John Carter

[robcat2075]

Fifteen years ago this would have been AMAZING, but in terms of spectacle there isn't much we haven't seen too many times already in the various CG effects movies like the Star Wars prequels and in terms of story it's a rather superficial condensation of the book, even with a 2 1/2 hour running time.

 

I think now that the "genius" of George Lucas in his first Star Wars film was to pick out just a few space opera ideas and give them time to develop in 90 minutes. Of course he lost track of that in the other films, but at least he got one right.

 

I'm not sure "John Carter" will make sense to someone who hasn't read the books, it has too many things treated too quickly, and I'm not sure it will make sense to someone who has read them because it has inserted new elements and altered others without a clear explanation for them.

 

A lot of comment on the web has been about titling the thing only "John Carter". I'm sure someone at Disney will lose their job over the decision to make a movie of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" and failing to mention "Edgar Rice Burroughs", "Princesses" or "Mars" along the way.

 

I gotta wonder about how these things are preproduced. The ability to previs shots and make a great looking "animatic" is so enormous today that I wonder how this got to the point of having all the for-real shooting done before someone noticed the story wasn't working and they needed to go back and shoot stuff over.

[largento]

I gotta' say my interest level has been pretty low since they first announced it. I didn't see anything in the trailers that appealed to me.

 

I did read that the decision to drop Mars from the name came during a survey when they found that a majority of the people wouldn't go see the movie with "Mars" in the title. No doubt Disney was also still feeling some of the sting of "Mars Needs Moms" bombing so terribly.

 

Is Edgar Rice Burrough's brand name so out of the public awareness that they didn't think it would be an asset to feature it in the posters? Or is this part of that whole stink that ERB's heirs made when Disney released their animated Tarzan movie and called it Walt Disney's Tarzan? I notice that a tiny "Disney" logo appears above the "J" of the title in the final poster.

 

This is probably going to be bad news for Andrew Stanton's live action career. He supposedly was offered anything he wanted by Disney and he was the one who insisted they resurrect the John Carter project. JJ Abrams was able to blame MI:IV's low numbers on the backlash against Tom Cruise and then redeemed himself on Star Trek, but I don't know that there's anything Stanton can hang the blame on. Given his past films, I'm surprised he didn't go for something with more heart.

[Darkwing]

I saw a very good article recently titled something along the lines of "The Death of Special FX" or something. It was very good because it basically states in more words what you said Robert. The awe factor's gone. You can't come out of the theatre any more as an audience member spending hours/days/months/years/"you should probably see a shrink if you're spending this much time dwelling on it" wondering "how was it done?" That spectacle is gone. Nothing is really amazing anymore. "How was it done?" "Computers." Pretty much the answer now to all things awe inspiring with films and so much so that the audience takes it for granted and is quite honestly, bored with it. This also furthers the problem that movie producers think they need to make the next visual spectacle and spend the majority of their time and effort on trying to make it so. Problem is, they stray away from story and character and scratch their heads when people aren't impressed. CGI was impressive when the Matrix came out. Not anymore and that's the sad truth and I hear this stuff first hand. I've worked at that theatre for sometime now and have seen the numbers fall steadily to who comes to blockbusters. Granted, part of that is economy related, but I hear patrons talking when they come or go from seeing a film. Things that should have been a "huge spectacle" they just shrug off and go get a coffee from Tim's or something. This is literally the single most common phrase I hear from people walking out of movies like John Carter, Transformers 3 etc: "Eh, it was all right I guess." To use the Star Wars example, perhaps it wasn't the FX that really blew people away back in the seventies (granted I'm sure it had a major influence) but the characters and story are ultimately what hooked people. Somehow perhaps the producers over time thought it was bigger and better FX that drove the masses to films when it was all along the fundamentals of film - story and character that was really doing it. I dunno, just some late night speculation.

 

And Mark, I think perhaps you mean MI:3, MI:4 did quite well at the box office this past December

[Gerry]

but the characters and story are ultimately what hooked people.

Can't add much to that.

[robcat2075]

To further compare it to Star Wars... "Star Wars" had a memorable score that was practically a star of the film in its own right.

 

"John Carter" really just has mood music.

[largento]

My memory of seeing Star Wars the first time in the theater was that we went for the special effects and walked out talking about how fast-paced and fun it was ...and I was young enough to believe it all.

 

The music was definitely a huge part, too.

 

Part of why Star Wars was so fast paced was that Lucas pushed the editing of the space battles and would use quick cuts that just showed parts of ships. Part of that was editorial choice, but part of it was him compensating for the lack of quality and quantity of fx shots.

[frosteternal]

Just saw the movie today - loved it. I really enjoyed it while it was playing, and several hours later, now want to go back and see it again. Everyone else in the theater walking out at the end was talking about how much they enjoyed it too.

It was good, cheesy, and completely entertaining fun. The effects were spot-on, the tone was perfect too. I really hope they make more films in the series, and even just more, well - fun - movies in general. I can't recall thinking how fun a movie was in a long while.

I think Burroughs would have liked it too. =)

[jason1025]

I think im going to edit together a mix of episode 2 and John Carter. At least the Ape sequence which is almost identical to episode 2.

 

My biggest problem with the move is how storie tellers are so bad when it comes to writing about the loss of a loved one. In real life no one is replaceable. Nut Yet John carter can just slap on a ring on the new girl and instantly forget about his dead wife and child.

 

Just like in the movei "face OFF" When he places his dead child with a new kid.

 

They just dont know how to to write for that concept. Disney or not. The torment of a dead child and wife does not go away with a new peace of ass.

 

imo he should continue to be mentally plagued by that even after he fall in love with the new chick. That is more true to life.

 

But I guess they want to give a sense of closure. The problem is that closer undercuts everything they set up with his pain and struggle earlier on.

 

Bad dialog.

 

"You are ugly but you are beautiful."

 

Reminds me of Star wars dialog.

 

 

Im surprised John carter did not loose the will to live.

[fae_alba]

They just dont know how to to write for that concept. Disney or not. The torment of a dead child and wife does not go away with a new peace of ass.

 

That is something you need to live thru in order to right about it. Having been there, I can still feel it enough to write it, but....to approach something like that kind of pain without having any sort of experience, is as you say, cheesy.

 

I did want to see this movie, no I don't know. Funny that my youngest daughter, who is a big nut for this kind of movie has no interest in seeing it. In here immortal 16 year old words, "It reminds me of 10,000 BC, and I didn't like that one either."

 

Disney Studios seems to have forgotten Walt's mantra of movie making (and everything else he did, including the parks). It's all about the story/characters. Without it, you have nothing.

[KenH]

You could feel Carters pain in the beginning....you just didn't know why at that point. In some ways I like that, but some people might not connect his behavior to his previous loss. And when he found his princess (well he didn't have much choice on Mars) he could have found another soul mate, but you couldn't really tell because he didn't really get on with her at first.

 

In general though, I'd give it a 6 out of 10. Script wasn't great. The best characters were animated. I expected better from the director.....but then like Carter, he was in an alien world with less control over the final product.

[Gerry]

My biggest problem with the move is how storie tellers are so bad when it comes to writing about the loss of a loved one.

It seems like in modern movies there are no emotional consequences. It's unfortunate because if written right, emotional consequence is what drives character motivation/story. Even physical danger is shrugged off and there's no lasting trauma. It's always seemed strange and counterintuitive to me, but it's definitely a trend, and only in the last few years it seems. It's almost as if the actors, or even the characters themselves, have gotten jaded by the sheer monolithic fx they have to act against.

[robcat2075]

I'd say that any personality they've given John Carter in this movie is over and above what he had in the book. In the book he's a remorseless killer.

[robcat2075]

My biggest problem with the move is how storie tellers are so bad when it comes to writing about the loss of a loved one.

It seems like in modern movies there are no emotional consequences. It's unfortunate because if written right, emotional consequence is what drives character motivation/story. Even physical danger is shrugged off and there's no lasting trauma. It's always seemed strange and counterintuitive to me, but it's definitely a trend, and only in the last few years it seems. It's almost as if the actors, or even the characters themselves, have gotten jaded by the sheer monolithic fx they have to act against.

 

Something that I notice in a lot of 50's movies is that people fall in love after only the most superficial contacts. It's bad in a lot of movies but in the 50's women seem to be scripted as characters who need to find a man, any man, ASAP.

[jason1025]

Wow Robert I was interested in reading the books until I found out that John Carter is even flatter in the book than in the movie.

 

Dont get me wrong, I liked that he had pain from his dead wife and child. But when the pain is suddenly gone after accepting this new woman into his heart, illustrated by the lack of examples of pain after he falls for her... The whole pain thing becomes contrive.

 

If you think about it. There was such potential.

 

I liked when he used his bottled rage to kill a few hundred Martians. I thought they handled that well. But then I was like "who are these Martians and where did they come from?" WHy did they want to attack him so badly? Why were they so much bigger than the other Martians?

Because of the blue immortals? Kind of thin and contrive.

 

 

Believe it or not the highlight of the movie for me was when John's dog recused him at the moment he broke the blue immortals device which was controlling Carter.

 

 

I thought that part was unintended genius. Why because It kind of reminds me of life. Despite the worst intensions of the blue immortal, even with all his technology and wisdom, he could not have factored into his equation a very real phenomenon. The wild cards that we are all dealt in life. Some good, some bad. But equally wild and unpredictable for all. In this case it was the form of a friend.

 

Its kind of like the question what happened to Jack the Ripper, why did his serial killing murders end?

 

We dont know but he may have been hit by a horse and buggy, had a heart attack, got some other illness, was mugged and murdered himself or even fell in love and decided to quit killing (however unlikely)

But the murders did stop and I doubt that was Jack the rippers intention.

[Gerry]

Not to hijack this thread, but speaking of ERB I just came across a huge number of Russ Manning "Tarzan" strips over on Golden Age Comic Book Stories, http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot....an-sundays.html .

 

I only read one or two but there are a LOT of them, and beautifully scanned too. Worth a look even though it would take hours to read them all.

 

End of commercial!

[robcat2075]

While we're on Tarzan... OTR.net has the early 50's Tarzan radio drama

 

Tarzan on Old Time Radio (you'll need Real Player)

 

It's not a serial, each episode is a stand-alone story and unlike almost every Tarzan movie, Tarzan speaks perfect English while everyone else... British colonials, African natives, Arab traders... has a serious accent.

 

 

 

And back to John Carter... Someone did an authentically all-naked comic version

 

The wild, all-naked JOHN CARTER comic Disney does not want you to see (NSFW)

 

 

 

Wow Robert I was interested in reading the books until I found out that John Carter is even flatter in the book than in the movie.

 

No one is very complex in the two books I've read, but the various martian characters are much less superficial than in the movie and they are well-written action/adventure yarns which is probably hard to do. I didn't get bored reading them.

[largento]

So, it is looking like Disney is prepared to hang the albatross on Stanton's shoulders. While officially backing him, stories are being leaked portraying him as a napoleonic neophyte who used his Pixar successes and status to over-rule any criticism or suggestion.

 

His own statements in interviews about how Disney wanted to give him whatever he wanted allowing him a my way or the highway power would have fed his ego if it had been a giant success, but now, in failure, they come across like a spoiled brat.

 

They are blaming the poor reception of the first teaser trailer on his inexperience with live action, saying that live action directors know to put some of the big effects shots into production early with the intent of using them in the trailers (even if they don't end up in the final film.) Stanton is being described as being ill-prepared and refusing to let any shot be used that he didn't feel was ready to be seen.

 

There are stories in the past of directors who have made the leap from animation to live action who are giant nightmares. They are used to being able to control every single facet of production down to the timing of an eye blink and when faced with live actors, become tyrants, screaming at actors for turning their heads a tiny degree more than what the director wanted.

 

Brad Bird seems to have come out on top. Although Ghost Protocol isn't a movie that makes you wonder who the director is, it is extraordinarily competent and his visual story-telling skills helped make a very complicated plot understandable to the audience. He certainly is in a good place for moving on to whatever he wants to do.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like Andrew Stanton is going to have to do the walk of shame.

 

If the stories are true, it's a textbook case of being done-in by his own overgrown ego. It's ironic, since Brad Bird has always come across as more egotistical than Andrew Stanton, but then Andrew Stanton didn't have Tom Cruise to out-ego him. :-)

[robcat2075]

...stories are being leaked portraying him as a napoleonic neophyte who used his Pixar successes and status to over-rule any criticism or suggestion.

 

I like Martin Mull's assessment, "Hollywood is like high school, but with money."

 

 

Well, the good news is... we dont' have to worry that he won't be making any more Pixar features. Unless he said "So long, losers!" on the way out of Pixar.

 

 

 

Outside of Frank Tashlin and Tim Burton who would be the other successful animation-to-live-action transfers?

[largento]

Googling. Many seem to have crashed and burned.

 

Jimmy Hayward (directed 2008's Horton Hears a Who) and then directed 2010's bomb adaption of "Jonah Hex."

 

Vicky Jenson (directed Ferngully and co-directed Shrek) did a small film in 2009 called "Post Grad" that went nowhere.

 

Simon Wells (directed An American Tail: Fivel Goes West) bombed with a live action version of his great-grandfather's "Time Machine" and then went back to animation where he atomic-bombed with "Mars Needs Moms."

 

Kevin Lima (directed Disney's Tarzan) didn't do so hot with "102 Dalmations," but did okay with "Enchanted."

 

Andrew Adamson (co-director of Shrek 1 & 2) had big success with "The Chronicles of Narnia", then had big not-success with Narnia 2 and wasn't asked to do Narnia 3 when it was picked up by Fox.

 

Rob Minkoff (co-directed The Lion King) did pretty well with "Stuart Little." "Stuart Little 2" did not so well and then directed "The Haunted Mansion" and "The Forbidden Kingdom."

[robcat2075]

That's a long list. More than I imagined. I suppose we could add Mike Judge (Office Space, Idiocracy) to the list of not-successes.

 

 

i will always fondly remember Kevin Lima's "A Goofy Movie"

[largento]

Sadly yes for Mike Judge, although "Office Space" is at least a cult classic now. I saw "Idiocracy" during its ridiculously small theatrical release and liked it, too.

 

I'm presuming that the money/prestige must be in favor of being a live action direction which would prompt animation directors to accept less-than-stellar live action projects to make just to get their foot in the door.

 

Some have suggested that Stanton was used to the incredibly long development/production time of Pixar films and wasn't prepared for something that had to be done this quickly.

 

Beyond that, you would think the skills were similar between a live action and animation director.

[robcat2075]

I saw Idiocracy too. Maybe you were the other person in the theater.

 

I thought it had the funniest PowerPoint slide in cinema.

 

 

Beyond that, you would think the skills were similar between a live action and animation director.

 

I would think that at the blockbuster level both are mostly about getting other people to do things the way you want.

[mouseman]

I've never read any of the original source material. And I saw it on Sunday afternoon/evening. I quite enjoyed it. I had no difficulty following it. It wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I would have expected it to do far better than $30 million US and an additional $70 million worldwide on the opening weekend. (It supposedly needs $600 million worldwide to break even after the $250 million to make it and the marketing costs, or maybe even $800 million to $1 billion.)

 

There's one interesting article that points a lot of fingers, including at the management and marketing at Disney:

By the time "John Carter" started filming in January 2010, however, Cook had been replaced by Rich Ross, a television executive who had never overseen a film of this scope. Ross named as president of production Sean Bailey, a movie producer who lacked experience as a studio executive, then installed MT Carney, an outsider from the New York advertising world who'd never worked at a studio, as marketing chief. Then Carney left in early January and was replaced by veteran Ricky Strauss - just as the film's promotional efforts were to kick into high gear.

 

"The worst thing that can happen to a movie is the marketing team changes midstream," said Peter Sealey, marketing strategist and former marketing president at Columbia Pictures. "It's disheartening for the filmmakers, for the talent. They lose belief in the film."

Here's another article on what someone else thinks went wrong.

 

I do think expectations are rather high for films, as is competition. I look at the difficulty we've had getting Scarecrow into festivals as confirmation of that! I haven't really read any of the Napoleonic Stanton accounts, so I can't really comment on that. But regardless, I do believe that the film deserves a bit better than it has gotten. Surely (and sadly) there will be no sequels.

 

Side note: I'm always amazed at how they have numbers for the first weekend earnings by Sunday morning.

[Darkwing]

It's possible Sunday doesn't count as a weekend day because I think (now don't quote me on this) but the "movie weekend" consists generally of just Friday and Saturday and Sunday is considered a weekday more or less. I know that's sort of how it's run at the theatre I work at, but I don't know if this reflects how they run things overall in that regard

[largento]

The studios track the movies and basically make an educated guess about the drop from Saturday to Sunday. Somewhere I remember seeing a formula that took the averages and you could make a pretty good guess about a film's weekend opening just based on the Friday estimates.

[jason1025]

Kind of on topic.

 

thought the girl in the movie looked great. In an interview she said she had signed a contract to do a total of 3 movies. What i find interesting is that she is 5 years older than her co-star. She is currently 34.

 

A big win for older actresses wanting lead roles as sex symbols in high budget movies. But what fascinates me is that if she does the other 2 movies she will most likely be in her late 30's to early 40's by the time the last one has been shot and or comes out in theaters. In some of her recent interviews she ha gained weight and makes comments about only eating veggies while preparing to shoot and during filming. She let out some insight into her mind when she talked about it and did not seem to want to loose that weight again. SHe made it sound extremely difficult.

 

So im curious how the other 2 films will unfold. Im guessing her Character may become pregnant to help with this issue. Im also guessing this is the last time we will see her in a metal bikini.

[robcat2075]

Tell her she can have the donuts if she wants. There won't be a 2 and 3.

 

If there were they'd probably shoot them back-to-back like they did with "Pirates OTC" 2 and 3 or "Back to the Future" 2 and 3 so there wouldn't be a big problem with her getting into her 40's.

 

So im curious how the other 2 films will unfold. Im guessing her Character may become pregnant to help with this issue.

 

John Carter and Dejah Thoris do have a child in a later book, but she lays an egg for this. Not covered in great detail, fortunately.

[robcat2075]

apropos of eggs, from later-to-be-famous cartoon director Frank Tashlin's"Van Boring" daily comic strip...

 

 

[robcat2075]

and apropos of cartoon directors... in the 1930's Bob Clampett made the first known proposal to bring John Carter to the screen and did a small bit of test footage:

 

[robcat2075]

And it turns out Disney's own Ward Kimball had a go a envisioning what Barsoom characters might look like

 

 

 

 

more cute stuff and video from the 1950's "Wonderful World of Disney" at the link

 

http://progresscityusa.com/2012/03/15/walt...ars-and-beyond/

[robcat2075]

Now officially a non-success...

 

John Carter loss expected to be $200M

 

Do you ever look at things like that and say "I could have lost you a lot less money for a lot less"

[Fuchur]

Now officially a non-success...

 

John Carter loss expected to be $200M

 

Do you ever look at things like that and say "I could have lost you a lot less money for a lot less"

 

Cant understand why... it has one big logical mistake in it but other than that it was quite entertaining-

(why can he jump 30m in the air (because of lower gravity, etc.) while all the others on the planet can only jump 30 cm (or a normal amount), can kill an alien with only one hit with his fist, can break his bonds of iron,

but one or two of the same aliens are still able to hold him down? I can see why they did it storytelling-wise, but it is unlogically, especially since when the aliens (other tribe but still same species) attack him later he kills many of them alone.

 

Other than that it was fun to watch and the girl was nice, he is a little of an antihero (I like it better that way) and the images and the story was more or less unusual.

And for me, Avatar had not a better story at all (since after all it is more or less only a modern variation of Pocahontas). Avatare has a little better effects, but "bad" is very different from this movie.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[robcat2075]

Cant understand why... it has one big logical mistake in it but other than that it was quite entertaining-

(why can he jump 30m in the air (because of lower gravity, etc.) while all the others on the planet can only jump 30 cm (or a normal amount), can kill an alien with only one hit with his fist, can break his bonds of iron,

but one or two of the same aliens are still able to hold him down? I can see why they did it storytelling-wise, but it is unlogically, especially since when the aliens (other tribe but still same species) attack him later he kills many of them alone.

 

That's the sort of stuff that worked better in the book where more time can be spent explaining it and you dont' actually see it, but in the movie it's barely explained in passing so it's a problem, as you note.

[robcat2075]

If only someone had had a piece of graph paper and a ruler they could have foreseen the outcome...