Marooned

Annotation for KRRR! 2026

Life itself writes the most exciting stories, but film makers sometimes get ahead of it. The famous story of Apollo 13 and the astronauts who discovered that they might never return to Earth took place in 1970, but a year earlier, Hollywood stars were fighting for their lives in orbit. Marooned tells the story of three American astronauts in a very unpleasant situation. They discovered that a key mechanism was not working, and they were seriously running out of oxygen and time. And that saving them would not be easy at all. The director of The Magnificent Seven or The Great Escape, John Sturges, will not let them do that, of course.

Marooned is based on Martin Caidin's 1964 novel, when the whole world lived on space discoveries and journeys far beyond the borders of our planet, and it was not until five years later that a human foot was to set foot on the surface of the moon. However, Hollywood got hold of the book in 1965 and Frank Capra began preparing an adaptation, but it turned out that NASA might not be able to help him with that. The space agency wanted to take advantage of the popularity of its field, but the idea of people going to see a film about something breaking in space and someone losing their life didn't appeal to it. When budget problems were added to this, the whole project went on hold. And after five years, it ended up with Sturges.

NASA was more willing on the second try and the film makers were able to use a lot of television footage from real missions, because authenticity was to play a major role – and there was still time for grand adventures in the style of The Martian, Interstellar or Project Hail Mary. Although the film makers allowed themselves a few adjustments to enhance the viewer's experience, for example, real-time communication with the control centre was not possible, but overall, Marooned still looks very realistic to this day. And in the end, it differs from other popular films about disasters, which are fought by a star cast, however they appeared here as well.

True, the real star of his time was represented only by Gregory Peck, who always knew how to play these strong charismatic heroes. Gene Hackman had mainly a supporting role in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – and only hinted at how great things could be expected from him. Similarly, Richard Crenna was rather a remarkable actor, although he impressed in the drama Star (1968) and a decade later he became friends with John Rambo. The most important thing, however, is that the plot itself has not aged much within the framework of realistic stories from space and, in addition to Apollo 13 (1995), Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity (2013) is based on its foundations.

Jiří Pospíšil