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And March 9th is here, and here is what I have to say:

I am sitting in a bar (pub, actually, but it's all the same), kicking back a Franziskaner, writing down words that I will type up... sometime. Later... when I feel up to it, when I'm not hungover... whenever. OK, I'm typing it up right now, with a Marty Robbins (my Dad's favorite) playlist on Youtube providing the background noise. Besides that connection, I actually find it quite fitting. I first purchased 'A Princess Of Mars' in Ruidoso, New Mexico - and the western imagery fits in both with the beginning of the novel and the martian landscape.

WARNING *SPOILERS AHEAD*

I just finished watching Disney's John Carter, a film I have been waiting for since I was 13 years old. As promised, I held an empty seat next to me and the spirit of my father watched it by my side.
My thoughts on it are still formulating. To be blunt, it's a good film, not a great one. Roger Ebert's score of 2.5 out of 4 stars is roughly the same as I would rate it. The biggest detriment, as far as I was concerned, was the inability to emotionally engage me. I understand that liberties must be taken when adapting a book to film, but something which more closely followed the plot of 'A Princess Of Mars', something in the vein of what Kery Conran was attempting, would have suited me more.
Why the lack of emotional investment? It might be due to the fact that, with the exceptions of Sab Than, Sola and Sarkoja, I felt all these characters were different from the ones I read about. John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkas, Kantos Kan, definitely Matai Shang and the rest of the lot of them - these are not the same people of whose exploits I had drawn so much entertainment.
The film's climax had nothing on the book's - when the thousands of various green martian hordes, led by John Carter and Tars Tarkas ransacked the city of Zodanga - something that had me punching the air when I read it! I just wasn't feeling the same thing in the film, with the tribe of Tharks alone riding and flying to the rescue after Carter makes a single, not so rousing speech.
The changing and omission of some scenes in the book bothered me. Woola's fight with the great white apes was obviously changed owing to the film's apes (or great white pigs, as they are now) being bumped up to King Kong size - the calot would have been too greatly outmatched. His 'fight that won friends' which replaces this scene just doesn't cut it. The Warhoons - they could have been written out of the film completely for all the good their lame cameo did. From the trailers I had seen, I thought the arena battle occurred under Warhoon captivity, as it did it in the book - nope! Although - this WAS the first time that the John Cater of the film acted like the John Carter of the books - a high octane ass-kicking machine (I am referring here to his one-man battle against the Warhoon horde). Starting off with Tars Tarkas as Jeddak and Tal Haljus playing a Macbeth role... eh, no. The atmosphere plants no mention of them at all. Hell, at least the Asylum film brought those up (and that is about the ONLY compliment I will pay that version). The therns? Oy way!
OK, so is this sounding like a *@$!#-fest? Here's some things I DID like: It's visually beautiful, but with $250 mil behind it, that was a forgone conclusion. Woola is wonderfully realized - not how I pictured him, but still accurate to what Burroughs described. The thoats are pretty good, but what's up with the horns? The flyers - great! Radium projectile weapons - perfectly realized. Lynn Collins - Beautiful! much more so than the trailers led me to believe. The score - 'Lawrence-of-Arabia-esque' and fantastic. Carter's arrival on Mars, the incubator and subsequent scene... perfect! It's better than the Asylum film - but so is medieval torture.
Some people have stated that an accurate 'Princess Of Mars' adaptation wouldn't have worked - I vehemently disagree. I first read the book in the 1980's, and it worked for me perfectly. All these years later - it still stays with me. I doubt this film will be as loved in half as much time.
The audience I saw it with filled most of the theater - not sold out but a good crowd. A few started to clap at the end, but stopped when no one else joined them - oh well, SOMEONE really liked it. As I said, this isn't great, but it doesn't deserve to tank. Sadly, if it does, I doubt we'll see another John Carter film anytime soon (and I have a feeling that any planned sequels would be a lot better than this). Unfortunately, all things stated, I think Avatar may have actually done a Burroughs-type story better than the real Burroughs adaptation.
My dad - he thinks it's good, not great - like me, but wants to watch it again, which I might not do. He's more forgiving, having waited for this even longer than I have.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have beer to drink and 'El Paso' to listen to...

PS - Oh yeah, the 'Virginia' joke... gets old quick.

cjh5801 wrote:The explanation for the transfer to Mars both seems reasonable for a modern sci-fi movie and would probably be explained by someone in the 1860s as the mystical experience described by Burroughs. 

That part didn't bother me so much, which is why I didn't mention it - ALTHOUGH...

1. It does necessitate the presence of the therns, or something like them, which I could have done without in this film, and would have preferred done more faithfully in the next, and..
2. It removes some of the semi-supernatural quality that Carter himself had, which is completely missing here - the fact that he never ages and remembers no childhood, etc. ... but I could tell from all the advance publicity that this was going to be dropped.

So it's the following morning. My hangover isn't so bad, and I have a little more to say -
I realize now that a big factor in my inability to emotionally bond with the film is the scale of time used in it. Carter's stay amongst the Tharks amounts to one or two days, the main bulk of the story takes place over about a week, and I assume that after his marriage to Dejah he spent a couple more weeks there (from his own body's condition and the condition of Powell upon his return). This is in contrast to the book's depiction of him learning the ways of the Tharks, their weapons, language, etc... over a longer span of time, his subsequent escape, capture by Warhoons, wandering in the Martian desert, time in Zodanga, etc. I don't want to keep bringing Avatar up - but that film succeeded is showing a similar span of time of Jake amongst the Navi - where the audience really got a sense that he had a chance to acclimate and become one of them as much as he could. I bring that up to show that it COULD be portrayed on film. What this film needed was more of Carter's narration throughout the story, not just at the beginning and end. Avatar also used that device (sorry, I won't mention it anymore) - and hey, it also succeeded with a pretty rousing finale of having all of the Navi tribes gather together at the end - similar to what I mentioned the book did above and this film failed to do. OK, I'm really going to stop comparing the two movies now, I might add more a bit later... or not.