John Carter

[Fitzcarraldo]

Anyone else looking forward to the release of John Carter in just over a week? It's based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' book A Princess of Mars from his Barsoom series of books. Although it's dated pulp fiction, I couldn't put A Princess of Mars down, so I'm looking forward to the film, especially in 3D. A Princess of Mars was written in 1912, and so many of the modern sci-fi films have taken their inspiration from Edgar Rice Burroughs, Star Wars being one of them (even some of the terms in Star Wars are similar to those on Barsoom; does 'Jeddak' sound familiar? Or 'Padwar'?).

[wolfden]

Saw previews for it once, didn't pay much attention to it tho. It does look good tho.

[Fitzcarraldo]

The following fan-made trailer gives a better understanding of the film than do the three official trailers released by Disney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=-BxeHQY1NuM

[wolfden]

ahhh yes, looks great! Think they are talking about making this into a trilogy or something?

[Fitzcarraldo]

Went to see it today. Was going to see it at the IMAX at the cine complex but changed my mind as the reviews of the 3D version have not been that great: apparently the film was shot in 2D and Stanton is not a fan of 3D. So I plumped for the 2D version instead. Visually good, but I do wish directors wouldn't tinker with a story. Some of the dialogue was corny, and some of the changes unnecessary and annoyed me a little. Overall I'd give it 6 out of 10. I don't know how people who have not read the Barsoom books (Stanton brings a little of the next book into it) would feel about the film, but I suspect they might be a bit confused about the whole thing. So, to recap, visually good, a few exciting parts, but not a masterpiece by any means. If you're a sci-fi or fantasy buff, probably still worth seeing, but I'd suggest reading A Princess of Mars first (or perhaps after) to get a better picture of where Burroughs was going with this. Am I allowed to say that Lynn Collins is delectable?

[chasha420]

Sorry to disappoint you Fitz, but it turns out the movie so far was a big flop & disney made a huge loss. Check this out--> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442200

But the trailer looked pretty cool...& I dunno why it would be disappointing when there's been a way lot worse movies than that getting better ratings. Guess I've to watch it to find out

[Fitzcarraldo]

Yes, I know about the losses, as the Press has been full of it and I have been following it rather sadly. I still think John Carter is worth going to see if you are the sort of person who likes sci-fi and/or adventure films, but I'm sticking to my rating of 6/10 so far. Actually, I would go and see it again if I had the time, and I will buy the DVD when it comes out, so I would not classify it as a bomb by any means. If you do go and see it you may think it is derivative, but in fact both George Lucas and James Cameron borrowed heavily from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series of books for Star Wars and Avatar. After all, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote A Princess of Mars in 1912.

It's difficult for me to comment on John Carter from the perspective of someone who sees the film without having read the books. Perhaps such a person would find the film a bit confusing (some reviewers have written that they found the story confusing). I knew the story from the books, so my main problems with the film were different, actually: firstly the director Andrew Stanton changed the story, and, secondly, I think the script writing was really bad in some places. If Stanton had stuck more closely to the story in the book, and had he and his co-script writers Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon written a better script, I'm sure the film would have been much better received.

I found the book a real page-turner (I've read the first three books, and, although they are dated pulp fiction, they kept me hooked) and, in my opinion, Stanton should have focused more on the characters instead of inventing the whole 'Thern puppet masters of the Zodangans' thing. That just irritated me. The Therns come into the story in the second book (The Gods of Mars) and they are not from another world; they are also Martians (they are baddies, though). Basically, in my view Stanton messed around too much with a perfectly good story in the first book (A Princess of Mars). He did include a fair amount of the little details from the book, though, and he clearly put a lot of love into it, but basically he didn't do the book justice in my opinion. Anyway, see the film and make up your own mind. I'd recommend that you read A Princess of Mars either before or after, and then you might see where I'm coming from.

[grimly64]

Based on Hollywood's record of changing things, such as Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne trilogy (where they removed a primary character completely) or L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, it is not suprising that John Carter was not as great as it should have been.

From my perspective the Hollywood procedure is: people make a book or comic popular, a movie is made of them, first thing to do is to diss the people who made it popular in the first place and make it so anyone not familiar with the character(s) can understand what is going on.

As to why? only guess I have is that the mainstream media is out of touch with the rest of world.

[msdobrescu]

Lately, movies become almost standalone universes, compared to the originating books. They hardly follow the original stories, most of the time can't reach the depth of the characters, thier thoughs and their relations.
The movie is simply nice, not a masterpiece, and it's better to watch it out of the context of the book, otherwise it will dissapoint.
Read books, use your imagination and probably will enjoy these more. I often see a movie in my mind while reading the book.

[micia]

As to why?

Because people familiar with the original story will probably watch the movie, since they liked the original (and they are going to be disappointed most of the times), people unfamiliar with the original aren't required to know it, so they can watch it (being probably satisfied because they didn't know how the plot was in the first place).
This usually maximizes the income...
Of course that's not always the case but most of the times it sadly is, and Hollywood didn't invent it (neither it is the most prominent user of this strategy).

I think that the "media" of a story is the most important factor in how it's structured and how it feels, a movie cannot obey to the same narration style and rules of a book, an animation work, a videogame, a comic, or any other work of art.
The opposite is also true.

I usually pass on movies adaptations of books or games because they are on a completely different level than the original, most of the times this cannot be avoided since the format is different.
For example, a big part of a book is that you actually picture the story in your mind, you build your own vision of characters and locations, you won't share the same vision of somebody else who read the book.
If you play a videogame, a big part of it is actually experiencing the story while you play, it is "you" going through the story and living it.
An animation work can be completely unrelated to reality, while still resulting plausible.