RocketMan is a
1997The year 1997 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Star Wars original trilogy's 20th Anniversary Special Editions are released.*Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace....
science fictionScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that aren't necessarily accepted by mainstream science. such as extra-terrestrial life forms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic...
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending . One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies...
that was produced by
Walt Disney PicturesWalt Disney Pictures refers to several different entities associated with The Walt Disney Company:Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner, was established as a designation in 1983, prior to which Disney films since 1954 were released under the name of the parent company, then named Walt Disney...
and
Caravan PicturesCaravan Pictures was a film production company arm of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group , formed by Roger Birnbaum and Joe Roth....
and released on October 10, 1997. The film was shot on location at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, TexasHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of...
and in
Moab, UtahMoab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. It is 233 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and 354 miles west of Denver, Colorado, about 30 miles South of Interstate 70 at the intersection of U.S. Route 191 and State Route 128. The population was 4,779 at the...
for the scenes on the surface on
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
.
The film was a box-office flop (with a gross of only $15,448,043 in the USA), but was well received by critics and has gained a large cult following.
RocketMan is a
1997The year 1997 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Star Wars original trilogy's 20th Anniversary Special Editions are released.*Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace....
science fictionScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that aren't necessarily accepted by mainstream science. such as extra-terrestrial life forms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic...
comedy filmComedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. Also, films in this style typically have a happy ending . One of the oldest genres in film, some of the very first silent movies were comedies...
that was produced by
Walt Disney PicturesWalt Disney Pictures refers to several different entities associated with The Walt Disney Company:Walt Disney Pictures, the film banner, was established as a designation in 1983, prior to which Disney films since 1954 were released under the name of the parent company, then named Walt Disney...
and
Caravan PicturesCaravan Pictures was a film production company arm of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group , formed by Roger Birnbaum and Joe Roth....
and released on October 10, 1997. The film was shot on location at the Johnson Space Center in
Houston, TexasHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of...
and in
Moab, UtahMoab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. It is 233 miles southeast of Salt Lake City and 354 miles west of Denver, Colorado, about 30 miles South of Interstate 70 at the intersection of U.S. Route 191 and State Route 128. The population was 4,779 at the...
for the scenes on the surface on
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
.
The film was a box-office flop (with a gross of only $15,448,043 in the USA), but was well received by critics and has gained a large cult following. It was one of the inaugural Disney titles released on DVD which soon went out-of-print and along with a rare, out-of-print
VHSVideo Home System, better known by its abbreviation VHS, was a video tape recording standard developed during the 1970s. It was released to the public during the latter half of the decade. During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s it formed one-half of the VHS vs Betamax war, which it...
release commanded high prices on
eBayeBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. A majority of the sales take place through a set-time auction format, but subsequent methods include...
. In April 2006, the Disney Movie Club began distributing a
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
re-release. According to
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc....
, it was re-released to the public in April 2007.
Plot
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
is currently training for the first ever
manned mission to MarsA manned mission to Mars has not taken place but is the subject of science fiction, engineering, and scientific proposals and plans throughout the 20th Century and into the 21st Century...
. Due to a supposed glitch in the computer navigation system, NASA looks for the original programmer of the software to see why the software seems to be broken. Fred Z. Randall (
Harland WilliamsHarland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian and radio personality.-Personal life:Williams was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Lorraine, a writer, and John Reesor Williams, a lawyer and Member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario who served as Solicitor-General of the province...
), the eccentric programmer who wrote the software, meets Paul Wick (
Jeffrey DeMunnJeffrey DeMunn is an American theatre, film and television actor.DeMunn was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Violet and James DeMunn. He graduated from Union College with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He moved to England in the early 1970s, receiving theatrical training at the Old Vic Theatre...
), the flight director of the Mars mission, William "Wild Bill" Overbeck (
William SadlerWilliam Thomas Sadler is an American actor.-Early life:Sadler was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Jane and William Sadler. From an early age, he took to performing in front of an audience. Armed with a variety of stringed instruments, Sadler found hometown success during his high school...
), the commander of the Mars mission and Astronaut Gary Hackman (
Peter Onorati- Biography :He was born and raised in Boonton, New Jersey and attended Boonton High School. He attended Lycoming College, where he received his B.A. degree in Business Administration. He was an NCAA all-conference wide receiver, and signed up to play in the World Football League...
), the computer specialist. After a series of explanations and hard headed stubbornness from Gary, he suffers a skull fracture by getting hit with a model of the
Pilgrim 1 Mars lander. NASA decides that instead of delaying the mission they get a backup astronaut. In the end, Randall gets the job.
While getting ready to go on the
space shuttleThe Space Shuttle, part of the Space Transportation System , is a spacecraft operated by NASA for orbital human spaceflight missions. It began operations in the 1980s and is scheduled to be retired from service in 2010 after 134 launches...
, Randall realizes his fears and is afraid to go on with the mission. Bud Nesbitt (
Beau BridgesLloyd Vernet “Beau” Bridges III is an American actor.-Early life & career:Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges . He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes' son in Gone with the Wind, the...
), the man that Wick claims to be the cause of the
Apollo 13Apollo 13 was the third manned mission by NASA that was intended to land on the moon, but a mid-mission technical malfunction forced the lunar landing to be aborted. The crew members were commander James A. Lovell, command module pilot John L. "Jack" Swigert, and lunar module pilot Fred W....
accident, tells Randall about the time he was given three commemorative coins by President Johnson. He gave one coin to
Neil ArmstrongNeil Alden Armstrong is an American aviator and a former astronaut, test pilot, university professor, and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first person to set foot on the Moon. His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 8 in 1966, for which he was the command pilot...
, another to
Jim LovellJames "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr., is a former NASA astronaut and a retired captain in the United States Navy, most famous as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered an explosion en route to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission control...
, and finally shows Randall a gold coin reading, "Bravery". "It hasn't done me much good," Bud says. "Maybe it'll mean something to you."
Fred, along with Commander Overbeck, Astronaut Julie Ford (
Jessica LundyJessica R. Lundy is an American actress. Although she has appeared in several movies, she recently has been featured in brief television roles...
), and Ulysses, a
chimpanzeeChimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
that was trained for looking for fossils on the surface (and just happens to be Fred's roommate on the ship), blast off into space. In order to save food, all crew members are put to "hypersleep" for eight months while the space shuttle
Aries makes its trip towards Mars. As if on purpose, Ulysses mistakes Randall's "hypersleep chamber" for his own and Randall has to sleep in Ulysses' chimp-shaped chamber. Randall falls asleep for only 13 minutes and has to stay up for eight months.
While looking up the Mars weather data on the space shuttle's computer, Randall notices something that could put the crew's lives in danger. Randall calls Nesbitt and tells him about a group of severe "sandstorms" that are forecast to head over the crew's landing site. If the crew is on Mars when the sandstorms hit, they could be lost forever. Nesbitt tells Wick about the situation but Wick just ignores him.
The crew makes it to Mars, after Overbeck barks at Randall for being awake the whole time, and using all the food for painting. They land the pilgrim on the Martian surface. As Overbeck prepares to be the first to step on mars, Randall slips and lands first followed by Overbeck. Then Fred says that it wasn't him and then a
USA TodayUSA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth...
Newspaper shows up with the head line that says "First Words On Mars (next line) 'It wasn't me!'".
A day after the crew lands, the sandstorms arrive ahead of schedule. After almost losing Overbeck and Ulysses in the sandstorm, the crew immediately flies off the Martian surface. Wick is replaced by Nesbitt after they learn him of the truth of not trusting his crew. The crew members almost make it out of the sandstorm until a rock slide kicked up by the wind hits the lander.
Pilgrim 1 starts to spins out of control, without power. In order to boot up the power again, Randall has to rewire the entire system in less than 2 minutes or they crash and die. With less than 20 seconds, Randall has to complete the circuit. He frantically searches for something and finally grabs the coin that Bud gave him. Randall jams the coin into the slot at the last second and the lander regains power. The crew safely return to the space shuttle in Mars' orbit. Randall then asks Julie to dance with him in zero gravity to
When You Wish Upon A Star"When You Wish upon a Star" is a popular song written by Ned Washington and Leigh Harline and introduced in the 1940 Walt Disney movie Pinocchio, where it is sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the film...
.
As Randall gets ready for "hypersleep" one last time, Ulysses climbs into Randall's "hypersleep chamber" once again, forcing Randall to stay up again for another eight months on the journey back home.
After the credits, the crew's flag pole on Mars is shown missing its flag. It's reveled that Randall's American flag boxers, which were earlier used as a replacement for the original flag, had been stolen by a
MartianAs an adjective, the term "martian" is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence...
.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|
Harland WilliamsHarland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian and radio personality.-Personal life:Williams was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Lorraine, a writer, and John Reesor Williams, a lawyer and Member of Provincial Parliament in Ontario who served as Solicitor-General of the province...
|
Fred Z. Randall |
| Jessica Lundy Jessica R. Lundy is an American actress. Although she has appeared in several movies, she recently has been featured in brief television roles...
|
Julie Ford |
| William Sadler William Thomas Sadler is an American actor.-Early life:Sadler was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Jane and William Sadler. From an early age, he took to performing in front of an audience. Armed with a variety of stringed instruments, Sadler found hometown success during his high school...
|
'Wild Bill' Overbeck |
| Jeffrey DeMunn Jeffrey DeMunn is an American theatre, film and television actor.DeMunn was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Violet and James DeMunn. He graduated from Union College with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He moved to England in the early 1970s, receiving theatrical training at the Old Vic Theatre...
|
Paul Wick |
James Pickens, Jr.James Pickens, Jr. is an American actor notable for his starring role as Dr. Richard Webber on the ABC drama television series Grey's Anatomy and also for his supporting role as Deputy Director Alvin Kersh on later seasons of The X-Files.- Early life :Pickens was born in Cleveland, Ohio and did...
|
Ben Stevens |
Beau BridgesLloyd Vernet “Beau” Bridges III is an American actor.-Early life & career:Bridges was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges . He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes' son in Gone with the Wind, the...
|
Bud Nesbitt |
External links