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Mars Attacks! ( 1996), a comedy/ science fiction film directed by Tim Burton, was a big-budget production masquerading as a B-movie. The film is visually impressive, as are most of Burton's films, and is highly dependent upon special effects. The film's soundtrack by Danny Elfman makes extensive use of the theremin.

The film is highly parodicIn contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. Parody exists in all art media, including literature, music, and cinema. In ancient Greek literature, a parody was a type of poem that imitated an, and contains numerous anachronicsticAn anachronism (from Greek ana back, and chronos time) is an artifact that belongs to another time, a person who seems to be displaced in time (i. who belongs to another age) or something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred. One o references to 1950's-style Science Fiction films. However, its targets were not other blockbusterFor the large bomb used in World War II by the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force, see Blockbuster bomb. Blockbuster is a term derived from theater slang referring to a particularly successful play (i. one that is so successful that competing Hollywood productions Independence DayIndependence Day is a American science fiction movie about an attempted alien takeover of the earth. The movie features several scenes of major American landmarks being destroyed by the aliens, such as the Empire State Building and the White House. The fi or Star Trek: First Contact (which dealt with another alien invasion of the Earth), for the three films were released in the same year, 1996. Mars Attacks! was instead based the trading card series. The exaggerated comic violence of the movie is only slightly more intense and garish than in the original cards. Therefore, as with other Burton movies, the subject under scrutiny is not the present, but the mass culture of suburban childhood of the past.

The plot is fairly simple but contains some interesting variations on the normal MartianThis article is about hypothetical inhabitants of Mars. In computer networking there are also " Martian packets," and a group of famous physicists and mathematicians from Hungary were dubbed " The Martians The name Martian is given to the hypothetical nat invasion movie. The premise is that the Martians have turned up on Earth and the President of the United StatesThe President of the United States is the head of state of the United States. Under the U. Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and commander in chief of the armed forces. Because of the superpower status of th (played by Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a highly successful American method actor. He is best known for portraying antagonistic, cynical, neurotic and aggressive characters. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, and has been nominated for an Academy) seeks to gain maximum public relationsPublic relations (PR) is the practice of conveying messages to the public through the media on behalf of a client, with the intention of changing the public's actions by influencing their opinions. PR practitioners usually target only certain segments of points by establishing a friendly relationship. (Nicholson also plays another role in the movie, that of a Las Vegas real-estate speculator.) The Martians however reject these overtures and proceed to wreak havoc with their spectacular red and green death-ray guns. The Martians pursue fleeing humans with speakers blaring "We come in peace," and some have seen in the Martian use of overtures to peace as methods of getting victims all in one spot a commentary on the public goals and actual practices of Western military powers in the 20th century.

As in the film The War of the Worlds, a simple weapon is ultimately found to counter the alien invaders: in this instance it is the playing of a piece of yodelling music, "Indian Love Call" performed by Slim Whitman . Some have criticized this as being far too similar to another parody of B-movies, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, where the killer tomatoes were also caused to explode when exposed to a particularly bad song.

Cast list: Jack Nicholson (two roles), Danny DeVito, Joe Don Baker, Annette Bening, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Natalie Portman, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, Tom Jones, Jack Black.

See also: Mars in fiction.