WI: Mariner 4 is not a hope killer?

Mariner 4 was the first probe to take pictures of Mars. These were problematic as they showed a cratered, moon like terrain (which later proved to be not typical for Mars), and were in black and white, which did not help matters.
This coupled with the detection of a thin atmosphere, no detection of a magnetic field, and no detection of a radiation belt killed hopes for Mars being more than a dead world, perhaps with some simple life but nothing more.

Certainly the scientific data cannot be changed, but the presentation can. The black and white images, and those images being of a cratered terrain were shocking and in stark contrast to the hopes of a living planet, and did public relations damage which was never really repaired.

So how can the Mariner 4 probes findings be presented in a light which is not as starkly hope crushing? And is there any way that it could have taken color images and taken those images of a terrain area more typical of Mars as a whole?
 
I don't think the technology for colour pictures was available in 1964, I'm not sure if it would have been possible due to Mariner 4's flight path and the time of closest approach but personally I've always thought that if Mariner 4 had imaged Olympus Mons, the Valles Marineris or even better, somewhere like Mangala Valles that clearly shows evidence of past running water then this would have had far greater impact and could have given greater impetus to Mars exploration.

As it was because of Mariners 4, 6 & 7 everyone thought Mars was a cratered rock until Mariner 9 in 1971, by that time Apollo was winding down, had we seen Mars as it really is in 1964, then perhaps there might have been impetus built up for a manned mission. There would certainly have been pressure for a more ambitious unmanned programme such as the Voyager Mars lander (no relation to the 1970's Grand Tout mission!)
 
The fact is that Mars-hype had been running on false hope ever since someone mistranslated "canali." The dream was bound to be deflated.

No amount of sugar-coating is going to change the fact that Mars has 6 mb of atmosphere and no chance of harboring life. I think the missions we got were ambitious and useful and about as plentiful as one could hope for. I mean, you had two more flybys, two landers, and then a whole host of probes (several still working come the '90s and '00s.) What is it you're hoping for?
 
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