[File] The War of the Worlds, alone on Mars, Total Recall: When the SF is fascinated by Mars<

By killy the

The interest in funny objects that revolve in our field of vision is not recent.Already a source of representation of time via the lunar calendar a few thousand years before J.VS., la Lune a été au centre de l’attention de nombreux auteurs, de Francis Godwin avec L’Homme dans la Lune en 1638, jusqu’à Meliès et son Voyage dans la Lune de 1902, en passant par le célèbre conte Histoire comique des États et Empires de la Lune écrit par VSyrano de Bergerac en 1657.

March is not to be outdone, even if it waited with all universal patience the beginning of the SF in the 19th century to make its entry, fattened in a sudden interest in its flourishing lands. VS’est tout du moins ce que pense Percival Lowell, astronome -amateur- américain, par sa théorie de la présence de canaux artificiels à la surface de Mars.Partly inspired by a bad translation of the "canali" discovered by the Italian astronomer and historian Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli in 1877, who went from natural trenches in the original sense of the term to artificial constructions (channels) in English acceptance, Lowell's idea gives Mars a inhabited side.If there is a manual intervention, there is an intelligent population and therefore a life with which it is possible to interact.

A few 20 years later, this vision will be put on the ground and completed with a stroke of heel by this good old Aymar Eugène (sic) of La Baume Pluvinel, also astronomer.But in this period of time, Lowell's research marked a certain H.G.Wells who starts from this postulate to imagine an attack on the earth by a force of invasion from the Red Martian landscapes: the war of the worlds.Aboard their tripods, the Martians come to try to put a little pressure on humanity by the projection of toxic smoke and the installation of a large plan of suction of the blood of everything that works on two legs.But as these invaders are not very clever and little informed about the planet they want to colonize, they all die from a land bacteria. VSe qui n’arrête pas les échanges entre la Terre et Mars.

When there is Mars

Now planet of all possibilities, Mars becomes a new call to exoticism. VSette nouvelle zone à la fois proche et mystérieuse relègue les jungles profondes en arrière-plan.The fascination for these dense forests very present in the literature of the end of the 19th century is shifted towards fantasized civilizations much more distant. VS’est dans ce contexte d’aventures au long cours, que naît la série de romans du VSycle de Mars d’Edgar Rice Burroughs débuté en 1917, avec comme personnage principal, John VSarter. VSomme dans son autre saga littéraire Tarzan, l’auteur confronte son héros à un univers inconnu, dont il ne maîtrise aucune règle.Presented as a planet with complex politics and many camps that find it difficult to bear, Mars (here named Barsoom by locals) becomes more "real": of strange and aggressive people, it turns into a parallel of societyhuman, in which the projection is easy for the reader.

John VSarter défriche ce terrain aride est en fait un terreau sur lequel l’imaginaire peut prendre racine.A narrative fertility that will inspire a good package of works afterwards, if only Flash Gordon, dune-in the conflict side between "houses"-or Superman.A whole set of codes and tracks are born from this fairly candid fascination relationship for the red planet, which will evolve towards a different perception, as scientific discoveries.From 1924 to the end of the 1940s, the various observations of Mars moved away from the hopes of large civilizations, existing or disappeared.With the improvement of measurement tools and telescopes, masks fall and the planet seems less and less habitable.

The nail was driven in 1926 by Walter S.Adams which evokes the immense deficiency in oxygen and water vapor in the Mars atmosphere. VS’est à dire qu’y habiter sans protection est un suicide.Bad news that does not stop there, because Gerard Kuiper detects far too high doses of carbon dioxide, or carbon dioxide, which turns out to be deadly under these conditions.In short, there must not be many people to cultivate their planters. À l’orée des années 50, on ne rigole plus et même si l’auteur américain Ray Bradbury parle de contrées fertiles dans ses VShroniques Martiennes, il s’agit davantage d’une sorte d’observation à distance des problèmes de la Terre. Arthur VS.VSlarke, dans son The Sands of Mars (1951), suit quant à lui son époque.There is a question of terraction and colonization, via a forced awareness: Mars is not livable as it is and it is necessary to find a solution to bypass this problem thanks to human inventiveness.

The planet is then seen as a possession, existing through the only point of view of man.And nothing is going well with the results obtained by the mariner 4, 6 and 7 probes between 1964 and 1969 which reduce the hopes of an entire generation to nothing: unmanageable temperatures, too tenuous atmosphere which cannot prevent a regular bombardment frommeteorites, dangerous radiation fair, the imagination takes a hit.The writer Philip K.Dick then goes through the dream in his new memories for sale (Total recall in the cinema).It adapts to new scientific information and this way of traveling on Martian lands does not imply a real life.A time when many authors drop the terra more really really incognita than Mars to project their stories in an elsewhere that still retains its aura of mystery.But, despite the Vikings probes whose data collected on Martian soil in the late 1970s were subject to long discussions, the American government decided to launch a program of inhabited missions to the planet in 1989, History - among others - ofPress a pressure on a Russia already entangled in his political whirlwinds.

Marchwalk

A revival of confidence in Martian exploration, fueled by the multiplication of sending robots on Mars, whether Pathfinder in 96, Nozomi in 98 or the Rovers Mer in 2003 which ended up a click;There is water below the surface.The fact that it is frozen or as certain studies may be still liquid under certain conditions, makes the eyes of SF authors shine and filmmakers anchored in pop-culture. Il n’est alors pas étonnant qu’en l’espace d’une année, entre 2000 et 2001, trois longs-métrages sortent en salle ; Mission to Mars de Brian de Palma (2000), Planète Rouge d’Antony Hoffman (2000) ainsi que Ghosts of Mars de John VSarpenter (2001).Their similarity?All three speak of terraformation, of adaptation of the planet to life, as well as a preliminary presence of other "inhabitants".

VSes films mixent dans une certaine ironie l’ensemble de l’évolution de la vision de Mars par la science et l’imaginaire : à la fois l’idée d’une civilisation martienne et celle de l’obligation de modifier une terre stérile pour la conquérir. VSe qui pourrait se voir comme une conclusion à cette avancée parallèle de la recherche et de la SF n’est toujours qu’une étape, au regard des récentes analyses de la sonde Phobos et de VSuriosity (2011).Andy Weir proves it in his book The Martian (2011), adapted by Ridley Scott in 2015 in the film alone on Mars, awareness of the rigor with which this planet must be considered, which remains a hostile land, habitable than in a waypartial.Mars obtains a certain respect as a delicate, uncompromising and dangerous world.It becomes a risky possibility more than an ideal.

The progression of the relationship to this glowing planet in the SF is largely dependent on the impact in the collective culture of scientific advances.They direct the imagination towards more or less pessimistic scenarios, rengoror fantasized visions for lack of data.But by its presence in literature for more than a century, in cinema and comics, it is an object linked to exploration, to go beyond limits, in an unconscious way.She is the planet that almost succeeded, perfect mirror of our relationship to the earth.The SF will undoubtedly stop dreaming of Mars when we have found all our history there.

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