By: debbie lynn elias
In 2006, the world was blessed with what quickly became a classic in children’s literature – Berkeley Breathed’s “Mars Needs Moms.” Inspired by a disagreement involving broccoli between Breathed’s wife and their 5 year old son, Milo, Breathed was placed in the difficult position of how to explain to Milo how he might feel if he didn’t have a Mom or what if she was suddenly taken away by Martians. So inspired with this creative rationalization, Breathed sat down that night and wrote MARS NEEDS MOMS. A little 32 page book, which he also illustrated, it didn’t take long for it to find its way into the hands of Robert Zemeckis and Disney. Always at the forefront of technology and entertainment, Zemeckis immediately had a vision for a film. “A lot of great elements perfect for performance capture, digital film and 3D. It takes place on Mars. An alien environment. It all had to be rendered. It had a lot of fun elements and things that lend itself perfectly to this process [motion performance].” Seeing this as a “great challenge to take such a small story and try to flesh out a movie idea out of it”, with an interesting subtext and “emotional moments that you don’t usually find in most children’s books or family fare”, Simon and Wendy Wells were tapped to write a script with Simon directing. The end result is MARS NEEDS MOMS in 3D and Imax 3D. A wonderful blend of science, imagination, adventure and fun with heart as its core, MARS NEEDS MOMS is the adventure of your dreams!
Milo is your average 9 year old. He dreams, he plays, he hates his vegetables. And while he loves his parents, there are times he wishes he didn’t have them. Of course, those times are infrequent and rare and only occur when Milo gets in trouble for something…like when feeding his broccoli to the cat, telling Mom he ate it himself so he can stay up and watch tv, only to have the car throw-up the broccoli, giving away Milo’s deception. Uh, oh. So naturally, when he gets in trouble with Mom, what’s the perfect response? I wish I didn’t have a mom.
I guess Milo forgot about the old adage, be careful what you wish for, because no sooner does night fall, than guilt sets in and on getting out of bed to apologize to Mom, sees her being whisked away on a spaceship! Mom is being taken away from him! Determined to save her, Milo stows away in the ship and soon finds himself soaring through the skies and landing on…you guessed it – Mars. Red on the outside as we have seen through our own JPL rovers, underground, there is a vast compound that goes deep into the core of the planet. Multi-layered, there is drab, disinfecting, order and discipline to rival that of Imperial storm troopers.
Discovered by the Martians, Milo is taken captive and imprisoned while his Mom is taken unconscious to some other area within the Martian compound. Crying, angry, pounding away at his prison, Milo must save Mom. But how? It doesn’t take long though before help arrives in the form of Gribble – another Earthling whose mom was taken away 20 years ago. Like Milo, he tried to save his Mom. Sadly, Gribble was unsuccessful and became stranded on Mars, left to create a world for himself underground. Although a self taught technical genius, Gribble’s social skills are stalled at age 10 given that he has been in hiding with no human contact or education. To Gribble, the world is still 1985.
Happy to have a friend, Gribble teams up with Milo in his quest to save Mom, but Gribble plans to drag this out as long as possible as he fears being alone again. With enough exuberance and joy to fill the entire planet, Gribble is uncontainable as he shows Milo his lair, lays out his plans for the future. Milo, on the other hand, is rapidly becoming an adult as he focuses on the dire situation of his mom, with a ticking clock rapidly running down until her demise. You see, MARS NEEDS MOMS to program its Nannybots as they don’t believe that child-rearing should be done by Martians, deeming it a waste of time. Problem is, is that on programming the Nannybots with essence of moms, moms disintegrate.
Facing trials and tribulations and comic foibles galore, Milo and Gribble press on with their mission, and soon gain the help of a rebel Martian named Ki. Happy, spritely and energetic, Ki isn’t your typical Martian. She speaks English thanks to pilfering some data obtained from other kidnapped moms and observations of earth habits. But the date she’s studied is all from the 1960’s and early 70’s filled with flower power and groovy things of the time. Forming a tightly knit triumvirate, the three set out on the most fantastical and dangerous adventure of their lives.
Seth Green gives the physical performance for the motion capture of Milo while Seth Duskey does the voicing. According to Green, “when you’re making a movie like this with skin tight velcro suits and dots all over your face…harnesses banging around with each other, you feel the camaraderie [with other actors] very easily. Here, that camaraderie is with Dan Fogler aka Gribble. The biggest challenge for Fogler, Green and the other actors was the motion capture performance process. For Fogler, “The harnesses are incredibly constricting and if you are a person of girth as I am (laughing)……” Key to the process for Fogler is that “You get a taste of seeing what its like to be a stunt person which is COOL. It’s like you’re doing action movie stuff.” The physicality of both Green and Fogler is outstanding. As for Fogler, he is hysterical and buffoonish just like a grown up who’s still a kid, but he brings this beautiful sincerity to Gribble. “I love playing sad clowns. Hysterical characters who have a lot of pain inside. That’s Gribble. He’s a huge teddy bear with the brain of a 10 year old but a complete genius.”
Elisabeth Harnois captured my attention with this great energy and elan as Ki. For Harnois, motion capture is the highlight of the job. “I enjoy the process SO much and the way you get to engage with other actors. It’s very much like theater.” And of course, ‘[Flying in harnesses] is so fun. They really let us do stuff that in any other film, we probably wouldn’t be allowed to do. It was painful but it was also really fun.”
Joan Cusack is the epitome of “mom.” A mom herself with a son named Miles, even Cusack admits there were times she fell so completely into the role of Mom that she would say “Miles” instead of Milo. As with all the other actors, this was also Cusack’s first time shooting in motion performance. “It was almost like you‘re going back to childhood, like you’re playing where you have to imagine everything. You get to imagine again, which is kind of fun.”
Veteran character actress Mindy Sterling easily handles the role of the Martian “Supervisor”. Calling on her comedic improvisational roots with The Groundlings, for Sterling, motion capture is like manna from heaven. “We loved it! It was so free, so liberating and so creative. Where you had to be creative in how you saw the set and how you saw the things you were dealing with because there wasn’t anything there. Just some tape. You really had to go to your acting and to your visual conception of everything. It was so different. You didn’t have to be boggled down with hair and make-up or the lighting. It was so amazing.” Also amazing, was the creation of the Martian language which Sterling had to speak. Described as “really fun and different. There are some words they definitely created and made something out of so we could consistently use them as part of the Martian language. [Other times] I didn’t have to memorize anything. It was great making up my own thing.”
Written by Simon and Wendy Wells, and directed by Simon, according to Wendy, “it took about a year [to write the screenplay]. We start up with a kernel of idea from the book and then wrote a novella of about 100 pages to see where it would take us.” For Simon, “The book has incredibly powerful tentpoles. First, the awful moment where the kid is rude to his mother and then the sort of redeeming of that when he really discovers what a mother’s love means – that a Mum will give her life for her child… Finding stuff to do along the way, well, take that thematic idea and build more characters who relate to that thematic idea and explore the territory that is implicit in that thematic idea. It fleshed out fairly easily finding more to do.”
The dialogue is realistic with Milo’s questions for Gribble of why, why, what, where, how. Similarly, the innocence of Gribble and Ki is celebratory with wide-eyed wonder. And the mother-son dynamic…perfect. How many kids haven’t tried feeding the cat or dog unwanted food, or thrown fits about taking out the trash, or tried to skirt around a deal with mom or dad and “reinterpret” verbiage. And how often has every kid yelled at their parents, wishing they didn’t have them.
As director, Simon, along with his technical team of magicians – Doug Chiang, Production Designer; Kevin Baillie, VFX Supervisor; Huck Wurtz, Animation; Robert Presley, Director of Photography; and Anthony Shafer, Stereoscopic (3D) supervisor – turn MARS NEEDS MOMS into a flight of fantastical. And let me tell you, these guys are the best in the business. Utilizing state of the art motion performance technology, including the new Kabuki Mask which allows for capture of full facial expression, the result is the finest motion capture performance film ever done, thanks to 120 stage cameras capturing 360 degree motion. Lensed in 3d (not post-production conversion), Shafer and team developed their own 3D camera system. And then we toss in animation which is impeccably and beautifully executed by Wurtz and his department. And I have to admit, my favorite visual sequence in the film is the discovery of the Ancient Underground. Filled with wonder, it is breathtakingly exquisite with 3D only adding to the magic of the dancing vibrant color and light. Overall color palettes are defining and expressive.
What I particularly appreciate is the nod to JPL and the creation of visuals that while based on the original Breathed illustrations, are in keeping with the surface feeds we’ve been receiving from the Mars rovers. Color, texture, and then incorporating scientific facts about Mars and laws of physics also contributes to the fantastical reality that there is life on Mars; something that has always been a part of imagination and playtime with kids – flying to the Moon, Mars and beyond, and of course, meeting Martians.
A totally immersive moviegoing experience, for Cusack, “There is a lot of care into every piece” of MOMS NEEDS MARS. For Sterling, “Film is so magical…3d really brought it to life.” For Fogler, “This is epic space comedy. Actor friendly…expensive playtime.” As for me, I just love Simon Wells’ sense of adventure and with MARS NEEDS MOMS, he soars.
Milo – Seth Green/Seth Duskey
Gribble – Dan Fogler
Ki – Elisabeth Harnois
Supervisor – Mindy Sterling
Mom – Joan Cusack
Directed by Simon Wells. Written by Simon Wells and Wendy Wells based on the book by
Berkeley Breathed.
Doug Chiang – Production Designer
Kevin Baillie – VFX Supervisor
Huck Wurtz – Animation
Robert Presley, Director of Photography
Anthony Shafer, Stereoscopic (3D) supervisor
