John Carter : A Princess of Mars - Part 4

[slumcat]

I was very invested in this movie. I think Wall-E is probably the greatest film of the new century, if not the greatest, one of the greatest, a visionary masterpiece of feeling and visual enchantment, a classic. I was ready to follow Stanton anywhere.

I think the book series is really good, PERFECT material for a badass actioner. But that's the thing, if this had been made in the 80's, Arnold would have been John Carter or something like that. And I think the movie needed that, it is a pulpy boy's adventure, it needs to be unabashedly old school. They made the Carter way too emo. He had to be brutal, a ruthless warrior.

Another thing was the absolutely absurd convoluted plot. They altered the plot beyond recognition. I will go so far as to say that the first book has a genuinely powerful and moving ending, which creates a big impact. The movie's ending is clever but just that. It should have followed the book.

In that sense perhaps Stanton was wrong for the material. Wall-E is undoubtedly an excessively refined and sophisticated film. Its like for the John Carter material to be worthy of Stanton, he had to make it complex and add layers and what not and when he was done making the material worthy of himself, its true essence was lost.

Still the movie is not a disaster at all. I quite like it and I think it is one of those movie's on which the GA missed the boat.

 

[Donnie Darko]

I try not to "cast" a book character while reading, but for some reason, Hugh Jackman popped into my head a lot for John Carter.

 

[slumcat]

A good choice. Though might be on the older size. I think Chris Hemsworth would have been perfect too.

 

[Crockett]

Why people keep blaming Disney for the movie's failure? Stanton should have his share too, he practically have carte blanche over the budget and the creative control of its marketing, it's a lot of responsibilities for his first live-action film. There's glimpse here and there of a really good movie buried under all the muddling and messy plot-lines that should've been streamlined.

 

[Octoberist]

There IS a book about the behind-the-scenes drama. I wanna read it:

http://www.amazon.com/John-Carter-Hollywood-Michael-Sellers-ebook/dp/B00AFCZ1S4

 

[dark_b]

it would be easier to hate Stanton if the would act like a mean jackaass. but the guy so nice.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

It'd be ****ing stupid to "hate" him at all. It's a movie, get a grip. What the hell

 

[dark_b]

John carter was a lot of times boring. i dont mean hate him for real. you know how it is on forums.

 

[Octoberist]

It's easy to villainize this person or that person. In this case, like with many things in life, I'm sure it's a combination of conflicting elements, that caused a potentially perfect storm to implode onto itself. I think it's Andrew's inexperience with live action. In animation, you're constantly making changes till the the release date. But with live action, you can't pull that. So he relied heavily on reshoots to keep this animation-based method intact. It just made the movie more expensive.

And then Disney didn't know how to market the film because it was campaigned by visionless execs who undermined the public.

 

[Octoberist]

I have to be honest, I think the film would've benefited if it wasn't from Disney proper.

There is a great deal of death, and many of the people dying aren't wearing masks (i.e. Stormtroopers) nor are the 'red team' people truly evil. It's a grey area which is great because that's a reflection of our reality. But sometimes it's unsettling to see, let's say that female soldier' dye on the steering wheel of the ship and Dominic West causal toss her body to the side. Or seeing the martians stacking human bodes into piles... You'll have stuff like that, and then you'll have a cute dog alien in another scene. So tonally it's a bit weird.

 

[slumcat]

There are some very good ideas. I think one scene which works very well is the scene where Dejah returns the medallion to John and is telling him the code to return to earth just as guards are coming. With a little more emotional heft, that scene would have been extremely memorable.

Just like that unforgettable and devastating scene from Wall-E where Wall-E is all broken and Eve throws away the plant and says her directive is to hold hands with Wall-E.

Like I say above, I could never hate Stanton. John Carter was misguided in many ways but the man made Wall-E, which is like the movie of a life time, a movie any director would be proud to make, a masterpiece for the ages.

 

[terry78]

Wall-E was pretty much an art film the first third or so. It turned into more of a sci-fi parable later, but it was still just as good.

 

[Octoberist]

I wouldn't be surprise if Andrew Stanton had a post-release meltdown that led to a career re-evaluation. I'm starting to think that the infamous Georgius Lukis Facit (also known as the 'George Lucas Effect' to the modern world) should be changed to the 'Human Effect'.

It seems like even the brightest and most creative people in the world go through this when they reach a certain level of success and back patting. Be it a band, be it Stanton or Peter Jackson.

 

[Doc Ock]

I found John Carter to be fantastic and severely underrated as well as forgotten due to Disney's "excellent" marketing. There was some sure but it didn't feel like alot.

 

[Panthro]

I try not to "cast" a book character while reading, but for some reason, Hugh Jackman popped into my head a lot for John Carter.

I imagined John Carter looking like Jim Caviezel when I read the stories.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

I found John Carter to be fantastic and severely underrated as well as forgotten due to Disney's "excellent" marketing. There was some sure but it didn't feel like alot.

Fantastic is the word!

Saw it again last night, this is the third time now. I'm so sick of all the ignorant people and ignorant critics (most critics aren't people) who call it a Star Wars/Avatar-ripoff, when it was John Carter that started it all... No John Carter, no Superman, Star Wars/Trek or Avatar.

The same jerks will probably whine and complain if we get a new Tarzan movie that's faithful to the books.

Clueless critic: "Wow, this is nothing like the original Tarzan, the one who talks like a caveman and has a chimpanzee called Cheetah. They have ripped off some other movie I saw. The one that the other critics said was good. What a stupid movie!"

Wow, I'm really angry right now, I wanna kill them all!!!

...anyway, I have only read the first book, it was about four years ago. After seeing the movie I want to read them all. Edgar Rice Burroughs is never boring.

 

[dark_b]

2 years later.

could be an interesting franchise.

 

[Donnie Darko]

I just finished Warlord of Mars. I didn't like it as much as "Princess" or "Gods" but the book got better as it went on. It was kind of a chore to get through some of it, but it ended well. I might check out the next one eventually.

I still think if they would have stayed closer to the actual plots/events of the source material, things would have been a whole lot better.

 

[DA_Champion]

This is one of the movies that I think the critics got wrong.

Somehow thus got 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas Ender's Game got 61% and Thor: The Dark World got 65%.

 

[slumcat]

There is no chance in hell of a sequel. This movie LOST a lot of money, did not connect with critics or audiences and well it just didn't work out for the studio.

I honestly wouldn't mind a sequel but maybe 10 years later somebody will reboot it and have it stay closer to the source material this time around.

 

[matrix_ghost]

I wouldn't be surprise if Andrew Stanton had a post-release meltdown that led to a career re-evaluation. I'm starting to think that the infamous Georgius Lukis Facit (also known as the 'George Lucas Effect' to the modern world) should be changed to the 'Human Effect'.

It seems like even the brightest and most creative people in the world go through this when they reach a certain level of success and back patting. Be it a band, be it Stanton or Peter Jackson.

I doubt that Peter Jackson really havd to re evaluate himself post Lovely Bones . Hell he pretty much is doing the same things with the Hobbit movies.
Stanton on the hand definately needs to re evaluate .

I think one of the things alot of succesful directors face is that they succumb when getting free reign for their movies. They think their vision of the movie is right but fail to consider what the public wants. I am not saying that you need to go all PG-13 90 min movies MAX a la Fox during the TOm Rothman period , however a commercial view is needed.
When you start to make a movie for a select audience and or dont listen to valid criticism , that is when the problems start.

 

[DA_Champion]

In all fields of human endeavor, young phenoms have trouble remaining successful and living up to their early triumphs.

How many bands fail to release a great third album?

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

Rambo is better than viagra. Heck it should be mandatory viewing for us males before we bang our women

Uhm...yeah...I think Stallone looked pretty good in Rambo 2, but not in that way...

 

[slumcat]

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau reveals the juicy tidbit in an extensive Details Magazine interview that he runner-up for John Carter. Excerpts below.

Great Dane: Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
http://www.details.com/celebrities-...game-of-thrones-jaime-lannister?currentPage=3

Four years ago, he was in L.A. again, testing for another star-making lead in a megabudget sci-fi action movie. This time the audition went great: "There was no way I wasn't getting it. The whole thing just felt right." A few days later, the execs from Disney called him at his hotel. They'd decided he was too old for the lead in John Carter.

Of course, no one knew the film would end up being a spectacular bomb—least of all Taylor Kitsch, the young actor who got the role. Coster-Waldau was shattered, done with chasing Hollywood stardom.

 

[Octoberist]

They should've went with him but in the long run it probably would've ruined his career; and he probably wouldn't be able to nab Game of Thrones.