Thursday, March 15, 2007

Plant Life on Mars (1957)

We looked at how Disney portrayed humans living on Mars in the 1957 Disneyland TV show "Mars and Beyond" but the depiction of possible plants on Mars may be even more imaginative.



According to Steven Watts in his book The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (p. 309):
"[Mars and Beyond] was the most speculative program [and] it veered near the realm of science fiction with its imaginative description of possible life forms on the planet, [and] Martian weather conditions..."




You can view a clip of the program here and you can find this program in its entirety on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond.

See also:
Mars and Beyond (1957) 28 Feb 2007
at

5 comments:

  1. Gary GoldfinchMarch 15, 2007 at 4:48 PM

    Wow, thanks for highlighting this; I vividly remember seeing this film at junior school ~30 years ago (on a rickety projector with bad audio sync :))

    That 'plant that feeds on itself' has stayed with me ever since for some reason...

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  2. AnonymousMarch 16, 2007 at 8:53 AM

    Perhaps it isn't one plant, but a composite; the outer, white plant provides protection and mobility, while the fast-growing red plant provides sustenance

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  3. AnonymousMarch 16, 2007 at 12:08 PM

    I've got this DVD. It's great. Wasn't it great when we could look forward to the future.

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  4. UnknownMarch 16, 2007 at 7:26 PM

    reminds me of the movie 'conquest of space 1955 the first five minutes shows a yellow flower

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  5. AnonymousApril 19, 2007 at 9:31 PM

    I didn't hallucinate it! Hooray! This does remind me a lot of "Fantastic Planet". And the auto-cannibalistic thingie is nuts.

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