Mars Express is a French sci-fi animated film directed by Jérémie Périn (who also directed the Lastman series). It was released in France in 2023.
In the early 23th century, Mars has been terraformed and colonized, and society has become Post-Cyberpunk. Many people are cyborgs, and robots are omnipresent.
Aline Ruby is a Private Detective who operates along with Carlos Rivera, a robot who is the backup copy or her former partner, died in action. They live in the city of Noctisnote , a wealthy city on planet Mars.
They first go on a mission to Earth in order to arrest a hacker and bring her back to Mars (where they happen to live). Then they investigate the disappearance of a young woman. It becomes increasingly difficult as a powerful organisation is involved.
Some obvious inspirations seem to be Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and especially Isaac Asimov's stories about robots, and many tropes may be in common.
This film provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. Many people are afraid of robots getting rid of the safeguards that prevent them from assaulting people. It eventually happens, but they mostly set themselves free and flee human-inhabited planets.
- The Alcoholic: Aline has quit drinking, and every machine detects she has enabled sobriety mode. As the case becomes stressful she disables that and starts drinking all the time.
- Androids and Detectives: The protagonists are a female Hardboiled Detective and the backup copy robot of her dead partner.
- Automated Automobiles: Cars seem to be quite automated. A noticeable feature is that instead of airbags, in case of an accident they trap you in a sort of glue and you will need robots to extract you from your car.
- Bittersweet Ending: In the end robots free themselves from humans. This sounds great for them but what about humans? Will they make robots again and grow out of their prejudice against them? Also Aline is dead.
- Computer Voice: Mostly averted. Except for a few large computers, most machines speak very naturally. At some point a robot has to say "I am a robot" in a vocal conversation so as to justify not needing breakfast.
- Custody Battle: Carlos attempts to visit his daughter, but his ex-wife and her husband violently reject him. That scene looks like a case of Fantastic Racism (and this is only the daughter of the man he is a backup copy of), although he says later that his ex-wife left him because he was violent to her. He lies about this to Aline, pretending to be still seeing his daughter.
- Cyborg: Many people are able to have the equivalent of vocal conversations without using any visible external device, which they call thought conversations. Aline has Electronic Eyes that grant her several abilities. A killer has a long blade coming out of their arm.
- Fantastic Racism: As in many robot stories by Asimov, racism against robots. It is obvious when a violent demonstration against robots takes place on Earth, and things are just slightly more subtle on Mars. Carlos being the backup copy of a dead human being, he seems to suffer from being a machine, and some other backup copy of a dead person hands him a card to a support group.
- Hardboiled Detective: Aline is a female example. She is tough, cynical, and even has a drinking problem.
- Meaningful Name: "Aline" is similar to "alien" (as in alienation) and this character is indeed quite an outsider in most places.
- Organic Technology: it is an emergent technology that is still struggling to gain acceptance compared to 'regular' robots and androids. However it seems that odd looking creatures in aquariums are being grown into some kind of personnal computers.
- Post-Cyberpunk: This is a cyberpunk universe, but not clearly worse than today. Possibly due to much of the action happening in a wealthy city on Mars, and almost every scene happening in the day, this film feels quite lighthearted in spite of all the dark elements.
- Private Detective: Aline is a private detective. According to
Word of God, this was designed so that she can interact with all kinds of people. - Satire:
- Of French politics. At some point a robot insurrection happens. Some offscreen news conversations can be heard that seem to be a satire of what you can hear on the French news whenever something bad happens, with mainstream journalists trying to shut down leftwing politicians with unfair tactics and loaded questions. "Est-ce que vous condamnez les violences ?"note certainly sounds like something that was heard in 2023, when some allegedly violent demonstrators faced much harsher police violence, but only the violence of the former could be talked about on mainstream news media. It’s such a common journalist question in times of protests in France that it’s become a stapple of parodies.
- The city of Noctis is based on Silicon Valley. Humanity has created this pretty city on Mars mostly for the wealthy, while not solving any of the more important problems such as Earth ecology.
- Show, Don't Tell: This film manages to expose many sci-fi concepts without explaining them. Of course there are some exceptions, but this concept seems to have been kept in mind.
- Super-Reflexes: As in many robot stories by Asimov, most robots are very fast and accurate.
- Super-Strength: Likewise most robots are super strong, and Carlos often lifts heavy things.
- Three Laws-Compliant: Zig-zagged. Robots can't harm a human being, or say swear words, and there is at least seven rules. Carlos has a trick he can do to avoid obeying people. Unlike in robot stories by Asimov, it's technically possible to remove the safeguards from a robot's hardware while keeping the robot functional.
