Christmas on Mars

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Christmas on Mars is a feature film by the rock band The Flaming Lips which has been on the back burner for over five years. They finished filming in October of 2005, and the film is now rumored to have a release date of sometime in the year 2007. According to the band's website, Christmas on Mars is a film "written and directed by Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, and featuring all of the band and many of their associates as actors (including singer-songwriter and former host of Blue's Clues Steve Burns, The Hebrew Hammer star Adam Goldberg, Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, and Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live fame). The film tells the story of the experiences of Major Syrtis (The Flaming Lips' multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd) during the first Christmas on a newly-colonized Mars. Coyne has described the film as "Maybe Eraserhead or Dead Man crossed with some kind of fantasy and space aspects, like The Wizard of Oz and maybe A Space Odyssey, except done without real actors or money, and set at Christmas-time. The story that unfolds is intended to hint at childlike magic within a tragic and realistic situation."

The band has detailed its unconventional plans for Christmas on Mars on its release through Warner distribution; the movie will be screened at special concerts by The Flaming Lips, creating a unique sensory experience with the movie acting as a backdrop to the live music.

A trailer for Christmas on Mars was first made available on the band's Fight Test EP, and can now be found along with movie information on The Flaming Lips' own website.

Two tracks from the forthcoming movie soundtrack, "Protonilus Death March" and "Syrtis Major" were released as a 5000-only picture-disc EP late in 2004, available only through the band's online store in conjunction with the purchase of their limited-edition pictorial biography Waking Up With a Placebo Headwound. "Syrtis Major" and another soundtrack cut, "Xanthe Terra", were also released as B-sides to the 2-part European single release of "Do You Realize??" These songs are both entirely instrumental, in a similar style to acclaimed Lips instrumentals such as the Grammy-winning "Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)".

The Flaming Lips
Wayne Coyne | Michael Ivins | Steven Drozd | Kliph Scurlock
Mark Coyne | Dave Kostka | Richard English | Jonathan Donahue | Nathan Roberts | Ronald Jones
Discography
Studio albums: Hear It Is | Oh My Gawd!!! | Telepathic Surgery | In a Priest Driven Ambulance | Hit to Death in the Future Head | Transmissions from the Satellite Heart | Clouds Taste Metallic | Zaireeka | The Soft Bulletin | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | At War with the Mystics
Extended plays: The Flaming Lips | Due to High Expectations... | Fight Test | Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell | It Overtakes Me
Compilations: A Collection of Songs... | Punk Rockers | Jesus Egg | Shambolic Birth | Late Night Tales | 20 Years of Weird
Songs: "She Don't Use Jelly" | "Do You Realize??" | "Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)" | "The W.A.N.D." | "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song"
Related articles
Fearless Freaks | Christmas on Mars | VOID | Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen | Dave Fridmann

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