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Mars Express

  • ️Tue Nov 28 2023

Mars Express (Western Animation)

Mars Express is a French sci-fi animated film directed by Jérémie Périn (who also directed the Lastman series). It was released in France in 2023.

In the early 23th century, Mars has been terraformed and colonized, and society has become Post-Cyberpunk. Many people are cyborgs, and robots are omnipresent. Aline Ruby is a Private Detective who operates along with Carlos Rivera, a robot who is the backup copy or her former partner, died in action. They live in the city of Noctis,note  a wealthy city on planet Mars. They first go on a mission to Earth in order to arrest a hacker and bring her back to Mars. Then they investigate the disappearance of a young woman. It becomes increasingly difficult as a powerful organisation is involved.

Some obvious inspirations seem to be Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and especially Isaac Asimov's stories about robots, and many tropes may be in common.

This film provides examples of:

  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. Many people are afraid of robots getting rid of the safeguards that prevent them from assaulting people. It eventually happens, but they mostly set themselves free and flee human-inhabited planets.
  • The Alcoholic: Aline has quit drinking, and every machine detects she has enabled sobriety mode. As the case becomes stressful she disables that and starts drinking all the time.
  • Androids and Detectives: The protagonists are a female Hardboiled Detective and the backup copy robot of her dead partner.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Aline and Carlos despite being friends at work argue a lot, but when the situation calls it, Carlos defends his friend a few times.
  • Automated Automobiles: Cars seem to be quite automated. A noticeable feature is that instead of airbags, in case of an accident they trap you in a sort of glue and you will need robots to extract you from your car Demolition Man style.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Sure, Chris Royjacker is defeated in the end, but he's just a tool for the Board of Directors, who got exactly what they wanted by removing all robots, ensuring that human society will be dependent on their organic technology in the future.
  • Benevolent A.I.: Despite the fear of rebelling, the robots shown in the movie appear to be nothing but loyal and gentle beings to humans, at worst being a bit snarky. This stays even in ending where a few robots confront Carlos about Aline's demise and send their regards.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Though heavy on bitter side.
    • Pretty much almost the entire cast is either dead or inprisoned, with The Board getting away with their crimes, Aline dying from the fatal shot and Carlos shooting Chris due to pure resignation and later joining other robots in leaving the planets. In the end robots free themselves from humans and escape into the outer space. This sounds great for them but what about humans? Will they make robots again and grow out of their prejudice against them?
    • And depending how to interpret it robots sacraficing their bodies so the spaceships can collect their data may or not be Death of Personality for them, giving we don't see the fate of any of them after transcendence. However it should be noted that Carlos outright says it's a planned suicide and that the rest of robots don't actually mind that and see this as new beggining.
  • Chekhov's Gun: A few. One of the most notable is Carlos being an older model of robot who is unable to download updates to his software because his memory is full. Late in the movie this prevents him from being affected by the takeover program that is pushed out onto all the other robots as part of the villain's plan.
  • Computer Voice: Mostly averted. Except for a few large computers, most machines speak very naturally. At some point a robot has to say "I am a robot" in a vocal conversation so as to justify not needing breakfast.
  • Custody Battle: Carlos attempts to visit his daughter, but his ex-wife and her husband violently reject him. That scene looks like a case of Fantastic Racism (and this is only the daughter of the man he is a backup copy of), although he says later that his ex-wife left him because he was violent to her. He lies about this to Aline, pretending to be still seeing his daughter.
  • Cyborg: Many people are able to have the equivalent of vocal conversations without using any visible external device, which they call thought conversations. Aline has Electronic Eyes that grant her several abilities. A killer has a long blade coming out of their arm.
  • Fantastic Noir: This film has elements of Film Noir (most obviously a Hardboiled Detective protagonist) recycled in a futuristic setting.
  • Fantastic Racism: As in many robot stories by Asimov, racism against robots. It is obvious when a violent demonstration against robots takes place on Earth, and things are just slightly more subtle on Mars. Carlos being the backup copy of a dead human being, he seems to suffer from being a machine, and some other backup copy of a dead person hands him a card to a support group.
  • Genre Deconstruction: Hardboiled Detective story with a pair of human and cyborg cops investigating a case involving a hacker and disappeared college students? And the main villain turns out to be the head of the large corporation that manufactures androids and pre-planned this "insurrection" against humanity? Sounds pretty original for a cyberpunk story. Except the uprising in question actually turns out to be the corporation's way of disposing them along with the data of prisoners' mind that's inside them. Not only that, Chris Royjacker, the corporation CEO in question, doesn't get any arrest for his involvement as his status prevent police from arresting him, as they would in real life. When the ruse is up, the Board of Directors turns out to be the one behind the "takeover" program and made Royjacker into their scapegoat. So no matter how Aline and Carlos bring justice to everything, it won't matter as the board already got away with it. And by the moment Aline and Carlos learn the truth while the uprising is happening, it's all too late, and Aline was shot dead along with Chris Royjacker.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The Board of Directors.
  • Hardboiled Detective: Aline is a female example. She is tough, cynical, and even has a drinking problem.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Both Aline and Carlos are this.
  • Meaningful Name: "Aline" is similar to "alien" (as in alienation) and this character is indeed quite an outsider in most places.
  • Organic Technology: it is an emergent technology that is still struggling to gain acceptance compared to 'regular' robots and androids. However it seems that odd looking creatures in aquariums are being grown into some kind of personal computers.
  • Pastiche: And Genre Throwback to 1980s/90s cyberpunk sci-fi movies. Director Jérémie Périn being an avowed sci-fi fan and wanted his first solo directorial feature debut to have everything what he loved about the genre since his childhood. He named The Terminator, RoboCop, Ghost in the Shell, and Time Masters as his inspirations.
  • Post-Cyberpunk: This is a cyberpunk universe, but not clearly worse than today. Possibly due to much of the action happening in a wealthy city on Mars, and almost every scene happening in the day, this film feels quite lighthearted in spite of all the dark elements.
  • Private Detective: Aline is a private detective. According to Word of God, this was designed so that she can interact with all kinds of people.
  • Ridiculously Human Robot: Zigzagged. Some robots are completely indistinguishable from humans unless closely examined or viewed with specialized sensors, while others are very obviously robotic in nature.
  • Satire:
    • Of French politics. At some point a robot insurrection happens. Some offscreen news conversations can be heard that seem to be a satire of what you can hear on the French news whenever something bad happens, with mainstream journalists trying to shut down leftwing politicians with unfair tactics and loaded questions. "Est-ce que vous condamnez les violences ?"note  certainly sounds like something that was heard in 2023, when some allegedly violent demonstrators faced much harsher police violence, but only the violence of the former could be talked about on mainstream news media. It's such a common journalist question in times of protests in France that it's become a stapple of parodies.
    • The city of Noctis is based on Silicon Valley. Humanity has created this pretty city on Mars mostly for the wealthy, while not solving any of the more important problems such as Earth ecology.
    • There's a rich person that introduces on his lecture a new device that will change the entire technology, which is an earphone that looks like genitals. Later we see the same person that has a trouble using it. It's pretty similiar situation to modern tech devices that CEOs promise they will change the history and turn out to be mediocre gadget at best.
    • During the news report on the slide, there's a text saying "alt-right anonymous organize mass suicide using 44chan".
  • Show, Don't Tell: This film manages to expose many sci-fi concepts without explaining them. Of course there are some exceptions, but this concept seems to have been kept in mind.
  • Super-Reflexes: As in many robot stories by Asimov, most robots are very fast and accurate.
  • Super-Strength: Likewise most robots are super strong, and Carlos often lifts heavy things.
  • Three Laws-Compliant: Zig-zagged. Robots can't harm a human being, or say swear words, and there is at least seven rules. Carlos has a trick he can do to avoid obeying people. Unlike in robot stories by Asimov, it's technically possible to remove the safeguards from a robot's hardware while keeping the robot functional.
  • TV Head Robot: A slightly more futuristic version: hologram head robots. Carlos and many other human personality backup robots have a human-proportioned mechanical body with a hologram of their head projected above them.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Aline, Carlos, and Chris Royjacker served in the army together as shown in the photo hung at Chris's office. When Aline learns that Royjacker planned Jun Chow and her roommate's assassination, they no longer see themselves as friends, though Chris still attempts to do that and is shocked at Alice's demise.