If you were lucky/connected enough to get to go to D23 Expo – Disney’s showoff party for their D23 fanclub – then you got to see some footage from the new John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) movie. Reports are on both io9 and AICN, but as both of those sites seem to be competing on who can mindlessly love everything ever even slightly nerdy, take their enthusiasm with a grain of bitter reality. Luckily, AICN’s report is by Quint, the least impressed by shiny things of the writers there.

Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe and Lynn Collins were with director Andrew Stanton as he showed the footage.

AICN sez:

I still have the same basic problem with footage I’ve already seen (in that Mars isn’t nearly fantastic enough…

…

However Woola’s introduction scene they showed today is the very first thing I’ve seen from Stanton’s John Carter that I love without reservation.

The rest of the footage they described back in July, around the same time others got first looks.

io9 sez:

Before Stanton and the actors left the D23 stage, they played one last bit of footage. Carter and Tarkas finds themsleves in a Thark arena about to be executed. Tarkas is badly injured and Carter’s leg is chained to a rock. A colossal, six-limbed white ape is then released. It charges them, swatting them out of the way like gnats. Carter recovers and starts leaping over the white ape. He seems about ready to break the chain tying him to the rock, which is when a rather bored-sounding Thark in the stands declares, “Release the other one.”

You can read the links for full descriptions.