John Carter (Review)
John Carter
aka John Carter of Mars
2012
Written by Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon
Directed by Andrew Stanton
As you might expect, I’m a rather big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom stories. I have the whole series in old out of print volumes culled from bookstores across the country. I have many other Burroughs books and other pulp novels. I have the Guide to Barsoom and some other books where Martians show up, and some of the old Marvel comics. You might say I like this crazy fantasy stuff. So, yes, I was excited that we were finally getting our big screen Barsoom film. Then it got renamed John Carter.
After 100 years, A Princess of Mars is finally coming to the big screen (if you ignore Asylum’s DTV Princess of Mars…) as John Carter. John Carter. No “Of Mars”, no “A Princess of Mars”, no nothing. Add to that all the other abysmal marketing Disney did for the film, and suddenly the rumors that this will be the biggest box office bomb in the history of the planet and the red planet as well started to spring up. “Whatever,” I said, because I’ll let the movie speak for itself. And the movie has finally spoken. And it’s good. Not excellent, but good. Good enough that John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) should be doing better at the box office than it is tracking. Good enough that the naysayers were wrong, even if John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) does lose a lot of money, it is not because John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) failed.
That is not to say there isn’t any problems. There are. Some are pretty big. But I’ll get to most of them. But a simple review like this right after watching on opening night doesn’t do John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) justice, so rest assured there will be another, longer, super detailed, mega-ultra-hyper-giga-supreme-double-secret-comprehensive review once John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) is on DVD and I can screencap and watch a bajillion times to my heart’s content.
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
March 10, 2012 at 2:50 am
Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Andrew Stanton, Bryan Cranston, Ciarán Hinds, Daryl Sabara, Dominic West, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Purefoy, John Carter, Lynn Collins, Mark Andrews, Mark Strong, Michael Chabon, Polly Walker, Samantha Morton, Taylor Kitsch, Thomas Haden Church, Willem Dafoe
John Carter of Mindless Violence
Here’s the last John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) trailer, and it looks like they went from explaining nothing and looking boring to explaining nothing and having mindless violence. So. Yeah. Still no mention of “Directed by the guy who did Wall-E” or “From the writer who brought you Tarzan”. It’s a damn shame that people on the internet have done a way better job promoting John Carter than Disney, and we have absolutely nothing riding on this except the cost of our movie ticket. At least my old copies of the Barsoom books will still be there (though mine are in storage atm with most of my other pulp novels!)
Jimmy Carter of Mars via
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
February 28, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Categories: Movie News Tags: Andrew Stanton, Barsoom, John Carter of Mars, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe
John Carter of Different Trailer
Here is a trailer spot for John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) that showed up on ComingSoon.com, which features the odd line about how the Martians are going to invade Earth or something. In case you are wondering, that’s not in the books at all. It is weird, each trailer is either really good or really terrible.
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
February 8, 2012 at 2:01 am
Categories: Movie News Tags: Andrew Stanton, Barsoom, John Carter of Mars, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe
John Carter of Extended Super Bowl Ad
Hey, they cut out the “Ma’am” in the “Yes, ma’am”! That makes that scene 100% less corny. So here is your extended commercial for John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) that has a bit more new footage. Things still don’t look totally awesome, but at least we’re seeing some nice action pieces, things exploding, and apes being killed by huge rocks.
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
February 5, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Categories: Movie News Tags: Andrew Stanton, Barsoom, John Carter of Mars, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe
John Carter of TV Spots
Two new tv spots for John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) One is just as bland as the trailers, one is more exciting than the trailers.
The more boring commercial:
The far less boring commercial:
Time will tell if John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) can break free of the stigma of looking too much like boring films that ripped it off that past 100 years and become a hit. But if it is more like the second commercial than the first, then a chance is had.
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
December 17, 2011 at 10:08 am
Categories: Movie News Tags: Andrew Stanton, Barsoom, John Carter of Mars, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe
John Carter of Banners
Some John Carter banners via Beyond Hollywood:
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
December 1, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Categories: Movie News Tags: Andrew Stanton, Barsoom, John Carter of Mars, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe