RocketMan
Encyclopedia
RocketMan is a 1997 science fiction
comedy film
that was produced by Walt Disney Pictures
and Caravan Pictures
and released on October 10, 1997. The film was shot on location at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas
and in Moab, Utah
for the scenes on the surface on Mars
.
The film was a box-office flop (with a gross of only $15,448,043 in the USA). It was one of the inaugural Disney titles released on DVD which soon went out-of-print and along with a rare, out-of-print VHS
release commanded high prices on eBay
. In April 2006, the Disney Movie Club began distributing a DVD
re-release. According to Amazon.com
, it was re-released to the public in April 2007.
is currently training for the first manned mission to Mars
. Due to a supposed glitch in the computer navigation system, NASA looks for the original programmer of the software to see why the software seems to be broken. Fred Z. Randall (Harland Williams
), the eccentric programmer who wrote the software, meets Paul Wick (Jeffrey DeMunn
), the flight director of the Mars mission, William "Wild Bill" Overbeck (William Sadler
), the commander of the Mars mission and Astronaut Gary Hackman (Peter Onorati
), the computer specialist. After a display of hard headed stubbornness by Gary, he's hit in the head by a model of the Pilgrim 1 Mars lander, resulting in a skull fracture. NASA decides to replace him instead of delaying the mission. In the end, Fred gets the job.
While getting ready to go on the space shuttle
, Fred chickens out and refuses to go on the mission. Bud Nesbitt (Beau Bridges
), who Wick claims is the cause of the Apollo 13
accident, tells Fred about the three commemorative coins given to him by President Johnson
. He gave one coin to Neil Armstrong
, another to Jim Lovell
, and finally shows Randall a gold coin reading, "Bravery". "It hasn't done me much good," Bud says. "Maybe it'll mean something to you."
Fred, along with Commander Overbeck, geologist Julie Ford (Jessica Lundy
), and Ulysses, a trained chimpanzee
that will look for fossils on the planet, blast off. To save on resources, crew members are put into "hypersleep" for eight months while the shuttle heads towards Mars. Ulysses purposely takes Fred's "hypersleep chamber" for his own and Fred has to sleep in Ulysses' chimp-shaped chamber. He sleeps for only 13 minutes and has to stay up for eight months.
While looking at Mars weather data Fred notices severe sandstorms that could endanger the crew. He contacts Bud at Houston and tells him about the storms that are forecast to hit the landing site. If the crew get caught in the storms, they could be lost forever. Bud tells Wick about the situation but Wick ignores him.
The crew makes it to Mars, after Overbeck barks at Fred for being awake the whole time, and using all the food, except food that the former despises (anchovy
paste, creamed liver, and gefilte fish
), for painting. They land the Pilgrim on the Martian surface. As Overbeck prepares to be the first to step on mars, Fred slips and lands first followed by Overbeck. Then Fred says "It wasn't me" and then a USA Today
newspaper shows up with the headline saying "First Words On Mars (next line) 'It wasn't me!'".
A day after the crew lands, the sandstorms arrive ahead of schedule. After almost losing Overbeck and Ulysses in the sandstorm, the crew immediately flies off the Martian surface. Wick is replaced by Bud after they learned he didn't trust his crew. The ship almost makes it out of the sandstorm until rocks kicked up by the wind hits the lander. Pilgrim 1 having lost its power, begins to spin out of control. Fred has to rewire the entire system, reboot it and power everything back up in less than 2 minutes or they will crash. With less than 20 seconds, he has to complete the circuit. He frantically searches for something and finally shoves the commemorative coin into the slot, allowing the lander to regain power. The crew safely return to the space shuttle orbiting Mars. Fred then asks Julie to dance with him in zero gravity to When You Wish upon a Star
.
As Fred gets ready for "hypersleep" one last time, Ulysses climbs into his "hypersleep chamber" once again, forcing Fred to stay up again for another eight months on the journey back home.
After the credits, the crew's flag pole on Mars is shown missing its flag. It is revealed that Randall's American flag boxers, which were earlier used as a replacement for the original flag, had been stolen by a Martian
.
this film has a 24% rating, based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
that was produced by Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
and Caravan Pictures
Caravan Pictures
Caravan Pictures was a film production company arm of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group , formed by Roger Birnbaum and Joe Roth....
and released on October 10, 1997. The film was shot on location at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
and in Moab, Utah
Moab, Utah
Moab is a city in Grand County, in eastern Utah, in the western United States. The population was 4,779 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat and largest city in Grand County. Moab hosts a large number of tourists every year, mostly visitors to the nearby Arches and Canyonlands National Parks...
for the scenes on the surface on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
.
The film was a box-office flop (with a gross of only $15,448,043 in the USA). It was one of the inaugural Disney titles released on DVD which soon went out-of-print and along with a rare, out-of-print VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
release commanded high prices on eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
. In April 2006, the Disney Movie Club began distributing a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
re-release. According to Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, it was re-released to the public in April 2007.
Plot
NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
is currently training for the first manned mission to Mars
Manned mission to Mars
A manned mission to Mars has been the subject of science fiction, engineering, and scientific proposals throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century...
. Due to a supposed glitch in the computer navigation system, NASA looks for the original programmer of the software to see why the software seems to be broken. Fred Z. Randall (Harland Williams
Harland Williams
Harland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian, author, artist, musician and radio personality.-Personal life:Harland Reesor Williams was born on November 14, 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, to Lorraine , a social worker, and John Reesor Williams, who worked as a member of the Ontario Provincial...
), the eccentric programmer who wrote the software, meets Paul Wick (Jeffrey DeMunn
Jeffrey DeMunn
Jeffrey DeMunn is an American theatre, film and television actor.-Life and career:DeMunn was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Violet and James DeMunn. Stepson of noted actress Betty Lutes DeMunn...
), the flight director of the Mars mission, William "Wild Bill" Overbeck (William Sadler
William Sadler (actor)
William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...
), the commander of the Mars mission and Astronaut Gary Hackman (Peter Onorati
Peter Onorati
-Biography:He was born and raised in Boonton, New Jersey and attended Boonton High School. He attended Lycoming College, where he received his B.A. degree in Business Administration. He was an NCAA all-conference wide receiver, and signed up to play in the World Football League...
), the computer specialist. After a display of hard headed stubbornness by Gary, he's hit in the head by a model of the Pilgrim 1 Mars lander, resulting in a skull fracture. NASA decides to replace him instead of delaying the mission. In the end, Fred gets the job.
While getting ready to go on the space shuttle
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle was a manned orbital rocket and spacecraft system operated by NASA on 135 missions from 1981 to 2011. The system combined rocket launch, orbital spacecraft, and re-entry spaceplane with modular add-ons...
, Fred chickens out and refuses to go on the mission. Bud Nesbitt (Beau Bridges
Beau Bridges
Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III is an American actor and director.- Early life :Bridges was born in Los Angeles, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges . He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes's son in Gone with the Wind, the book...
), who Wick claims is the cause of the Apollo 13
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...
accident, tells Fred about the three commemorative coins given to him by President Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
. He gave one coin to Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....
, another to Jim Lovell
Jim Lovell
James "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr., is a former NASA astronaut and a retired captain in the United States Navy, most famous as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered a critical failure en route to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission...
, and finally shows Randall a gold coin reading, "Bravery". "It hasn't done me much good," Bud says. "Maybe it'll mean something to you."
Fred, along with Commander Overbeck, geologist Julie Ford (Jessica Lundy
Jessica Lundy
Jessica R. Lundy is an American actress. Although she has appeared in several movies, she is noted more for her television roles, especially as Joel Fleishman's fiancee/ex-fiancee Elaine Shulman on the series Northern Exposure...
), and Ulysses, a trained chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
that will look for fossils on the planet, blast off. To save on resources, crew members are put into "hypersleep" for eight months while the shuttle heads towards Mars. Ulysses purposely takes Fred's "hypersleep chamber" for his own and Fred has to sleep in Ulysses' chimp-shaped chamber. He sleeps for only 13 minutes and has to stay up for eight months.
While looking at Mars weather data Fred notices severe sandstorms that could endanger the crew. He contacts Bud at Houston and tells him about the storms that are forecast to hit the landing site. If the crew get caught in the storms, they could be lost forever. Bud tells Wick about the situation but Wick ignores him.
The crew makes it to Mars, after Overbeck barks at Fred for being awake the whole time, and using all the food, except food that the former despises (anchovy
Anchovy
Anchovies are a family of small, common salt-water forage fish. There are 144 species in 17 genera, found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Anchovies are usually classified as an oily fish.-Description:...
paste, creamed liver, and gefilte fish
Gefilte fish
Gefilte fish is a poached fish mince stuffed into the fish skin.More common since the Second World War are the Polish patties similar to quenelles or fish balls made from a mixture of ground deboned fish, mostly carp or pike...
), for painting. They land the Pilgrim on the Martian surface. As Overbeck prepares to be the first to step on mars, Fred slips and lands first followed by Overbeck. Then Fred says "It wasn't me" and then a USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
newspaper shows up with the headline saying "First Words On Mars (next line) 'It wasn't me!'".
A day after the crew lands, the sandstorms arrive ahead of schedule. After almost losing Overbeck and Ulysses in the sandstorm, the crew immediately flies off the Martian surface. Wick is replaced by Bud after they learned he didn't trust his crew. The ship almost makes it out of the sandstorm until rocks kicked up by the wind hits the lander. Pilgrim 1 having lost its power, begins to spin out of control. Fred has to rewire the entire system, reboot it and power everything back up in less than 2 minutes or they will crash. With less than 20 seconds, he has to complete the circuit. He frantically searches for something and finally shoves the commemorative coin into the slot, allowing the lander to regain power. The crew safely return to the space shuttle orbiting Mars. Fred then asks Julie to dance with him in zero gravity to When You Wish upon a Star
When You Wish upon a Star
"When You Wish upon a Star" is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the...
.
As Fred gets ready for "hypersleep" one last time, Ulysses climbs into his "hypersleep chamber" once again, forcing Fred to stay up again for another eight months on the journey back home.
After the credits, the crew's flag pole on Mars is shown missing its flag. It is revealed that Randall's American flag boxers, which were earlier used as a replacement for the original flag, had been stolen by a Martian
Martian
As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Harland Williams Harland Williams Harland Williams is a Canadian actor, comedian, author, artist, musician and radio personality.-Personal life:Harland Reesor Williams was born on November 14, 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, to Lorraine , a social worker, and John Reesor Williams, who worked as a member of the Ontario Provincial... |
Fred Z. Randall |
| Jessica Lundy Jessica Lundy Jessica R. Lundy is an American actress. Although she has appeared in several movies, she is noted more for her television roles, especially as Joel Fleishman's fiancee/ex-fiancee Elaine Shulman on the series Northern Exposure... |
Julie Ford |
| William Sadler William Sadler (actor) William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,... |
'Wild Bill' Overbeck |
| Jeffrey DeMunn Jeffrey DeMunn Jeffrey DeMunn is an American theatre, film and television actor.-Life and career:DeMunn was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Violet and James DeMunn. Stepson of noted actress Betty Lutes DeMunn... |
Paul Wick |
| James Pickens, Jr. James Pickens, Jr. James Pickens, Jr. is an American actor. He is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Webber on the ABC drama television series Grey's Anatomy, and for his supporting role as Deputy Director Alvin Kersh on later seasons of the Fox Network science fiction series The X-Files.- Early life... |
Ben Stevens |
| Beau Bridges Beau Bridges Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III is an American actor and director.- Early life :Bridges was born in Los Angeles, the son of actor Lloyd Bridges and his college sweetheart, Dorothy Bridges . He was nicknamed "Beau" by his mother and father after Ashley Wilkes's son in Gone with the Wind, the book... |
Bud Nesbitt |
Reception
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. On Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
this film has a 24% rating, based on 17 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10.