Mars Attacks has been unavailable to stream for free recently, but it returns to Netflix today, making one of Tim Burton‘s oddest and most interesting movies availble to a huge audience to watch for free with a subscription. The movie, which was released in1996, is a campy, violent alien invasion comedy with an all-star cast that features some Tim Burton regulars, including Batman Returns‘s Danny DeVito and Batman‘s Jack Nicholson. The movie made just about $100 million against a $70 million budget, making it a box office disappointment for Warner Bros. It also drew mixed reviews, although the 54% it has on Rotten Tomatoes is not indicative of the more generous impression of it that audiences have 25 years later.
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In the film, a technologically-advanced alien race arrive on Earth, declaring they “come in peace,” but when a hippie releases a dove, they incinerate it and begin slaughtering everyone in sight. The movie’s lukewarm reception was likely that some of the darker humor did not sync up with expectations that were set by a colorful marketing campaign and zany promotional materials. There was plenty of off-the-wall humor, but you had to get through a lot of murder to get there.
The movie joins fellow turn-of-the-century movies like Batman Forever and Josie and the Pussycats in being lambasted at the time of release for too much camp, only to find a more appreciative audience in the internet age.
Mars Attacks is a property owned by Topps, and was created in 1962 as a series of trading cards. The creators were reportedly inspired to do so by a cover by legendary comics artist Wally Wood, from the EC series Weird Science. Topps used to publish comics themselves in the 1990s but like many other smaller publishers, folded when the market collapsed after the burst of the “collector’s bubble.” They presently make cards and other merchandise not only for professional sports but to maintain their other intellectual properties like Garbage Pail Kids. Both Mars Attacks and Garbage Pail Kids have been made into cult-favorite feature films.
The Mars Attacks cards form a story arc, which tell of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians, under the command of a corrupt Martian government who conceal the fact from the Martian populace that Mars is doomed to explode and therefore proposes a colonization of Earth. The cards depict futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture and slaughter, as well as various Earth nations being attacked.
