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The Book, the Movie The Martian Chronicles, written in 1950, was produced in 1979 as a made-for- television mini-series. As with most adapted screenplays, the movie differs from the novel. These differences are not that drastic and do not circumvent the overlying message of the piece. The first noted difference is the opening scene of the movie. It begins with the landing of the Viking probe on Mars. This change is possibly an attempt to explain away …

…of what Bradbury was trying to portray. The horrifying things that occur when ignorance, paranoia, and xenophobia are allowed to prosper are shown in both the novel and the movie. However, the novel relates to the 50s more readily than the movie. There were obviously many influences on the movie that were a result of the differences between the 50s and the 70s, and the producers of the movie were obviously influenced by those changes.