As a fledging young sci-fi geek, when it came to Edgar Rice Burroughs, I was always a major fan of the Frank Frazetta covers. But now I’m married to another geek who actually was a twelve-year-old boy once, so of course we were going to see John Carter. Just not during the opening weekend, or in 3D (it was composed & shot in 2D). Turns out it’s a fun movie, great weekend-matinee entertainment, about which Paul Constant gets it right:
… So how does an adaptation of a 100-year-old book—one that has been relentlessly strip-mined by everyone from George Lucas to David Lynch—manage to be so goddamned entertaining?
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The answer, of course, involves Pixar. WALL•E director Andrew Stanton surrounded himself with a crew of skilled visual storytellers (and a few nonvisual storytellers, too, like nerd-friendly Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Michael Chabon) to approach the characters with respect. The basic framework—a former Confederate soldier accidentally is transported to Mars, where he lands in the middle of a war between Red, White, and Green Martians that threatens to destroy the planet—is directly from the book. But rather than clinging desperately to some of the text’s pulpy quirks, Stanton streamlined the story, with Pixar’s near-perfect discipline, for a visual medium.
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The pleasures are many…it’s ultimately a love letter to childlike wonder at the impossible made real.
The Spousal Unit’s inner twelve-year-old was very pleased, and even within the restraints of live action Stanton does much better Frazetta-mimicry than James Cameron, so if you liked Avatar you should like John Carter at least as well. The screenwriters have grafted a more twenty-first-century “realistic”-ly sombre railtrack under Burroughs’ weightless and-then-another-thing-happened story-boxcar, to go with riffs on every action-adventure movie trope of the last hundred years, from African Queen and every John Ford movie to Braveheart. Swashes are buckled, the drama is high, the comedy is low, and you won’t regret the outlay for Junior Mints and popcorn. Even if John Carter gets swept out of the multiplexes prematurely by Hunger Games (aka “the bastard lovechild of Harry Potter and Twilight, or so its backers hope”), I think it will have a long enough marketing “tail” that Stanton will get to do a sequel… according to the Spousal Unit, “In seven or eight years, when he won’t have to deal with human actors at all.”
But even if you won’t see this movie (at least in a public theatre), if you’re interested in movie-making and movie-marketing, it’s worth reading NYMag‘s explanation of “The Inside Story of How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer“:
…Traditionally, a blockbuster movie will begin production with an eye towards having ready the handful of impressive and complex special effects scenes that will be essential to its marketing. Even if these scenes wind up not being in the final product, at the least they’ve wowed audiences, getting them intrigued early… Even though most of a movie’s effects aren’t finished until later, these Ka-BOOM! shots are prioritized because they lock in audiences early.
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But Stanton hadn’t scheduled for this. Being new to live action, he was suffering under a double load: He was having to learn live-action filmmaking on the go, even as he was still essentially making an animated movie. (John Carter actually has more character animations than WALL-E or Finding Nemo.) Used to the far slower-paced, perfection-is-possible world of Pixar Animation, Stanton had nothing ready for Carney and her team when they arrived to meet him on set looking for signature shots. Certain shots had potential, but they were unfinished. “We had nothing to cut from,” laments one Disney marketing insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, recounting the stand-off between Carney and Stanton over the shots, “Before we left, we’d show [a version of the teaser] to them. But it was always, ‘You can’t have that shot! It’s not color-corrected!’ Or, ‘You can’t have that one, either: The CGI’s not finished; they haven’t taken out the wires!’ It would be disingenuous to say [Stanton] refused to finish it; there was nothing to be done, because it was just the physical fact that it wasn’t ready. You can’t make it ready if it’s not ready. It wasn’t really deliberate.”…
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Because the Barsoom books were so influential to cinema’s greatest sci-fi auteurs, just about everything in it had already been plundered and reused by other hits. And as a result, the more that was revealed of John Carter, the more derivative it looked, even if its source had originated these ideas… Looking beyond Lucas, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry famously pillaged the books, as did James Cameron, who in numerous interviews called Avatar “almost an Edgar Rice Burroughs kind of adventure.”
Mustang Bobby
A friend of mine who read everything Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote before he was twelve has vowed to see this movie, regardless of the reviews (and some have been quite snippy). I’d like to see it just because of that.
I’m up early this morning to go to Melbourne (Florida) for an antique car show, and it’s a three-hour drive one way from Miami. Bring me more coffee, someone… please…
THE
I’ll wait to get it on Blu Ray. But I’ll see it for sure. This one is on my short list.
piratedan
i felt the same way when Speed Racer came out and was shocked that the critics didn’t get it… but hey, ymmv… it looks like fun from what i’ve seen
Joseph Nobles
I saw it in 3-D and I didn’t think the transfer was bad at all. I really enjoyed the show too.
But the piece about how the trailer sunk the movie hit home too. I wasn’t going to see this until the last couple of weeks. The ads got better and I thought, OK, this isn’t going to be too bad. Plus, Taylor Kitsch, lord have mercy. Anybody who tells that guy what a carbohydrate is will answer to me.
Batocchio
Thanks for NY mag article. I wanted to like John Carter, and some of it was cool enough, but I was a bit underwhelmed – although I should mention that I know a John Carter fanatic who was talking it up big time, so that colored things. While I admire Stanton’s past work a great deal, it looks like he should have been kept out of the marketing. The martian doggie is fun, and some of the fights are pretty cool. But the set-up of factions on Mars is surprisingly poor (especially given Stanton’s involvement), and at times it asks us to take its pulp material far too seriously. I’d give it a B, worth seeing as a rental, but your mileage may vary. (If you’re itching for a spectacle movie this weekend, it’s a decent choice.)
Arclite
The marketing for this movie was atrocious. I know who John Carter is, but I’m a 42 year old sci fi/fantasy geek, i.e. NOT the target audience. The trailers all assumed everyone knew who JC was and was dying to see how cool the movie was instead of EXPLAINING who JC was, showing more of the love story, etc. etc. Totally mismananged.
Also, Taylor Kitsch? WTF? Were Fassbender, Bale, or Evans not available? I would have even taken Ryan Reynolds or Sam Worthington over Kitsch in the role. The guy just does NOT look like he has the gravitas for the role. He seems like a boy in a man’s role. John Carter should dominate every frame he’s in, not look like an extra.
Despite the problems, I admire the world making, and doing a property that had yet to be done. The movie isn’t terrible, it just doesn’t live up to its potential. I hope they make a sequel, and I hope that it’s better.
Arclite
Also, bad luck will help sink John Carter. The Hunger Games comes out next week, and early reviews have been positively glowing. Folks that want to get their escapist fix will gravitate to the one with the good word of mouth, and away from the bad.
SG
The earliest ads definitely made a negative impression on me. I agree, it seemed so derivative both in story and style. There was that overdone signature move first seen (I think) from Brad Pitt in “Troy” — the impossibly high leap to attack with the sword from above. Then there were the alien animals escaped from the arena scene in Star Wars Episode II. And maybe I missed it, but I don’t remember those early ads mentioning Mars, Stanton or Burroughs. (My exposure to Burroughs was exclusively Tarzan, which I enjoyed when the casual racism didn’t make me squirm.) My overall impression of “John Carter” was that Disney had made another “Tron” (original version), a movie with some cool effects but reeking of a cynical attempt to ride someone else’s creative coattails. I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I’ll still wait for the Blu-ray.
Groucho48
My father was an ERB fan and had a bunch of Tarzan/John Carter/Pellucidar books which I read when I was 7-10 years old. Then, a few years later, the 60s hit and most of the ERB stuff was reprinted. As someone once said, the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12. I was a bit older by then, but, those were the days my friend.
The previews I’ve seen of John Carter completely turned me off. But, your post is making me reconsider. Even so, I am concerned at the casting. John Carter is a rugged veteran of the Civil War. A mature 30+ year old guy. The movie John Carter is a kid on steroids. And I’m not sure if any real life actress is capable of portraying the incomparable Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium.
Does it have sleeping silks? Fighting harnesses? Woola? Or, any of the other little touches ERB used to make Barsoom seem to be an exotic, enticing world? or, is it all clenched jawed CGI stuff?
ThresherK
A mature 30+ year old guy.
My wife is the Burroughs reader in our house. She pretty much asked, “What, they added a sidekick nephew now?”
WereBear
@ThresherK: Yeah. Funny thing: even when I was a teenager, I didn’t find my fellow teenagers attractive. The current obsession with “barely out of adolescence” is a clue to arrested development running rampant.
Bruce S
No – the stars name isn’t “Taylor Kitsch.”
No.
This flick is totally not my thing (love westerns, but not stuff like Cowboys and Aliens, to be sequeled inevitably, if the producers are still solvent, by Cowboys, Aliens and Vampires.) Yet, as little as I have invested in this, I feel bad for him if that’s really the name of some designated “movie star.”
Linda Featheringill
Happy John Carter to everyone. :-)
And in the spirit of holiday greetings, I suggest that no one is as Irish as Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xkw8ip43Vk
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Groucho48:
Been a looong time since I read any of the Carter books- so long that I’d forgotten the particulars- buit saw it last weekend and really enjoyed it. I’ll take a shot at the questions (again, a long time since I read the books):
No.
Yes?
Definitely.
Saw it with my kid for his 22nd b-day. He started reading the books in the fall (he’s a big fantasy/sci-fi reader), and he’s been digging the books, and liked the film- although he was a bit disappointed by all of the clothing. We agreed that it felt quite a bit like The Mummy from the ’90s, with less focus on trying to make it a comedy. Worth the price of admission.
ETA: It’s a mash-up of the first two books. The kid felt a bit of LA Confidential about it that way.
AxelFoley
Being a sci-fi buff, I’d love to see this, but I can’t support a book/movie with a Confederate as the hero. I know this is an old story, but it comes from a era of Confederate Romantacism, a time when Confederates were glorified.
Fuck that noise.
And irony of ironies–the John Carter story has a man who fought on the side that fought for slavery of black human beings, now fighting for the freedom of Martians.
Viva BrisVegas
I saw this last Wednesday and thought it was fine. Better than Thor or Captain America. Not a great film by any means, but a good solid film.
I would say that the 3D version added nothing, so save your money there. The Martian doggie I found annoying and unnecessary. Not quite Jar Jar Binks level of annoying, but bad enough.
That said, John Carter is a fun movie that will never make back a fraction of its production costs. So don’t hold your breath for a sequel.
geg6
I am not at all interested in this film. Probably since I never heard of John Carter and only ever got through one Burroughs book before deciding he was a bore.
I am, however, extremely excited for next week’s Hunger Games premiere. Loved, loved, loved the books and I am a total sucker for a kickass female heroine like Katniss Everdeen. My sister, my niece and I have already planned our outing to see it next weekend.
And in OT, I’m already loving this weekend. It’s sunny and heading to the mid-70s. I have a haircut and grocery shopping to get out of the way this morning. My John got the staples out of his knees yesterday and we’re planning some relaxing outside in the sun time. I’m making grilled veggie lasagna for dinner tonight and grilled salmon for tomorrow. And right now, Ezra Klein is filling in as host on Up with Chris Hayes.
All is good in my little world.
Splitting Image
Sounds like a movie I’ll get around to seeing on DVD, probably after I read a few of the books. I’ve never read any of the Mars books, but I’ve always had a hankering to read The Chessmen of Mars since I read about a reconstruction of the game that someone made years ago.
Oddly enough, it would be perfect timing to watch it, since I’m working my way through the Js in my collection right now. I just watched Jackie Brown yesterday. Good stuff, but I think it could have been cut a tad.
M-Pop
Thanks for the heads-up, Anne – good news for my own once-was-a-twelve-year-old-boy-geek.
middlewest
It was just ok . You can wait for bluray. Now, hunger games, that’s gonna be interesting.
Chris
@AxelFoley:
I don’t know how much the books go into it, but if it’ll make you feel any better, practically nothing is made of the fact that he’s a Confederate veteran. It’s mentioned in passing at the beginning but that’s about it.
Question for the sci-fi buffs who know the Barsoom universe better [and spoiler alert I suppose]… what’s the deal with the Therns? The guy in the movie made some vague speech about dying worlds, but what do they get out of it?
jurassicpork
I may not quite be as brazen as d r i f t g l a s s when he says, “Pay the effin’ writer” but we in Pottersville, population 2 1/2, desperately need some assistance.
lethargytartare
@Groucho48:
well, yes and no – Carter stresses early in the 1st book that he has looked the same age for as long as he can recall, which really leaves to the imagination.
my beefs with the film go way deeper than casting, and may be a bit unfair, given that I re-read “A Princess of Mars” the week leading up to opening night.
I found the adaptation choices almost universally poor and puzzling, but I’ll spare any details for those who haven’t gone yet.
PurpleGirl
OT: If anyone here likes medieval Irish illustrated manuscripts (i.e. The Book of Kells), go to Google. The doodle today is great.
WereBear
I loved every minute of it. And Elmore Leonard says it is his favorite movie made from his books; there are a lot of them, some of them sucked, so that speaks volumes to me.
I will wind up watching John Carter, just as I watch most everything that eventually wanders by; I am not timely, but I’m thorough. Am now looking forward to it!
In other news, I managed to order 2 Chromebooks for myself and my MIL. I haven’t had a laptop since Tristan (seen here with the adorable belly that dissolves all sins) spilled wine on my 8 year old aluminum Powerbook; it helped that it was so old it was almost unusable anyway. (I didn’t even have my own computer for months after that incident, I had to use my iTouch or Mr WereBear’s iMac. We have a strong marriage. Then my brother went through one of his non-material frenzies and gifted me with his desktop Mac.) Chromebook seems designed for Blogging from Bed, at a fraction of the cost of a new laptop or tablet. Yeah, I’d love an iPad, but the cost of that would mean I couldn’t get one for:
My MIL is done with her cancer treatment, which has a good outlook; however, she is completely debilitated, will be exhausted for months to come, and is going stir crazy. It was my idea that the Chromebook would allow her to browse the Web for fun (she not only gets tired sitting at the desktop computer, she will do work there!) from her bed, the couch, the lounge chair in the backyard, and she loves the idea of its portability (a new thing for her) and the added freedom of not worrying about viruses. I had not realized how much Older People fear computer viruses. It’s serious.
In conclusion, the Public Service Announcement: I had used Newegg.com for simple purchases for work, and they seem to be the only place on the planet that had the cheapest version, the Acer Wifi Only version, so I ordered it, all happy… until my order was mysteriously cancelled minutes later. Newegg is one of those companies who apparently is saving money by having no humans do things, at least according to their customer service, which is CHAT that is powered by Elisa, close enough to make no difference, I am forced to sort through canned responses until I drag out enough information to figure this out.
They said my billing address did not match what matched my card. The same bank issued both, so I looked up my billing address and typed it in exactly as my bank had it; cancelled, again. Now it’s time to go to work: and I have two holds on my account, I don’t want to go over what money is available. During my break I fax an explanation to my bank; by lunch time my bank has fixed the holds, changed my address to exactly what the Post Office says it is, and Newegg tells me to try again. Cancelled order, again. I manage to drag a phone number out, give the person on the phone the name and phone number of my bank person, told to order again (because they only allow orders through the web) and… guess! Cancelled again.
After work, I stop by my bank branch. They cancel the holds, check on my data, bring out a specialist who “pushes” the information true, and informs me that she doesn’t understand the problem: their bank records indicate they have approved this transaction. Twice. But they have cleared all possible runway obstructions, and the longsuffering person in their headquarters who has been riding herd on all this has left instructions for the night crew. I should go home, have dinner (a glass of wine was implied and I complied) and try again.
CANCELLED.
Okay. The Universe doesn’t want me to buy this particular model. I get it. Went to Amazon, got the 3G version (there goes several months of Mad Money, but I have a sick woman all excited so that has to take priority) and it went over without a ripple.
THEN Newegg sends me a customer evaluation form. What do I think of their service? I tell them. Then they tell me I’m restricted to 500 characters. So in conclusion, deciding they should have a record of what they have inflicted upon me, I wrote:
Ya’ll been warned.
lethargytartare
@Chris:
this is one of many cases where previous Carter experience is of no help – near as I can recall, the Therns in the movie bear no relation to anything Burroughs wrote. (Though I’m only 40 pages or so into “Gods of Mars” on my re-read, so other fans are welcome to correct any gaps in my memory)
samara morgan
i had read all of Burroughs by 5th grade, Mars, Venus and Tarzan. i revisted some of my favs before seeing John Carter like Synthetic Men of Mars and Gods of Mars.
i dont know why you think they were boi-books.
for 100 year old books they are amazing.
rereading the creation myth of mars just blew my mind.
Barry
I’ve seen the movie, and it’s good. Please note that they had to convert a pulp novel into a movie, which means changes. You’ll find out what the nephew part is, and it’s clever.
samara morgan
@lethargytartare: read Gods of Mars for Therns.
the Barsoom ‘verse is based on the idea that Mars is a dying world, much older than Jasoom (earth).
samara morgan
@Barry: its a mashup of the first three “pulp” novels.
/sneer.
Burroughs was amazing. His hard science is uberl33t for the time.
samara morgan
@lethargytartare: the therns preyed off of a dying world…Barsoom. they were a cult that supposedly ushered all the races of Barsoom into a paradise.
in gods of mars you do discover that they were not the original race of Barsoom, as they claim. Because the Black Pirates of Mars preyed on them.
@lethargytartare: i think you have to read all twelve books to see where Stanton might be headed.
i predict…..this is a trilogy at least.
;)
samara morgan
@geg6: Hunger Games is a YA (young adult) series like Twilight and Enders Game.
not surprising.
pretty two-dimensional except for the nod to the Minotaur and Crete.
:)
Burroughs actually dissects religion and science.
its amazing.
Chris
@samara morgan:
H. G. Wells wrote “War of the Worlds” based on the same theory.
I think I remember the theory being… basically, that the Sun was slowly going out, so far-off planets are only getting a fraction of the heat and sunlight that they used to. The Martians want to take the Earth because it’s still got these things.
Could easily be misremembering the whole thing…
samara morgan
@middlewest: hunger is like twilight and enders game.
young adult novels.
basically uninteresting when compared to the genius of Barsoom.
Cameron bought the rights to Ringworld. that is a world we now have the technology to see, like Barsoom.
samara morgan
@Chris: your memory is stellar, spot on. Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles tap the same mars mythos. what are the martian canals?
they must have a purpose.
thruppence
I wanted to want to see this, but I don’t. Disney’s corporate DNA shapes everything to be pretty, cute, harmless, and blandly marketable. I have no desire to see Dejah Thoris as the latest Disney Princess on the lunchbox.
Nix
Still looks boring, saying it was a fun movie is like saying that video game was entertaining.
20+ bucks for fun? No not so much.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Visually I thought Avatar owed much more to the album covers Roger Dean created for Yes in the 70’s than to Frank Frazetta’s work.
Emma
@AxelFoley: I did not read the Burroughs books until I was sixteen or so and already a serious student of history. I COULD NOT get past that premise. I actually learned to read on Spanish language translations of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, even Ray Bradbury, in my father’s library, and to this day my permanent collection is strongly geared towards science fiction and fantasy, but Burroughs isn’t there.
samara morgan
@ThresherK: its a mashup of several books. the nephew is in the Barsoom chronicles, just later on.
WereBear
I still bear a grudge from my childhood about that. The books, when I sought them out, were soooooooooooooo much more than the Disneyfied versions I am still steamed about it.
samara morgan
@Emma: i had read all of Burroughs by the time i was 10. But i did read some Jules Verne books for the first time in french class.
de la terre a la lune.
i wish i had read them all in french.
i envy you.
samara morgan
@WereBear: the only movie i have EVER seen that was as good as the book, was Holes.
wasnt that disney?
Nicole
Hunger Games was a really fun read. Katniss is a much more active character than either Harry Potter or Bella Swan. (I loved the Harry Potter books, so don’t go hating on me for saying he’s not the most active of protagonists)
Cuppa Cabana
Civilisation needs a Saviour. He must have super powers, a pure heart, come from the Heavens, and his initials are J.C. Oh yes, and his mom was a VIRGINian.
I enjoyed the movie; I’m not a Burroughs fan (it’s not exactly literature); but it was quite messy. The idea that Stanton “streamlined the story” is laughable, because he obviously threw everything at the wall to see what would stick (some does, but a lot falls flat). It was almost impossible to follow — at least for a JC noob. I went to see it with a veteran filmmaker, who asked me afterwards: Who were good guys again?
J.W. Hamner
I’m super excited about making my first ever poached eggs. Screwed up the first one, but the second one was perfect. Totally recommend Thomas Keller’s recipe from this month’s Bon Appetit if you always wanted to try it but were scared that it was too hard.
FlipYrWhig
@AxelFoley:
Based on the blurb above, I thought the premise was that a guy from an Earth civil war context ended up in a Mars civil war context and found the whole thing horrifying. If a Confederate learns not to be a Confederate, that would be a step towards progress, no? I guess the alternative would be if his glorious Confederate honor equipped him to be heroic in a whole different civilization. That would be pretty offensive.
I had no idea that this was based on books, had never heard of the character, and just figured it was Space Barbarians like any number of Saturday cartoons from my youth. What do the books make of the civil wars described in the summary? Are you supposed to have a rooting interest or take a side?
WereBear
@samara morgan: Yes, it was Disney. Exceptions don’t change the rule. :)
Shawn in ShowMe
Hopefully Stanton learned from the experience and will have his ducks in the row in his next live-action opportunity. As far as casting a teen heartthrob in the role of a grizzled Civil War veteran, well, chalk it up to another episode of “When keeping it Disney goes wrong.”
If the suits at Disney are determined to cast a 20-something man-child in a science-fiction epic, there is a more suitable property available: — the Miles books by Lois McMaster Bujold. Disney execs do know that women write science fiction, right?
Mnemosyne (iTouch)
If anyone other than Peter Dinklage was cast as Miles, I would be PISSED.
samara morgan
@FlipYrWhig: its about civil war, different races, and dwindling planetary resources. pretty relevent.
@Shawn in ShowMe: John Carter is forever in his prime of life (25 to 30), and martians live to be a thousand years old, except for the Master Mind of Mars who lives forever by swapping out bodies.
there are no confederate themes in Barsoom. only evolutionary ones.
for example, the Therns try to pretend they are the foundational race of mars, and wear blonde wigs on their bald heads to ape the nearly extinct city-builders, but the blackskinned pirates regularily beat the shit out of the therns and collect tribute from them.
John Carter makes friends everywhere he goes, because there are good people in all the races.
samara morgan
@Nicole: Katniss is a girl Ender. two dimensional.
samara morgan
@Cuppa Cabana: stanton grew up with books, like i did.
set the way back machine to 12 and read the books.
it wuill enhance your viewing experience.
;)
geg6
@samara morgan:
I am well aware of what genre Hunger Games is. I really don’t need you to school me on literature or popular fiction. You didn’t like it. So what? I did. And I had read pretty much all of Dickens and Defoe by the time I was 9 or 10. So the fuck what? And I’m not a fan of science fiction like you are. I think science fiction is the absolute worst, most pretentious, most boring genre. You obviously don’t. Neither of us is right or wrong as to what is a good read and what isn’t. I like what I like and you like what you like. I notice that neither of us are reading Harlequin romances, so I guess we agree on at least one thing. But that doesn’t mean someone who enjoys those books at the beach or whatever is stupid. Only a person who is so unsure of his or her own intelligence would make snap judgments about people based only on that.
Jeebus, you really are an ass sometimes.
Phoebe
All you Taylor Kitsch haters need to see the tv show Friday Night Lights, all five seasons, from the beginning. It’s on Netflix instant. I don’t even think Taylor Kitsch is good looking, and I don’t even know how football is played and probably think it should be banned. But THAT SHOW WAS GREAT! And HE WAS GREAT IN IT! And he does look young but he was 30 when he was playing a high school sophomore in the first season, so he’s well into his 30s now. Also, it’s nice to see two actors who “died” on The Wire back from the dead and living in a small Texas town.
And I haven’t seen John Carter yet, but he is the reason I’m going to see it.
samara morgan
@geg6:
hahaha, truedat.
i have no GUI.
sometimes you just get machine code.
Hunger Games will likely be successful because its a YA book and translates better to the big screen………..like Holes.
i dont think John Carter has the shared experience base, and i expect the movie is lame without reading all twelve books.
quite an investment.
kindness
Happy St. Pattie’s Day all. No getting falling down drunk before dinner now. On this auspicious day everyone is Irish and a good Irish person waits till after dinner to get hammered.
Myself, I hardly drink any more. More social than anything and then only a couple. Not like the old days…
Nicole
@Phoebe: I loved Friday Night Lights, other than the terrible second season (the abrupt end, six episodes in, was the only good thing to come from the writer’s strike). What a wonderful show. Jon Stewart gave it a shout-out this week.
Emma
@Mnemosyne (iTouch): Yep. THIS.
Joel
I can think of two things that hurt John Carter.
The movie was marketed like the next “Clash of the Titans” or “Avatar” or worse: a combination of the two. Disney then plastered their name on top of the movie, which to many people screams “children’s movie”. A lot of the things that may have made me want to see the film (i.e. Michael Chabon as screenwriter) went unmentioned in the run-up to the film. Also, Avatar in the end was more of a “phenomenon” than a good movie so I don’t think eliciting comparisons is a good move…
The timing is a little odd. This is dead season for movies, and I wonder if Disney expected a failure when they released this.
feebog
I was not going to see this movie under any circumstances, because it looked like a complete bust based on the trailers. I will reconsider. The problem will be Mrs. Feebog, who is not SciFi fan, and most likely would be bored to death. I think I will call my son, who is a fellow SciFi geek, and see if he wants to see it.
I know I read some ERB as a youngster, but that was so long ago that I don’t really recall much of the Carter series. The series I would like to see made into a movie is the Riverworld novels by Phillip Jose Farmer. Imagine a story with Sir Francis Richard Burton, Tom Mix, and Samuel Clemons as the main characters, and any other person who has ever lived as co-stars, now there is a concept.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Joel:
When you’ve got $250 million invested in a project, you should at least put on your best poker face. Release it in a May and they could have experienced a bump just from the fanboys showing up to see The Avengers trailer.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Joel:
When you’ve got $250 million invested in a project, you should at least put on your best poker face. Release it in May and they could have experienced a bump just from the fan-boys showing up to see The Avengers trailer.
ThresherK
@WereBear: arrested development running rampant
Arrested Development? I don’t know, that kind of age-related miscasting may also have something to do with the people they need to come see a movie like that in order to get it financed in the first place.
There’s no place for forty-year old in that equation. Good thing our Humphrey Bogarts (for example) lived in a earlier age or the only career he could build now would be in the niche of “high-falutin capital-A actor” rather than the personification of a hard-boiled gumshoe/explorer/man of the world.
Not to sound all “it was better in the old days, but to quote Maeby Funke, “Why are we even going after this idiot demographic?”
I posit, not very originally, that this also furthers the schism between what gets Oscar nominations, and box-office-boffo comedy or action movies.
Yutsano
@PurpleGirl: I just squeed. But I’ve been obsessed with the Book of Kells for a very long time. Even before the movie came out. Even more so since there’s a copy two hours and one border away from me!
ThresherK
@samara morgan: Thanks for the tidbit, but now I’m genuinely confused. My wife was joking about the lead character’s appearance in the movie commercial, who seemed to be a bunch younger than she remembers reading about.
Perhaps we have to delve into her stacks and read the books.
lethargytartare
@samara morgan:
I have read the entire series, several times, thanks, probably before you were born.
Let’s just say I think you’re overrating it both as literature and social commentary, and still think the movie didn’t really do it justice.
Shawn in ShowMe
@ThresherK:
You have to get a 40 year old in the glossy media-dominated world of 2012 to play a believable 30 year old from the 1870s Reconstruction South. Life aged people more quickly in those days.
Kristine
@geg6:
Hunger Games is science fiction. Near future dystopia w/ social commentary. Like Handmaid’s Tale.
SF is a very broad genre. There’s something there for just about everyone.
jake the snake
I have been looking forward to seeing John Carter for months, even though I think it will likely suck. I read most of the Burroughs books (Mars, Venus, Tarzan, etc.) by the time I was in Jr. High. Burroughs’ Mars books were my equivalent of the Harry Potter, Twilight, or even Lord of the Rings.
I am certain that the writers squeezed out all of the Victorian sensibility of the books. From the trailers I have seen, I do have some complaints, Taylor Kitsch seems pretty scrawny to be John Carter, the lead actress is pretty, but not the most beautiful woman on two planets, and Woola is to damned cute. In the books, Woola was just flat out scary. I have not seen any illustration that got the Green Martians right, and the visualization in the movie is one of the worst I have seen. I think that it is destined to be a moderate success at best. There is only a very small built in audience, unlike Potter, Twilight, etc.
Jess
I am amazed at how many of us read ERB by the age of 12. I thought I was the only one, and always wondered how much it warped my young psyche. I think I started around age 9. I remember getting busted by my math teacher in fifth grade for reading a Tarzan book in class, as well as getting busted a number of times by the Old Dears for reading under the covers with a flashlight. I know I had a hard time adapting to the real world–how could it possibly compare to what was happening on Mars?
Jess
@Shawn in ShowMe: How do we know that they aged more quickly then? More exposure to the sun might do it, but overall the lifestyle was healthier (except for those pesky diseases and lack of dental care).
samara morgan
@lethargytartare: oh, pardon.
well…my re-read is way different than my 8 yr old impressions.
its all about evolution……the evolution over eons of civilization, the competition for the dwindling resources of a dying planet, niche specialization of homonids, plants and animals….
Avatar was a chance to fall in love with Pandora. John Carter is a chance to fall in love with Barsoom, and the vast genetic diversity of the races of mars…if you are going to re-read just a couple, read Chessmen and Gods.
Ringworld is the movie i cant wait to see.
how much of ringworld came from barsoom do you think?
samara morgan
@jake the snake: i agree, woola is too cute, but its hard to project how hideous he was along with his magnificent loyalty. the idea of treating animals kindly was totally alien to the green martians, until Joh Carter showed them how it was done.
Suffern ACE
I don’t know. I saw the movie and didn’t seem to believe that the leads were even feeling mildly lusty, let alone falling in love.
RSA
@Jess:
I’m yet another. I devoured science fiction and fantasy when I was a kid. It’s hard to go back, though; I remember Burroughs, Robert Howard, Doc Smith, and so forth with fondness, but they’re a little too pulpy (just a little) for me now. Still, I’ll probably see John Carter when it hits the rental market.
Fax Paladin
For Mnemosyne and Emma (the Reply functionality isn’t working for me so I can’t do this properly): Dinklage a decade or so ago would have made an ideal Miles, but he’s too old now unless you start around Memory, and what would be the point?
runt
Being Norwegian, I’m reminded of the story of a guy who went to see Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and came out disappointed, saying: “It’s just a bunch of quotations!” To a Norwegian, every other line contains something that’s quoted in everyday speech, so it’s difficult to make the original look fresh.
I suspect this may be one of those movies that bomb at the box office, but could acquire loyal followers in time. Some great movies have suffered that fate, like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Big Lebowski – not that I think John Carter is quite in their category.
Brachiator
It’s Disney’s John Carter, not Pixar’s. And it’s dull as dirt. It doesn’t matter that the Carter novels were the first to have certain scenes and images. Later novels and movies did them better. The movie is OK, but is no great shakes. And you can’t blame critics. Movie goers are not particularly excited; the main characters and their stories are not particularly interesting.
Strangely, since the director was responsible for some of the best Pixar films, the movie lacks a certain energy and vibrancy. Some of the behind the scenes stories have talked about how the director admitted at times that he was lost, asked Pixar buddies for help, and went over budget with reshoots. When a director flounders, the results are never good. Contrast this with some of the Pixar films, where the movie makers may have been nervous at times, but had a greater sense of fun, mastery, and experimentation.
AA+ Bonds
Funny, I heard this was a terrible flop and a story of caution for Hollywood.
The message I’m getting is that if I’d read these books, I might want to see it to see if I liked this version of the story. I haven’t, so I won’t, and early 20th-century metal-bikini pulp is not very high up there for me right now, but maybe if I ever retire I’ll eventually obtain the prerequisites that would make me, maybe, want to watch this particular big-budget action failure
Brachiator
@samara morgan:
And yet, all the buzz, including advance screenings that include a range of people, not just fans, suggest that Hunger Games is an exciting, well made movie with potential wide appeal. Go figure.
I thought that the remake of 21 Jump Street just had to be junk, but I am totally surprised at the overwhelmingly positive reaction from critics and viewers. From the trailers, the new Avengers looks at least serviceable. One of the two Snow White movies, Snow White and the Huntsman looks like it might be amazing. The other, with Julia Roberts, unfortunately looks like a steaming pile of crap. But Pixar’s Brave and the upcoming Dark Knight movie looks quite good. And this is just a small section of upcoming films.
Overall, last year was underwhelming. By contrast, this looks like it could be quite a good year for movies.
AA+ Bonds
I mean, the way these books were described to me by a friend who read them as a kid was, they’re pretty bad, followed by a laugh.
Brachiator
@AA+ Bonds:
The story is a little more complicated than that. The movie cost $250 million, and maybe $75 million or more to market. It grossed $30 million in the US and Canada it’s first week. But it also made $100 million overseas. If the studio had not thrown so much money into it, they would have a solid performer on their hands. But the dreams of a monster hit with sequel potential have probably been dashed.
AA+ Bonds
@Brachiator:
Idk, sounds exactly how I described it. I mean yes, I suppose if somehow the big budget science fiction flop had not been a big budget science fiction flop, it would not have been a big budget science fiction flop.
AA+ Bonds
@geg6:
LOL
ReflectedSky
@Brachiator: I think the marketing costs were higher than that. We’re hearing at least $100 million, which makes more sense.
Also, Disney went full-on tentpole not just to get sequels but to fuel the merchandising and theme park ride profit streams. Years ago, I had a pitch put into production by Disney that was kept after the original producers were fired just because it had an opportunity for a whole new type of character toy. That’s not why those characters were in my story, but that’s why Disney wanted to keep it. (The movie never did get made, although I did get a call while I was in labor demanding I drive over for yet another in an endless series of meetings. When I explained I could not, because I was in the process of delivering a baby, they said, “We’ll make it a conference call.”)
John Carter is a commercial failure with many fathers. Stanton was apparently unwilling to work with Disney management, which is part of what caused so many problems. On the other hand, Disney is cranking out a lot of failed tentpoles; it’s not surprising he wouldn’t trust them. Likewise, why did they give a gigantic budget like this to a guy who had never shot a live-action movie?
I’m glad some people are enjoying it. There’s no way, however, that it will make back its investment. Many people will be fired over this. Hopefully, at least a few of them will actually deserve it.
Brachiator
@AA+ Bonds:
No. A flop is a movie that no one wants to see or actively hates and rejects. I recall one big budget movie that only had three people seeing it in one theater the entire week of its opening, and not much more anywhere else.
And then you have stuff like The Phantom Menace, which people went to see even though they were terribly disappointed afterwards. And even though the film made big bucks, it is still a steaming pile of crap.
Brachiator
@ReflectedSky:
Probably because Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Iron Giant) had turned in solid work, and made a ton of money, with Mission Impossible 4. The studios wanted to keep the Pixar people happy and indulge their ambitions even though they didn’t have a lot of live action experience behind them. They also may have figured that doing a big movie with special effects is just like doing animation.
In short, the suits are typically short sighted.
As an aside, I was disappointed in MI4, which I call the running, jumping, falling down movie. It was good, but ironically the cartoon movie, The Incredibles, had more interesting characters and more consistently exciting action sequences.
By the way, your adventures in the movie industry sound interesting.
AA+ Bonds
@Nix:
Thank you Carrie Nation
I mean, Christ, how miserable your 20s must have been with that D.A.R.E. philosophy
AA+ Bonds
@Brachiator:
LOL, I mean, yes, if you redefine “flop” so that you’re right, you’re right.
Personally, I believe that a movie is only successful if you stand on your head while telling me so. Okay?
Brachiator
@AA+ Bonds:
I’m sure you, personally, believe you have a point.
Phoebe
@Nicole: Did Jon Stewart mention that they’re going to make a movie of it? Which is hilarious, because they already did, but this would be a movie of the t.v. show, with those people in it (not that at least two of those people weren’t in the first movie, which was not as good as the show).
I’ll stop now. Well, I’m going to see this John Carter movie tonight, and it’ll probably suck. I hated Avatar. But too bad.
samara morgan
@Brachiator: and so is Twilight.
Hunger Games is just Twilight for snobs that know the Cretan myth.
celticdragonchick
@Nicole:
Katniss takes competency and being proactive to level that is almost terrifying. She is about the last person on Earth I would want angry at me.
As a side note, I was listening to “Set Fire To The Rain” by Adele and I thought it would be an awesome theme song for Katniss.
It seems a couple thousand other people did as well, judging by the youtube videos.
ExpatDanBKK
@samara morgan: Also, too, Hunger Games appears to me to be a total ripoff of Japanese author Kōshun Takami’s Battle Royale…
THE
@feebog:
Riverworld has been made into a movie.
First there was a feature-length pilot for a tv series that never happened. (2003).
Then it was remade in 2010 as a SyFy made for tv movie.
I have this version on DVD.
Phoebe
I saw it last night and loved it.
And:
I didn’t know anything about John Carter
and
I hated Avatar.
On the topic of Hunger Games (which is replacing it in theaters here in St. Louis): I liked the book, but it was no The Uglies.
Walt
I think that in the books making John Carter a Confederate is a semi-deliberate irony. The theme of the first three books is “racism is bad”, and that you should judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Don’t get me wrong — they’re basically boys adventure fiction — but still the theme is pretty explicit.
SPOILER ALERT:
For example, in the first book Carter teaches the green and red Martians the value of inter-racial cooperation. In the second book, it’s established that on Mars whites are worshipped as gods, but it is revealed that they are false gods. The whites themselves worship a semi-mythical figure as the One True God — they imagine this figure is white, but she turns out to be black. When Carter meets the black Martians (who he is impressed by), he comments directly on the irony of a white Southerner admiring blacks. The books say straight out that the red race is the dominant race on Mars because it is a product of race mixing. Carter himself has a mixed-race son by the second book, and the third book ends with a vision of inter-racial unity.
The books are not models of enlightenment in every respect, but it’s interesting that the anti-racism theme is so explicit in what is the purest of pulp fiction.