Ghosts of Mars

Interesting quote, this. Not because of who said it (more on that attribution later) but when it was said:

1980.

So it has taken a few years for this heir apparent to surface. Not because their talent had to mature--it did, yes--but because they had to wait for the right screenplay to come along. A script that would allow them, in association with their talent, to give form to this particular quote.

And now he has.

'He' being John Carpenter.

And the screenplay that has allowed him this ascension to position of heir apparent is entitled "Ghosts of Mars", superficially a space opera in the tradition of George Lucas' "Star Wars".

I repeat: Superficially.

Look again without prejudice and see that "Ghosts of Mars" is more than just space opera. It is, in fact, a work worthy of the aforementioned John Ford: It has the elements of the Western (which eventually were converted to the cop movie formula; which eventually were converted to the martial arts films and movies cookie cutter stylings of late). It has the melodramatics of the Western: The good guy, drawn in broad strokes; the damsel in distress; the showdown at High Noon; the pacing, the action sequences. All of it.

And it has a certain intelligence and sophistication not seen since the days of John Ford and John Wayne.

An intelligence and sophistication that owes much to the direction of John Carpenter.

"Ghosts of Mars" (A Western, oh, yes, despite its galactic setting) opens as Westerns do: A train--a ghost train--pulls into a desolate place. In this case, Chryse City, named for a plain north of the Martian equator. There is no driver for this train (of course; why would there be? This is the future: Humanity is incidential off-world), and only one passenger aboard: Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge), a cop who heads a detail going to an outer mining town named Shining Canyon to bring in a killer named Desolation Williams (Ice Cube).

The mining town seems remote, empty when the detail arrives. (Isn't this how it almost always is in Westerns made before the 1970s, when Ford and even Howard Hawks stopped making them with earnest?) Of course Ballard isn't concerned over this, but the members of the detail seemed to be: Helena (Pam Grier), Bashira Kincaid (Clea Duvall), Jericho Butler (Jason Statham), and Uno (Duane Davis).

Rightly they should be. Almost faster than one could say 'The Searchers' the body count starts to mount and the question of who--or what--responsible cannot be ignored.

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