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Post by Finarvyn on Mar 9, 2012 19:36:39 GMT -6
Just finished watching the John Carter movie. I loved it. If you get hung up over purist details you might not like it, but I found it to be pretty well done. Some thoughts and comments (and I'll try to avoid spoilers):
1. The backstory changed a little. JC isn't a prospector but is a retired cavalry officer and the army wants to get him back in service. They also added more ERB scenes and gave JC some motivation other than "must save princess."
2. The movie starts out with some strange special effects with blue lights, etc. I was turned off at first, thinking about movies that tried to make things too "wow" but ended up "ugh." After a while I mostly forgot about that stuff and just enjoyed the movie.
3. Dejah Thoris' character has evolved into a modern version. No longer a passive "help me" princess, Dejah is a trained scientist and swings a sword with some mean skill. I think this will appeal to a modern crowd and think my daughter will love the character, but some old farts will compain about not being true to the novel.
4. The movie actually combines elements of A PRINCESS OF MARS and THE GODS OF MARS. Somehow I thought it would just cover the plot of the first book, but I liked the way they put it all together.
Overall I thought it was a lot of fun and the best movie I've seen in a few months. I'm looking forward to getting the family together and going to see it again.
Anyone else see it? Reactions?
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Post by darkling on Mar 10, 2012 0:17:37 GMT -6
I think that it opens poorly. Much of the first ~20 minutes felt really rushed, rough draft. Not saying that they weren't good scenes or good ideas, but the writing seemed off, the effects kind of stumbled, etc.
After that, I loved it. This is probably the best adventure film I have seen in recent memory (possibly since my childhood). It is also the sole film based on pulp sources that manages to move me in the same way its source material does. It's beautiful, wonderful, savage, and highly entertaining. Also, let's reiterate that penultimate point: they manage to authentically capture a piece of the savage nature of Barsoom in a PG-13 film made by Disney.
Moreover the creators have explicitly stayed away from certain tropes that I just despise in modern filmaking. That coupled with relative paucity of planetary romance in modern pop-culture make the movie feel very fresh and different from the usual fare.
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Post by xerxez on Mar 10, 2012 1:28:27 GMT -6
I just came from the film at the new IMAX 3-D theater in our city. I did enjoy the film, and as a film I will give it a high B. As per Barsoom and Burroughs authenticity, I'm afraid it gets a D or maybe even an F. There are hints of John Carter of Mars in this screen hero, and hints of Deja Thoris, but it does not develop either of them enough, or other important characters. It does not follow the books and takes a great deal of liberty in addition of elements. It also did not even evoke any theme at all, let alone the themes explored by Burroughs. It's simply a romp. It makes a caricature out of John Carters loyal beast, but to be fair, it's a Disney film and this is one thing that will appeal to kids. The overall feel of the film was not grim enough for me, but Disney's usual target audiences will probably enjoy it. I will say that the redeeming quality for me was the portrayal of the tharks--the Green Martian culture sequences really evoked the books. I agree with darkling that the film avoids tropes, and I'm so glad they didn't politicize it with regards to the Confederacy and related issues. I agree with Finarvyn in some respects--I think modern crowds will like the film, Deja will appeal to girls, and kids of all ages will really enjoy this as a movie experience. It's just, I wanted it to scribe for the books..... I do feel the story was captured well in this online graphic novel--beware the link below, it is on the official ERB website but it is highly sexually charged. It's a brilliant interpretation, though... It uses the actual text and copiously illustrates it... www.erbzine.com/mag13/1302.html |
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Post by doc on Mar 10, 2012 19:36:02 GMT -6
We saw it this evening, I really don't know if it was a good movie or a bad one. The CGI was good, and the 3D was really great. The musical score really worked well also.
They took some really glaring liberties with the characters and dialogue, though. John Carter just wasn't John Carter. They took the genteel southern gentleman and revamped him into a reckless nonconformist a la Han Solo. Gone is his back story of being an amnestic immortal. Instead we get a generic history of a wife and daughter that were murdered while he was away at war. Dejah Thoris, who is in no way "incomparable" in the film, has gone from being proud and aristocratic to a warrior-scientist who is able to keep up with John in combat and thus is "empowered" to not need saving. The towering green tharks are shown more sympathetically, their cruelty downplayed in the film, and Tars Tarkus is shown with more humanity than most of the humans in the movie.
None of the distinct details that make Barsoom stand out as a setting are really included, such as the very formal laws regarding which weapons are allowable in which situations and the intricate rules for Barsoomian romance, and just how important honor is to the entire society. Also, the Red Planet looks more sepia than anything else. And of course, being a Disney film, they give John a loveable animal sidekick.
I guess that was my big problem with it. It didn't feel like the book ERB wrote back in 1912; they instead felt the need to update it in ways that I felt didn't work. The film in general had a vibe like the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. Not that that's a bad thing, but it really wasn't what I was hoping for in a movie based on the very first iconic science fiction setting. I wanted more gravity (pardon the all-too-obvious pun) and ended up with a popcorn flick. It was certainly fun and entertaining. I felt like I got my money's worth; it was certainly a fun romp with a lot of cheering and fists pumping... but ultimately forgettable.
Doc
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Post by Morandir on Mar 10, 2012 21:18:36 GMT -6
Posting from my phone. Just saw it. Disney owes me $9.75. That is all.
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Post by cleverkobold on Mar 10, 2012 21:53:54 GMT -6
I just saw John Carter. Although it may not be 100 percent accurate, I did get the feeling that the people in charge of the film were true ERB fans and really wanted to give the books the respect that they deserved. For the most part I think that they did. It was a great movie, and at least to me, felt like barsoom.
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Post by DungeonDevil on Mar 20, 2012 1:01:45 GMT -6
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 20, 2012 4:40:36 GMT -6
Not just "a" flop, but apparently... I wanted to like it, but found it an underwhelming production (as I wrote in the other thread a couple of weeks back). POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD! STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND STILL INTEND TO! Now that I've had time to mull it over a bit it seems to me that ultimately it was a failure of story telling that dragged it down to such lows. A film doesn't need $350 million to be a success, but it sure needs a decent story. Unfortunately, the JC writers failed to produce one despite the wealth of source material at their disposal, and audiences responded accordingly. Looking at it critically, the central story of the film was: How JC made it back to Mars after getting stranded on Earth. Yet 90% of the screen time was devoted to a sub-plot about what happened previously that made him want to get back there. The actual "story" was crammed into the remaining 10% of screen time, along with a couple of other sub-plots that contributed nothing to the film... or in fact detracted further from it. It is quite amazing to me that big budget film makers seem to "forget" the (probably) least expensive but most fundamental part of the film making process; story telling! And then go on to burn huge piles o' cash on a B grade flick that could have been AAA grade with just a little more care  |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Mar 20, 2012 10:11:37 GMT -6
As in the case of the last "Conan" flick: the industry thinks they can 'improve' upon the source material, thereby alientating the core fanbase of the properties. Epic Fail.
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Azafuse
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 245
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Post by Azafuse on Mar 20, 2012 12:13:07 GMT -6
As in the case of the last "Conan" flick: the industry thinks they can 'improve' upon the source material, thereby alientating the core fanbase of the properties. Epic Fail. Core fanbase is too poor to be aimed as a primary target, because core fanbase is a poor market for such products. JC simply failed as a Disney product. |
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Post by jmccann on Mar 20, 2012 21:19:00 GMT -6
I saw the movie over the weekend. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I thought it was as good as could be expected from Hollywood.
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 30, 2012 11:34:08 GMT -6
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Post by Finarvyn on Mar 30, 2012 12:09:06 GMT -6
I saw the movie over the weekend. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I thought it was as good as could be expected from Hollywood. Now if we can only get another 100 million friends to give it a look...  |
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Post by snorri on Mar 30, 2012 14:59:10 GMT -6
I enjoyed the movie, and so did my dear mum  I'm happy that my mum was happy. |
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Post by jmccann on Mar 30, 2012 21:22:44 GMT -6
I think people just need to face the fact that Hollywood is not going to produce any fantasy or SF which will do justice to any book in the minds of fans of the book.
It will never happen. Get over it, and take the movies as an entertaining and diverting way to spend a couple hours. Just skip the movie if you demand faithfulness to the book as a condition of enjoyment because you will be disappointed otherwise.
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Post by Finarvyn on Mar 31, 2012 6:35:02 GMT -6
I think people just need to face the fact that Hollywood is not going to produce any fantasy or SF which will do justice to any book in the minds of fans of the book. I've been thinking about this -- has there ever in the history of Hollywood filmmaking been a movie that was 100% canon of the source book? Harry Potter came close, and with J.K.Rawling giving some direct feedback along the way, but even then some scenes were left out. I think that there are a few fundamental problems with books-to-movies in that: 1. What may be a simple line in a book ("I gazed at the barren landscape" or "the shelf was full of all sorts of unique items") may be a huge undertaking in a movie. 2. And much of the thinking of characters (which is obvious in a book) has to be redone in speaking dialogue or cheezy Dune voiceover in order for the viewer to understand what is going on. These two facts alone make filmmaking very different from written words and I suspect that many of the changes in John Carter (and other movies) were an attempt to deal with one or more of these things. For example, JC's motivation has changed from "Virginia Gentleman Paladin" to "Grumpy Ex-Soldier who no longer wants to fight for a cause" and I suspect it is simply because the viewer can get it faster. I'm not talking about the guy who's already read the books, because they don't need to undertand the character, but the guy who just walked in off the street and wants to be entertained. In the same way, the creators of the movie introduced elements from other books in an attempt to evolve the basic story (guy goes to Mars, guy saves princess, guy goes back to Earth) into something more complete (same as above, but guy has plan to trick bad guys into getting him back to Mars). I don't know if the movie has a "better" plotline, but it probably is more complete and satisfying to the casual movie-goer. Imagine filming the actual story of A Princess of Mars and ending on a cliffhanger, but then never filming the next movie. That would annoy quite a few viewers as well. Anyway, just some rambling from an old guy.  |
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Post by darkling on Mar 31, 2012 18:30:36 GMT -6
I think people just need to face the fact that Hollywood is not going to produce any fantasy or SF which will do justice to any book in the minds of fans of the book. It will never happen. Get over it, and take the movies as an entertaining and diverting way to spend a couple hours. Just skip the movie if you demand faithfulness to the book as a condition of enjoyment because you will be disappointed otherwise. I have always been of two minds on this matter. For one I actively don't want to see a book turned verbatim into a film. I have the book. I love the book. I am happy to read the book (and possibly even cram it into an RPG system and tell my own story off of it). I really don't get why I would want to go sit and watch a movie that is exactly the same as something already readily available to me. However, I don't think that means that a move can't be faithful to a book or do justice to a book. Which are probably two different things. For instance I would say that John Carter is not faithful to Under the Moons of Mars, but that it does do it justice. Whereas the Jackson LOTR movies are both faithful and do justice to the books (which does not mean I think they are "perfect"). Importantly neither of these works are just verbatim copies. |
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busman
Level 6 Magician
Playing OD&D, once again. Since 2008!
Posts: 448
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Post by busman on Mar 31, 2012 20:02:16 GMT -6
Whereas the Jackson LOTR movies are both faithful and do justice to the books I take deep exception with this, most especially with The Two Towers. There were some groundshaking departures that well reversed the motivations of characters introduced new things that never occurred, etc. But, even there, it was likely done for a reason, and to the greater point, no movie is going perfectly faithful to the book. |
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Post by scottenkainen on Feb 21, 2013 10:05:25 GMT -6
Best movie of 2012. Seriously. Should have swept the Oscars.
~Scott "-enkainen" Casper
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Post by talysman on Feb 21, 2013 17:03:42 GMT -6
I didn't see it back when this thread first ran, but I saw it recently. It's a reasonably good movie. I think there were some unnecessary additions that bogged the movie down. Some other changes that I didn't mind, even if they were significant, like starting Tars Tarkas as a jeddak instead of having him fight to become jeddak.
The issue of a film being faithful to a book depends on whether a change is necessary to make the film flow right, vs. whether it changes the meaning or theme of the book.
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I'm happy that my mum was happy.
