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Red Planet Stars Get Spacey (cont.)
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A question of realism
While Red Planet did
not receive formal NASA support to the extent enjoyed by Mission
to Mars and Space
Cowboys, both cast and crew worked hard to make the film as realistic
as possible.
Even as first-time feature
director Antony Hoffman was hanging around with astronauts at Johnson Space
Center, touring the real-life space shuttle and studying NASA's ongoing
preparations for an eventual Mars mission, Moss was reading a lot of books
about the Red Planet and talking to astronauts herself.
| Val Kilmer on Female Astronauts |  | 
"The fact that she's a woman in relation to what we are as astronauts and what we had to go through to become this crew? We have even more respect forher as a woman and what she had to go through. I think it's possible if it weresomeone like Carrie-Anne Moss." |
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Being so close to -- as she
put it -- "the mystery and magnitude" of space travel, "and the bravery
that it must take to be someone who dedicates his or her life to this"
-- gave her goosebumps and brought tears to her eyes.
Kilmer, who has called the
film "the best Mars movie because it's science fact," praised the project's
attention to detail and realism.
"The design of the ship and
the design of the costumes were all worked with NASA and other experts
and the Mars team that exists, so everything [in the film] is possible,"
he said. "A few thing that are inventions of our designers . . . actually
became good ideas, and they're going on to research them themselves."
Looking up, thinking big
It's up to the experts to
praise or revile the film for how well it matches up to real-world space
technology and procedures when it premieres November 10.
Meanwhile, Warner Brothers
has aimed Red Planet at the somewhat less rigorous "philosophical
action" market pioneered by The Matrix.
In addition to Moss, the
project captured the interest of the sound, costume and production design
crews from The Matrix, and the filmmakers hope it will capture the
earlier film's highbrow
cult following -- and action-thriller-size box-office receipts -- as
well.
"It's a smart movie," said
producer Mark Canton. "What if we have to go someplace else? What if that
place is Mars? . . . The story also has an intelligent side which debates
the values of philosophy and theology and religion and science, or lack
of all those as well."
The cast appear to agree
with this assessment. Kilmer, in particular, waxed rhapsodic about how
certain shots in the film "just generate a big feeling, like looking up
at a sky full of stars. . . . There is more to life than what the senses
tell us, and we find that out on Mars, literally. There's more to life
than we think."
"It's just exciting to know,
and we crave the truth as human beings," he said. "It's amazing to talk
to the scientists and philosophers and mathematicians and space explorers
that are obsessed because their passion is so infectious even if you don't
know the hell they're talking about. The fact we've gone out there and
can and will continue to is just amazing."
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