'John Carter,' aka the Edgar Rice Burroughs 'A Princess of Mars' adaptation

xp What do you mean by that? Did Wall-E deny access to anything human? JC has human characters with human emotions, as well as scenes with recognisable human import regardless of the species of the protagonists.

Admittedly I haven't seen Battleship but in terms of original - and successful - visual design JC has to be a hundred times better.

sorry but that hulk crit is more tiresome and hard to follow than John Carter.

thats not what i meant by 'human' im talking about reacting to the humanity or lack of it in a work - the emotional content. FCH compares it to stanton's finding nemo, which is about fucking talking fish and is a million times more human than JC

john carter was also pretty boring visually, imo

yeah, thought the visual look of john carter was all p second-hand frazetta-isms, w/out any of frazetta's sensuality or grit

Really? I thought it looked amazing - a bit of a cliche but you could really see all the money up there on the screen, showing you stuff from ERB's imagination.

give me gil kane and dave cockrum any day

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/issue/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/john-carter-marvel-1.jpg

i sorta dug how cartoony the tharks were, and that down-the-barrel shot of one of them aiming his funky homemade rifle reminded me of necron 99 from ralph bakshi's wizards - one of the film's few interesting images. the white apes were just like a million other CGI monsters, right down to the identikit movement set (the way these things move always only reminds you of other cgi monsters). i thought the whole thing was short on any genuine, memorable weirdness (or menace), everything felt stately and sanded down.

I quite enjoyed the film, but I don't think you can put its failure down to its quality. It was a "flop" and a joke because of it well before it was released. Besides how often does quality really stop people from seeing a movie in droves? at least on the opening weekend.

well yeah, it's bad and it's difficult to market

The quality of the film doesn't matter to the marketing. The problem is probably the look (silly CGI cartoony monsters, guy flying around with sword wearing a loincloth).

"The quality of the film doesn't matter to the marketing"

disagree! i think its probably harder to market something that sucks ass than it is something thats good

that said the marketing was really incredibly bad on this one - as detailed in the article andrew links above, which also indicates that stanton may shoulder a lot of the blame for it

As long as there are requisite elements (stuff blowing up, portentous looks, maybe a funny quip but that's not necessary), then you can throw together a trailer/ad spot. Marketing was particularly bad for this one, sure, but I don't think that has to do with the quality as much as it does the content.

I disagree about the quality of the film, but also I think that by the only yardstick that marketing cares about - will people go see it - it was a great film, the word of mouth despite the shitty campaign is what pulled it back into profit (not that any hollywood film is ever in profit etc etc)

wait what

what a terrible 'movie'

this was fucking shit

VG will have your scalp or something.

killfile

why is this still on my bookmarks??

It's from the books I suppose but the ending of this is pretty good, plot-wise.

In the DVD commentary they talk about it becoming a thing on the level of Superman or Bond. The pathos, I almost feel bad for the probably really quite rich people who were indulged in this folly.

Memmmmmories etc

https://www.thewrap.com/john-carter-movie-history-why-it-failed/

Ten years, crazy. Still half convinced that this not being a success is why Disney bought Lucasfilm later that year.

That's quite an in-depth article for... this movie. I think Collins not being sure which version of the princess to play is indicative of the major problem I found with the movie: characters were not well-defined at all

this movie killed the FNL dude's career, didn't it?

this movie killed the FNL dude's career, didn't it?

A combination of this and True Detective season 2. Both of which are better than people say.

It was based on a beloved and highly influential property

lol....beloved and influential to who exactly?

people who read & enjoyed it?

i'm questioning the characterization of the property as some kind of sure thing to bank a movie on. i had literally never heard of it until this came out despite existing in plenty of circles where sci-fi and fantasy fiction were regularly discussed for all of my teens and 20s.

i don't know how wide an audience they have in 2022 but burroughs's mars books are some of the most influential in SF, even if the influence tended to trickle down through other stuff -- bradbury, heinlein, flash gordon, star wars.

Cameron cited it as an inspiration for Avatar, and I don't doubt it inspired others. But yeah, it was certainly no bankable property ten years ago or now - too old, largely forgotten

yeah "this thing inspired this other thing that you like" is not really how IP attracts audiences

The Del Rey paperbacks were how I first heard about them, and they came out...late 70s I think?

i feel like princess of mars is sort of out of fashion, partially because Edgar Rice Burroughs is also out of fashion right now (lotta racist shit in the original Tarzan), but both properties were hugely popular in their time. I remember being kinda surprised when the movie came out, though, even having been aware of the books and having read a couple a long time ago. they were in print for a long time. probably still are.

in terms of influence... they are not the very first examples of what is now called "portal fantasy", but they are early, predating the chronicles of Narnia by decades. there's definitely plenty of writing in this genre, and the idea has been used over and over again from alice in wonderland (pre-princess of mars) to stargate: atlantis to whatever.

my reaction to this coming out was kind of like... this is a movie for old men who listen to old time radio dramas and collect Amazing Stories and Weird Tales from before the 2nd world war.

still never seen it.

i still think it was a much better movie than conventional wisdom acts like it was

I'd agree, pretty much stand by everything upthread. It ain't perfect but it's often really entertaining.

Reread the first three Mars books after seeing the movie (great in IMAX), and thought the movie did a great job of capturing the spirit while tightening the plot. Besides the Star Wars prequels, was the first movie I've seen people actively dogpile on to hate, without having seen it. At least, it was the first movie I was invested in seeing, so disheartening watching it shredded. Would have appreciated a second movie.

As a kid, also loved the Green Star books by Lin Carter, which is a straight rip of the concept.

(lotta racist shit in the original Tarzan),

― ian, Thursday, March 10, 2022 4:46 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Surely the whole concept of the white aristocratic lord of the jungle is inherently racist from the get-go.
Quite apart from the depiction of the natives outside of that.