John Carter: Well Worth Seeing
By
Agonus,
Posted on: 2012-03-10 23:12 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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I don't have a problem with the transporter thing. It's the other parts of it that are broken due to them trying to maintain the story with the astral projection thing. |
Originally Posted by Mental_Giant
Transporters... the idea has been around long enough that it feels less ridiculous than it is.
I like your idea of him thinking he's in Hell, though, because that's a reasonable conclusion based on what happened to him. |
i don't know if the therm are after him on earth in the books like they are in the movie, but that's enough for him to do the things he did for the goal that he achieved. The "copy" aspect and the "protector" aspect should have been dropped because they just don't work.
And now that i'm thinking about it with the change in background of the therms they make even less sense with that technology because why are you making copies of yourself on barbarous worlds that are in the process of dying? Isn't the last thing you want to do... especially if you're doing it a lot. which means there are clones of you on multiple super dangerous barbarous worlds that are on the verge of some destruction... This is part of the reason you don't change certain elements of a story, in particular its "universe" because then a whole bunch of plotholes arise from those things that weren't there before.
Imagine in the future someone in the future makes Tom Sawyer, but because "white washing" a fence by hand is silly because they have robots that ca do that so he changes it... You have just ruined the story because without that the following rest of the story makes no sense and you might as well just stop right there.
I've now read the first three(or is it four) books in the Barsoom series. I loved the movie. I think the changes they made were done well and made it easier for people who haven't read the books to understand.
SPOILERS
I was concerned when I watched one preview and it mentioned an alien threat that was taking over planets. But when they turned it into the Therns using up the natural resources I was okay with that. Also the fact that they were followers of Issus fit in with the story even after what you later find out in later books. I was concerned that bringing the Therns into the mix so early would be confusing but I think it worked well. I was a bit disappointed in the River Issus only because I expected to see White Apes instead of a tribe of Green Men.
Speaking of the Green Men and Woola were great visually. I was a little disappointed with the quick once over of Sola's story but I understand why they condensed it.
SPOILERS off
Kinrad - Dajah Thoris is definitely the "damsel in distress" even though she is protrayed as a strong women. In the books she is the cause of all of John Carter's escapades in the books. It's also a theme ERB follows through the Barsoom series that I've read so far. I had to take a break because of it actually. My boss at work told me he didn't like the LOTR movies because he felt like every five seconds they were in a big fight, would win, then get in another fight ad nauseum. ERB's use of the hero going to save the woman got to me in much the same way.
My son and I really enjoyed the movie. So much that my son now wants to read the books. Which for him if it's not a comic or video game is a miracle. :-P
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The story more than diverges a little. Once they leave they're pursuing a different goal against a different antagonist in different locations. They do both feature an arena fight, but different events happen in each of the arena fights so I don't know it really counts.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
The story diverges only a little when they leave the Tharks and is actually better in overall because of it because the story of the movie is "we must save Barsoom" but there is no "saving" of Barsoom in the 2012 one other than maybe in some meta way where saving the princess saves the planet where as in the other one I saw saves the planet via literal saving the planet's atmosphere, which if wiki is to be believed from a slight skimming seems to be taking a few elements from later stories or the book that this movie left out.
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I don't really agree that a film having bigger stakes than another makes it better. If you disagree that's fine, but it just doesn't make sense to me since I don't really think the stakes in a film have much bearing on the overall quality of the film.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
according to wiki the "transported" is treated as an astral projection of sorts where they aren't really on the same plain, if I'm reading it correctly...
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Interesting note, in the Asylum version of the story John isn't sent there through technology from Barsoom, he's sent there as a scout by a secret shady government group that has technology to teleport people to a planet called Mars in another solar system. Of course they do that after sending an Afghani opium dealer through.
Personally, of the two I like the newer version more.
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Completely separate from that fact, it should be obvious that a movie must gross significantly more than it costs to make to break even for the production studio, because they don't get every single dollar of those grosses. They get the bulk of them in the initial week(s) of US release, but that shifts to the theater operators in successive weeks and overseas release revenue is handled completely differently from US theater releases. Studios are often splitting the revenue for overseas releases with overseas distributors right from the start.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
You're right to be confused by Hollywood accounting....
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Hollywood accounting is something else entirely: its essentially the extremely shady accounting practice of allowing a company to make money off of a project, while the project itself loses money. What's interesting is that these accounting practices would never pass muster anywhere else but in the entertainment industry: it would be considered malpractice of the first order for these practices to survive audit.
There's a really simple way of explaining Hollywood accounting. Take a movie, and give it to Vinny. Vinny is going to make and distribute the movie, and pay all the expenses for making the movie and distributing it, and then get all the revenue for showing it. If Vinny has any money at the end, ask Vinny for all his money. After Vinny gives that money to you, show that Vinny is broke. Ergo, the movie didn't make money.
Its surprisingly no more complicated than that. You use an intermediary to represent "the movie" that isn't you, that way you can make money, while the intermediary loses money. Then you claim that even though the movie made money for you it didn't make money for the intermediary and thus the movie didn't make money.
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i agree, but that's not what I meant at all... the point is that the overall is better in this case because both plots propose to be a way to save Barsoom. The 2012 movie never specifies how this is the case and could be taken as metaphor if not for the Therms, but you only really get exposition about them so the story is incomplete because there is too much emphasis on the saving of Barsoom. where as in the Asylum movie you are told Barsoom is in danger, here's why, and then it is resolved. It's not about stakes it's that it follows through.|
Originally Posted by Oliin
I don't really agree that a film having bigger stakes than another makes it better. If you disagree that's fine, but it just doesn't make sense to me since I don't really think the stakes in a film have much bearing on the overall quality of the film.
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Basically the 2012 film isn't really that good in terms of story telling and I'm pretty sure it's more on side of the Movie than the story itself being bad... i haven't read the book yet... I will I've decided to listen to the audiobook version of the Barsoom books and the Discworld books...If you think about it this movie is a Romantic adventure where there should be light amounts of background information that piques your interest, but is never focused on, BUT that's not what the movie does... The movie sets the stakes as saving Barsoom and gives you all this exposition and why Carter is doing this or that with an under lying Romance and you end with a big fight seen that ultimately ends in not saving the world but saving the princess so that you get a romantic ending.
I don't know who made the decision to go with this script or this cut, but whoever it is I really wouldn't allow them those decisions in the future because they show a fundamental lack of understanding about story telling. If it's the Director then I would tell him to stick to directing and not those other parts because he doesn't know what he's doing there.
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| See, for some reason I thought you were talking in general about the technology of the people from Barsoom, not specifically about how John got there. |
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Interesting note, in the Asylum version of the story John isn't sent there through technology from Barsoom, he's sent there as a scout by a secret shady government group that has technology to teleport people to a planet called Mars in another solar system. Of course they do that after sending an Afghani opium dealer through. Personally, of the two I like the newer version more. |
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Eh, must have misunderstood you again. I figured you were saying that the more immediate threat of the atmosphere disappearing was a bigger and better threat than a guy who's explicitly stated to be going around conquering and destroying cities and that's why the Asylum one was better. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
i agree, but that's not what I meant at all... the point is that the overall is better in this case because both plots propose to be a way to save Barsoom. The 2012 movie never specifies how this is the case and could be taken as metaphor if not for the Therms,
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The threat was pretty clear cut and explained in the first couple minutes of the movie. Stop Kantos Kan and save the day while leaving the 'bigger' threat of the priests there for a sequel. That he was marrying Dejah Thoris was just his means of conquering Helium.
Still though, I don't see how the threat exactly makes a move better or worse. What makes the movie good or not (to me) are things like the script, acting, directing, cinematography and (to a much lesser extent) special effects. And in those regards the new one trumped the Asylum version in all cases. That's even with the somewhat average performances of Taylor Kitsch(John Carter) and Lynn Collins(Dejah Thoris).
Now for me at least there's a big difference between 'fun' and 'good'. I've seen plenty of movies that were undeniably bad, but I always find a ton of fun and I'll freely admit that John Carter of Mars as a film is more of a fun film than a good one. It's really only average as far as it goes, but I thought it was a lot of fun. The Asylum version on the other hand is neither fun nor good.
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| I'm not so sure that's right on the aspect of him being a scout. He's sent there with no way of getting back no way to communicate. Also if I remember right it's not instant teleportation tech, but rather it's like hundreds of thousands of years later when he wakes up. |
I do find it somewhat entertaining that the three writers (one of which is the director) of the recent film have so many awards between them and they ended up with an average to decent movie. They have 2 Academy Awards (and multiple nominations), an Emmy, a Pulitzer, and both the Hugo and Nebula. I know it happens, but it always strikes me as somewhat entertaining when it does.
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Sorta... |
Originally Posted by Oliin
Eh, must have misunderstood you again. I figured you were saying that the more immediate threat of the atmosphere disappearing was a bigger and better threat than a guy who's explicitly stated to be going around conquering and destroying cities and that's why the Asylum one was better.
The threat was pretty clear cut and explained in the first couple minutes of the movie. Stop Kantos Kan and save the day while leaving the 'bigger' threat of the priests there for a sequel. That he was marrying Dejah Thoris was just his means of conquering Helium. Still though, I don't see how the threat exactly makes a move better or worse. What makes the movie good or not (to me) are things like the script, acting, directing, cinematography and (to a much lesser extent) special effects. And in those regards the new one trumped the Asylum version in all cases. That's even with the somewhat average performances of Taylor Kitsch(John Carter) and Lynn Collins(Dejah Thoris). |
Spoilers...
The movie start and the Therm give the weapon to the conqueror. Ok.
The Princess says that if the conqueror wins it will spell the end of Barsoom. Ok.
And then you wait... and wait... and wait... and forget... and then realize... HOW will the Conqueror spell the end for Barsoom?
No clue. There isn't any reason that is the case so the princess is idiotically talking in hyperbole the entire time.
But wait, throughout the film we are shown that the real threat is the therm... in that they want the one side to win... for some reason and don't want the other side to advance for some reason and say all worlds are doomed to death because they suck apparently, but in the end they have equal tech and the blue power thing doesn't seem like it can do anything other than increase the speed of the destruction as we never really see it for anything that would prove useful other than a weapon immediately...
So there is no threat there. The stakes are a lie, but that doesn't keep them from being built up... and then at the end we don't ever find out how exactly they were a threat, the blue power is evidently never developed, and the threat that we are lead to believe exist isn't revealed or defeated in any significant way.
So in other words...
The true stakes of the movie is "The Heart and Life of the Princess"
The movie however builds and never does anything really with "The fate of Barsoom and whether it will die or not"
So you have this confusion of Carter is truly questing for the hart of the woman and this whole other story is being focused on to make it larger than it is.
The Lorax, according to Nchick, has the same problem, and Final Fantasy XII suffers from a similar problem where the story is focused on the wrong person so it cripples a lot of the story telling.
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| Now for me at least there's a big difference between 'fun' and 'good'. I've seen plenty of movies that were undeniably bad, but I always find a ton of fun and I'll freely admit that John Carter of Mars as a film is more of a fun film than a good one. It's really only average as far as it goes, but I thought it was a lot of fun. The Asylum version on the other hand is neither fun nor good. |
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| I do find it somewhat entertaining that the three writers (one of which is the director) of the recent film have so many awards between them and they ended up with an average to decent movie. They have 2 Academy Awards (and multiple nominations), an Emmy, a Pulitzer, and both the Hugo and Nebula. I know it happens, but it always strikes me as somewhat entertaining when it does. |
I just finished seeing most of it. I had to walk out. For me this movie had no pathos. I spent about two hours trying to figure out why anyone was important and then concluded that I don't care. From the looks of it most everyone who posted rave reviews here is familiar with the source material. Going into it I had a vague idea of what it was about and knew of its storied history. The writing was touch and go, only skimming the surface of the characters and didn't do a very good job of getting the uninitiated into context and up to date. To compare, an example of a movie that does this very well would be Serenity. I wasn't the only one to feel this way as I heard some very audible 'Wait, what?'s and some folks scratching their heads.
I was hoping for a pulpy period piece that meshed well with sci-fi. Again citing an example of this being done properly would be the Doctor Who episodes "Human Nature" followed by "Family of Blood". I really think the film missed an opportunity to immerse the audience by skimping on the idiosyncrasies and vernacular of the late 1800s/ early 1900s.
The design of the weapons and ships were very striking and nothing short of the innovation seen in Avatar but sadly this is pretty much all the good I can say about the movie.
I'm a fan of Taylor Kitsch in his role as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights but really didn't see much range in the titular character. Lynn Collins' Dejah also wasn't very faceted. All in all, a let down and judging by the numbers, the chances for a sequel appear to be dwindling.
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Haven't seen it yet, but teleportation usually involves reading the person to be teleported and having a beam of energy travels through space and forms the person in another location or the person travels through a high enough dimension which doesn't involve being transformed into a beam of energy. The first method would have the original stay and a duplicate travels to another location while the second has no change to the physical and mental makeup of the person.
If the movie uses the first method, then the teleportation device could have created a VR simulation of the world or at least the nearby area and sky to use as a menu for determining destination. That would explain the astral projection and why looking at the sky transported him to another planet.
There is the possibility that just his consciousness was transferred so his body stayed home and his consciousness inhabited a blank slate. It could also be that he just got knocked out and it was all in his head.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
I want to mention something else that gave me hope for the movie and for kids in general. At the end of the movie when people were leaving a tween girl with her family said to her father "That was the awesomest movie ever" and when her dad didn't reply she said "No, I'm serious. That movie was great!"
I think the opening weekend just did so poorly for two reasons.
One, the advertising for the movie was pure crap. It looked like the movie would be horrible. I almost avoided myself because I didn't want to see a series I loved wind up totally trashed.
But right now most of the independent geek reviewers are giving it good reviews. This will bring in at least some of the geeks who were avoiding it because of the previews.
Two, it was opposite the Lorax. So parents of young children had no choice but to take those children to see the Lorax this weekend.
Sure it only made 30 million over the weekend but I think it might actually do better over the next couple weekends at least.
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The princess doesn't trust Soldanga, and if they win then Barsoom loses. Soldanga had been destroying cities for years. All of this is in the film. Even if you didn't catch all that, it's clear that Helium are the good guys and Soldanga are the bad guys, so if Soldanga wins it's the end of the Barsoomian way of life.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Spoilers...
The movie start and the Therm give the weapon to the conqueror. Ok. The Princess says that if the conqueror wins it will spell the end of Barsoom. Ok. And then you wait... and wait... and wait... and forget... and then realize... HOW will the Conqueror spell the end for Barsoom? No clue. There isn't any reason that is the case so the princess is idiotically talking in hyperbole the entire time. |
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| But wait, throughout the film we are shown that the real threat is the therm... in that they want the one side to win... for some reason and don't want the other side to advance for some reason and say all worlds are doomed to death because they suck apparently, but in the end they have equal tech and the blue power thing doesn't seem like it can do anything other than increase the speed of the destruction as we never really see it for anything that would prove useful other than a weapon immediately... |
Now, I'm still a little fuzzy about why they insisted that Dejah Thoris be married and then murdered. Something to do with crushing the hopes of the last civilization on Barsoom and making it fall that much quicker, I think.
But aside from that I think the film was pretty clear in its explanations. I grokked it all. I have read the books, but that was about thirty years ago, and in any event the therns weren't in the books in this manner.
I thought it was an excellent movie. There were a couple flaws, but most of them were in execution -- I only know of one true plot hole and it was pretty minor. (The thern amulet, apparently, does travel from Earth to Barsoom and does not create a copy of itself. That's the only explanation for why Carter didn't have the original amulet when he woke up back in the cave.)
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No it's not. It's the end of the Helium way of living or even just HER way of living.|
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
The princess doesn't trust Soldanga, and if they win then Barsoom loses. Soldanga had been destroying cities for years. All of this is in the film. Even if you didn't catch all that, it's clear that Helium are the good guys and Soldanga are the bad guys, so if Soldanga wins it's the end of the Barsoomian way of life.
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| The therns 'eat' the energy from dying civilizations. They were helping Soldanga because it was destroying Barsoom. All of this is in the exposition from the thern that had John Carter captive. |
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It made $70 million internationally the opening weekend, but that's probably still not enough for a sequel.
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Originally Posted by Mandu
Sure it only made 30 million over the weekend but I think it might actually do better over the next couple weekends at least.
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John Carter may in fact BE Mars. Your theory works very well.|
Originally Posted by Olantern
I went to the midnight showing last week, partly because I was up anyway. It wasn't the book, which is one of my favorites. I went in knowing it could never live up to that, and so I wasn't disappointed. Indeed, I found it very entertaining.
The high point for me was the portrayal of the Green Men, almost exactly as I had imagined them. I understand the director was primarily an animation guy, so I suppose this makes sense. The low point was the performance of the actor who portrayed John Carter. Aside from his just being rather wooden, you know something's off when a character who proclaims himself a Virginian at every possible opportunity is the only character in a scene without a Southern accent. Again, with a director unused to working with live actors, this, too, makes sense. A disappointing but extremely necessary point to make the movie work were the changes to the villains, Carter's transportation to Mars, and even Carter's backstory. I can't imagine a film audience, or even a literary audience, for that matter, accepting these things in the form Burroughs wrote them originally (villains as almost unnoticeable characters, totally unexplained, and being a mysteriously ageless soldier, respectively, for those who don't know the novels). Story conventions have just changed too much over the past century. I was disappointed to lose the original version here, but I thought the changes were handled well. On the last point, (the literary) Carter's unexplained agelessness, my personal pet theory has always been that Carter is, in fact, the basis for the legends of the god Mars himself. Burroughs never gives any hint of having even thought of this, let alone written it into a story, but I still enjoy the idea. What do you think? |
In the books as I recall, John Carter remembers fighting in wars before the civil war, and that implies he is imortal.
John Carter is the very archetype of the eternal warrior, god of war; etc...
It's a great explanation.
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Well, it's largely because it's not said to other people...|
Originally Posted by Aneko
You can certainly argue that if you like, but I find it odd that no other character in the movie questions it. Is this some conspiracy theory?
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She attempts to say it to her father, but he blows her off
She tells Carter, but he doesn't seem to care.
Carter uses something similar to get the Tharks to fight which is Soldanga is going to conquer Helium and after they are done there they are going to kill you so you should team with Helium to deal with Soldanga before it's too late. This is not the same as "the end of Barsoom"
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Dejah Thoris was stating her *opinion*. In her opinion, a Barsoom ruled by Soldanga would be a disaster and would lead to the end of Barsoom. She held that opinion because Soldanga was, by any measure, evil.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
She attempts to say it to her father, but he blows her off
She tells Carter, but he doesn't seem to care. Carter uses something similar to get the Tharks to fight which is Soldanga is going to conquer Helium and after they are done there they are going to kill you so you should team with Helium to deal with Soldanga before it's too late. This is not the same as "the end of Barsoom" |
She happened to be right on another level because of the thern, but she didn't know that.
Why are you stuck on this point, when it's just the opinion of one character? How does this reflect on the film in any way? It's a good movie. I'm sorry that this one character's dialog bothers you.
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Hi guys,
There's no reason this thread should end up negatively charged. Please keep the discussion civil and without anger. I'm personally thinking about going to see this film, but I feel guilty about not reading the books first 
.
Thanks!
Moderator 13
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If you have a kindle or the amazon reader app. on your computer you can find them in the amazon library gratis. Go see the movie this weekend anyhow I know I am, support the possibility of a sequel.
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Originally Posted by Moderator 13
Hi guys,
There's no reason this thread should end up negatively charged. Please keep the discussion civil and without anger. I'm personally thinking about going to see this film, but I feel guilty about not reading the books first .Thanks! Moderator 13 |
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Actually I'd suggest getting the books off of Project Gutenberg myself. Mostly to expose more people to a fantastic e-book resource. You can find e-books of thousands of books that are out of copyright from Tolstoy to Burroughs. |
Originally Posted by OmegaS
If you have a kindle or the amazon reader app. on your computer you can find them in the amazon library gratis.
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Plus that way you're not limited to just the kindle app since they have epub versions available.
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One of the weirdest things about this whole disaster is that apparently the budget didn't actually go up that much - which means it wasn't the result of the stuido throwing money at it to try and save it as an altenrative to just dumping it and cutting their losses - there was actually someone at Disney who, at some point, agreed to give it a budget larger than the entire LotR trilogy 
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I enjoyed it, but considering some of the people involved, from Walter White to Sinestro to McNulty to the Green Goblin to the director, there's a lot of talent there. Plus I thought Gambit was pretty good, and Silver Fox showed she can actually, y'know, act AND look hot as all get out.
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Rumor has it that Richard Cook was largely responsible for how John Carter was made, but he left the company before the movie was released. So Disney still released the movie to avoid an utter disaster, but they half***ed the marketing because A) those still at Disney did not like what Cook allowed for Carter, B) Avengers is right around the corner, and they're going to focus the marketing on that anyway or C) a little of both.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
One of the weirdest things about this whole disaster is that apparently the budget didn't actually go up that much - which means it wasn't the result of the stuido throwing money at it to try and save it as an altenrative to just dumping it and cutting their losses - there was actually someone at Disney who, at some point, agreed to give it a budget larger than the entire LotR trilogy
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Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
I saw it. I liked it. It wasn't accurate to physics, or possesing an overly complicated thought-provoking plot. It was by no means a "perfect" movie (whatever the heck that means).
But...
It was a fun movie, and fairly faithful to the original ERB stories, which is what I was looking for.
If they made more movies like this, I might actually go more often.
(as a side note, is anyone else here irritated that many of the reviewers talk about the lack of originality of the story and concept, with an obvious ignorance that The Barsoom novels predate most of their analogs by the better part of a century?)
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This kind of thing happens ALL the time and I HATE it with a PASSION.
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Originally Posted by Jet_Boy
(as a side note, is anyone else here irritated that many of the reviewers talk about the lack of originality of the story and concept, with an obvious ignorance that The Barsoom novels predate most of their analogs by the better part of a century?)
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The development team and this community deserved better than this from NC Soft. Best wishes on your search.
Just saw it, and thought it was pretty darn nifty. It was very pretty, had some good humour, fun fights and all in all good movie.
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I like your idea of him thinking he's in Hell, though, because that's a reasonable conclusion based on what happened to him.
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