Sci-Fi John Carter Of Mars (2012)

There And Back Again: Disney's John Carter of Mars


We've been there once via Mission To Mars and now Disney is taking us there and back again to the mysterious and fascinating red planet in Andrew Stanton's visions of John Carter of Mars. John Carter is one of the most awe inspiring, powerful and intriguing journeys between the Earth and the Stars in all of Sci-Fi history.

It is nearly impossible to deny the impact that John Carter has had upon the heroes and figures of pop culture the world over such as Superman, James Cameron's Avatar, Star Wars and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

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As the 100th Anniversary of John Carter arrives I plan on picking up the commemorative collectors issues of the comic John Carter A Princess of Mars from the now Disney owned Marvel Comics.

I'd simply like to get a discussion going in regards to John Carter of Mars. How do you plan to celebrate John Carter's 100th Anniversary in 2012?
 
Re: There And Back Again: Disney's John Carter of Mars

I haven't been this excited for a trip into the stars since I first saw the promotionals for Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace back in 1999!

The twelve year old boy within me is screaming with excitement!

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Re: There And Back Again: Disney's John Carter of Mars

I'm a little shocked that no here has said anything about John Carter of Mars as I think that John Carter is TOTALLY going to be the THING come next year! I hope that it becomes as big a pop culture phenomena as Harry Potter, Tron or Lord of the Rings if not even bigger.

Well nonetheless I shall share some of the new images from Barsoom: The Red Planet courtesy of A. Stanton and the House of Mouse.

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Well, it looks like the fallout from the box office failure of John Carter is still going on for Disney.

The titular hero in the sci-fi epic "John Carter" slayed evil aliens, decimated enemy armies -- and now, he's killed Rich Ross' position as chairman at Walt Disney Studios.

Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) released the movie "John Carter," based on a Martian adventure novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, to theaters on March 9. The studio placed a huge bet on the sci-fi extravaganza. Box Office Mojo estimates the movie cost $250 million to make, and the studio spent heavily to market it.

But box office sales were so weak that just 11 days later, on March 20, Disney made a dismal announcement: The company would lose $200 million on "John Carter" in its fiscal second quarter, which ended March 31.

The debacle was enough to end the Disney film boss' run. On Friday -- exactly one month after the $200 million loss announcement -- Rich Ross resigned his post as chairman of Walt Disney Studios.

"I believe in our strong slate of films and our ability to make and market them better than anyone else," Ross wrote in his resignation letter. "But, I no longer believe the Chairman role is the right professional fit for me."

Ross had been at Disney for 15 years, and he signed onto the chairman role in late 2009. Disney did not name a successor in its announcement, but issued a short statement from CEO Bob Iger wishing Ross well.
 
Film: John Carter (2012)

Film: John Carter (2012)


Well, I finally got around to seeing Disney's notorious "flop", based on the first of the century-old Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Just in case there is anyone who is unaware of the basic plot, it concerns an American soldier who had fought in the Civil War of 1861-65 who finds himself suddenly transported to Mars - but a Mars unlike the one that we now know. It has a breathable atmosphere and populations of both humans (or humanoids - they have some non-human characteristics in Burroughs' stories) and Tharks; giant green six-limbed beings, intelligent but primitive. Their name for their planet is Barsoom. To be fair to Burroughs, little was known about surface conditions on Mars 100 years ago and the existence of a canal-building civilisation on the planet was widely believed even by serious astronomers (ironically, their opinion shifted against this idea around the time the Barsoom stories were first published).

I read the books as a youngster, far too long ago to recall anything much about them other than the intriguing nugget that the apparently "human" women laid eggs rather than giving birth to babies. I do recall being struck by the energy, enthusiasm and inventiveness of the tales, plenty by themselves to carry along young and uncritical readers, even though I knew at the time that these stories were now firmly in the "fantasy" category as Mars was really a dead planet. They made for great escapist fiction: what lad wouldn't want to be reborn as a super-warrior on an alien planet, fighting for a beautiful princess? I needn't say anything else about the plot, as that sums it up well enough for this review.

The film received a very mixed critical reception when released and its financial failure led to the resignation of the head of Walt Disney Studios. So I was curious to see whether I agreed with the critics or the supporters and watched it with an open mind. I was prepared to like it, but I have to say that on balance I agreed with the critics. The structure of the film is messy and sometimes difficult to follow and the pace is frantic, skipping rapidly through a series of improbable events without much explanation. In the battle scenes I was usually unsure of who were the "good" and "bad" humans as they looked and dressed much alike; I could never distinguish between the "good" and "bad" flying machines they used either. The character-building is weak to put it mildly, with Taylor Kitsch as the hero making little impression (someone with more screen presence, like Chris Hemsworth who made such an impressive Thor, might have made a difference) although Lynn Collins is fine as Deja Thoris - unlike most actresses, she has enough muscle to make the sword-wielding seem feasible. The strength of the film is, as one might expect, in the visual spectacle: the Tharks, the strange flying machines, the dramatic-looking cities (including a moving one), and the fighting. Lots of fighting. The overall impression I was left with was of much jumping and dashing around and whirling of swords.

To be fair, the film-makers had the usual problem in adapting a decidedly outdated novel: do they try to make sense of it for modern viewers, or do they stay faithful to the novel and produce something which is frankly rather ludicrous? On this occasion I think they tended towards the latter end of the spectrum. It was just about watchable for the spectacle, but left me unengaged and unimpressed. This was intended to be the first of a trilogy, but that now seems highly unlikely to materialise.

Incidentally, those who like the basic plot idea might enjoy reading a more modern and realistic (if such a term can be appropriate for this kind of fantasy) approach to the same theme, not set on Mars but on an initially undefined world: this is the seven-book Gandalara Cycle by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron, published in the 1980s. I have reviewed the first three novels on this blog in December 2011 and July 2012, and they are great fun - undemanding escapist entertainment.

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(This entry is cross-posted from my science-fiction & fantasy blog.)
 
Just saw John Carter this past weekend. As purely an action 'popcorn' movie, not taking into account the source material, I didn't think it was that bad.

As Tony mentioned above, Taylor Kitsch in the role of the main character is rather forgettable. Thinking about it a few days later, I remember the character but not necessarily who the actor was. There is a lot of twists & turns in the Barsoom novels by Burroughs and only some of it was touched on in the movie. I think it would have helped to cut back the action scenes a bit and gave more background information on, for example, the Therns.

A good adaption of the source material? No. A basic action movie that is watchable? Yes.
 
Apparently there will not be a sequel to the John Carter Movie. I guess that's not news. But according to Taylor Kitsch we are missing out (The John Carter Sequel We're Never Getting Would've Been "Awesome"). I tend to agree. However, I will also agree that the movie took on too much - more than it needed too.

We just discussed the book and the movie on my podcast (No Deodorant In Outer Space) and I'd say that the overall consensus was that the movie had a lot of effort put into it, and a sequel would be cool, but they just did too much when they tried to make this into a trilogy.

Its worth noting that the source material (i.e. the Book) is in the public domain and you can get it free in ebook format. A good read, but it takes awhile to get over John Carter's over the top personality (which is in-opposite to the movie portrayal). Here is the Amazon link (the price is right): Amazon.com: A Princess of Mars eBook: Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Kindle Store


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I honestly think the problem isn't anything with the movie itself. Everyone I show it to loves it completely. The problem is, nobody I talk about it with has ever seen it, or heard of it.
It was barely advertised at all. I knew about it because of the collection of nerd sites I visit daily, but when nobody's seen a trailer for the film and they see it in the list with the title "John Carter" there's nothing there to grab them and drag them into the theatre.

P.S. I'm going to watch that movie again before the week is out.
 
Yeah, I know what you are saying. Part of me wants to give it another trynbecause I was really tired the second time I saw it. And I know the film did better on the international markets. But don't you think they did too much trying to crow bar in all that Thern stuff? They probably could have gotten away with more subtle hints and a more streamlined plot. I don't know. It just doesn't go all the way for me.

As for advertising,I know some people say the advertising was poor and not consistent.
 
... but when nobody's seen a trailer for the film and they see it in the list with the title "John Carter" there's nothing there to grab them and drag them into the theatre.
I wondered about the title change as well. Does anybody know why they went from "John Carter From Mars" to just "John Carter"?
 
I have heard that people (read Hollywood) are suspicious of anything that has "Mars" in the title. Supposedly, films and such that have "Mars" in the title have done historically done bad. That's the perception I guess.
 
The title was originally "A Princess of Mars" but studio execs thought that boys wouldn't go see it if it was perceived as a "Princess" film.

Then, it was changed to "John Carter of Mars" Much more manly. Then, Mars Needs Moms BOMBED at the box office. The studio execs' reasoning was "Must be because of the 'Mars' bit."

So, name change: "John Carter"

By that point though, they'd lost faith in the movie (again because, Mars, who likes that?) so they didn't bother running a proper advertising campaign, resigning themselves to a flop.
 
The title was originally "A Princess of Mars" but studio execs thought that boys wouldn't go see it if it was perceived as a "Princess" film.

Then, it was changed to "John Carter of Mars" Much more manly. Then, Mars Needs Moms BOMBED at the box office. The studio execs' reasoning was "Must be because of the 'Mars' bit."

So, name change: "John Carter"

By that point though, they'd lost faith in the movie (again because, Mars, who likes that?) so they didn't bother running a proper advertising campaign, resigning themselves to a flop.

Interesting. You think that film mainly suffered from poor advertising. I think the advertising may have been a little confusing, but they put a ton of money into it. So there was ad power there.

That's probably part of the problem, but I also think director Stanton might have gotten over ambitious with tweaking the storyline.
 
Director Andrew Stanton was clearly passionate about his vision of A Barsoom (Mars) trilogy, but did this get in the way of a streamlined plot?

Just yesterday he tweeted about wanting to complete the trilogy after actor Taylor Kitsch mentioned how awesome a sequel would have been.

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Even though I did not overly live this film, I still would have liked a sequel. Maybe revealing more if the bigger story would have helped? Should he have filmed all three films at once like Peter Jackson did with Tolkien?
 
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Ryan, I edited your post to fix the image links.

Perhaps if there is enough interest in seeing the movie vision continued Stanton could be convinced to work on a graphic novel for the sequels? It'd be a relatively low cost but popular way of keeping the fan community alive.
 
This movie (and so many others) failed for reasons that defy logic. I wonder what would happen if we took films like this back to, say,1970 and showed them around the country. I think they would knock people's socks off -- because those folks would be able to appreciate their brilliance.


It's too bad good movies can't be enjoyed the same way we enjoy a thick, juicy steak. Nobody takes a bite of a good steak and then says, "Oh hell, I've tasted this before! To impress me, the flavored can't just be delicious -- it has to be totally, completely original!"

* I've added this thread to The Multi-Board Alphabetical Index.
 

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