Mankind is saved by Earth bacteria, which kill the Martians within three weeks of their landing on Earth. In "Last and First Men" (1930) Olaf Stapledon revisited Wells' theme of Martian invasion. "Last and First Men" summarizes tens of thousands of years of invasions and war between Martians and humans. Eventually, humans destroy the Martians' empire. William Cameron Menzies' film "Invaders from Mars" (1953) fuses the tentacles of Wells' Martians with the idea of little green men to conceive a Martian Mastermind who enslaves tall, green, humanoid mutants. Tobe Hooper's remake of the film was released in 1986,
Martians as invaders of Earth
Martian
Martian | Martians as invaders of Earth
Yes, in fiction; in H. G. Wells' novel "The War of the Worlds" William Cameron Menzies' film "Invaders from Mars" (1953) fuses the tentacles of Wells' Martians with the idea of little green men to conceive a Martian Mastermind who enslaves tall, green, humanoid mutants. Yes, in H. G. Wells' landmark novel "The War of the Worlds". The film "Last and First Men" summarizes tens of thousands of years of invasions and war between Martians and humans.
what is the location of mars in the solar system
user
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun
assistant
is it known by any other names?
user
Yes, "Red Planet" in English
assistant
are there any volcanoes there?
user
Yes, Olympus Mons
assistant
who named it?
user
Named after observations made by Mariner 9
assistant
what was that?
user
From Nix Olympica; a volcano. Astronomers adopted the name "Olympus Mons" for the albedo feature known as Nix Olympica
assistant
was that a spaceship that made the observations?
user
It was a robotic space probe
assistant
have any other space probes landed on the planet discussed above?
user
Yes, "Mariner 4", "Viking 1", etc
assistant
did the first one land on the planet or was it just a fly by?
user
A flyby mode
assistant
how did it meet its end?
user
The gas supply in the attitude control system was exhausted, and between December 10 and 11, a total of 83 micrometeoroid hits perturbation of the spacecraft's attitude and degradation of the signal strength
assistant
what is found at the polar regions of the planet?
user
The caps at both poles consist primarily (70%) of water ice; frozen carbon dioxide layer is in northern cap and south cap has a permanent dry ice cover
assistant
are there any features resulting from impacts?
user
Yes, impact craters
assistant
are they named?
user
Yes, Hellas impact basin
assistant
is there any discussion about the intelligent lifeform on the planet?
user
Yes, fashionable idea of intelligent Martians
assistant
how are they portrayed in fiction?
user
W. S. Lach-Szyrma's novel "Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds" is the first published work to apply the word "Martian" as a noun.
assistant
are they seen as invaders?
user
H. G. Wells' novel "The War of the Worlds" (1898) and its various adaptations have been an extraordinary influence on science fiction writers for more than 100 years. Wells' Martians are a technologically advanced species with an ancient civilization. They somewhat resemble cephalopods, with large, bulky brown bodies and sixteen snake-like tentacles, in two groups of eight, around a quivering V-shaped mouth; they move around in 100 feet tall tripod fighting-machines they assemble upon landing, killing everything in their path. They invade Earth because Mars is dying, and they need a warmer planet to live. They attack cities in southern England, including London, with a deadly heat-ray they fire from a camera-like device on an articulated arm attached to their tripods; they also employ chemical warfare, using a poisonous "black smoke" launched from gun-like tubes.
Martian | Martians as invaders of Earth
One of the earliest known to take a new spin on the invaders was in a pilot presentation made by George Pal for an unrealized "War of the Worlds" TV series. Though Pal's 1953 film is established as a basis for the look of the invaders and their technology (their war machines bearing no clear dissimilarities), there is no seeming intended continuation. These invaders, depicted only in production art, only differ in certain detail as they appear leaner and their cyclopean eye sporting apparently only a single color. The most notable difference is that these aliens are not stated to be Martians.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | TV series
Mankind is saved by Earth bacteria, which kill the Martians within three weeks of their landing on Earth. In "Last and First Men" (1930) Olaf Stapledon revisited Wells' theme of Martian invasion. "Last and First Men" summarizes tens of thousands of years of invasions and war between Martians and humans. Eventually, humans destroy the Martians' empire. William Cameron Menzies' film "Invaders from Mars" (1953) fuses the tentacles of Wells' Martians with the idea of little green men to conceive a Martian Mastermind who enslaves tall, green, humanoid mutants. Tobe Hooper's remake of the film was released in 1986,
Martian | Martians as invaders of Earth
Not all of the antagonistic invaders are from Mars. Because science has revealed that the red planet is devoid of intelligent life, the concept of using Martians is sometimes dropped from some adaptations as it is no longer deemed realistic.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Non-Martians
The narrative opens by stating that as humans on Earth busied themselves with their own endeavours during the mid-1890s, aliens on Mars began plotting an invasion of Earth because their own resources are dwindling. The Narrator (who is unnamed throughout the novel) is invited to an astronomical observatory at Ottershaw where explosions are seen on the surface of the planet Mars, creating much interest in the scientific community. Months later, a so-called "meteor" lands on Horsell Common, near the Narrator's home in Woking, Surrey. He is among the first to discover that the object is an artificial cylinder that opens, disgorging Martians who are "big" and "greyish" with "oily brown skin", "the size, perhaps, of a bear", each with "two large dark-coloured eyes", and lipless "V-shaped mouths" which drip saliva and are surrounded by two "Gorgon groups of tentacles".
The War of the Worlds | The Coming of the Martians
Fredric Brown reprises the popular image of Martians as little green men, who measure around 75 cm, have small torsos; long, frayed limbs; and spherical, bald heads. They have six fingers on each hand, and wear boots and trousers. They consider the human race inferior and are both interested and amused by human behaviour. Unlike most fictional Martian invaders, the Martians that Brown writes of don't intend to invade Earth by violence; instead, they spend their wakeful hours calling everyone 'Mack' or 'Toots' (or some regional variation thereof), revealing embarrassing secrets, heckling theatre productions, lampooning political speeches, even providing cynical colour commentary to honeymooners' frustrated attempts at consummating their marriage.
Martians, Go Home | The Martians
The space armada from Mars, known as the Imperial Atomic Space Navy (Battle Group Seven), fights an interstellar war against their long-time enemy, the Arcturans. The armada is forced into battle by Enforcer Drones, tasked to keep the Martian soldiers in line, despite objections by some that it won't work. Meanwhile, an incompetent crew of a small Martian spaceship, from the Civilian Asteroid Patrol, intercepts a distress signal from the fleet, followed by a Halloween rebroadcast of Orson Welles' 1938 "The War of the Worlds" radio dramatization. Mistaking this for a real invasion and not wanting to miss out on the glory, they land their ship in the tiny community of Big Bean, Illinois and begin their invasion of Earth.
Spaced Invaders | Plot
The Martians appear in the 2005 film "War of the Worlds" (a.k.a. "Invasion"), an adaptation of the novel by H. G. Wells, and its 2008 sequel "". They invaded Earth in massive walking war-machines called Squid Walkers to massacre and farm the human populace. They presumably migrated to Earth for the same reason as their novel counterparts - to escape the harsh environment of Mars which was leading them to extinction. After humanity failed to defeat them with conventional weapons, the aliens died due to lack of immunity to earthly bacteria. In the sequel, another race of Martians, a race of biomechanical Tripods, attempt another invasion only to be defeated by George Herbert.
List of The Asylum monsters | Martians
In the film "H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds", the Martians are large, bullish creatures, keeping the two large eyes and tentacles described in the book; but do not seem to possess the beak-like mouth. They meet the same fate as the originals, having caught Earthly diseases. Their fighting-machines are extremely tall, with very long silver legs and numerous appendages, and emit a similar sound to the "Ulla" Wells described. The aliens crash to Earth in cylinders, which more closely resemble a meteorite (a similar aspect was used in the 1953 film adaptation), and spread their red weed during the invasion.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Pendragon Pictures film
There are three type of aliens in the book. The Martians in this version are not like the squid-like Martians described in H.G. Wells's story. These Martians are more humanoid with arms, legs and an enormous head with projector-like eyes and bad looking faces. When they rise, they are high. However this is only the male, for the species exhibits sexual dimorphism. To Earthlings, they appear unpleasant. The Martian women, however, are graceful and beautiful. The residents of Ceres are at war with the Martians. However, they are only mentioned, except for a female slave who is 40 feet tall.
Edison's Conquest of Mars | Aliens
The usage is incidental; it occurs when Aleriel, the novel's protagonist, lands on Mars in a spacecraft called an "ether-car" (an allusion to aether, which was once postulated as a gaseous medium in outer space). Aleriel buries the car in snow "so that it might not be disturbed by any Martian who might come across it." Fifteen years after Aleriel, H. G. Wells' landmark novel "The War of the Worlds" (1898) was published by William Heinemann, Ltd., then a relatively new publishing house. The novel was revised numerous times, and has since been translated into many languages. In the story, the Martians are a technologically advanced race of octopus-like extraterrestrials who invade Earth because Mars is becoming too cold to sustain them.
Martian | Martians in fiction
Virtually nothing is known about the alien invaders in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film adaptation of "War of the Worlds". On the DVD's 'Behind the Scenes' feature, Spielberg says Physiologically, these creatures have greenish/grey-colored skin, and are tripodal. Each limb ends with three fingers (resembling those from Byron Haskin's 1953 film version), and they also have two small limbs, also with three fingers, on their chest (similar to a theropod, or to the "Xenomorph" queen). The biological needs of this race are largely unknown. They somehow "ride lightning" in small transport pods during a storm to reach their buried Tripods (a plot device that Spielberg might have adapted from a Super Friends episode entitled "Invasion of the Brain Creatures").
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | 2005 film
Some of Menzies' set designs (such as those in the police station, the observatory, and the interiors of the Martian flying saucer) consist of elongated structures with stark, unadorned walls, sometimes much taller than necessary, adding touches of dreamlike surrealism.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Visual design
However, it is soon revealed that the Martians themselves are being invaded and eaten by a new dangerous race of aliens called Invaders and they have turned to Morden for help. As the Invaders invade Earth's cities, the soldiers fight them off and chase them into the desert, where the Invader Queen has established a nest. With help from the Rebels, they rescue the captured Martians and succeed in destroying the Invader Queen.
Metal Slug 6 | Plot
(A similar concept appears in Diane Duane's A Wizard of Mars.) "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II", also has the Martians being as foreign to the existing Martian civilization as they are to Earth, and evacuate the planet to conquer Earth after losing a war against the forces of John Carter and Gullivar Jones. It is said that the material they use to build their machines is secreted by the creatures themselves. By the year 2009, the Martians are believed by a post-Big Brother society to have been fiction.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Other
The Martian is served by the tall, green, silent, synthetic mutants. Under their master's mental commands, the mute humanoids have implanted mind-control crystals at the base of the skull of their kidnapped victims, forcing them to attempt sabotage at an atomic rocket project being built at a military plant near the town; if they are caught, the mind control devices explode, causing a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. The troops and Colonel Fielding, with Dr. Blake and David in tow, open fire on the pursuing mutants as their group escapes the saucer. After a short running battle in the tunnels, they return to the surface.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Plot
G. Wells' novel. The closest resemblance is probably that of the antagonists. The film's aliens are indeed Martians and invade Earth for the same reasons as those stated in the novel (the state of Mars suggests that it is becoming unable to support life, leading to the Martians' decision to try to make Earth their new home). They land in the same way, by crashing to the earth. However, the novel's spacecraft are large cylinder-shaped projectiles fired from the Martian surface from some kind of cannon, instead of the film's meteorite-spaceships; but the Martians emerge from their craft in the same way, by unscrewing a large, round hatch.
The War of the Worlds (1953 film) | Differences from the Wells novel
Writing anonymously, s/he assembled some speculations in an essay titled "The Year of Grace 2081", which enjoyed wide circulation. The Martians enter the story late in the narrative. During a rest from international conflict on Earth, humans begin telecommunicating with Martians. "After a brief period passed in the exchange of polite messages", says the essayist, humans will decide to war with the Martians on some pretence of honor. The war that results is cataclysmic: W. S. Lach-Szyrma's novel "Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds" (1883) was previously reputed to be the first published work to apply the word "Martian" as a noun.
Martian | Martians in fiction
Whereas Wells described his invaders as bear-sized tentacled creatures, the film's Martians are insect-like with four tentacle-like legs. These aliens also have the ability to spit acid from their feet, which melts anything. At the end of the legs three tongue-like appendages closely resemble the Martian fingers from Byron Haskin's 1953 film version of "The War of the Worlds" and the 1988 television series version. The war machines are crab-like "walkers" with six legs. A Heat Ray is built into the machine's "head", and is fired from a single eye. The fighting machines do not appear to have protection against modern artillery (avoiding the "invisible shields" seen in the 1953 film version and Steven Spielberg's 2005 film), leaving their ability to conquer unexplained.
H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds (The Asylum film) | Adapting the novel
In part of the series' set-up, humanity sends ships to pursue the defeated invaders. Instead of chasing them to Mars, they are tracked down to the distant Alpha Centauri. It is then revealed that these aliens are not even the main villains, but rather an underling race to a greater force that is not revealed in the presentation. The actual "War of the Worlds" TV series that was made, a sequel to the 1953 film, goes into more detail with its invaders. When the show begins, there is no mention of Mars (with the exception of one episode in which characters are confusing them with the Martians of the radio broadcast).
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | TV series
In the Asylum film "H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds", also known as "Invasion", the Martians resemble a short, green, disc-like head with four long tentacles acting as legs. Their feet have mouths having the ability to spit a deadly, corrosive acid. Inside these mouths are three tongues that closely resemble the Martians' fingers on the 1953 film version. On the DVD's Behind the Scenes feature, actor Jake Busey describes the aliens as looking like "floating pool chairs". It would appear that these Martians also have a need for human blood, and tend to appear mostly at night (possibly because sunlight on Mars is weaker than that on Earth).
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Asylum films
The ship's smart-mouthed pilot, Blaznee, with more common sense than the others, doesn't think it's a good idea, but he is ignored by the rest of the crew: Captain Bipto, the overzealous optimist of the group; Lieutenant Giggywig, the ambitious, know-it-all hothead; Dr. Ziplock, the careful and calculating scientist; and Corporal Pez, who is overeager, yet timid. They search for the invasion fleet they think has already landed. Because it's Halloween, everyone assumes they are just kids in very good costumes. Eventually, though, a few locals realize the truth. Among them is the town sheriff (Barr), his daughter (Richards), and an elderly farmer named Wrenchmuller (Royal Dano), on whose farm the Martians have crash-landed.
Spaced Invaders | Plot
In one of the first sequels, 1898's unauthorized "Edison's Conquest of Mars", a good deal of text is spent describing the Martians. In illustrations and descriptions, they are made to resemble bug-eyed, 15-foot-tall human figures, and have a vocal speech. Around 7500 BC they visited Earth, and constructed the Pyramids of Giza and Great Sphinx of Giza as a memorial to their leader. When a plague forced them to return to Mars, they brought with them a number of humans from the Fertile Crescent (transported to Egypt), whose descendants continued to serve as slaves to the Martians until they were wiped out in the aftermath of the Martian invasion of Earth, due to Martian fears of humans.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Edison's Conquest
After Superman issued a public broadcast to the world that warned them of the threat and the Hyperclan's weakness, the invaders were captured, and each of them was telepathically brainwashed by J'onzz and Aquaman to believe themselves to be human. Given strong mental blocks to inhibit their powers, the Martians assumed normal Earth lives all over the globe, although they were kept under observation by the League.
White Martian | Hyperclan
Oscar Godbout of "The New York Times" reviewed the film strictly as entertainment for youngsters, calling it "a pictorial 'funnybook'" that would "probably frighten witless a lot of small children". A generally positive review in "Variety" wrote: "Imaginative yarn makes full use of astronomical and lab equipment as well as Government atomic research installations as backgrounds to heighten the realism. Highlight, however, is a Martian ray gun which can cause the earth to part into subterranean passages. All this has been effectively filmed by John Seitz in Cinecolor". "Harrison's Reports" declared it "A pretty good science-fiction melodrama, photographed in Cinecolor.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Critical reception
Most adaptations of H.G. Wells' novel incorporate Martians as the invading race. A few draw upon their description from the original novel such as the infamous radio adaptation, as well as musical version, and Pendragon film adaptations. Most versions of the Martians differ from Wells' version. Despite a lack of verbal language in the novel (with the exception of the battle cry, "Ulla"), for example, many versions give them one nevertheless.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | In other adaptations
They require human blood; but only as part of their xenoforming project. Throughout the film, their tripods spill a strange fluid that is presumably connected to the invaders' needs (indeed, in the script David Koepp refers to it as "lifeblood", though it is described as rose-colored, rather than the film's orange). In the climatic scene of the film, a downed tripod opens a hatch that belches the liquid before one of the sickly creatures crawls forth. The death of these invaders is evident as they seemingly dehydrate upon their death; but this occurs only in the end, and thus may be a result of their exposure to bacteria.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | 2005 film
But while their aircraft are effective against the dodo squadrons, the armored vehicles making up the Lassan ground forces, manned by giant apemen also under the Lassans' control, seem invulnerable.
Invaders from Rigel | Plot
The sheriff finds out about the aliens when his deputy records their ship doing 3,000 mph. The deputy tracks down the ship to give the occupants tickets for having no license, no registration, no headlights, no taillight, no wheels, and going 2,945 miles over the posted limit. The sheriff's daughter, Kathy, discovers the aliens when they join a group of trick-or-treating kids. She befriends the Martians' "Scout-in-a-Can", a small robot that folds up into a sphere and is considered "smart, efficient, easy to use, and expendable". Mr. Wrenchmuller tries to cash in on the Martians' existence in order to save his farm.
Spaced Invaders | Plot
A reluctant Martian soldier is forced to join the army as they prepare to invade Earth. When they arrive, they are welcomed by a world at peace, full of people who are curious rather than aggressive. The protagonist meets a movie director, and it becomes clear that the people of Earth have planned to exploit the Martians for financial gain. He tries to escape to Mars, but is run over by a car and killed.
The Illustrated Man | The Concrete Mixer
They treat an aboriginal race, whom they call "Bleekmen", with casual racism. In "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" (1965), Mars has no indigenous life. To cope with the sterile habitat, the human colonists abuse drugs such as "Can-D" and "Chew-Z".
Martian | Human colonists as Martians
They appear to have no use for humans in the film. In the novel, however, the invaders are observed "feeding" on humans by fatally transfusing their captives' blood supply directly into Martian bodies by using pipettes; there is also later speculation about the Martians eventually using trained human slaves to hunt down all remaining survivors after they have conquered Earth. In the film, the Martians do not bring their fast-growing red weed with them, but they are defeated by Earth microorganisms, as in the novel. However, they die from the effects of the microorganisms within three days of the landing of the first meteorite-ship; in the novel, the Martians die within about three weeks of their invasion of England.
The War of the Worlds (1953 film) | Differences from the Wells novel
Orders are given for everyone to quickly leave the area: Fielding's troops have planted timed explosive charges aboard the saucer. David runs downhill away from the sandpit, and artillery opens fire on the sandpit, as the charges ticking timer slowly approaches zero.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Plot
The Martians finally realize they made a horrible mistake.
Spaced Invaders | Plot
Mention is also made of a Martian aircraft, but it is hardly seen, except to possibly spread the deadly Black Smoke from above over a wider area. Evidence of a second race of Martian appear in the dominant race's cylindrical transport vessels, presumably for use as their food supply while in transit; but they are all killed before the Martians reach Earth. These secondary Martians are bipedal, nearly tall, and have "round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets"; however, their fragile physical structure, made up of weak skeletons and muscles, would have been broken by Earth's heavier gravitational pull.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | In the novel
Wells never gave the Martians a specific name. One of the earliest names of the race was the Mor-Taxans, from the 1980s TV show. In Larry Niven's "Rainbow Mars" they are called "Softfingers", and in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II", the native Martians of the "Barsoom" books refer to them as "molluscs", "mollusc invaders", or "leeches", while Hawley Griffin contemptuously refers to them as "afterbirths". George Alec Effinger's "" in the shared world anthology "", has Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter has the inhabitants of Barsoom, Burroughs' vision of Mars, refer to Wells' Martians as "sarmaks", which name has become somewhat popular and appears in the Wold Newton universe and in articles in "ERBZine", the official Burroughs fanzine.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Names
The Martians themselves bear no physical resemblance to the novel's Martians. The novel's aliens are bear-sized, bulky creatures whose bodies are described as "merely heads", with a beak-like mouth, sixteen tentacles and two "luminous, disk-like eyes". Their film counterparts are short, reddish-brown creatures with two long, thin arms with three long suction cup-like fingers. The Martian's "head," if it can be called that, is a broad "face" at the top-front of its broad shouldered upper torso, the only apparent feature of which is a single large eye with three distinctly colored lenses. The Martians' lower extremities, whatever they may be, are never shown.
List of works based on The War of the Worlds | 1953 first film adaptation by George Pal
In the 1953 film adaptation, the Martians are short, brown creatures having three-fingered hands with suction cups at the end of long arms and a cyclopean eye divided into three sections: one red, one green, and one blue. The bottom-half of the creature is never fully shown; but blueprints show three legs having each a single suction-cup toe, similar to those on their fingers; other art shows two legs. No description of the alien's internal structure is given; but they are revealed to have blood, and their anemic blood cells are viewed by scientists under a microscope. As in other versions of the story, the Martians succumb to terrestrial bacteria.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | 1953 film
George Pal's film adaptation has many notable differences from H. G. Wells' novel. The closest resemblance is probably that of the antagonists. The film's aliens are indeed Martians, and invade Earth for the same reasons as those from the novel (the state of Mars suggests that it is in the final stages of being able to support life, leading to the Martians decision to make Earth their new home). They land on Earth in the same way, by crashing to the Earth. However, the book's spacecraft are large cylinder-shaped projectiles fired from the Martian surface from some kind of cannon, instead of the film's meteor-like spaceships; but the Martians emerge from their craft in the same way, by unscrewing a large, round hatch.
List of works based on The War of the Worlds | 1953 first film adaptation by George Pal
In short order, the Pentagon assembles troops and tanks under the command of Colonel Fielding (Morris Ankrum). An alien sabotage plot at the plant is soon uncovered, leading back to the sandpit, and the army surrounds the saucer landing site. Standing well away from the army search, Dr. Blake and young David are suddenly sucked underground. They are captured by two tall, slit-eyed green humanoids and taken via tunnels to the flying saucer. Army troops locate and blow open an entrance to the tunnels, and Colonel Fielding and a small detachment make their way to the saucer entrance. Inside, they confront the Martian mastermind: It has a giant green head with a humanoid face atop a small, green partial torso with several green arm-tentacles, and is encased in a transparent sphere.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Plot
The Martians arrival on Earth is aboard large, cylindrical spacecraft launched from some kind of immense cannon on Mars, and their chief weapon of war is the invisible 'Heat-Ray' that produces a white flame that consumes any organism it touches. This is mounted on an articulated arm attached to the front of the tall tripod, called a 'fighting-machine' in Wells' novel, which travels across the landscape destroying humans and their habitat. A secondary weapon, the "Black Smoke," is a toxic gas released from canisters launched at a distance from Bazooka-like tubes, referred to in the novel as a "gun," which kills humans and animals alike; it is rendered harmless by Martian high-pressure steam jets and water.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | In the novel
The aliens appear to have no use for human beings, unlike the original book's Martians who also used them as a blood supply.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | 1953 film
There they find a humanoid race of Martians who are the offspring of both an elder Martian species and of humans from Atlantis. The Martians live in a class society; the workers rise up against the ruling class, but the revolution fails. All the while, Mars is entering a phase of climate change that threatens disaster for the population. "Red Planet" (1932), a play cowritten by John L. Balderston and John Hoare, also deals with radical environmental change on Mars, except in this case it occurs through terraforming. Balderston was one of the few playwrights of the 20th century to adopt Mars or Martians as a subject for the stage.
Martian | Martians as civilized humanoids
Though some minor details are given away to indicate that their home planet was not Mars, it is not confirmed on-screen until midway through the season that they originate from a world named Mor-Tax. With their beautiful planet becoming uninhabitable from a dying star, they invade Earth with plans to take it over to preserve the traits that it shares with their old world. Their society is highly collective with the only sense of division in the form of their ternary caste system: a high-ranking and seemingly infallible ruling class (itself divided between the supreme leadership of a Council and their Advocacy to the lower classes), a military force in the middle, and scientists relegated to the bottom.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | TV series
During their travels, they encounter hostile aliens. Russell's Martians can survive in Earth-normal air pressures, but are more comfortable wearing low-pressure helmets and tease their shipmates about the soupy conditions on board. As a writer for "Doctor Who", Brian Hayles created a Martian species of reptilian humanoids called the Ice Warriors, who move stiffly and speak in a husky whisper. Most of the Ice Warriors that the Doctor encounters are brutish and belligerent. As Mars' climate becomes less favorable to sustaining them, the Ice Warriors seek a new planet. These reptilians debuted in "The Ice Warriors" (1967), a "Doctor Who" television serial about an impending ice age in Earth's future.
Martian | Martians as anthropomorphic animals
These aliens do have a language, uttered amongst themselves at some point, and there is logographic writing seen on their tripods.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | 2005 film
Pat Blake, who takes him to astronomer Dr. Stuart Kelston. David soon convinces Kelston, who comes to believe this is an invading vanguard from Mars. "Invaders from Mars" recounts its story from the point of view of an older child in an adult world heading into crisis. It was developed from a scenario by Richard Blake and based on a story treatment by John Tucker Battle, who was inspired by a dream recounted to him by his wife. The film was rushed into production to show in theaters before George Pal's "War of the Worlds" (also 1953), becoming the first feature film to show aliens and their spacecraft in color.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Introduction
The British release print includes a greatly expanded planetarium scene: framed pictures can be seen hanging on the set's walls that were not in the U.S. release; they appear to vanish and then reappear at times as the expanded and reedited scenes play out. While the adult actors had not changed significantly, child actor Jimmy Hunt is taller, looks older, and has shorter hair in these added scenes. Hunt also wears a sweater vest in them (the vest materializes about three minutes into the scene, at which time Dr. Kelston's necktie also appears to be retied), while he and Dr.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | British release
In "Invaders from Mars", mind-control crystals at the base of the skull enable the Martians to turn their victims into saboteurs.
Human possession in science fiction | "Invaders from Mars" (1953)
The production makes use of a unique "outre" music score that consists of an ethereal, rhythmically wavering tonal composition sung in unison by a choir. It is used as both a sound effect and as the scenic score associated with the Martians. As the film's "The End" title card and end credits are displayed, the ethereal music underscores an unspoken question that only each viewer can answer: is young David still asleep, trapped in a recurring nightmare, or was his bad dream a premonition of this now real event? The score is credited to Raoul Kraushaar, but Thomas Hischak's "Encyclopedia of Film Composers" notes that most of the score is now believed to be the work of frequent Republic composer Mort Glickman.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Music
As British scientists try to slow or avert a glacier encroaching on Great Britain, they find an Ice Warrior near their base, frozen in the glacier, and apparently in suspended animation. No one knows the being's identity, but they understand that it is probably from another planet. When the Ice Warrior revives, he attacks Jamie McCrimmon and kidnaps Victoria Waterfield. Other stories set in the future show the Martians eventually become more peaceful and are members of the Galactic Federation, though some want to return to their warlike ways.
Martian | Martians as anthropomorphic animals
The Martian is a favorite character of classical science fiction; he was frequently found away from his home planet, often invading Earth, but sometimes simply a lonely character representing alienness from his surroundings. Martians, other than human beings transplanted to Mars, became rare in fiction after Mariner, except in exercises of deliberate nostalgia – more frequently in some genres, such as comics and animation, than in written literature.
Mars in fiction | Martians in fiction
In the Marvel comic book Killraven: "Warrior of the Worlds", the Martians return to Earth in the year 2001 in an alternate, post apocalypse version of the Marvel universe. Killraven, alongside other heroes such as Spider-Man fight the Martians and their human slaves. The Martians would later have a small appearance in 2010's "The Avengers" volume 4. When Kang's interference of the timestream shatters it, random events of history occur in present-day New York City, including the arrival of Killraven and the Martians, piloting their Tripod walking machines. They are defeated by Thor. The Martians later appeared in 2015 in "All-New Invaders" #11-15.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Marvel Comics
Nina Darnton wrote in "The New York Times" that Hooper "knows how to construct a horror film so it builds to a screaming pitch" and also praised the "excellent cast," but thought that when the Martians are finally revealed, "the film becomes less terrifying. We get lost in the complexities of the inventions and finally they seem overdone and overproduced." "Variety" panned the film as "an embarrassing combination of kitsch and boredom," adding that a remake of the 1953 original was a reasonable idea but "Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby's inferior screenplay fails to bring in new ideas or provide interesting dialog.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Reception
Invaders from Mars is a 1986 American science fiction horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper from a screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby. It is a remake of the 1953 film of the same name, and is a reworking of that film's screenplay by Richard Blake from an original story by John Tucker Battle. Its production was instigated by Wade Williams, millionaire exhibitor, science fiction film fan and sometime writer-producer-director, who had reissued the original film in 1978 after purchasing the copyright to the property. Elaborate creature and visual effects were supplied by Stan Winston and John Dykstra.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Introduction
In Manhattan 1938, the Eighth Doctor and Charley meet a crooked gangster, a Russian spy, a sinister fifth columnist and Orson Welles. Welles's broadcast of "War of the Worlds" is just a story, but maybe there really are aliens at loose.
Invaders from Mars (audio drama) | Summary
Late one night, youngster David MacLean (Jimmy Hunt) is awakened by a loud thunderstorm. From his bedroom window, he sees a large flying saucer descend and disappear into the sandpit area behind his home. After rushing to tell his parents, his scientist father (Leif Erickson) goes to investigate David's claim. When his father returns much later in the morning, David notices an unusual red puncture along the hairline on the back of his father's neck; his father is now behaving in a cold and hostile manner. David soon begins to realize something is very wrong: he notices certain townsfolk are acting in exactly the same way.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Plot
A novelization of "Invaders from Mars", by horror novelist Ray Garton, was published by Pocket Books in the United States and Grafton Books in the United Kingdom.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Novelization
A group of Arctic explorers seeking the North Pole find a Martian base there. The Martians can only operate in a polar region not because of climatic requirements, but because their spacecraft cannot withstand the rotation of the Earth at other latitudes. The aliens resemble Earth people in every respect except that they have much larger eyes, with which they can express more emotions. Their name for the inhabitants of Earth is "the small-eyed ones". Lasswitz's Martians are highly advanced, and initially peaceable; they take some of the explorers back with them to visit Mars dominated by canals. The story concludes the contemporary battleship armaments race between Germany and Britain by having the Martians defeat the Royal Navy.
Two Planets | Summary
This was unlike "three-strip" Technicolor, where all three colors were printed on one side of the film stock. An interesting side effect of this process flow is that "Invaders" was composited as if it were a "three-strip" Technicolor feature.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Special effects
Costs were held down, in part, by re-use of special effects artist Paul Blaisdell's monster costume from 1958's "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (also directed by Cahn) during a sequence in which one of the invaders is encased in plastic so it can be seen. According to author Randy Palmer, "To help camouflage the costume, optical effects were added to lighten the image and give it a distinct blur, so that it's very difficult to tell that the invader's true form matches that of (Blaisdell's) Martian Lizard Man". However, as Warren pointed out, by 1959 "no one cared about SF movies made on this budget level.
Invisible Invaders | Production
The Invaders is an American science-fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that aired on ABC for two seasons, from 1967 to 1968. Roy Thinnes stars as David Vincent, who tries to thwart an in-progress alien invasion despite the disbelief of officials and the general public. The series was a Quinn Martin production.
The Invaders | Introduction
When David sees his mother eat a chunk of raw hamburger smothered in salt, he declines to go.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Plot
Thomas Kent Miller in his book "Mars in the Movies" called it "unredeemingly awful [if seen for the first time by a 21st century adult]. Otherwise, some children who saw it for the first time, with little or no knowledge of the 1953 version, derive much pleasure from the film." As of October 2020 the film holds a 33% approval rating at film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews. It was nominated for two awards at the 7th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Supporting Actress for Louise Fletcher and Worst Visual Effects.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Reception
The story concludes with an expeditionary force of humans volunteering to embark on a counterattack on Mars, in which the Earth force attacks the Martians in their manner (bayoneting and bullets). This necessitates the Martians that are still on Mars to defend their homeworld. The Earth attack forces, after destroying the Martian cities and killing the Martians, depart just before Mars is destroyed in the predicted cataclysm, thus ensuring the peace and safety of Earth as the Martian race is seemingly doomed to extinction (but see "Adaptations and merchandising" below). Scholar Nathan Brownstone noted that "The "Mars Attacks" cards achieved their popularity at the very time when the Cuban Missile Crisis captured the headlines, the moment when Cold War came closest to become radioactively hot.
Mars Attacks | Introduction
The Narrator finds them "at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous". They emerge briefly, but have difficulty in coping with the Earth's atmosphere and gravity, and so retreat rapidly into their cylinder. A human deputation (which includes the astronomer Ogilvy) approaches the cylinder with a white flag, but the Martians incinerate them and others nearby with a heat-ray before beginning to assemble their machinery. Military forces arrive that night to surround the common, including Maxim guns. The population of Woking and the surrounding villages are reassured by the presence of the British Army. A tense day begins, with much anticipation by the Narrator of military action.
The War of the Worlds | The Coming of the Martians
It is possible that these creatures are not native Martians, but similar to the Selenites described in Wells's other interplanetary work, "The First Men in the Moon".
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | In the novel
George Gardner (Timothy Bottoms) encourages his 12-year-old son David's (Hunter Carson) dreams of becoming an astronaut by stargazing with him. A thunderstorm wakes David, and he observes a strange alien spaceship landing on Copper Hill, just beyond the house. His father agrees to investigate, but returns a changed man. In the morning, David Gardner notices his father wearing only one slipper. His normally sunny disposition is somber and his personality is flat. David also notices a wound on the back of his father's neck in the shape of a letter 'X'. In the kitchen, George Gardner dumps sugar cubes into his coffee, and the coffee dribbles down his chin as he drinks.
Invaders from Mars (1986 film) | Plot
Invaders from Mars is a 1953 independently made American SuperCinecolor science fiction film directed by William Cameron Menzies and starring Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter, Arthur Franz, Morris Ankrum, Leif Erickson, and Hillary Brooke. It was produced by Edward L. Alperson Jr. The film was distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. Awakened during a thunderstorm, youngster David MacLean witnesses a brightly lit flying saucer disappear underground in the large sand pit behind his home. When his father investigates, he returns a changed man; soon David's mother, a young neighbor girl, and others begin to act in the same way. Begging the police for help, David's panicked story is heard by Dr.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Introduction
They appear to have no use for humans in the film. In the novel they are observed directly feeding on humans by draining their victims' blood using pipettes; there is also a speculation about them eventually using human slaves to hunt down all remaining human survivors after the Martians conquer Earth. In the film the Martians do not bring the novel's fast-growing red weed with them, but they are defeated by Earth microorganisms, as observed in the novel. However, they die from the effects of the microorganisms within three days of the landing of the first meteor-ship; in the novel the Martians die within about three weeks of their invasion of England.
List of works based on The War of the Worlds | 1953 first film adaptation by George Pal
The 'Cerenites' are this height due to the reduced gravity of their world.
Edison's Conquest of Mars | Aliens
Dave then encounters his body double in the mansion's main house. The duplicate Dave informs him that Mars is inhabited and that all Martians are beings without any physical bodies, an energy-like intelligence. They traveled to Earth via the Martian probe's high-gain, two-way radio transmitter, destroying the robotic rover in the process. Now on Earth, the Martians plan to replace key humans with duplicates to quash any further Earth missions to Mars. Since Dave's wife and children would likely recognize a duplicate, they had to be replaced, too. Family friend Web (William Mims) comes by later and finally gets the main gate open, but on his way back, the Martian-Dave reduces Web to ash.
The Day Mars Invaded Earth | Plot
The story, as in most pictures of this type, is highly imaginative, but it is packed with suspense from start to finish and should thrill the action fans, especially the youngsters". The Southern California Motion Picture Council cautioned "The tale is weird and terrifying, but well-done with ... exceptional color. ... the audience is almost frozen with fear until the finale is reached. This is entirely too terrifying and realistic a picture for children." At the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 82% based on , with a weighted average rating of 6.9/10.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Critical reception
At the beginning of Book Two, the Narrator and the curate are plundering houses in search of food. During this excursion, the men witness a Martian handling-machine enter Kew, seizing any person it finds and tossing them into a "great metallic carrier which projected behind him, much as a workman's basket hangs over his shoulder", and the Narrator realises that the Martian invaders may have "a purpose other than destruction" for their victims. At a house in Sheen, "a blinding glare of green light" and a loud concussion attend the arrival of the fifth Martian cylinder, and both men are trapped beneath the ruins for two weeks.
The War of the Worlds | The Earth under the Martians
The film was shot at Republic Pictures in the conventional (pre-Cinemascope) 1.37:1 screen aspect ratio, thereby facilitating recycling shots simply by flipping the negative left to right (or right to left) in an optical printer, as "full aperture" is symmetric about the film's axis. These effects shots in "Invaders" are apparent. For example, during the car chase scenes, where cars are first seen turning left (or right) and, several cuts later, the very same cars are seen turning the opposite direction (with identical, but reversed background). "Full aperture" also facilitated shooting the sandpit scenes (sand "falling down" or sand "falling up") without resorting to an optical printer stepping backwards.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Special effects
A Martian is an inhabitant of the planet Mars or a human colonist on Mars. Although the search for evidence of life on Mars continues, many science fiction writers have imagined what extraterrestrial life on Mars might be like.
Martian | Introduction
Starring: Featuring: With:
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Cast
Since they all spoke English with a strong accent (made famous by horror actor Bela Lugosi), they were considered outsiders in American society. The Hungarian scientists were seemingly superhuman in intellect, spoke an incomprehensible native language, and came from a small obscure country. This led to them being called Martians, a name they jocularly adopted. The joke was that Hungarian scientists are actually descendants of a Martian scout force which landed in Budapest around the year 1900, and later departed after the planet was found unsuitable, but leaving behind children by several Earth women, children who all became the famous scientists.
The Martians (scientists) | Origin of the name
The Martians are primitive but intelligent humanoids who lived beneath the sands. Martians burst into flames when brought in contact with water. Martians killed many of the early human explorers on Mars, principally because they concealed their existence, and they weren't suspected. In the novel "Protector", the Martians were wiped out when Jack Brennan caused an ice asteroid to crash into the surface of Mars, raising the average humidity of the atmosphere. Some Martians still exist on the "Map of Mars" on the Ringworld.
List of Known Space characters | Martians
Many of Robert A. Heinlein's Martian characters are humans born and raised on Mars. In "Red Planet" (1949), boys attend a boarding school in a human colony on Mars. A population of native Martians tolerates them until the colony administrator threatens a Martian child. The Martians demand that the humans leave Mars, but a human doctor convinces them to reconsider. In Heinlein's 1956 novel "Double Star", humans have colonized the solar system, and a politician on Mars faces the civil rights issue of granting a native Martian species (who are second-class citizens) the right to vote. In Philip K. Dick's novel "Martian Time-Slip" (1964), a human colony on Mars is trying to cope with arduous environmental conditions.
Martian | Human colonists as Martians
Ironically, earlier newspaper articles under-exaggerated the Martians as being "sluggard creatures". The main character witnessed the fighting machines moving "with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds".
Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds) | Novel
The Martians' undoing is a fatal vulnerability to Earth bacteria.
Martian | Martians in fiction
"The Martians" was a term used to refer to a group of prominent Hungarian scientists (mostly, but not exclusively, physicists and mathematicians) who emigrated to the United States in the early half of the 20th century. Leó Szilárd, who jokingly suggested that Hungary was a front for aliens from Mars, used this term. In an answer to the question of why there is no evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth despite the high probability of it existing, Szilárd responded: "They are already here among us they just call themselves Hungarians." This account is featured in György Marx's book "The Voice of the Martians." Paul Erdős, Paul Halmos, Theodore von Kármán, John G.
The Martians (scientists) | Introduction
The existence of the Invaders could not be documented by killing one and examining the body. When they died, their bodies would glow red and burn up along with their clothes and anything else they were touching, leaving little more than traces of black ash. On several occasions, a dying alien would deliberately touch a piece of their technology to prevent it from falling into the hands of humans. In episode three ("The Mutation"), one of them (a female alien who falls for Vincent and helps him escape from being killed, but ends up being killed herself while running from a farm house to warn him he is in danger) tells David Vincent, "That's what happens to us when we die here on Earth."
The Invaders | Characteristics
After millions of people revolt against their governments, it seems the Martian communiques may have been a hoax.
Martian | Martians as civilized humanoids
The Jovians are a race even more ancient than the Martians, who watched the Earth-Mars war with disapproval. 1920, New York City: Julie Elphinstone meets Major Eric Eden, a POW in the Martian war of 1907. He has come from Britain to try and get her to take a call from her ex-husband's brother Walter Jenkins, the author of the "Narrative" (i.e. The War of the Worlds). Her husband was Frank Jenkins. Since the war, telescopes are only permitted to be operated by the government, so as to prevent panic. There is also a war between the Germans and the Russians called the Schlieffen War.
The Massacre of Mankind | Book I: The Return of the Martians
The early part of the film follows the experience of a late 19th-century journalist from Woking, known as "the writer", involved with the landing of a Martian invasion spacecraft. When the crashed cylinder opens, the Martians start killing anything that moves with a "heat ray" weapon. The writer discovers his house is in range of their heat ray and decides to rush his wife and servant to her cousins' home in Leatherhead; once there, he returns in order to return the borrowed cart to its owner, unaware that the invading Martians are now on the move. The Martians have built tall tripod "fighting machines" and begun a destructive rampage across southern England.
H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (Pendragon Pictures film) | Plot
Neither the Invaders nor their planet were ever named. Their human appearance was a disguise; they were shown in their true form in two episodes. In "Genesis" (season one, episode five), an ill alien researcher loses his human form and is briefly seen immersed in a tank of water. "The Enemy" had a dying, mutated Invader (Richard Anderson) revert to his true appearance. Unless they receive periodic treatments in what Vincent called "regeneration chambers", which consume a great deal of electrical power, they revert to their alien form. One scene in the series showed an alien beginning to revert, filmed in soft focus and with pulsating red light.
The Invaders | Characteristics
Captain Bipto gets hit by a truck and turns a gas station attendant, named Vern, into his robotic slave. Giggywig, Ziplock, and Pez try to blow up the town's Co-Op and instead just heat up a silo of corn kernals, creating a gigantic hot air popcorn popper. Kathy's new friend, Brian (the Duck), captures Blaznee by hitting him with a trashcan lid. He then tries to help the alien repair his ship. Wrenchmuller tries to blow the ship up and gets trapped in a paralyzing beam. The desperate Martians try to blow the Earth up using the D.O.D. (Doughnut Of Destruction), but it falls apart instead.
Spaced Invaders | Plot
Film historian Paul Meehan considered "Invaders from Mars" as "one of the best of the 50s invasion cycle", and "in hindsight", one of the most influential of the period, setting the scene for other "abduction films". Critic Patrick Legare wrote of the film, "Originating during the science-fiction/Red-Scare boom of the '50s, "Invaders From Mars" is an entertaining little picture that holds up reasonably well".
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Critical reception
In the first film, the aliens (not directly stated to be Martians) appear as insectoid creatures rather than the bulky octopi of Wells' novel. They stand upon four legs, from which they can secrete a corrosive acid. Upon death they are seen to stand erect and paralyzed.
List of The Asylum monsters | Martians
As an adjective, Martian means of or pertaining to the planet Mars. As a noun, a Martian is a hypothetical inhabitant, either alien or human, of the planet Mars. Martian, Martians, The Martian or The Martians may also refer to:
Martian (disambiguation) | Introduction
"Invaders from Mars" impressed some kids who grew up and became filmmakers. Don Coscarelli's original 1979 "Phantasm" has some plot similarities, while Brad Bird's "The Iron Giant" makes references to the film, as well as to other iconic science fiction features, particularly those from the 1950s.
Invaders from Mars (1953 film) | Influence
For his Known Space series of novels, Larry Niven conceived humanoid Martians with a primitive material culture who inhabit an environment of red dust and nitric acid, and for whom water is lethal. In the 1973 novel "Protector", a man named Jack Brennan allies himself with a ruthless, xenophobic humanoid species called the Pak. To preclude the possibility future competition for Pak offspring, Brennan engineers a Martian genocide by sending an ice-covered asteroid to collide with Mars. In Dennis Feltham Jones' 1977 novel "Colossus and the Crab", Martian life predated life on Earth, but faced a process of devolution as conditions on the planet worsened.
Martian | Martians as an extinct race
Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds is a science fiction novel by Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma, a Polish-English curate, author, and historian. Published in 1883, "Aleriel" is a Victorian novel, which was previously thought to be the first published work to apply the word "Martian" as a noun (it is now known that the word was first used in 1877): After the protagonist, Aleriel, lands on Mars, he buries his spacecraft in snow, "so that it might not be disturbed by any Martian who might come across it". A new edition was published in 2015. It includes the same text and a new introduction by Richard Dunn (Royal Museums Greenwich) and Marek Kukula (Royal Observatory Greenwich).
Aleriel, or A Voyage to Other Worlds | Introduction
The Martians themselves bear no physical resemblance to the novel's Martians, who are described as bear-sized, roundish creatures with brown bodies, "merely heads", with quivering beak-like, V-shaped mouths dripping saliva; they have sixteen whip-like tentacles in two groupings of eight arranged on each side of their mouths and two large "luminous, disk-like eyes". Due to budget constraints, their film counterparts are short, reddish-brown creatures with two long, thin arms with three long, thin fingers with suction-cup tips. The Martians' head, if it can be called that, is a broad "face" at the top-front of its broad-shouldered upper torso, the only apparent feature of which is a single large eye with three distinctly colored lenses (red, blue, and green).
The War of the Worlds (1953 film) | Differences from the Wells novel
In "Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds", Professor Challenger theorizes to Sherlock Holmes that the Martians came from another, wetter planet due to their seeming familiarity with the ocean while battling the "Thunder Child"; their small lungs (which would have been inadequate in Mars' atmosphere); and the fact that no construction was evident on Mars before the 1894 opposition. Their apparent struggle to move in Earth's gravity is given as a mixture of caution and embellishment in the accounts of Wells, "the known atheist and radical". Challenger further speculates that they came from another solar system in the galaxy. In the "Scarlet Traces" comic, it is eventually revealed that the Martians came from a planet that exploded to form the asteroid belt; they then settled on Mars, driving the native species into extinction before launching similar wars against the races of Mercury, Venus, the Moon, and finally Earth.
Martian (The War of the Worlds) | Other
The comic told of an invasion of all nations of the Earth by unknown invaders who used teleportation to appear at different destinations. The invaders were dressed in purple uniforms with a black crab insignia on a yellow circle, and used weapons similar to what was then currently in use with each one having a night vision device on their helmet. The invaders make no demands, but kill anyone (military or civilian) in their path and prefer to kill themselves rather than surrender. Though the invaders were humanoid in appearance they were noticeably hairless with no eyebrows with one issue having a medical examiner saying their internal organs were slightly different.
M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War | Plot and characters
Larry Martin (Judd Holdren), a leader in the Inter-Planetary Patrol, detects a rocket coming to Earth. He takes to the air in his jet-powered rocket suit and helmet to investigate and discovers Martian invaders, led by Marex (Lane Bradford). Since Mars is now orbiting too far from the Sun and its ecology has been dying, the Martian invaders want to swap Earth's and Mars' orbits, so Mars will then be closer to the Sun. They plan on achieving this by using hydrogen bomb plans stolen from Earth scientists to cause the two planets' orbits to swap, using specifically placed atomic explosions on both worlds.
Zombies of the Stratosphere | Plot
They had certain characteristics by which they could be detected, such as the absence of a pulse or heartbeat and the inability to bleed. Most of the aliens, in particular the lowest-ranking members or workers in green jumpsuits, were emotionless and had deformed little fingers that could not move and were bent at an unnatural angle, although "deluxe models" could manipulate this finger. Black aliens' palms were not pale, like humans of African descent, but were the same shade as the rest of their skins. Also, a number of mutant aliens experienced emotions similar to those of humans, and even opposed the alien takeover.
The Invaders | Characteristics