Micro-Gravity

The best thing about "Marooned" may be that Alfonso Cuarón saw it as a youth and, years later, credited it as an influence for his masterpiece of visual virtuosity "Gravity" (2013). While both are relatively realistic pictures about space travel and astronauts in peril, "Marooned" sacrifices characterization and thematic exploration for mechanical rigidity and scientific jargon and ultimately loses sight of the humanity in its disaster. Its partially dated visual effects rather aptly display this disjointedness; the shots of the spaceships and space are fine in themselves, but the matte work involving human actors is blatantly fake. The film itself maroons the astronauts in front of an artificial background for which they clearly do not belong. And it's the focus here on the how and where instead of whom that's the film's ultimate disaster.

Although it capitalized on being released shortly after the Apollo 11 Moon landing and would appear prescient after the subsequent problems with Apollo 13, "Marooned" isn't as much a science-and-space-based sci-fi film as it is an early entry in the 1970s craze for disaster flicks. Indeed, the characters in these movies don't matter so much as do the details of the particular catastrophe. It's not as though "Marooned" is particularly special in being a realistic space picture, either, given that "Woman in the Moon" (1929), "Cosmic Voyage" (1936), "Destination Moon" (1950) and "Countdown" (1967) had each already traveled with relative scientific fidelity to the Moon, which is not even to mention the obvious shortcomings this film has compared to its recent predecessor "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968).

To continue the "Gravity" comparison, instead: unlike "Marooned," "Gravity" doesn't include nearly twenty minutes on a meandering prelude covering the astronauts' entire mission while managing to not develop any engagement with the characters before disaster strikes. Rather, most of the focus here is back on mission control and upon a relentlessly stern lead as portrayed by an unsympathetic Gregory Peck. Compare this to the establishment of likable personalities in "Gravity," the singular focus on their peril and the unfolding of the inner workings of its sympathetic protagonist in the process. In "Marooned," we merely get Gene Hackman going mad, another astronaut who demonstrates himself to be little more than a human computer and an aging astronaut who, at least, lets us in on his thoughts about his pay and that he loves his wife. "Marooned" does do well in establishing some suspense, but it lacks the kind of human connection that it otherwise requires for its more sentimental moments, such as the conversations between the astronauts and their wives or during the more predictable parts of the denouement. The science-focused "Destination Moon" also lacked in such humanity, but it also didn't then turn around mawkishly to ask us to care about its characters. "Marooned" wants it both ways, but doesn't put in the effort.