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[EYES of Mars box art, obviously redrawn by Westerners]
AKA: MOTHER 最後の少女イヴ (Mother: Saigo no Shoujo Eve), Mother: Eve, the Last Girl
Genre: Planetary sci-fi
Length: Movie, 80 minutes
Distributor: VHS from Celebrity Home Entertainment out of print
Content Rating: PG. All audiences will be equally bored by this flick. (some violence)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: Some websites were comparing this to Odin Photon Space Sailer Starlight, which is about as backhanded a recommendation as you can get.
Notes: No relation whatsoever to the 1978 Faye Dunaway film "Eyes of Laura Mars".

This review is also based on Celebrity Home Entertainment's English dub, aired on the Sci-Fi Network quite some time before they were taken over by the Welsh-Ukrainian Coalition of Making Y A Real Vywyl.
Rating:

The EYES of Mars

Synopsis

Let's see here.

There was once a girl named Eve Dorsen, who happened to be psychic and raised as an environmentalist. She lives on Mars as one of the members of the civilization of Atlantis (!), which has been largely ruined by the evil machinations of industry and pollution. So, she's gonna try and save the human race from its own self-destruction with the power of peace and love. Yeah.


Review

I think Raph was being too nice.

No one should ever have to be subjected to the mawkishly moralistic pap that is The EYES of Mars. Almost the entire plot is based on the very idea of nature GOOD, technology BAD, which seems incredibly anachronistic and hypocritical considering the usage of the anime medium to promote this message. And when it isn't about environmentalism, it's about explosions. I kid you not.

I personally couldn't give a damn about any of the characters, most of whom have all the depth of a kiddy pool. The only one I remembered was Eve, and that was simply because of the undeniably horrible deus ex machina ending. Yes, folks, she's *that* Eve. You may stop gawking in surprise now.

In order to justify this remarkably terrible ending, the creators have left some plot holes that would amaze a New York cabbie. First off, the planet of Atlas (aka the asteroid belt) apparently had Earth-like properties despite being twice as far away from the Sun as Earth. Riiight. And how on Earth, for example ... okay, how on *Mars* did humans sustain high technology in a low G environment without sufficient oxygen? Where is the evidence that Atlantean humans (or any sort of lush forests as depicted in this film) ever lived on Mars? If humans existed before their existence on Earth, then why do they look remotely like the existing beings ON Earth, anyway? Exactly none of these questions are addressed, because the creators are simply too naive or too stupid to notice.

Technically, it's simply not good enough to justify watching it for the sake of animation. So many people who have seen this say, "It's good for an 80s film," which is a truly hollow compliment considering it was made in 1993. Near the end, even the animation itself begins to fall apart, much like the plot and everything else behind this rickety production. It's like they wasted the whole budget on getting a bogus spirituality advisor to pass around the holy ganja pipe rather than animating the damn movie.

Hell, they even get the whole concept of the Atlantis mythos wrong, and I haven't seen that happen in a *very* long time. It seems more like some Japanese creator saying, "Ooh, I have this cool idea, let's slap the Atlantis name on it to sell more movie tickets." Good for him, but it still sucks.

The funny thing is that the entire premise of this movie is that Eve is supposed to "save the planet Mars from ecological disaster" with her nascent psychic powers, and she FAILS UTTERLY, instead spiritually transporting us to go screw up another planet (Earth) that the Atlantean refugees had somehow completely ignored. I don't know about you, but if I were a refugee from a broken planet, and had to choose between Mars and Earth, I wouldn't pussyfoot around on Mars! But then, if these Atlantis folk are anywhere as stupid as the creators of this movie, then perhaps they deserved to go up in a blaze of stupidity. Certainly the masters for this movie should have been burned a very long time ago.

Naturally, the voice actors in the original Celebrity Home Video dub put just as much effort into their work as the original creators: none. It's a staggering array of indifferent and dispassionate acting jobs, and I can't say that I blame them.

The EYES of Mars is a house-of-cards production that promises an Eastern take on hard sci-fi, but falls apart spectacularly because of the sheer ineptness of its execution. It's like looking forward to reading a Heinlein novel, only to find that you're actually reading a junior high schooler's fanfic BASED on a Heinlein novel.

It's simply not worth burning your eyes out watching The EYES of Mars. After all, a retina is a terrible thing to waste.

Don't even bother.Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: Not much objectionable. A bit of tension near the end, and the psi powers might spook tiny kids. It would be good for the family if it weren't so darn dull.



Version(s) Viewed: Broadcast airing, English dub
Review Status: Full (1/1)
The EYES of Mars © 1993 Mother Project / Toei
 
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