Blu-ray Review A Few Words About A few words about…™ Invaders from Mars – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Gerani53]

Perhaps that chunky mutant was a Kanamit who got served man a bit too often?

Scott MacQueen does amazing restoration work! Laurel & Hardy's SONS OF THE DESERT (1933) springs to mind.

CHEERS!

Actually, the overweight mutant is followed by a skinny one... as kids, my cousin and I used to wait for the frequently repeated shot, then point and happily declare, "Here comes Fatty, followed by Skinny!" We'd also get frustrated that the ticker to the final demolition blast took forever before it finally reached FIRE! We'd imitate the movement of the arrow, demonstrating that it should have reached its goal way before the artsy (and glorious) mind montage sequence ended. One thing we never questioned was why the tanks were still shooting at the far end of the field, which was originally a diversionary tactic, way after our heroes had invaded the spaceship, set their charges, rescued captives, and were running like hell from the hill -- was the military trying to "shoot" the saucer back to Mars, helping out the planted explosives? Since all those military blasts sounded great and punctuated the montage nicely, and the whole darned thing was a dream anyway, I guess it really doesn't matter. In any event, it's more than cool to have this childhood favorite back, and looking so wonderful. Kudos to everyone involved!

 

[Dick]

Actually, the overweight mutant is followed by a skinny one... as kids, my cousin and I used to wait for the frequently repeated shot, then point and happily declare, "Here comes Fatty, followed by Skinny!" We'd also get frustrated that the ticker to the final demolition blast took forever before it finally reached FIRE! We'd imitate the movement of the arrow, demonstrating that it should have reached its goal way before the artsy (and glorious) mind montage sequence ended. One thing we never questioned was why the tanks were still shooting at the far end of the field, which was originally a diversionary tactic, way after our heroes had invaded the spaceship, set their charges, rescued captives, and were running like hell from the hill -- was the military trying to "shoot" the saucer back to Mars, helping out the planted explosives? Since all those military blasts sounded great and punctuated the montage nicely, and the whole darned thing was a dream anyway, I guess it really doesn't matter. In any event, it's more than cool to have this childhood favorite back, and looking so wonderful. Kudos to everyone involved!

All questionable actions can be completely exonerated when you remember this: the whole thing is the nightmare of a 12-year-old boy. It has that kind of logic and design. Even the zipper on the martian costume makes sense in this context.

 

[compson]

Glad I watched this last night—for the first time in my 63 years—since people are spoiling it.

 

[dpippel]

Glad I watched this last night—for the first time in my 63 years—since people are spoiling it.

Come on. You can't realistically expect people to use spoiler tags when discussing a film that's 70 years old.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Come on. You can't realistically expect people to use spoiler tags when discussing a film that's 70 years old.

If you never seen this movie, perhaps still reading this thread isn't a good idea.

 

[John Sparks]

Watching my copy tomorrow…can’t wait.

 

[Nelson Au]

Guys, some of you have been unhappy about the stickers that Ignite used to hold the disc case inside the outer slip case. And some were lucky to be able to remove the sticker with out any damage to the slipcase. Well, I also had the stickier sticker on my slip cases and I’m a very careful and pretty skilled at dealing with this. But the adhesive is very strong. So I unfortunately also had some of the surface of the paper removed by the stickers. If I was my younger self I‘d be really really upset, but now I’m just a little annoyed.

I have a trick to help camouflage the damage, it’s not like these slip cases are going to be that valuable in the future! I’m sure I’ll be proven wrong.

Heres a pic of the damage:


I’ve used this trick before to repair damage to a poster that I had at work behind my desk that I very much treasure. Careless co-workers!

Since I’m in the art and design world, I have a set of markers that I used to do renderings. I picked the colors that are close to the color of the printing.


I carefully used the marker’s pointed tip and carefully drew in the white areas to fill them with ink. After a few passes, it looks pretty good. Not perfect at all. But from a casual look, they look ok. I also have an old can of Bestine solvent that I used to remove the adhesive. Nasty stuff from the olden days when they used to do resl cut and paste.



I think that tonight I can finally watch this! Which should I watch, the 4K or the blu ray? I haven’t seen this film in a very long time, I still have the old DVD 50th Anniversary Wade Williams copy.

 

[sbjork]

All questionable actions can be completely exonerated when you remember this: the whole thing is the nightmare of a 12-year-old boy. It has that kind of logic and design. Even the zipper on the martian costume makes sense in this context.

But is it really a nightmare? A dream, yes, but what happens to him during it is as much wish-fulfillment as nightmare. David is respected, appreciated, and most of the adults believe what he has to say. They even let him participate in planning the fight against the invaders, and truly improbably, hand over the Martian heat ray to him to operate. When he wakes up and finds himself back in the real world, he's being plunged back into the reality where he's just a kid, and no one will believe him. That's one reason why the altered sound effect in the closing shot of the saucer is significant -- it's a portent not necessarily of the fact that he's imagining things, but also that the adults in his life won't believe him anyway. They're going to tell him that the saucer was actually what it sounded like.

 

[Gerani53]

One could argue that the nightmare was precognitive, a psychic flash-forward of what was about to happen. The different sound of the landing saucer in the "real world" sighting at the end would support this notion. What David experienced in his psychic dream-vision was an abstraction of the terrible truth to come, a frightened child's mental portrait. If we go with this notion, the real Martian invasion, with or without zipper-suited mutants, would soon be upon the world. Gee whiz indeed!

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched my copy last night! I think it’s been at least since 2004 when I last watched this movie. So while I remember the events, there’s specifics I didn’t remember.

Without rewatching the 50th Anniversary DVD, i don’t have a good sense of what the condition this film was before the restoration. In watching it, some of the footage definitely does not look as good as the 1953 The War of the Worlds or the 1951 When Worlds Collide. Both films from the same period. Is this because the film elements were just better stored at Paramount verse whoever had the film elements for Invaders from Mars? Or was the poorer quality of the Invasion film elements due to the film process used?

I’m not saying this remaster was not a well done effort. It must have been in poor condition. I just watched the extra featurette with Scott McQueen, Restoring the Invasion. It looks like from the sources he had available to him, it was quite an effort to make the restoration look as good as it does.

As far as the film goes, it really does have a very cool child-like view of the world and the feel of a dream to it! I really like Menzies design for the iconic shots of the police station and inside the spaceship. The simplicity of the sets are perfect as they give the viewer that off-kilter view of Jimmy‘s nightmare. Regarding the ending, I agree, when Jimmy wakes up from the sound and flash outside, and looks out, I like how this ending leave it up to tue viewer to interpret what we are seeing. it feels like the similar kinds of threats America was concerned about in the 1950’s told in allegory.

I forgot to mention, the music is great, it is very memorable. While not a tune I have fully remembered, the chorus you hear when the Martians are about the pull people into the ground is instantly recalled from my last viewing.

I really enjoyed watching this film again. It’s a great film told from the child’s point of view.

I did watch the alternate European ending tacked on and I must say I’m surprised by it. I didn’t like it as it totally alters the tone and spirit of the film. I tried to watch the new footage filmed for the European cut with Arthur Franz, Helena Carter and Jimmy Hunt (with shorter hair) at the observatory, I just couldn’t watch it all the way through.

I can’t help but wonder if it would be a good idea to pair this film with the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Invaders from Mars is the child’s point of view. Body Snatchers is the adult view. Invaders does not exactly reveal why the Martians are invading except to sabotage the US military projects, so there’s the underlying allegorical subtext there. The Pod’s invading is also allegory for the alien take over.

I’ve recently been revisiting the Adventures of Superman TV series. I can‘t help but wonder if the Superman opening titles were inspired by the opening titles of this film!

 

[Dick]

But is it really a nightmare? A dream, yes, but what happens to him during it is as much wish-fulfillment as nightmare. David is respected, appreciated, and most of the adults believe what he has to say. They even let him participate in planning the fight against the invaders, and truly improbably, hand over the Martian heat ray to him to operate. When he wakes up and finds himself back in the real world, he's being plunged back into the reality where he's just a kid, and no one will believe him. That's one reason why the altered sound effect in the closing shot of the saucer is significant -- it's a portent not necessarily of the fact that he's imagining things, but also that the adults in his life won't believe him anyway. They're going to tell him that the saucer was actually what it sounded like.

Well, I see what you mean, although I disagree, from the standpoint of my memories of watching it again and again when young.

I worked with children most of my life, and I know that, were they to pick out one absolute worst fear, it would be the loss of their parent(s). David might be respected and believed when he reports the Martians in his nightmare, but his parents are lost to him, and do not return as their loving, protective selves at any point going forward in the film. There is no happy ending. We may assume they are "back to normal" and asleep in their bedroom when David awakens, but we never see them again.

This "waking up" could also be a part of his dream. A dream within a dream. His greatest fear, like that of most kids, is that his parents (in their normal state) disappear, and that is played out with a vengeance during the course of the film. The substance of his dream can be attributed to the fact that David is an amateur astronomist, having a nice telescope at his window, ready to use at any time. He would be susceptible to having dreams that are space-related. And, with his fluent imagination, an invasion by parent-stealing creatures from outer space is no stretch at all.

In any case, the theme of losing one's parents makes the movie quite terrifying for children. Can you remember just how terrifying? I can. I think it is also very disturbing for adults as well, when we recall the uneasiness it instilled in us as children.

Still, every time it was listed in TV Guide back in the 60's, I would have given my left pinkie to watch it again...yes, in black and white on a tiny screen. I am guessing that it was cathartic, helping me to exorcise my abandonment demons. It was, as I knew deep down, only a movie.

But it is and has always been undervalued as a seriously nightmarish movie, designed with great care by Menzies, and having an emotional depth that remained unheralded by most critics of the day. Only in the past decade or so has its low-budget surrealism crept into the psyche of film historians and new audiences. '

This 4K and Blu-ray release is going to rock the film collecting world, I suspect, not only because of the grand work put into its restoration, but because it has finally become much more than a mere cult film...it is (and has always been) an evocative and psychologically sound look into the very essence of a child's darkest -- yet rarely articulated -- thing that goes 'bump in the night.'

 

[Capt D McMars]

But is it really a nightmare? A dream, yes, but what happens to him during it is as much wish-fulfillment as nightmare. David is respected, appreciated, and most of the adults believe what he has to say. They even let him participate in planning the fight against the invaders, and truly improbably, hand over the Martian heat ray to him to operate. When he wakes up and finds himself back in the real world, he's being plunged back into the reality where he's just a kid, and no one will believe him. That's one reason why the altered sound effect in the closing shot of the saucer is significant -- it's a portent not necessarily of the fact that he's imagining things, but also that the adults in his life won't believe him anyway. They're going to tell him that the saucer was actually what it sounded like.

All the points that you mentioned help support the "Dream Theory" because no Army General is going to give a 10 year old boy an alien heat ray gun to use against the Synthoids frpom Mars!!
Still a wonderful restoration and addition to our collections!!

 

[sbjork]

All the points that you mentioned help support the "Dream Theory" because no Army General is going to give a 10 year old boy an alien heat ray gun to use against the Synthoids frpom Mars!!
Still a wonderful restoration and addition to our collections!!

That's my point. It's as much wish-fulfillment dream for David as it is a nightmare. However scary that the Martians may be, or the abduction of his parents for that matter, he's literally living the dream as far as how the other adults in the film treat him. If it's a nightmare, he's still in enough control of his own subconscious that he's living out some vicarious wish-fulfillment at the same time. When he returns to reality, that's as much of a nightmare in that now adults are going to treat him like a dumb kid with an overactive imagination again.

 

[Johnny Angell]

One could argue that the nightmare was precognitive, a psychic flash-forward of what was about to happen.

From my first childhood viewing I’ve believed this.

 

[Reed Grele]

I’ve recently been revisiting the Adventures of Superman TV series. I can‘t help but wonder if the Superman opening titles were inspired by the opening titles of this film!

More likely the other way 'round since "The Adventures of Superman" began filming in 1951 and premiered on 9/19/52.

 

[Mark McSherry]

That's my point. It's as much wish-fulfillment dream for David as it is a nightmare. However scary that the Martians may be, or the abduction of his parents for that matter, he's literally living the dream as far as how the other adults in the film treat him. If it's a nightmare, he's still in enough control of his own subconscious that he's living out some vicarious wish-fulfillment at the same time. When he returns to reality, that's as much of a nightmare in that now adults are going to treat him like a dumb kid with an overactive imagination again.

Philip K Dick distilled THAT childhood nightmare with his 10-page short story in the December 1954 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction--- 'The Father-Thing'. I first read it years after when I was eleven. Even today, decades later, I will not read it a second time.

Philip K Dick must has seen INVADERS FROM MARS. The first two pages from the 12/54 Magazine of F&SF:

 

[Nelson Au]

More likely the other way 'round since "The Adventures of Superman" began filming in 1951 and premiered on 9/19/52.

I stand corrected. .

 

[Reed Grele]

I stand corrected. .

No biggie. BTW, even 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" had opening credits over star fields, galaxies, and a few planets thrown in for good measure. Not to mention Bernard Herrmann's memorable score!

 

[Nelson Au]

No biggie. BTW, even 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still" had opening credits over star fields, galaxies, and a few planets thrown in for good measure. Not to mention Bernard Herrmann's memorable score!

1956’s Forbidden Planet too!

 

[Reed Grele]

Just to get back to "Invaders From Mars" for a moment... As I noted previously, my 4K copy came with the dreaded stickers on the top and bottom of the sleeve. But I have to say that I have not experienced any major problems removing them without causing any rips or tears to the artwork. All I do is use my fingernail to slowly raise the edge of the sticker, and then very slowly, almost imperceptibly actually, keep a steady pulling on them and after a few minutes, they peel off without much difficulty. I suppose if you are impatient, you can try the hair dryer method or even breathing on it might help.