Mars Is Heaven story

rbt1985e4x01 · 1990-07-20

An astronaut and his team land on Mars and discover they're not so far from home at all. Directed by: John Laing. Story by: Ray Bradbury.

17 total · 1 choice · 6 major · 10 minor

Theme	Level	Motivation
Martian extraterrestrial	choice	The center piece of the story is the speculation that Mars might be inhabited by a hostile telepathic alien race.
coping with the death of a family member	major	The astronauts found on Mars their various departed loved ones and speculated briefly that they had entered some sort of heavenly afterlife. Alas, the telepathic Martians apparently played on the astronauts conscious or subconscious longing for people that had passed away.
fear of strangers	major	Captain Black speculated that if Mars was inhabited by a telepathic alien race, that race might naturally view the visiting spacefarers from Earth as invaders.
interplanetary space travel	major	The premise of the story is that for the first time in history a mission of astronauts from Earth had traveled to Mars.
remembrance	major	The telepathic Martians apparently played on the astronauts conscious or subconscious longing for departed loved ones and the days of yore.
reunion with a loved one	major	Shortly after landing on Mars, the astronauts were reunited with what appeared to be their dearly departed family members.
telepathic ability	major	A center piece of the story is the speculation that Mars might be inhabited by a hostile telepathic alien race.
attack from outer space	minor	The Martians presumably assumed that the humans had come as invaders, and responded accordingly.
brother and brother	minor	Captain Black was apparently reunited with his dearly departed brother, Skip. By the time Black pieced together that Skip was actually a telepathic Martian with homicidal intentions, it was already too late.
creative writing	minor	In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing.