Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

If you watched the film "Mars Attacks", you know what happened in it.
The Aliens came to earth en masse with many of their saucers, landed to meet the humans of earth, and after saying through a translator "we come in peace", the martians saw and shot a bird. then they started shooting up the whole crowd. Later the Martians apologized for the slaughter, and went to speak to congress. There they shot up the congress members and escaped.

Later the martians started attacking the whole Earth, while attacking they carried a translator and saying: "Don't run, we are your friends". The martians even tricked the President into a handshake, only to kill him.

So this made me wonder, why these Aliens were behaving like this. After reading other forums, I realized that the martians were planning to attack earth all along and were using trickery and deceit to make humans let their guard down. So near the beginning of the movie, the Martians shot the bird to see if their weapons were capable of killing earth's creatures before turning the weapons on everyone else.

Other forum users suggested that the translator simply malfunctioned.
Does anyone have any other theory that could explain the Martians' behaviour ?

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

"Maybe they don' like the human being?"

I've always taken it as, they hate humans, they like funny. So they toy with us

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

I think that was the plan all along. Wasn't the bird released as a 'dove of peace?' By shooting it down that was a clear indicator for what they were doing.

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

'cause it's called Mars Attacks, so they did!


Cool movie BTW.

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

It's been a minute since I've watched the film. but I don't remember a specific reason as to WHY they were attacking. I just remember the running joke was that they kept saying that they were coming in peace and then destroying anything in their path.

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

I think that the bird scene was sort of spoofing The Day The Earth Stood Still where the alien pulled out something that was meant as friendly, and the humans opened fire, but in this case, it was the other way around. Unless I'm wrong and they were not making fun of The Day The Earth Stood Still intentionally?

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

Since it's a spoof of classic alien invasion movies, I'd say it's highly likely it was intentional.

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

If you have to ask, "How much?", then you can't afford it. And if you have to ask the question "Why attack?", then you're about be zapped for bringing a dove to a death-ray fight. Ack! Ack!

Re: Why did the martians attack in "Mars Attacks"(1996) ?
 

They attacked because they're jerks.

Ack! Why does his finger look like a nuclear missile?

Ack ack!
Ack ack ack ack!
Ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack ack!!