The "Pirates of Mars" Tragedy

The "Pirates of Mars" Tragedy

by Graham Swanson

Pretext: Pirates of Mar is one of the most sought after "lost" movies of all time. Producers believed it to be the next Star Wars early on, but it quickly went over budget, production fumbled stunt scenes and action scenes, many times entire scenes needed to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. They outsourced their CGI from rogue nations, and brought on actors with no prior experience in Hollywood.  Despite its failure however it earned a cult following and has since many scenes have been recovered, but never the full footage has never been recovered.

I

The Premiere 

Jaimi’s heart pounded as he cusped the limousine door handle. The driver stopped but he still sat, breathing against the tinted windows, empty shot glass in his hand, his face pale in fear. The driver remained professional for about a minute, then saw the other limousine drivers back up behind him. 

“Hey man, the movie is about to start.” 

“Wow , that’s a lot of people… maybe another drink first.”

“No, just get out of the car. You’ve arrived. They won’t bite you.” 

“I’m not afraid of getting bit” Jaimi brushed the 800$ haircut he got for this one event over to the side of his ear. Despite being 19, he looked like he could be 16 or even 26. “Is this tux on right? I feel like it shouldn’t be tucked in. Untucked or tucked, what do you think?” 

“Man, I have to get this car back in an hour. Would you mind?” 

“Oh god, I should’ve just brought my mom. Hey, why does that guy’s tux look different from mine?” 

“This really goes beyond my training as a driver. You should get out now, sir. You’ll miss the premiere.” 

“Maybe just go around the block one more time…”

“One more time-” The driver’s face turned red. The doctor told him to control his stress. He didn’t raise his voice or pound the steering wheel. “Listen, never ask me to do that again, and if you don’t get out, I will get you that second drink, but only so I can throw your lily white ass out of this car.” 

“At this point I might prefer that.”

“If there was a cigarette lighter in this vehicle I would burn you with it. Get out please sir.” 

“That’s okay I don't smoke.” 

“My uncle has got emphysema, so I don't miss it. Still though, no ash trays?”

“The thing that I never understood- cars got everything. Cupholders, sunglasses holders, seat warmers, but no refuse collector? Nothing to put garbage in?”

“Yeah I still have to carry a grocery sack with me between every car. It’s disgusting what some people do too. 

“They’re slobs.” 

“Cars get dirty fast too. I mean, would it really be a lot?” 

“Maybe it's against consumer safety.”

“I don’t see how it could be.”

“I’m actually against seatbelts. I think people should just drive slower.” 

“What if they have to use the highway?”

“No one needs to be out there. I used to work at a truck stop on I-80, nothing good is ever happening on the highways.” 

“The world is a scary place, and there’s no garbage cans in our cars. And now our seatbelts are useless.”

“And if we did that, insurance would be cheaper if not a thing of the past, because there wouldn’t be so many accidents.” 

“Never thought of it like that.”

They sat in the car pondering their own philosophies for a second.

“Okay now, get out! Get out”!!!!!!!

Jaimi screamed and jumped out. The limousine screeched and sped off behind a cloud of smoke. Jaimi had never seen so many pretty people packed into one place before. It was hard for him to believe that before this began, he was flipping burgers for 12$ an hour at a fast food joint. Now he was walking down the red carpet surrounded by flashing cameras leading to the marquis of the most prestigious theater in California. 

The producer, Thomas Claire, wore a cream colored suit with a bar stripe tie. He patted other producers and friends on the shoulder. Jaimi gasped. Around him stood Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Hugh Jackman, Taylor Swift, and other more mysterious powerful people. Jaimi took his seating assignment and tried to sneak into the theater but Claire took him by the hand and brought him into the light of the terrifying and successful peers (or rivals depending on how you look at it.)

“Look at this guy, I'm so proud of him.” Claire gave him a couple fake karate chops. Jaimi awkwardly blocked the chops, and carefully looked around to make sure no Asian people were there to witness it. Sure enough Bruce Lee’s daughter scowled at them both from across the room. “This guy right here has got what it takes.”

“Didn’t you used to be a waiter or somethin’ 

“I wish. I flipped burgers.”

“That a boy! Humble origins. You’ll see it in the film tonight, I tell ya. Go take your seat, boy. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Jaimi ran away and got lost in the midst of all the people. 

“Thomas Saint-May Claire, how much did you spend on this movie?”

“Money is nothing. It’s all about vision, character, and believing.” 

The director, Max Donovan pulled his star aside and sat with him at the bar alone. The director ordered them each a 10$ cocktail. He leaned in close so that Jaimi could hear him. “Listen kid, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this…. Fight that happened on set.”

“Which one?”

“Good boy.”

“No for real, which fight, because…”

“None of them. If anyone asks, I never made you guys fight the crew to determine who got catering, hot showers, and so on.”

“OK, I really have no one to talk to so…”

“Good. Do you have any cigarettes?”

“No, I don't smoke.”

“Oh well I started tonight.” He pulled out a pack of Montegos. They go for 3$ in most retail locations. “There’s got to be a gas station nearby. I can't go on without smoking.”

“No there isn’t. There's nothing but theater and dog parks around here.”

“Damn it!” Donovan threw his glass to the floor. “Listen boy, they might break my legs after this one. I don't want you to be nervous, but they will take my whole ass for this one. Just don’t tell them about the time… heck you know what, I’ve already booked my trip to Belize. If you want to come along, you want to just tell me right now because by the end of this I'm going to be too drunk to know what you are talking about.”

“C’mon Don, you’ve made great movies in the Indie scene. GoodBye Velvet,  True Colors, The Reckoning.”

“Damn smut films, Jaimi. All I did was tell naked ladies where to stand.”

The Special Effects Supervisor, Alicia Wu, sat down. “You know, I saw your little martial arts demonstration over there, Jaimi. Some of us worked really hard to be where we are today, and I don’t appreciate some alley cat being walked down the red carpet just for that one bit.” 

“It wasn’t my idea, I didn’t know what to do.”

Yu spilled her drink all over her dress. “Let me get another so I can spill it on your shirt. You’ve got it all nice and tucked in, and let me help you with that.” 

She untucked his shirt and then ordered another cocktail. Makeup already rolled down her face as she threatened to fight Max. 

Ace, the Stunt Coordinator, still had a neck brace on. Several burn scars covered what Jaimi saw of his face/ One arm was still in a cast. Jaimi felt bad and had to say something.

“I’m sorry about your finger. Could they?”

“Sew it back on? Yeah, but the real problem is gonna be the plate in my head, doctor says. Here, feel it.” He grabbed Jaimi’s hand and began to rub the hard spots in his skull. 

The production Assistant, Sarah Leeson, came between them, and hugged them both. Her makeup and hair all bright and happy, she jumped up and down and screamed and took selfies with them.

“I've been looking all over for you two! Why are you hiding? Wasn’t this so much fun? I can’t believe in a million years WE got to make a big movie!

“I’m nervous, Sarah. I mean, what if people don’t like it?”

“Oh I’m sure it will be fine. At least we got to travel.” Sarah took her heels off to run over to greet more people. 

Jaimi finally got into the movie theater itself when he saw the only person he wanted to see that night. The personable and pretty cosplayer, Talli Holmes. They walked in at the same time, and Jaimi’s heart almost exploded out of his untucked tux. Talli seemed almost indifferent until he said hello. In the crowded theater she didn't hear him so he shouted it a little louder. 

She turned because she heard him yell, not because she heard him say hi to him. 

“Hey, have we met before?” she squinted her eyes and asked.

“No, but I follow you on Instagram. I can’t believe you came tonight.”

“Well, I've never been to a big premiere, and I meet most of my fans at conventions, events like this, sci fi type stuff.” 

“Hey if you’d like, I can make them change seats so we can sit together. Maybe we can exchange Instas.”

“Hmm yeah that might be cool.”

“Sure, I sit right there.”

“Oh, our seats are only one row apart. I sit one down from you. I’ll just do that.” she smiled and darted off. “Have fun at your premiere!” 

Jami took his seat and glanced at the empty seat next to Talli’s. A tall, muscular basketball player sat in the empty seat beside Talli. Her eyes lit up and they immediately greeted and began exchanging little jokes in the cacophony of the room. The lights fell dark, and Jaimi thought “oh boy the worst is past! Now we can watch the movie and everything will be okay.”

There were no opening credits. They cut it because the editors decided not to leave anyone’s name on it. Instead if just started with SPACE PIRATES! 

The movie’s name was “PIRATES OF MARS” and it said so on the poster. 

The first thing coming across the cardboard backdrop of space was a fleet of tin foil plates floating into battle. One by one they lit on fire (with a lighter)  and got sucked into holes. Faces in the sun and on the planet Mars began to give orders to the ship’s captains. Muffled laughter arose from the audience, and Jaimi began to sweat. 

II 

MARS UNFOLDS

Thrag the Great Khan of Mars wore loose rubber armor that wobbled when he walked. Threads came loose as he stepped up to the camera. For some reason they filmed with a narrow lens from far away. Despite being 6’9’’ and weighing 200 lbs of pure muscle, he appeared thin and naked compared to the other characters on screen. 

Whenever he jumped out of his spacecraft, the audience laughed while others groaned.Mars looked more pink than red, and the sand the villain condemned the hero, Cyberman, to be entombed with looked more like cow manure with red glitter on top. The cardboard buildings in the background got used again and again, so even when characters visited another planet, the same Martian towers stood in the exact same place. Thrag announced his plan to destroy all the cyber ninjas, and sent his Martian army to combat them. But the battle never came. It went on and on with a love story between Cyberman and the princess. Jaimi held out hope for his character, who was Cyberman’s best friend. In actuality, Cyberman was only on screen for five minutes. JAimi did all the work on screen. Suddenly all the waivers made sense to him as his character climbed up tall cliffs, jumped into pools, got shot with x-rays, kicked in the head, bitten by space animals, and chased by Cyberninjas. No matter what he did, all the other characters would applaud the accomplishments of Cyberman. His only action scene was raising his rocket fist… and they used that shot about forty times throughout the first act. 

“Never Underestimate the Power of the Human spirit!” Was Cyberman’s war cry… even though Jaimi was the only human character. The rest were Martians or robots. 

Their costumes looked like something from Spirit Halloween. Big silver boxes with red flashlights for eyeballs. The martians looked even worse. They wore garbage bags and despite their reputation for being feared war mongers, they kept breaking into dance routines. It didn’t stop. 

Jaimi cringed whenever he saw himself on screen. He dreaded the part that he knew was coming up. His monologue. The speech was written last minute, and he didn’t have much time to rehearse it. When all of Mars was listening, he began his speech: “ If we don’t start cleaning up the environment  and stop pollution now, it will be too late. Independence! Freedom!”

The audience started chuckling. Jaimi looked over at Talli and the other guy, who were laughing together and pointing at the screen. They kept whispering little inside jokes and laughing with each other as Jaimi jumped out of a speeding spacecraft that was obviously two feet from the studio floor.

Sarcastic cheers arose from the audience whenever Jaimi appeared on screen, always under the shoulder of Cyberman. At one point he was firing fist rockets at “Death Ships” that were just 4-wheelers with visors over the driver’s faces. Then the love scenes began. This movie did NOT want to give up on its robot/princess love story. Four times in the first act did Cyberman and the Princess have a long, indulging sex scene that went on and on and on. 

Jaimi looked over one more time to see Talli and the guy next to her holding hands. 

III

The Climax

Not only did the actor have to pull off dangerous stunts, but in the movie they looked feeble. In one scene Jaimi was supposed to grab a rope, and use it to swing onto a spaceship. Instead the rope broke, so in the movie they showed him swinging, and then reversed the shot so that it looked like he fell backwards and landed in the prop case. 

The audience burst into laughter. Jaimi shrank in his seat, his tuxedo collar scratched his neck. He covered his eyes and prayed that someone in the audience would have a baby or something just so the laughter would stop. One row up, Talli and the guy were leaning into each other. She rested his head on his shoulder as his hand rubbed her thigh. Jaimi’s heart sank. People began to stand up and walk out. 

IV

The Cost of Failure 

Jaimi hoped at least the film’s final battle between the space pirates, cyber ninjas, martians, and sun people would redeem the film. Instead he watched with his jaw hanging as he beheld a poorly edited garden of technical and continuity errors. Everytime Cyberman’s suit malfunctioned, causing him to lurch while all the others ran, or causing one of the lights on his suit to blind him, the audience roared with laughter. Every line Cyberman said came out of synch. More Martians copy/pasted CGI clumsily placed on top of the cardboard background said strangely dark jokes. No matter how many Martians Cyberman seemed to kill, no matter how many tinfoil ships caught fire, no matter how many guys in tan suits ran into action, somehow the battle didn’t get close to being over. Thrag got killed three times, but would always appear just fine in the next scene wearing the same neon tank top since his armor didn’t fit. Despite the one sided, droning battle, the space Pirates and their allies kept swearing they needed to surrender before it was too late. Jaimi wished they would lose just so he could get the hell out of the theater. His face turned red. Talli was laughing uncontrollably, the guy’s arm around the back of her neck. When the movie ended, he kissed her on the neck, and they got up and left together. Jaimi wanted to ask her what she thought of the movie, but she  and her new date walked right past him. 

V

The Aftermath 

Jaimi smoked a cigarette and sat in the alley with the cats and the homeless people. His tux untucked, his tie undone, his rented jacket soiled with dirty alley water, and his unblinking eyes looking into the abyss beneath the dumpster. 

People streamed out of the theater. Some angrily demanded money back. Some couldn’t stop laughing.
Some gathered in front of the building to talk about the hell they thought they just saw. Claire walked out last, his head high, his face red with joy as he talked to the people about it. “I think this movie has tremendous potential overseas. I loved every bit of it. Creativity! Wonder! Robots!” 

The director Max wasn’t around for the post premiere meeting with producers. He already boarded a plane to Belize.

Max never made another Hollywood movie. He made several small budget movies over the years and became a cult icon amid B movie fans.

Thomas Claire had to shut down and sell his production company. Despite the immense monetary loss, he continued winning awards up til his early death ten years later. 

Jake Ramirez, the screenwriter, was sued by Graham Swanson (the original writer of Pirates of Mars). He never wrote another script again, but did publish a novel about the production of the film.

Alicia Wu ended up going back to Korea, where she opened a small special effects business. 

Ace the stunt coordinator continues to work in Hollywood to this day. 

Sarah went back to school and studied interior design. She died of a drug overdose in her motel room on Christmas day after graduating. 

Fifteen years went by. Jaimi found himself back where he started. Flipping burgers on the highway for minimum wage. Any place he went, guys and girls gestured and made remarks about CYBERMAN or his rope stunt. The other guys in the kitchen, gruff, bearded, no teeth, with butterfly eyes made fun of him daily.

“I may be a convicted felon, but at least I’m not this guy!” They’d say almost everyday. 

The manager once stepped in. “Its inappropriate and unprofessional to make fun of your co worker but what was with the alien lobster? Why was the princess riding it?” They all shared a laugh.

Jaimi hoped the movie died in the past but the internet revived scenes of it for the whole world to ridicule. Convention organizers invited him to host panels, documentary makers asked him for interviews, but he only hurled his phone against the sidewalk. He cursed Pirates of Mars and hexed everything about it.

They all rolled in laughter until they noticed Jaimi was standing there in the corner filling sauce cups with a pitcher. He didn’t even notice. More than a decade it just became a part of the scenery. 

Jaimi’s good looks didn’t entirely go away. They hid under scar tissue. One day he tried to stop a thief. His boss threatened to fire anyone who didn’t at least try, and so a highway bandit stabbed him in the eye in the parking lot. Later a drunk driver steered into his lane and flipped him upside down. Shrapnels cut his throat, and left a thick black scar over his trachea. On his days off, Jaimi stayed at home and sipped tea because he didn't feel well.

    Due to the water they made him swim in on set, a bacteria got into his brain, causing continual health problems that required near constant doctor’s visits, medications, and vast testing including CAT scans that he could not afford. All the money he made flipping burgers went either to landlords, the utility company, or to the hospital. With the bills, he figured he also spent any chance he had in the movie making business.

One night his manager rolled in. 

“Jaimi, you sent out the wrong order again.”

“Can you just tell him it’ll be a hot minute?”

“You can tell him.”

Jaimi hung his head and walked out to the counter. A tall road worker stood there with long blonde hair, a sunburned face, white lips, and both hands on the counter. The man dumped his bag of greasy food onto the floor and immediately ripped into Jaimi. 

“You greasy monkeys want 15$ an hour but you can’t even take the tomatoes off my sandwich!” 

“Sorry sir, you can just take the tomatoes off yourself if you don’t like them.”

“No I don't. That’s your job. You guys don’t work hard, you have no skills, you never went to school, and you wonder why you’re stuck working at a dump like this!” 

Jaimi thought of the time Max had him jump between fan blades and then made him redo it because the costume wasn’t right. The blades hit him in the head and he needed stitches. He actually got the role because the director liked his skills on camera. He did go to school, but he earned a degree in public relations and mythological study. It did not help him get a high paying job at all. 

“Listen buddy, sorry you’re having a bad day, I can remake your food if you will be so patient.”

“No, I don't want more food.”

“So you just came in to throw a tantrum?”

“What?” The man looked startled, he reached for non-existent pearls on his neck. “I work twelve hours a day, over time baby, every fucking day, you can’t even make a sandwich right!” 

“If you’re not here to get some food, then get the fuck out!”

“How dare you! I’ll call the owner and have you fired. Then what’re you gonna do?”

“You have no idea how cool I am with that idea.” 

“Bro, I paid for this, shouldn’t you be giving me my money back?”

“Actually it says here that the order isn’t even completed yet. You still have to pay for that food which you stole and then dumped on the floor.”

“You calling me a thief?”

“I'm not calling you a thief, you are a thief. Now get the fuck out of here! Bring it to the next burger joint but leave now and never come back!” 

The guy took out twenty dollars and left it on the counter.

“That's for the food.”

“Thanks.” Jaimi took it and put it in his pocket. 

The manager walked up. 

“Hmmm, Jaimi, I’m gonna have to tell regional about this.”

“Do it. I quit.” Jaimi threw down his apron and made sure the sink was full of dishes before he left. He wondered how far 20 dollars might take him in this crazy world. Driving down the highway, he wondered if he could find a silver lining in his situation.