$175 million "Mars Needs Moms" opens to $7 million weekend

[Lamia]

@WordMan

I saw previews at 2 or maybe three movies I took my kids to over the past couple of months. They are tweeners, so perhaps a bit old for the movie’s target demographic, but their immediate response was “Mars Needs Moms” sounds stupid as a name and a concept - it just reeked of uncoolness. I wouldn’t be surprised if most kids felt that way…

@Death_of_Rats

As for the OP, all of my wife’s friends have refused to take thier under-tween aged kids to see it because they feel the concept of Moms being kidnapped would be too disturbing for littler kids, but the movie does not look appealing for older kids.

I don’t have kids, but I would guess that these two factors do a lot to explain why families have been staying away in droves. Any kids young enough not to think that the title/concept are incredibly uncool is probably young enough to be frightened by a PG-rated movie about aliens kidnapping mommies. And frankly, if I did have kids I don’t think I’d be in a hurry to take them to a movie in which the mean Martian matriarchy abducts human women to raise their Martian children. Maybe I’m mistaken in perceiving a “Back to the kitchen!” message there, but I wouldn’t shell out for 3D priced tickets for the entire family just to find out.

There doesn’t seem to be anything about this movie that would draw in teens or adults without kids, either. I know almost nothing about Rango, but I can imagine people without kids going to see it on a whim just because they like Johnny Depp or enjoy Westerns.

[BigT]

I just discovered that some of the animation is on IMDB. This doesn’t look that bad. I’m impressed, actually. I didn’t know we had that level of facial capture. I am very surprised that people are complaining about it if it looks like that.

I guess I do see some uncanny valley problems, but only in stills. In motion, everything looked fake and over exaggerated enough. Maybe the 3D makes that part worse.

[SciFiSam]

@control-z

Link to NYT article that may or may not let you view it.

Personally I haven’t heard much at all about this movie, no McDonalds Happy Meal tie-ins and whatnot, sad but true, that’s the way publicity works. The animation style didn’t look very good, and Mars Needs Moms sounds like the Martians are kidnapping women to breed with them, which doesn’t jive with a Disney movie. The NYT article also mentions that 3D movie prices might also hold it back, which I heartily agree with. Let’s see, movie tickets are getting more expensive and less people are going, so they come up with a new technology that only half the people want and then charge more for tickets? I think I see the problem.

The Total Film review of this movie made it sound exactly like that was what was going on. I’ll see if I can dig out the exact quote later.

[lindsaybluth]

@Skammer

I’ll pay a few dollars extra to see 3D when I’m going to a movie alone, or even with my wife, but when you’re taking the whole family it’s just too expensive for a gimmick that’s wasted on the kids anyway.

Agreed, it absolutely is wasted on the kids. My boyfriend’s 8 year old sister couldn’t care less if the movie is in 3D or imax or whatever. Now, she likes going to see stuff in the omnimax, but she’ll look at what’s coming up and request nature-y movies (she and I saw Hubble together a few weeks ago). I suspect she wants to see those movies on the big screen because you can’t get a nature/science movie at a regular theater; the omnimax is just icing on the cake.

Plus, ultimately you gotta remember that parents have to find it mildly interesting to even consider going. That’s why Ratatouille was such an incredible hit - it worked on many levels and had little bits and pieces of adult humor that wouldn’t harm the kids at the same time.

[shy_guy]

@BigT

I just discovered that some of the animation is on IMDB. This doesn’t look that bad. I’m impressed, actually. I didn’t know we had that level of facial capture. I am very surprised that people are complaining about it if it looks like that.

I guess I do see some uncanny valley problems, but only in stills. In motion, everything looked fake and over exaggerated enough. Maybe the 3D makes that part worse.

Whereas from my perspective, that clip could be used as an excellent illustration of everything that is odious and terrible in modern animation. Soulless, ghastly, artless.

[WolfpackJeep]

@shy_guy

Whereas from my perspective, that clip could be used as an excellent illustration of everything that is odious and terrible in modern animation. Soulless, ghastly, artless.

Wasn’t there some big fuss about this type of animation (motion-capture with computer graphics) used to depict humans back when The Polar Express came out? I definitely think the human characters in Mars Needs Moms look better from a rendering standpoint, but when I watched that clip I was so focused on the characters that I wasn’t paying attention to anything else. It seemed like they flipped back and forth between human actors with something not right, and modern Saturday morning cartoon fare. The facial expressions were definitely “off” – at some points the faces seemed to be moving in ways not possible with live human muscle.