The Martian Chronicles Part 1 - The Expeditions DVD 1980 Marsbéli krónikák 1. rész - Az expediíciók / Directed by Michael Anderson / Starring: Rock Hudson, Gayle Hunnicutt, Bernie Casey, Roddy McDowall, Darren McGavin

UPC 5999546333862

REGION 2 PAL DVD

MADE IN HUNGARY

AUDIO: English 2.0, Hungarian 2.0

Subtitles: Hungarian

Total Runtime: 98 minutes

English Summary:

The Martian Chronicles is a 1980 television miniseries based on Ray Bradbury's 1950 book The Martian Chronicles and dealing with the exploration of Mars and the inhabitants there. The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Fritz Weaver, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell. It was aired on NBC in January 1980 in three episodes with a total running time of just over four hours (nearly five hours on the DVD version). The series depicts Mars as having a "thin atmosphere" which humans can breathe with water-filled canals and desert-like vegetation. The miniseries was directed by Michael Anderson and written by Richard Matheson.

The Expeditions

Episode 1, 27 January 1980

The first episode starts at the scene of Viking 1 unmanned probe landing on the surface of the planet Mars in July 1976. A narrator explains that the purpose of the probe is to determine whether Mars is inhabited. As the narrator is speaking, the viewer becomes aware that there are two viewpoints at NASA amongst the scientists who launched the probe: One group obviously believes Mars is uninhabited, the other is open to the possibility of indigenous life on the planet. Each has its convincing arguments, but ultimately the probe indicates that Mars does not harbour life. At the close of the scene the camera pans back to show a larger view of the probe's landing area, with what appears to be indigenous Martian settlements in the surrounding terrain, with the narrator noting that, "If the probe had landed just a few miles further on, things might have been different." Afterwards the opening credits roll.

The next scene places the viewer at the Kennedy Space Center in January 1999 when the first "Zeus I" manned spacecraft to Mars is carried into orbit by a Saturn V rocket. The Zeus project represents the beginning of a major effort by NASA and NATO to explore and eventually colonize the outer planets.

On Mars, Ylla (a Martian woman trapped in an unromantic marriage) dreams of the coming astronauts through telepathy. Her husband, though he pretends to deny the reality of the dreams, becomes bitterly jealous, sensing his wife's inchoate romantic feelings for one of the astronauts. He kills the two-man expedition, astronauts Nathaniel York and Bert Conover, as soon as they arrive. Mission control on Earth does not know the fate of the crew, and one of the senior astronauts Jeff Spender urges the project director Col. John Wilder to abandon the Zeus project because of concerns that Mars may already harbor life. Wilder (who has shepherded the project for ten years) refuses, among other things because he believes mankind might escape environmental pollution and war on Earth by colonizing Mars instead.

A second mission is launched and the "Zeus II" crew lands on Mars in April 2000. To their amazement the crew (astronauts Arthur Black, Sam Hinkston and David Lustig) discover that they have landed in a town that looks exactly like Green Bluff, Illinois. circa 1979. They are warmly greeted by close relatives and loved ones who all died years ago. In fact, the Martians use the memories of the astronauts to lure them into their old homes, where they are killed in the middle of the night.

Hungarian Summary:

Az emberiség régi álma válik valóra, amikor az első űrhajó a Marsra érkezik. A szonda nem talál életre utaló jeleket. Ám ha néhány kilométerrel arrébb ért volna földet, egész más hírek-kel tért volna haza... Több évtizeddel később már emberek is érkez-nek a vörös bolygó felfedezésére. Egy marsbéli nő erotikus álmaiban előre látja a Zeus-1 űrhajó érkezését. Amikor a földlakók megérkeznek, az asszony féltékeny férje azonnal végez az űrhajó utasaival. A Zeus-2 sem jár sokkal több szerencsével. A gondolatolvasásra képes Mars-lakók kifürkészik az űrhajósok emlékeit és tőrbe csalják őket, hogy az emberiség ne tehesse tönkre bolygójukat. Amikor viszont a Zeus-3 megérkezik a Marsra, már csak halott Marslakókat talál. A korábbi expedíciók egy, az ember számára szinte ártalmatlan, a Marslakókra nézve azonban végzetes vírust hurcolnak be: a bárányhimlőt...

Cast / Szereplők: