Lilly - Mars Attacks

This whole movie is a parody and representation of how Tim Burton views the government, military, capitalism, patriotism, and the people of this decade. In Mars Attacks, the government and military are basically a complete failure. The president is supposed to be leading the country and making wise choices, but in this film he’s more of a bumbling idiot. He doesn’t really know what to do, he just cares about image. He asks everyone in his close circle what they think they should do. One man says that they should go full attack mode but everyone else says otherwise. The president sides with what he thinks would best fit his image and have a good impact on people’s feelings toward him. Throughout the movie you see all the governments of the world failing and all the officials dying. You can tell through the government characters that Tim Burton thinks the government really doesn’t know what they are doing and don’t always have the best intentions. The Martians also destroy all sacred monuments like the White House, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Washington Monument, the Easter Island Moais, and Mount Rushmore. This destruction kind of suggest that the world will go on without them. In the film the military is basically useless, most of them get killed even though they are trained for combat. In society’s view, the military is supposed to save the day, but in Mars Attacks it’s just some nobody kid and his grandmother that save the world.

Capitalism is also a big part of this film, Art Land is the main view on this. You first see him with his wife at a casino, from first look you can tell he is a sleeze, his wife even questions why she married him. He is building a new hotel when the Martians attack and keeps working, trying to get people to buy in on it while the world is ending. Money is more important to him than anything else. His hotel is even ironically called The Galaxy, themed with planets and stars all over.

There is some patriotism in Mars Attacks, I think the character that best represents this is Billy Norris. In the eyes of his parents he is the golden child while the son that actually saves the world is a disappointment. Billy’s parents are just like him, ignorant and not very smart.