Mars and Beyond

"Mars and Beyond" was a one-hour TV special originally shown in 1957 as a Tomorrowland episode on ABC's weekly "Disneyland" TV program. It's basically an educational film done in color with very creative animation supervised by Ward Kimball about man's relation to the stars, conditions for life on Mars and options for exploring Mars. This film is now available on DVD as part of the 2-disc set entitled, "Walt Disney Treasures: Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond." The piece is slow going at first, with a few live educational segments of scientists in offices explaining stuff to viewers. There are a couple of long cartoon sequences, one more serious than the other. The serious one shows the history of man's observation of the planets and stars, with special attention to astronomers' views of Mars and new discoveries made over the centuries. The other shows typical science fiction renditions of Martian invasion stories. These two sequences are done in the limited animation cartoon style perfected earlier in the decade by the UPA cartoon studio ("Gerald McBoing-Boing," "Christopher Crumpet," et al). The sense of humor in the Martian invasion sequence is pretty juvenile (Chuck Jones was doing much funnier Martian-themed cartoons over at Warner Bros), but at least there are illustrated references to H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs and the inclusion of a female in a superhero costume who saves the day in one "typical" scenario.

However, in the last third of the program, the animation style gets more serious and detailed. One segment shows us what life on Mars might be like if conditions were just a tad improved, so we get to see all kinds of predatory vegetation in action in incredibly imaginative depictions of cold hard plant-eat-plant life on this sandy, arid planet. Then there's a segment offering a proposed operation for a fleet of manned ships to explore and travel the Martian surface, with attention paid to each step of the mission. These painted illustrations, while limited in movement, are quite detailed and beautifully rendered in the tradition of the best science fiction art. One can only fantasize what an animated science fiction feature at the time done in this style might have looked like.

One jarring element of Disney's space-themed TV programs was the frequent appearance on camera of German rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun, who'd headed the Nazi military rocket program during WWII and was brought to the U.S. to work on its space program at the end of the war. He has only a short wordless appearance in this one, but hosts long sequences in two other Tomorrowland films, "Man in Space" (1955) and "Man and the Moon" (1955), both of which offer beautifully illustrated speculative sequences as well and both of which are also included in the Disney Treasures Tomorrowland set. As Leonard Maltin points out in his intro on the disc, though, "Mars and Beyond" has more animation than all the rest of the Tomorrowland productions. For this reason, it will continue to be of great interest to fans of animation and its all-too-rare use, at least by American animators, in the treatment of science fiction concepts.

This episode was a fairly standard Disney attempt at educating the public about space exploration, by which I mean that it was decades ahead of the rest of Television or movies of the time. It had some heavy science behind it. NASA keeps referring to this series today, in 2012, for the uncanny accuracy of some of its depictions. Yes, we get fodder for the kids such as shark-like plants, and the usual "dying Martian civilization" pablum, but get beyond that and you start the see the real wheels spinning.

For the 1950s, the quality is exceptional. One should recall that Americans in those days who were fortunate enough to have a TV set were limited to two or, for some, three networks (depending on whether Dumont broadcast in their area and was still in operation). Also, everything was in black and white, and TV sets were small by today's standards. So, when you look at something like this episode today, in vivid color on a large screen, you aren't really seeing what people back then saw. But the fact that people still watched and enjoyed it anyway shows the power that raw science still exerted on the masses back when the US was on the ascendant. That era is long gone, of course.

"Mars and Beyond" stretched the limits. It boggles the mind that Disney could get huge ratings for shows that were packed with dense scientific jargon and obscure physics. Seen today, one can pick apart episodes such as this for out-there concepts that died in the 1950s, such as fleets of nuclear-powered ships basically invading Mars en masse (well, that idea may still happen someday....). Everything is so clear in hindsight, eh? Heck, at that time we hadn't even launched a single satellite, and here they were showing a Mars shot in graphic detail! And competing successfully against shows like "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners"! Just mind-blowing when you put it in perspective.

However, this particular episode is even more astonishing than usual just for how right it was about some minutely precise details. A sequence on the descent to Mars shows the use of parachutes and thrusters that almost perfectly foreshadows the arrival in 2012 of the "Curiosity" lander. NASA helpfully points out these similarities on a regular basis.

Clearly, somebody was thinking hard back then, conceptualizing something so remote from ordinary, everyday existence that you get the idea where the phrase "like a rocket scientist" comes from. You don't have to guess who was doing all this thinking - the man is right there on screen, Wernher von Braun (along with another of his German cohorts, Ernst Stuhlinger). Von Braun was sort of the poster child for NASA in the 1950s, and today it is easy to see why, with his reassuring (to me, anyway), no-nonsense "it's only about science" attitude.

Now, von Braun takes his hits on boards such as this from moralistic and patronizing know-it-alls because he had the misfortune to grow up in Nazi Germany. Well, if the US were to be taken over by, say, China, everyone in the US could be tainted by the US adventurism in places like Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan, so get off that high horse, my friend. Von Braun was a technocrat before the term was invented, and survived a corrupt system by focusing on science. He later did his best to atone for whatever sins he had to commit by basically creating NASA, though I'm sure the ones who smugly condemn him now would have done the only honorable thing - refusing to work for their homeland's horrendous dictatorship - by walking themselves straight into a concentration camp voluntarily out of sheer moral purity. Yeah, that's real likely. Yes, his homeland's leaders required the use of slave labor, and von Braun's early work flowed from that. Can't deny it. But by surviving, Von Braun was able to go on to do something admirable for the entire human race and perhaps redeem Germany's reputation (at least scientifically) just a smidgen. Let's hope you do something as worthwhile for humanity as get the first man on the Moon. I highly doubt that will happen.

Anyway, if you bother to look, it isn't difficult to see the genius touch of von Braun throughout. He still, as in earlier (also exceptional) Disney space animation in this series, was stuck to some extent on the liquid fuel idea that was abandoned when things got real in the 1960s, but that just shows how far his thinking was ahead of mundane reality. There also is a corny precision to the rather far-fetched outlines of the journey to Mars - it wouldn't take a little over a year, it would be "13 months and six days" and so on. Nice flourishes that emphasized that even intricate space flight calculations were simply scientific questions whose answers could be thought out with precision - and this at a time when computers could do little more than simple multiplication. Try calculating planetary geometry with a slide rule and see how far you get.

The truth is, the entire US space program that has done so much good for so many people and for so many reasons came straight out of Peenemunde. It flowed directly from von Braun's (and Stuhlinger's and Oberth's and so many other Germans) brain. If he managed to get a little airtime, it's a lot less than he deserved. Looking back on this series now should remind you that you have men like von Braun to thank for your cell phones and your satellite cable TV and your GPS. If you are so noble and morally above using the work of men like von Braun, who themselves at one time used the work of slave laborers, give that all up to be consistent. Not going to do it? Didn't think so. You are no better than him, and he explored the stars.

content contains refreshing controversial ideas,especially imagining yourself back in MCMLVII. If you remember where you were whilst watching the first Moon Landing,you must have this in your collection!The narration Paul Frees,takes you back to the time when your imagination was as fresh as a warm summer breeze,on your cheek,with the scent of fresh grass and wildflowers.....in other words your mind was still a fresh sponge,everything still smelled fresh and pungent,you were still afraid to sleep in the back room of your house alone,for fear the Morlocks maybe lurking behind the basement door at night.(Not to mention the original"Invaders from Mars").Anyway,you probably have this short stored in your subconscious,waiting to send you back on a revere.

One of my favorite restaurants at Disneyworld is the Sci-Fi Dine-In. The food is pretty ordinary but the ambiance....well, it's pretty amazing. You sit in a fake car inside a restaurant that looks like a drive-in theater at night....and they show all sorts of goofy sci-fi clips on the giant screen as you eat.

So what does this have to do with "Mars and Beyond"? Well, quite a few of the clips they show in this restaurant were originally made for this episode of "The Magical World of Disney" back in 1957. And, I wanted to see the rest of the episode...not just the clips used in the restaurant.

The episode is essentially about the history of human concepts of the Earth, the solar system and the universe. Paul Frees narrates and takes you in the first portion of the show from pre-history through the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance to today...all accompanied by weird and minimalistic animations. While the quality of the animations are only fair (with a relatively low cel-count and simplistic backgrounds), they are effective and occasionally amusing. Following this is a lecture on evolution which is a bit boring by comparison and didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the show. Then, the show focuses on Mars during the final segment of the show. Overall, it's a very uneven episode--very fun and interesting at times and a dull lecture at others.

By the way, the ex-history teacher in me objected to the narrator's assertion that the Middle Ages was 'a stupid period'! This is actually a bit of a myth. While knowledge wasn't as sophisticated as it was in the Renaissance, it wasn't as if NOTHING happened for this thousand years period and that folks were totally ignorant!

Spectacularly imaginative, with beautiful animation. Some of the animation is very colorful and cartoonish, particularly an intentionally hilarious sequence imagining the kind of intelligent life that might exist on Mars (this being the 50s, when speculation about life on Mars was at his height). Another sequence goes for a more serious though obviously speculative take on the kind of animal and plant life that might exist on Mars. The latter is my favorite sequence in this film - ingeniously imaginative. The final animated sequence is a more realistic kind of animation, reminiscent of the Max Fleischer style in the Superman cartoons. This sequence speculates on what an excursion tomorrow's might look like using the latest 1957 atomic spaceship and landing craft imaginings. Very enjoyable for any science fiction fan or fan of animation. Also, the show is narrated by the great Paul Frees, who is well familiar to fans of classic American sci-fi, having appeared in, for example, the 1953 film adaptation the most famous work of fiction cited in this film, HG Wells' The War of the Worlds.

It's fascinating to think about the historical and cultural context within which this film was created. It's the height of the UFO craze and deep into the space race. White men are all the rage, so all we see are, well, white, male scientists. This small parade of mostly-bespectacled egg heads includes a former Nazi: a cameo by none other than Wernher von Braun. His presence lends a very bizarre touch.

All things considered, this is one of the coolest educational films I've seen from that era. It's a must-see for fans of animation, science fiction, or 1950s American television.