And the Movie Be Still as Similar as the Book The classic novel The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury was brought to life and shown on screen in 1980. The Martian Chronicles book and movie have similar premise and settings in the chapter ‘And the Moon Be Still as Bright’, but the character Jeff Spender and the relationship between the Captain Wilder and Spender set them apart. Jeff Spender is portrayed in two similar, but different ways in the book and movie. Spender in the book is a man who has seen the human race ruin a planet and is afraid that if humans come to Mars, they will ruin Mars as well, more than movie Spender. This is shown in a quote from Spender himself, “We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The …show more content…
In the book, The Captain and Spender both do not want to participate in the drunken party thrown by the crew. However in the movie, the captain is okay with the other men to throw such a bash; which is different from Spender, who detests the whole charade. Captain Wilder in the movie can be seen to have an opinion on Mars between Spender and the rest of the crew in that he respects Mars, but does not believe humans will ruin Mars. In the book, Captain Wilder says this to Spender, “We won’t ruin Mars,” then he says, “It’s too big and too good.” (Bradbury 54). After his talk with Spender on the top of the hill in the book, Captain Wilder understands Spender’s ideology to protect Mars and faces a tough decision between helping Spender and killing him to protect the crew. His difficult decision in the book is shown when he tries to give Spender a head start and delays shooting him through a gap until a little while later. Captain Wilder in the book displays hope in the humans in that they will not destroy Mars by killing Spender and carries Spender memory to protect Mars. This quote proves that Captain Wilder respects Mars, “The next afternoon Parkhill did some target practice in one of the dead cities, shooting out crystal windows and blowing the tops off fragile towers.