I vaguely recall seeing Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! when it came out in December 1996. I remembered the movie’s risible aliens and its surprise ending, but that’s about it. Recently, however, I watched it again on Netflix with a couple of my kids, who thought it looked funny. They were right. While it’s hard to call a movie that features Sarah Jessica Parker’s head on the body of a chihuahua a “masterpiece,” I do think it’s fair to say that Mars Attacks! is an underappreciated satire on American politics. The plot is straightforward. Realizing that a squadron of martian spacecraft are preparing to invade the earth, a slew of politicians, military leaders, and cultural elites gather to discuss the best response. While the crusty General Decker (Rod Steiger) proposes an aggressive nuclear defense, Professor Donald Kessler (Pierce Brosnan) convinces President James Dale (Jack Nicholson) that the situation can be handled with diplomacy. As Kessler explains, “We know they're extremely advanced technologically, which suggests—very rightfully so—that they're peaceful. An advanced civilization, by definition, is not barbaric.” As if to demonstrate his point, Kessler brings in an inventor, who has developed a device to translate the aliens’ language:
Rather than cause concern, the machine’s garbled translation is greeted as profundity—the first of many paradoxes in Mars Attacks!. Indeed, while the aliens prove to be as impishly curious as they are devilishly brutal, President Dale and his advisors continue to believe that mutual self-interest and humanistic goodwill will end the crisis. But these martians simply don’t care:
Eventually, there is a push to fight back, but it’s to no avail. The aliens appear to be unstoppable, taking out even Boy Scout troops and retirement homes with glee. All seems lost, until a simple act of kindness uncovers their lone vulnerability. This is the movie’s final paradox, and it suggests that the answer to political crises may not be political after all.
From René Girard’s Battling to the End (French title: Achever Clausewitz, 2007): “Hope is possible only if we dare to think about the danger at hand.”
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I have to watch this.