one right thing to stop the aliens from pillaging the entire humanity. It is not that the government didn’t try, because they did, and they tried everything they could. They fought, brought their tanks, guns, and even tried to nuke the aliens but nothing worked. I think this precisely is the point that Burton is trying to make. In a desperate situation, there is only so much a government can do until we realize that even the almighty government can be of no help. I guess Burton was trying to make us aware of our blinded dependence on the government, and make us realize that no one but ourselves can help us.

    Jae Yun Choi

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