John Carter

[SurfD]

I am sure some of you are probably already aware, but for those who are not, Disney is getting ready to launch a movie based on the John Carter books by Edgar Rice Burroghs.

Unfortunately, the official site does not yet have the trailer up (or much of anything up yet really, the trailer probably wont release till friday), but I got a chance to sneak peek it as it came on our weekly trailer drive for our digital projectors at the theatre I work at.

From what I saw, it looked pretty decent.  Granted, it has been a LONG time since I read any of the books, but it is kind of hard to go wrong with "Science-Fiction" as told in the same style as classic Tarzan or Conan books.

[Tannhauser]

I read JC comics religiously (heh) as a kid when Marvel did them.  Actually pretty excited about this except Disney might not have the mounds of bodies JC stacks up.  Which would be a shame.  Hmm, who should play Deja Thoris, guess it'll be Natalie Portman, she's in everything. 

[Chimpy]

I read JC comics religiously (heh) as a kid when Marvel did them.  Actually pretty excited about this except Disney might not have the mounds of bodies JC stacks up.  Which would be a shame.  Hmm, who should play Deja Thoris, guess it'll be Natalie Portman, she's in everything. 

They have a cast list on site. They don't say who is who for everyone but they do say who John Carter and Dejah Thoris are played by in the about part.

[Bunk]

Disney? Too bad - I would have thought John Carter would have better suited a closer to R rated style.

[Ingmar]

Disney? Too bad - I would have thought John Carter would have better suited a closer to R rated style.

Yeah this was my first thought as well.

[Chimpy]

Disney? Too bad - I would have thought John Carter would have better suited a closer to R rated style.

Yeah this was my first thought as well.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1531911/  has Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris. It is on Netflix insta-streaming to boot!

[Tannhauser]

Yeah, don't bother with that.  I tried to watch it a few weeks ago and quit.  Not only is it bad, but it doesn't even attempt to follow the books.

[Khaldun]

Having a hard time figuring out how Disney is going to handle John Carter running around with a nearly naked red-skinned woman. Not being nearly naked is pretty much the equivalent of deciding that you don't need the Federation, starships, Starfleet, Klingons, and redshirts in a Star Trek film.

[Stormwaltz]

Trailer is up. Looked good to me, but I have a weakness for sword & planet / planetary romance stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rf55GTEZ_E&hd=1

Disney is distributing, but seems not to have had a hand in making the movie. However, the writer/director is Andrew Staton, Pixar's ninth employee and the writer/director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E. Make of that what you will.

[Ratman_tf]

I liked the trailer. I'm just now reading the John Carter collected stories (And REH's Conan stuff too.)
They're going to have to make some changes. No-Body is going to show a movie with penises flapping in the breeze all the time. As long as they wear light clothes, that's fine with me.
I'm pretty hopeful that this is gonna be good.

[Tannhauser]

I like the girl, the music and letting JC keep his 'superpowers'.  I don't really like the actor though.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm almost ashamed to say I've never read the John Carter books, but seeing that makes me interested now.  I may have to pick up the books (oh horrors!  ) and see the movie.

[HaemishM]

Two problems with the trailer. Mars looked too much like Earth. The skies should be darker and the sand should have a red tint. That can be fixed with post-processing. The goddamn title and logo, though - you really really really need the Warlord of Mars bit added to the end of John Carter. Otherwise, that trailer gives you no fucking idea that he's been transported to another planet. It could be the far-flung future or Earth for all anyone not familiar with the source would know. They really have to do something about that before next March, but they have time.

Other than that, I think it looks decent.

[Ingmar]

I was not impressed. Red martians = definitely not red enough too.

[Comstar]

The trailer made me thought it was a remake of the 1980's movie for Gor.

[Sir T]

The trailer made me thought it was a remake of the 1980's movie for Gor.

[SurfD]

What the fuck is up with that guys knuckles?

[Arrrgh]

What the fuck is up with that guys knuckles?

http://www.google.com/search?q=knuckle+conditioning

[Sheepherder]

What the fuck is up with that guys knuckles?

http://www.google.com/search?q=knuckle+conditioning

No, count them.

[Sir T]

Not to mention the fact that he's cross-eyed 

[UnSub]

Not to mention the fact that he's cross-eyed 

I think the word you are looking for is 'bored'.

[Khaldun]

Is this the worst marketed film in recent film history? Very possibly.

Because you know, it's actually pretty good. It's way better than the ads suggest, which make it out to be another bland Clash-of-the-Titans CG-fest. It's also pretty loyal to the source material, not quite to the point of featuring naked Martians every which way.

[angry.bob]

The first Gor book was actually pretty tame by almost any standard. They get more sexed up and cheesy as they go along, but there's nothing graphic in them up to book nine which is when I stopped reading them. Drop the woman slapping and slavery and you could make a really interesting series of movies. Definately more interesting and far less vile than the Seeker shit written by that hack Goodkind.

Also, red martians don't appear to be red. Deja Thoris doesn't need to be nude except for tit jewelry and a loincloth, but her clothes do need to be a lot hotter than they are.

[Tannhauser]

I'm so on the fence with seeing this movie I have splinters in my ass.  I have the first twenty or so JC comics in the next room (which are quite wordy) and have always enjoyed them, but I'm not sure about the movie.  Don't like the guy playing JC but the flying ships look cool and looks like lots of action.

But, yeah, bad marketing, not going to be a success if you can't get ME into a theater.

[Velorath]

$250 million budget.  It's going to need to do well internationally to have any remote chance of becoming a success.  Domestically, that ship has already sailed based on the opening weekend.

[MuffinMan]

Holy siht. That's a lot of hookers and blow they were doing between takes.

[Ratman_tf]

The first trailer kicked ass. The rest are all yawnsville. Makes me wonder if there's some corporate shenanigans going on.

[Velorath]

The first trailer kicked ass. The rest are all yawnsville. Makes me wonder if there's some corporate shenanigans going on.

Just bad marketing.  There have been a ton of news articles this weekend on the marketing campaign being terrible ever since they dropped the "of Mars" from the title and just started calling it John Carter.

[SurfD]

I wasnt aware that they had ever referred to the movie as "John Carter of Mars" in any of their adds.  The logo has the JCM thing, but even IN the movie, they introduce it as "John Carter", only adding the "of Mars" bit at the end of the movie, after all the exposition is done.

[Margalis]

From what I understand the original marketing team quit or was fired at some point (quit IIRC), sort of leaving the marketing campaign in the lurch.

[Khaldun]

I would recommend seeing it. I thought it was surprisingly good. Not great, mind you, but much better than I expected.

Apparently the "of Mars" was dropped because marketing asshats working for Disney came to the conclusion that the reason that "Mars Needs Moms" flopped was because "Mars" was in the title. NO ASSHATS, it was because the movie was terrible and it was horrible uncanny valley Zemeckisesque CGI animation.

[shiznitz]

You cannot spend $250MM making a movie that is then going to require $100MM more to convince people that the name is actually no indication of what the movie is about.  If they had just called this movie "Battle for Mars" or something like that, they could have saved themselves a fortune.

These books have been in the public domain for decades and only hardcore SF readers have ever heard of John Carter.  Dropping a $250MM production budget on an IP like this is ridiculous.  It should have been a TV show.

[Hammond]

I would recommend it to.  Even after rereading the first few books in the last month it was still good.  Its been 25 years since I read them and I kinda wish I hadn't though they didn't age well for me.  The movie overall was pretty well done and for a Disney movie they showed a lot of skin. They tried to make the red men of mars redder by making John Carter REALLY white which was a bit distracting. 

Oh and I went and watched the 2d version because 3d sucks ass on 99% of movies.

[Ginaz]

I wasnt aware that they had ever referred to the movie as "John Carter of Mars" in any of their adds.  The logo has the JCM thing, but even IN the movie, they introduce it as "John Carter", only adding the "of Mars" bit at the end of the movie, after all the exposition is done.

I was told that adding the word "Mars" to the title didn't test well with women when they previewed the movie at screenings or some such marketing bullshit practice.  Why the fuck they would worry if a sci fi movie "tested well with women" is beyond me since most women don't care for sci fi anyway and the ones that do wouldn't care if Mars was in the title.  As for the movie itself, its not bad and worth watching, though it does slow down a great deal in the middle.  The beginning and ending are pretty good IMO.

[Bungee]

I got into an argument with my gf after watching this over my opinion that this was just a redesigned Avatar even down to the setup of some scenes. I don't care if Avatar took parts of the books and JC was there "first", it's still just the same product in a new package. It's certainly not bad though, I liked Avatar.