John Carter (Post-release)

[Riceball]

Re: John Carter

I finally watched John Carter on DVD this past weekend and while I didn't love it was better than I thought it would be. My main complaints were that I wished they had stuck to the source material a little more faithfully (they really needed more explanation about the metals and the pledging of them), and I thought that they really should have made Mars much redder so that it doesn't look so much the Southwestern US.

One thing that I did think was pretty cool about the movie was the casting, anyone else notice that JC was practically a Rome reunion? Ciran Hinds, James Purefoy, and Polly Walker were all in the cast although I'm sure that Polly Walker didn't get to work with Caesar and Antony again.

 

[Betamin]

I watched the blu-ray of "John Carter" tonight...

...and I really enjoyed it.

Discuss. :lol

 

[Solo4114]

Re: John Carter

Finally saw this one, and I actually really enjoyed it as a fun adventure flick. The universe itself seems incredibly rich and full of potential, so it's a bit disappointing that this will likely never see a sequel.

My main criticisms were the thin nature of Carter's character, and the sense that the story needed a LOT more fleshing out than we got. I think this would make a great long-form story, like a TV show, but I doubt anyone has the stones to make it. A pity.

LOVED the look of the piece, though, from the costumes to the props, to the ship designs. All very cool.

 

[Chrisisall]

Re: John Carter

Yeah, I watched it again, and it gets better with each viewing.

 

[Rotwang]

Re: John Carter

Finally saw this one, and I actually really enjoyed it as a fun adventure flick. The universe itself seems incredibly rich and full of potential, so it's a bit disappointing that this will likely never see a sequel.

My main criticisms were the thin nature of Carter's character, and the sense that the story needed a LOT more fleshing out than we got. I think this would make a great long-form story, like a TV show, but I doubt anyone has the stones to make it. A pity.

LOVED the look of the piece, though, from the costumes to the props, to the ship designs. All very cool.

In the original books Carter is a real Marty-Stu. He's good and honest, loves a fight, happy go lucky without a care in the world (except when Dejah Thoris is kidnapped, which is pretty much her natural state anyway)

They turned him into a surly, sullen, growling anti-hero with a tragic past, a perfect carbon copy of every male hero we saw in the last two decades ...

Aside from that I loved the designs, though the planet just didn't look like Mars, but I ascribe that to the current omerta in Hollywood around the theme of Mars.

It wasn't a bad film, but Disney never even tried selling it.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: John Carter

Yeah, that's what I read. Disney basically smothered it in the crib.

 

[CutThumb]

Re: John Carter

Its pretty obvious now that John Carter was deliberately killed off once the negotiations with George Lucas over SW looked very likely to happen . There was just no way that the Studio was going to have two major sci fi franchises on the go at the same time.
Disney has been looking for competitor for "Star wars" for years and John Carter was supposed to be that vehicle. Maybe that's what pushed George to the table in the end. He saw what was happening with JC with the effects work ILM were doing on it and, lets face it, it was a pretty darn good sci fi adventure movie and things went the way they did. Deal done.
Bad news for John Carter ,great news for SW fans. It does makes you question the studios accountancy process though, a huge fuss was made over the effects costs being 100 million at least and the total movie costing a whopping 250 million. I could not say I saw it spent . Now that Disney owns Lucasfilm, all those costs are in the mouse house, so to speak. Which actually makes JC a very profitable film for them.
Anyway glad it was made and glad I saw it. It really was a good film.

 

[Mola Rob]

Re: John Carter

I enjoyed it. Like Rotwang mentioned Mars needed to look more like Mars but on the whole it looked a lot like I envisioned it when I read the stories. The women wore clothes which was a disappointment. :lol

On the flip side I hated the changes they made to the story and the characters. The Josey Wales back story they gave Carter was pathetic. I disliked how they changed the Therns and added in the "Earth may be in jeopardy in the future" crap. The worst aspect was making his nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs???

I agree with you Solo that it would have worked better as a series on TV.

 

[cboath]

Re: John Carter

The mars look didn't bother me because I simply assumed that if mars still had an atmosphere and could support life, it'd look a lot different.

 

[Chrisisall]

Re: John Carter

Pulp Science Fiction.

 

[BAK55]

Re: John Carter

The worst aspect was making his nephew Edgar Rice Burroughs???

If you had ever read the forwards of the books, Burroughs had stated that John Carter is his uncle, and these stories were told, as being true, to him by John Carter personally. So no one made this happen other than the man who wrote the books.

 

[Chrisisall]

Re: John Carter

I smell a burn.

 

[Mola Rob]

Re: John Carter

If you had ever read the forwards of the books, Burroughs had stated that John Carter is his uncle, and these stories were told, as being true, to him by John Carter personally. So no one made this happen other than the man who wrote the books.

I stand corrected on that one, I did read the forwards but totally forgot about that. I must have blocked it out because I thought it was silly in the book as well. :lol

 

[firesprite]

Re: John Carter

We just netflixed this movie the other day and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It was a MUCH better movie than I was expecting it to be (mind you with the crap advertising they did, there was very little indication of what type of movie it actually was).

I particularly liked the scene that intercut Carter burying his wife and grieving with him beating the snot out of an army of aliens. It was a nicely poigniant moment that really wouldn't have played out as well in a text-based medium.

 

[Chrisisall]

Re: John Carter

That actually made me cry a bit.

 

[The Mad Professor]

Re: John Carter

It was a nicely poigniant moment that really wouldn't have played out as well in a text-based medium.

Well, it was nowhere in the John Carter novels. John Carter never married before he went to Mars.

In fact, the movie was really just a pastiche of different things that happened over three novels and given a Disney overlay.

I imagine that this is how the John Carter movie brainstorming process went:

Disney Head Writer: "Hey, we just got the rights to make John Carter into a movie!"

Disney Writers: "YES!"

*they read the novels*

DHW: "Wait... the Tharks are too alien looking. Let's make them more humanlike."

Disney Writer 1: "Also, we'll take the most insignificant characters and make them the main bad guy of the film."

DW2: "Let's take the Zodanga/Helium war and make it the central story. Forget the story of John Carter's trip across Mars and how his actions shaped the world. Oh, and just to show how awesome CGI is, let's make Zodanga into a mobile city walking on legs and strip mining the planet, slowly killing it, making no mention whatsoever of the atmospheric plant that actually gives Mars a breathable atmosphere."

DW3: "Woola the dog has to be more kid friendly. Make his teeth barely capable of puncturing paper and give him big dopey eyes, kinda like a Martian version of Pluto."

DW4: "So as not to scare kids, let's make all the blood a bright happy blue instead of red, despite the biological factors involved. Oh, and spiderwebs. The enemy's stuff has to be spiderlike, because spiders are creepy."

DW5: "Oh, and let's take liberties with the story and lift stuff from other books in the series."

DW6: "Guys... since this movie doesn't exactly fit within the norms of what we consider a Disney movie to be, maybe we should let another company have a crack at it."

*blank stared from around the room*

DW6: "I'm just kidding..."

All: "BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!"

 

[Angelus Lupus]

Re: John Carter

I kinda think the blue blood was to get around Disney's normal "no gore" policy. For example, Narnia... no matter how many times High King Peter (or others) stab people with swords - no blood.

 

[Mullreel]

Re: John Carter

I saw this the other day. I have no reference from the books or anything, just the stand alone movie. I liked it for a basic sci-fi flick.

 

[Mola Rob]

Re: John Carter

I kinda think the blue blood was to get around Disney's normal "no gore" policy. For example, Narnia... no matter how many times High King Peter (or others) stab people with swords - no blood.

Unfortunately blood flying and piles of bodies were a big part of the stories. Not Smurf blood either.

Fiction Engineered it's funny you mentioned the atmosphere processor. That was one of the story elements that I thought was integral seeing as it was the processor that was slowing down the planets inevitable death and it's existence led Carter from the first story to the second far better than they tried to do it in the movie.

 

[The Mad Professor]

Re: John Carter

Unfortunately blood flying and piles of bodies were a big part of the stories. Not Smurf blood either.

Fiction Engineered it's funny you mentioned the atmosphere processor. That was one of the story elements that I thought was integral seeing as it was the processor that was slowing down the planets inevitable death and it's existence led Carter from the first story to the second far better than they tried to do it in the movie.

Of course, turning Tal Hajus from the bloated, corrupt Jeddak of the Tharks who had Tars Tarkas' love killed into Tars Tarkas' subordinate was stupid, as was making Matai Shang into a first book bad guy with mystical powers, not to mention turning the Therns from white skinned humanoids with blonde wigs and religious fanaticism into metallic rejects from a Rogaine commercial with magic !SCIENCE! powers...