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John Carter

Cheyenne

Cheyenne

Ms. Smarty Pantsless
Joined
Apr 18, 2000
Posts
59,554
We liked it, even though our local critic hated it and gave it 1.5 stars, saying it was likely to lose a lot of money.

Who wouldn't love a speedy dog that is devoted to you?
 
In looking to see if anyone had discussed this movie I found out two things:
One, that a lot of folks sling some serious 1's and 0's about Jimmy Carter. and two.....Dixon Carter Lee is pretty impressed with himself.

I watched John Carter Saturday night and it was better than the box office reaction would lead one to believe. Not great.....but not that bad. It failed as much as it succeeded, with the telltale feel of too much tinkering and too many cookspoons in the main course. But it succeeded in the details and some character moments. Lynn Collins as the Princess was very strong....the dude Taylor Kitch? Not that great, though not as dopey as someone like Channing Tatum who quite frankly is about as vacant looking as a Detroit warehouse. (And I thought Ryan Gosling had dead eyes...)

It failed in logical motivation in some spots, most notably for me is a scene reminiscent of the River Tam ""My Turn." scene in Serentity...only it didn't work even a fraction of how well it did in Serenity because the precursor was not emaciated, but maybe starting to have a noticeable eating disorder. I could have used more badassery too.

It succeeded in grand gestures and old time-y epic-ness. Also I thought the purely CGI characters had real life to them, which is rare in my opinion (Especially for ILM).
There was a B-Plot that was enjoyable too. The movie is a romance, so I wish there had been more of it.

All in all, a decent kid-friendly action romance epic. Hopefully they will get better as they go.

p.s. Why in the bloody hell wasn't this called "A Princess of Mars"?
 
long time E R Burroughs fan and i LOVED it.

Shame the sequels most likely won't get maid.
 
i've seen much worse and just about the only thing i hated about it was the lead actor. he just kind of annoyed me at times.

and there will be no more. it cost a lot of money and it was saved from being a complete failure by russia and the like. the golden compass had the same problem of making no money in the us while making good money elsewhere and there haven't been anymore of those movies either.
 
I partially watched it twice. My husband rented it and liked it (I fell asleep) and said he didn't know why it got so slammed. He thought our son would like it so they both had fun and I fell asleep again. It wasn't as bad as its reviews.

I wondered when he kept jumping why he didn't bounce more often, but that's just a physics thing.

My husband and my son had a great time and didn't fall asleep and the unfortunate thing was the next day we were on a road trip and driving through Virginia, so everyone was saying "Var-jee-nya!" and "Jump!" over and over until someone decided we shouldn't say that every time we saw a sign with Virginia on it.

The animated puppy thing was fun. They get points for alien adorableness. Reminded me of the elephant in "George of the Jungle."

The plot was pretty silly. I only know about the series from tangential Heinlein and Dream Park references, so I don't know if the plot in the book was better. It seemed fairly mangled and inexplicable, but it was mostly eye candy anyway, so I'd imagine that's why it got slammed so badly. It's a "pretty but dumb but inoffensive" sort of movie.
 
fuckwaffle said:
Because it might be confused with the 2009 movie by that title staring Antonio Sabato Jr., Traci Lords, Matthew Lasky. Director: Mark Atkins

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM5Mjk5MDI1NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDk4MzI1Mw@@._V1._SY317_CR6,0,214,317_.jpg

Princess of Mars
Click to expand...

The title "John Carter" was criticized enough that I heard about it in the media. The move by the marketing folks took some of the blame for people not connecting with the movie at theaters. It's a dumb reason to not see a movie, but the rest of the marketing fell short in peoples' eyes too. So the public was unaware of the flick, and put off, in-part by the title.
I suppose you can't rule out concern over the 2009 movie, but c'mon, that's an Asylum movie. Their entire marketing effort is an attempt to cause the confusion you're talking about. It only helps that A Princess of Mars is public domain, but they rip off licensed works too and change them "just enough" for their marketing. The Asylum doesn't do theatrical releases for their flicks as far as I know so they would only be tricking a small amount of people in the home market.
At any rate though this is fuckin' Disney Pixar, The Asylum wouldn't even qualify as a flea on their collective ass.
 
killallhippies said:
i've seen much worse and just about the only thing i hated about it was the lead actor. he just kind of annoyed me at times.

and there will be no more. it cost a lot of money and it was saved from being a complete failure by russia and the like. the golden compass had the same problem of making no money in the us while making good money elsewhere and there haven't been anymore of those movies either.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say I hated him in the flick....there were just weird things going on. At one point as he lands on Mars, he says something to the effect of "Where on Earth am I?" in a spot-on John Wayne impersonation. Why I wonder? Also, having him mention Earth instead of a simple "Where am I?" was a character beat establishing that he would not even remotely consider that he's not on Earth. But then he's so modern at times that I go....look around you, look at the giant dudes with 4 arms. You don't consider for a second that maybe it's not Earth? Especially after seeing the guy in the cave?
These are production things, not actor choices. They did the right thing keeping the time frame right and not modernizing it and making him a modern sniper like the Asymum film did. But then you have to stick to it. I guess it woudl take a lot fo work to sell the idea that he truly has Civil War era values. These days after so many years of sci-fi, if any of us woke up to that weirdness we'd go straight to alien abduction hahaha.

You're right about the Golden Compass....and that movie was really enjoyable.
 
Recidiva said:
The plot was pretty silly. I only know about the series from tangential Heinlein and Dream Park references, so I don't know if the plot in the book was better. It seemed fairly mangled and inexplicable, but it was mostly eye candy anyway, so I'd imagine that's why it got slammed so badly. It's a "pretty but dumb but inoffensive" sort of movie.
Click to expand...

The plot to me wasn't silly, it was classic. It's the cloth that things like Dune were cut from. The fierce indigenous people, fighting aristocracy, a special powerful chosen one. The presentation mangled it though, no argument there.
 
InternationalFunboy said:
The title "John Carter" was criticized enough that I heard about it in the media. The move by the marketing folks took some of the blame for people not connecting with the movie at theaters. It's a dumb reason to not see a movie, but the rest of the marketing fell short in peoples' eyes too. So the public was unaware of the flick, and put off, in-part by the title.
I suppose you can't rule out concern over the 2009 movie, but c'mon, that's an Asylum movie. Their entire marketing effort is an attempt to cause the confusion you're talking about. It only helps that A Princess of Mars is public domain, but they rip off licensed works too and change them "just enough" for their marketing. The Asylum doesn't do theatrical releases for their flicks as far as I know so they would only be tricking a small amount of people in the home market.
At any rate though this is fuckin' Disney Pixar, The Asylum wouldn't even qualify as a flea on their collective ass.
Click to expand...

Geez, I was just pointing out that there was another flick out there by that name. No need to get your panties in a wad.
 
InternationalFunboy said:
The plot to me wasn't silly, it was classic. It's the cloth that things like Dune were cut from. The fierce indigenous people, fighting aristocracy, a special powerful chosen one. The presentation mangled it though, no argument there.
Click to expand...

Cool. I am a Dune fan and I loved the movies, but I had the book read over and over and I had all the backstory when I saw it.

I do remember a guy in the theater standing up in the theater during the credits and shouting "What the FUCK is a Kwisatz Haderach?!" at the screen.

My main problem with the plot was just the so, so very bad bad guys that had no stated goals other than to give power to dumb people. I never had any idea of what their overreaching final goal was. So I basically thought "Don't give the blue thingy to McNulty, he's not good with power!" I got no response in the plot to explain why they gave the blue thingy to McNulty.
 
Recidiva said:
Cool. I am a Dune fan and I loved the movies, but I had the book read over and over and I had all the backstory when I saw it.

I do remember a guy in the theater standing up in the theater during the credits and shouting "What the FUCK is a Kwisatz Haderach?!" at the screen.

My main problem with the plot was just the so, so very bad bad guys that had no stated goals other than to give power to dumb people. I never had any idea of what their overreaching final goal was. So I basically thought "Don't give the blue thingy to McNulty, he's not good with power!" I got no response in the plot to explain why they gave the blue thingy to McNulty.
Click to expand...

I think you just turned me around on this a little bit. Seriously.
I think I was too busy not understanding Carter's motivation to realize most everyone's motivations were fucked up.
I think the voice over at the beginning might have explained why there was fighting in the first place, but I don't remember what it was. So yeah...WTF were the Therns doing? It made it seem as though they started a civil war....tipped the scales with a super weapon...in hopes to have it end in marriage...so they could kill a princess....so they could keep science out of her hands. They could have just pushed her off a cliff.

See, now I need to watch it again. More importantly I need to go plow through the book. Something tells me the book is more logical. I do know the Therns don't show up in the first book so the idea of Carter stepping out of one Civil War and into another is more intact because as far as you the reader know in the book....they are just fighting because people fight. I think you find out later that things were manipulated.

Never should have compared it to the greatness of Dune.
 
InternationalFunboy said:
I think you just turned me around on this a little bit. Seriously.
I think I was too busy not understanding Carter's motivation to realize most everyone's motivations were fucked up.
I think the voice over at the beginning might have explained why there was fighting in the first place, but I don't remember what it was. So yeah...WTF were the Therns doing? It made it seem as though they started a civil war....tipped the scales with a super weapon...in hopes to have it end in marriage...so they could kill a princess....so they could keep science out of her hands. They could have just pushed her off a cliff.

See, now I need to watch it again. More importantly I need to go plow through the book. Something tells me the book is more logical. I do know the Therns don't show up in the first book so the idea of Carter stepping out of one Civil War and into another is more intact because as far as you the reader know in the book....they are just fighting because people fight. I think you find out later that things were manipulated.

Never should have compared it to the greatness of Dune.
Click to expand...

I also didn't understand why he was so strong on Mars. Was it lower gravity? (in which case he should have bounced a lot more instead of leaping and slamming) or was it some sort of being imbued with superpowers?

The book could hardly have made less sense, so that seems like a good plan. I have respect for it being a classic and Heinlein really liked it, so I've got to give it a pass and I should read it too.
 
Recidiva said:
I also didn't understand why he was so strong on Mars. Was it lower gravity? (in which case he should have bounced a lot more instead of leaping and slamming) or was it some sort of being imbued with superpowers?

The book could hardly have made less sense, so that seems like a good plan. I have respect for it being a classic and Heinlein really liked it, so I've got to give it a pass and I should read it too.
Click to expand...

Yeah from what I know it's just the gravity. Mars is about 8-9 times the size and density of our moon which means Earthlings on Mars wouldn't even be able to jump as far or lift as much as our astronauts do on the moon....and you know how awkward they are. But eh...this bit I can allow in the spirit of adventure fantasy.
 
I want to watch it but as a fan of classic sci fi fantasy I don't want to watch a bunch of cg eye candy with little or no story. I was kinda ehhh on the Conan reboot, and I didn't finish the Prince of persia abomination, perhaps as it was too much cg and the main character just kept reminding me of the singer from Creed. I tend to avoid remakes on principle and have yet to see more than one or two worth watching more than once.
 
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