The Martian Chronicles (1980)

	Noe T.

5 out of  5  people found this review helpful

If you are a Ray Bradbury fan and enjoyed reading the novel, you will appreciate this film. Don't be discouraged by the poor reviews it received back in 1980 and by the fact that Bradbury himself called this movie "boring." While the special effects are not up to today's standards, the screenplay (by Richard Matheson), cast, costumes, sets, and overall production quality are very good. And, despite Bradbury's comment, Matheson's screenplay is very faithful to Ray's original work. You will enjoy it!

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	Geoffrey G.

2 out of  2  people found this review helpful

Bradbury's masterpiece has yet to be put on film. This may follow the plot but it utterly fails to capture the haunting atmosphere of the book. I can live with cheezy FX - the real problem here is the whole "mini-series" treatment is unsuited to Bradbury's work. The tone deaf casting (Rock Hudson?!) and standard issue, late 70s TV approach result in "generic Bradbury" - and since specific, compelling detail is the soul of his art, that's the same as no Bradbury at all.

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	Peter U.

2 out of  2  people found this review helpful

Yes, much of it was boring, some of it was silly, and the special effects were beneath criticism, even for 1980, BUT ... there were surprisingly effective scenes here and there which stick in my mind even to this day. Many of these were in Part 1. Plus I remember finding some of the music very haunting at the time. I am renting it again just to see if I still have the same reaction to it after all these years.

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