Mission to Mars (2000)
Trivia
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Spoilers (3)
The filmmakers created the Martian landscape in a massive sandpit near Vancouver. It was one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a movie - around two million square feet.
Armin Mueller-Stahl, who plays Ray Beck (commander on the space station) is not listed in the credits, nor is the character.
Many of the props from this movie, including the big turning wheel set and the spacecraft model are now on display in the line queue area at the "Mission Space" ride at Epcot in Walt Disney World in Florida.
Each one of the space suits cost around $100,000 to make. But a real NASA space suit costs between $10-$12 million.
The original director of the film was Gore Verbinski. When the budget was upgraded, Brian De Palma started to show interest. Rewrites in the script were also done.
Don Cheadle actually slept outside by himself to get a sense of the environment and isolation.
The idea for the massive white room came from production designer Ed Verreaux. The whole structure is inspired by modern art. It's simple, clean, and minimal.
After Mars Recovery is given the OK to enter orbit around Mars, Woody Blake says "Let's light this candle". This is exactly what Alan Shepard, the first American in space, said just before lift-off on his inaugural Mercury flight.
Dr. Story Musgrave, real life shuttle astronaut, plays one of the capcom people in the early part of the story on the space station in the Mars mission command center.
This came out the same year as another Mars-themed film, Red Planet (2000). Both were unsuccessful, critically and commercially.
Between visuals, miniatures, and animation, over 400 technicians were directly involved in the production aspects of the special effects.
Effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman says this is a "hardware film." Almost every location in the movie had to be created from scratch because it didn't exist in the real world
Every actor had their own "crew" to get into the space suits. It still took them 45 minutes. They also weighed 62 lbs. each.
That dust is blown by 10 massive 350-horsepower wind machines. The whole crew wore gas masks while they shot it.
Gary Sinise took this "All-American" role because he'd just played a bad guy in Reindeer Games (2000).
To create the illusion of weightlessness, Brian De Palma kept the camera moving.
In the movie, Luke's space suit becomes dirty. They didn't use actual space suit material, Teflon, because it doesn't ever look dirty.
Jerry O'Connell loved wearing the space suit on set: "I felt like a super hero."
Tim Robbins on acting inside the suits: "You hear your own breathing. It's an interesting, very insular, world."
In one scene, members of the crew shake the tent to create the illusion of wind. In reality, there's almost no wind on Mars because the atmosphere is so thin.
Gary Sinise's fancy convertible in the beginning of the barbecue scene is an Isuzu Vehicross convertible, a halo car produced for a very short time from '97-2001, selling only 4,153 units in the U.S.. It was never introduced as a convertible in the US. The jet sounds were added to give it a futuristic engine effect.
Jerry O'Connell took this role because he studied Brian De Palma movies in film school.
Gary Sinise was strapped in a chair that really rotated around and around until he asked Brian De Palma to stop.
One of two science-fiction Mars movies that were first released in the year 2000 and were both partly shot in Wadi Rum in Jordan. The films are 'Red Planet' (2000) and 'Mission to Mars' (2000).
There were theme park attractions at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World called Mission to Mars. Both opened in 1975, but Disneyland's closed in November 1992, while the Magic Kingdom's ran until October of the next year. Gary Sinise happens to narrate the Mission: Space attraction at EPCOT.
Tim Robbins and Connie Nielsen had 35 feet of space to dance, more than any actual spacecraft.
The wristwatch worn by the crew sent to determine what happened during the first mission to Mars is the Omega X-33.
Gary Sinise also plays an astronaut missing out on the mission in Apollo 13 (1995).
HIDDEN MICKEY: Momentarily as we see the Mars Recovery vehicle approach the planet, Mars itself, the rotating circular hub of the spaceship, and the round satellite dish sitting on its spine line up to form the friendly and familiar Mickey Mouse logo.
As of 2020, this is the last major Hollywood studio film directed by Brian De Palma
Peter Outerbridge's character is named Sergei Kirov. Sergei Mironovich Kirov was a leader of the communist movement in the former URSS, being head of the party on former city of Leningrad (actual St. Petersburg). He was one of the first to be killed in Joseph Stalin's "Great Purges".
Monica Potter was originally cast as Terri Fisher.
The communication viewscreen on Mars Recovery was built by Silicon Graphics (hence the abbreviation logo of SGI).
Ennio Morricone's third soundtrack for Brian De Palma, after The Untouchables (1987) and Casualties of War (1989).
Gary Sinise and Kim Delaney were lately involved with the CSI franchise: Sinise played Mac Taylor in CSI: NY (2004) and Delaney played Megan Donner in CSI: Miami (2002).
Spoilers
The appearance of the "Face on Mars", as well as the alien hologram, were modeled after the work of the famous Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncusi, especially his "Sleeping Muse"(1910).
The rotating circles that signify the alien countdown are indeed *counting* down... in binary. The circles in their horizontal and vertical configurations correspond to zeroes (0) and ones (1) respectively, and the least significant bit (LSB) on the viewer's left. The sequence in which they turn correspond to a binary countdown. The leftmost lit circle is not part of the binary count. There is an initial pattern of "all horizontal", following which the countdown actually begins (starting with "all vertical").
Much of the film the The Martian (2015) and the novel it's based on (2011) is similar to this film. Both are about a crew trying to rescue a sole astronaut left on Mars and both astronauts survived their time abandoned on the planet by growing food.
