| Stranded | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | María Lidón |
| Produced by | José Magán |
| Written by | Juan Miguel Aguilera |
| Starring | Vincent Gallo Maria de Medeiros Joaquim de Almeida Maria Lidón Daniel Aser Johnny Ramone José Sancho Paul Gibert |
| Music by | Javier Navarrete |
| Editing by | Luis de la Madrid |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures, Niggeman IndieFilms S.L |
| Release date(s) | April 12, 2002 (Spain) |
| Running time | 95 minutes |
| Country | Spain |
| Language | English Spanish |
| Budget | $6,230,811 (810 million pesetas)[1] |
Stranded is a 2001 film about the fictional first manned mission to Mars. The movie starred Vincent Gallo and Maria de Medeiros.
It was directed by Spanish filmmaker and actress María Lidón and with a screenplay by Spanish science fiction author Juan Miguel Aguilera. Lidón won the "Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver" while Gallo and de Medeiros were named best actors at the 2002 Fantafestival in Rome.[2]
Contents |
Set in the 2020s, some fifty years after the first manned moon landing, the movie begins as the Ares spacecraft enters Mars orbit 298 days after leaving the Alpha Space Station. The Ares Mission is an international space project carried out by the American and European government space organizations NASA, LMA, JPL and ESA. Andre Vishniac commands the international crew of seven astronauts. A landing attempt is made, but the small Mars landing craft crashes due to a brief software glitch that misleads the radio altimeter. Vishniac is killed immediately by the force of the impact and the other five crewmembers are stranded inside the toppled landing craft with no hope of return to the waiting Ares mothercraft (piloted by astronaut Lowell) in Mars orbit.
It will take 26 months to send a rescue ship from Earth. However, the stranded landing crew have supplies for less than one year. "We're 191 million kilometers from Earth, and we're alone.", as flight doctor Jenny Johnson puts it. Nonetheless, the crew tries to find ways to extend the life support system. The main limitation is the thermoelectric power generator, since the water recycling and oxygen require electrical power. However, Sagan (the mission geologist) proposes to use the remaining cryogenic rocket propellant from the landing engines to power an improvised silicate reactor to produce methane and water vapor from the martian soil.
Since the lander is damaged beyond repair, the propellant is not needed anymore. Sanchez, who now commands the mission, orders Sagan and Baglioni to try to build the reactor while Johnson buries Vishniac's body, despite concerns his bacteria might do harm to the pristine biological environment on Mars. To everybody's surprise, Sagan discovers that water ice is accumulating in the shade of the lander (Rodrigo also detects thick water vapor clouds on images transmitted by the orbiting mothership). But this is scant consolation as the landing engines and propellant tanks turn out to be too damaged to salvage. The crew will run out of power in less than a year when the lander's power generator is depleted.
As Lowell returns to Earth with the orbiting Ares mothercraft (there is no spare landing craft so he is unable to help), the landing crew tries to find ways to save electrical power. Unfortunately, even draconian saving measures only will extend the power generator lifetime to fourteen months—far short of the minimum round trip time of 2.5 years. However, if a ship left immediately from earth, they would have only had to wait for 1/2 of that time or 1.25 years not 2.5 years).
The power system can support the recycling systems for that long only if the crew size is reduced to two astronauts. Sanchez immediately decides that she, Sagan and Rodrigo should abandon the craft since their specialist skills are less important for the survival of the mission. They don their spacesuits and set out for a five hour walk to the edge of the Valles Marineris valley not far from the lander's crash site. Recent synthetic aperture radar scans from the orbiter reveals a maze like structure hidden below a thick water vapor cloud in the Valles Marineris. The structure is possibly artificial and virtually identical to another "maze" located near the martian south pole. The three doomed astronauts quickly decide to try to descend to the bottom of the valley before they run out of oxygen.
Sagan soon gives up and dies from asphyxiation. Meanwhile, back in the lander, Baglioni notices that there must be an air leak somewhere and that they are slowly losing pressure. As they too are doomed, he unsuccessfully tries to persuade Jenny Johnson to have sex with him before they die. She rejects his advances and instead leaves the craft to try to pinpoint the exact location of the air leak from the outside.
Meanwhile, Sanchez and Rodrigo stumble upon an artificial tunnel near the bottom of the valley. It contains mummified bodies of humanoid alien beings. To their amazement, the air pressure and oxygen content inside some of the tunnels is just like on Earth. Rodrigo soon dies when accidentally entering a tunnel that contains no atmosphere, but Sanchez manages to contact the remaining crew inside the landing craft after making it to the bottom of the valley. She urges Baglioni and Johnson to join her, as there is enough oxygen and water in the valley for them to survive until the rescue ship from Earth arrives.
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Vincent Gallo | Luca Baglioni (Mars lander mission specialist, technical systems engineer) |
| / Maria de Medeiros | Jenny Johnson (Mars lander mission specialist, doctor) |
| / Joaquim de Almeida | Fidel Rodrigo (Mars lander mission specialist, astrobiologist) |
| Maria Lidón | Susana Sánchez (Mars lander pilot) |
| José Sancho | Andre Vishniac (Mars lander commander) |
| Danel Aser | Herbert Sagan (Mars lander mission specialist, geologist) |
| Johnny Ramone | Lowell (Mars orbiter pilot) |
The scenes set on the surface of Mars were filmed on the island of Lanzarote while the interior scenes were filmed at Panavision Studios in Hollywood (the same Space Shuttle interior set previously utilized by the Space Cowboys filmmaking crew was used as a cost saving measure).
The film had mixed reviews. Based on 6 reviews, the film had 5.3 stars of 10 stars, according to IMDB.[2]