Tim Burton’s satire, Mars Attacks! arrived in 1996 in a crowded sci-fi market. In 1996 alone, audiences were bombarded with blockbuster, action-oriented invasion flicks like Independence Day and conspiracy thrillers like Charlie Sheen’s The Arrival. These films took themselves seriously, and Mars Attacks! took making fun of such films just as seriously.
Tim Burton’s film was an intentional spoof on the sci-fi films from the 1950s and the blockbuster movie as a whole. Reviewers at the time described the film as cynical, silly, and largely empty. Roger Ebert stated that the movie fell on its face because the filmmakers felt superior to the source material. Thankfully, in the years since its release, it has developed a cult following that appreciates its satirical tone and over-the-top nature.
Mars Attacks! is Equal Parts Parody and Satire With a Star-Studded Cast
If one were to only look at the casting list for Tim Burton’s best movie, Mars Attacks!, it would be easy to assume that the film was destined to be a monumental blockbuster. One of the movie’s primary marketing strengths was the dream team cast of actors assembled. The A-List names in Mars Attacks! led many fans and critics to expect a potentially groundbreaking sci-fi epic. Many argued that the on-screen product sold the roster short.
The star power in Mars Attacks! is part of the joke. Burton was parodying the disaster films of the ’70s that often used movie stars for marquee value and to add weight to the story. In Burton’s hilarious sci-fi comedy, the stars are expendable pawns, many of whom die in cartoonish ways. Burton uses the presence of well-known actors to subvert the audience’s expectations. Actors who may be expected to fill a heroic role are instead incompetent.
The sheer number of recognizable actors is deliberately overwhelming, adding to the absurdity taking place on the screen. Every actor could realistically be the lead of the movie, and each one plays it that way. It creates an intentional sense of instability and also highlights one of Burton’s messages: humanity is self-absorbed. It’s one of the main reasons in the film that humanity isn’t able to mount a defense against the Martians.
With this sort of intentionally disjointed approach, it’s fair to see why critics initially found the use of so many talented actors as wasteful and empty. Those critics missed Burton’s intentions. Many of the stars played critical roles in the government, military, and other power structures of the alien invasion movie. By placing competent actors in stereotypically prominent roles, Burton wanted to highlight that those in power are not suitable to lead.
It’s a direct contrast to blockbusters of the same year, such as Will Smith’s Independence Day, where figures in similar roles are portrayed as the heroes. The military and political figures in Independence Day save the world, while Burton presents them as incompetent and self-serving. Mars Attacks!, through its comedic spoofs, nails home to the audience that when the world is in danger, no one knows what they’re doing.
In a true Tim Burton movie, the world is eventually saved by people that mainstream society rejects. Fans of his know that his work generally focuses on the misunderstood outsiders, and though Mars Attacks! may not be Tim Burton’s greatest film, it still carries his style and storytelling soul. The seemingly powerless characters are overlooked because of their place in society, but they are the ones who survive.
Mars Attacks! Introduces multiple families, personal stories, and viewpoints without elevating one over the other. There isn’t one singular protagonist that the audience can follow and latch on to. Since no single character is important, this means that anyone can be comically killed off at any time. This leads to a sense of fun unpredictability throughout the film that turns typically tense genre moments into comedy gold.
It’s easy to see why Mars Attacks! was considered a huge disappointment by some initially. Though it wasn’t Burton’s goal to lose money at the box office, modern audiences have been kinder to his intention with the film in retrospect. It has a wacky and impulsive spirit that is delightfully anti-Hollywood despite featuring some of the biggest names in acting. Even 30 years later, the constant chaos makes the movie feel fresh.
Mars Attacks! Pays Homage to Classic Sci-Fi While Critiquing the Blockbuster
While it’s not necessarily common knowledge, Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! was based on and inspired by a series of trading cards. In 1962, Topps released a set of cards depicting an alien invasion, and they were so graphic that the company stopped production on the series almost immediately. Much of the over-the-top violence seen in the film was displayed on the cards, such as dogs being vaporized by the Martian ray guns.
Over 30 years, the cards were Tim Burton’s blueprint. The large, bulbous brains, huge eyes, and tiny bodies were pulled directly from the Topps line. Burton put forth a faithful adaptation on screen to the cards he grew up fascinated by. Initially, Burton planned to use James and the Giant Peach-style stop-motion animation in the style of Ray Harryhausen, but budget and time constraints ultimately led him to concede to CGI.
Burton wished to visually tie Mars Attacks! to the classic sci-fi films while leaning into the cheap and fake aesthetic he was aiming for. He specifically instructed the effects team to make the Martian ships look cheap to give them an old-school look. Though he ultimately couldn’t use stop-motion, he ordered the Martians to maintain a jerky style of movement to closely mimic the Harryhausen style.
To genre fans, it’s clear that Tim Burton was paying homage to the low-budget sci-fi era of the 1950s and ’60s, but that was perhaps lost on critics of the time. Many critics viewed these nods to the past as technical flaws in the film. The bright colors, jerky movement, and cheesy look were all part of the point. Burton was attempting to create a movie that honored his childhood loves while using them for satire and absurdity.
Mars Attacks! intentionally looks like one of the B-movies of the past, and the movie was criticized for it. This is largely due to the expectations of the decade and the movie being constantly compared to Independence Day. Burton’s sci-fi style felt like a step backwards by comparison. In a weird twist of fate, Mars Attacks! was a victim of its own accuracy and its successful attempt at satire.
The film was shunned because it achieved what it set out to do, and audiences of the time were looking for something totally different. The studio battle with Independence Day cannot be overstated when discussing the box office fate of Mars Attacks! When Independence Day creators Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin learned that Tim Burton was making a sci-fi film to debut in the same year, they accelerated their release.Their project was titled Independence Day to tie it to a potential July 4th release date. This pushed the release of Mars Attacks! to December of the same year. This ultimately caused the two films to be tied together in the minds of fans, and Mars Attacks! suffered at the box office because of it.That timing made the film seem like a failure, even though its style and intentions were completely intentional.
For fans who appreciate the genre classics, Tim Burton created a slept-on sci-fi gem. For critics who missed the points of Mars Attacks!, he created a sloppy and cheap missed opportunity of a blockbuster in the wake of Independence Day. Because it arrived a few months after one of the biggest summer hits of all time, Mars Attacks! was doomed and accused of being half-baked and misguided.
Mars Attacks! Is the Definitive Sci-Fi Cult Classic of the ’90s
Mars Attacks! was maligned for not delivering on expectations, but that’s the reason it has endured and evolved into a cult classic sci-fi movie 30 years later. Modern critics point to the film as an early example of the nihilistic comedy that became popular in the years to follow. What was viewed as underwhelming and potentially divisive in 1996 is now celebrated in 2026.
It’s hard to believe that Mars Attacks! could be made today. The premise of the film is built upon it, a bit ridiculous, but that’s why it has an afterlife decades after its release. Studios in the modern age are risk-averse and would be wary about granting a large budget to create a film where every major star is killed by aliens from 1950s trading cards. This makes Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! a time capsule of a sci-fi film.