Disney's JOHN CARTER in Current Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Films Forum

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Disney's JOHN CARTER

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gorgozilla		#301	[-]
Jul 2 12 10:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	hermanthegerm wrote: Badfinger wrote: I thought it was great. It is easily my favorite sci-fi film in years; perhaps decades. You and your wife's opinion don't carry any more weight than my own. I (an ERB fan) liked it, and my family (all ERB non-fans) liked it too. I really think it is among the best ERB adaptations, even if I include all the Tarzans I've seen. We all want a sequel. I'm surprised JC is getting flack form self proclaimed fans. The Earth back story works well, Tarzan is equally tragic in having lost his biological parents (which he never feels connection to) but in also losing Kala his adoptive mother (which he does/did.) Plenty of times in the series Tarzan thinks Jane is dead, and that creates an emotional/vengeance impulse for him. Thus it does not feel as if the loss of family does not fit into a ERB pulpy storyline such as this. The reluctant soldier aspect, which is not in the novel, gives Carter a dimension that would otherwise be missed. It's fine, does not feel alien to ERBs themes, and it fits in today's liberal attitude toward war/peace. Nothing wrong with that, (isn't The Mad King also a reluctant soldier of sorts?) Some of the complaints here (the Virgina joke) seem silly to me. In school we nicknamed people according to the city they were from, wasn't meant to be ha-ha funny. 20 years later I still think of them by their nicknames. The complaint of a lack of a visually lush landscape also seems pretty insignificant; the Barsoom presented is a compromise between what we know of Mars and what ERB described in the novels. It is a perfectly valid interpretation. Lawrence of Arabia (mentioned) is not a lesser movie because it takes place in a desert. Yes, it was shot by David Lean (and this wasn't,) would we only have gotten Nicholas Roeg to shoot John Carter. If the movie had presented a more alien Barsoom (not Mars), there'd be complaints about that. (I know I felt weird in Captain America when all that anachronistic technology was being presented, it took me out every few minutes.) Also, look at things like At the Earth’s Core, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot which attempted richer landscapes (with a smaller budget): while these are fun and imaginative it does not necessarily make them better films. At the Earth’s Core (1976) was filmed one year before Star Wars (1977) and I think John Carter is the better for having been made after that (even if it seems that the inspiration 'inspired' the original.) We are, hopefully beyond that threshold, even if we did get Flash Gordon (1980) after SW. The color on those movies is beautiful. AlLIEN resulted in the 80's being a "lost decade" for color photography in sci-fi films. It wasn't until the mid-90's that the whole "blue and smoky" fad finally ended. Now if the whole CGI color manipulation thing (everything being either sepia-toned or orange-and-teal) could be taken out to pasture, I'd be thankful.
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Robert Troch		#302	[-]
Jul 2 12 11:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	gorgozilla wrote: Colossus Rex wrote: Well, I just saw this on Blu-ray and enjoyed it just fine. Maybe it goes on a bit too long, and maybe the Green people seem too much like Gungans from Phantom Menace, and sometimes you wonder why you you should prefer one city of Red people to the other city of Red people. (You are told that one group is a "scavenger" city but beyond that... ) That's the only problem I had with the movie. The designs for the green Martians were insufficiently monstrous. I read that they were redesigned from the iconic Frazetta depiction (based on detailed descriptions in the books) because of the difficulty of animating lip movements for speech from mouths that had big tusks growing out of them. I understand that. But they still could have stuck with the wide-set, beady birdlike eyes of Burrough's aliens, rather than making them more human-like. I did not really like the design of the Tharks either. They looked much too friendly than the way I have always pictured them. Robert T.
ByronOrlok		#303	[-]
Jul 3 12 2:46 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I wasn't crazy about the Tharks designs either. Too skinny and I thought their faces were bland and under-designed.The lone exception was Tal Hajus, the "bad" Thark-- he looked GREAT, dynamic and quite badass. I wish HE had been the basic template for all the others.
Bud Brewster		#304	[-]
Jul 4 12 4:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Let me guess. Is THIS what some of us meant when we suggested Mars should have had more color? That's pretty much what we got in Avatar -- but one of the folks above said it looked like a cartoon. Guess you can't make everybody happy, eh? _ _ Last Edited By: Bud Brewster Jul 4 12 4:51 PM. Edited 2 times.
Robert Troch		#305	[-]
Jul 5 12 10:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bud Brewster wrote: Let me guess. Is THIS what some of us meant when we suggested Mars should have had more color? That's pretty much what we got in Avatar -- but one of the folks above said it looked like a cartoon. Guess you can't make everybody happy, eh? _ _ I really don't think most meant go way over in the opposite direction either. Something that looks a bit unearthly doesn't have to be way over the top but it can be done so it doesn't look like earth. Does Avatar work? Well, maybe not but it sure did work in the cash box. THAT is what will ultimately count when the figure tops a billion dollars, and production values are considered. Ahhh doesn't matter anyway because The Avengers tops both of them because it is actually entertaining AND was pretty faithful to the source material while also having it's own original kind of spin to it that isn't painful to watch. JC on the other hand................ Robert T.
BijouBob8mm		#306	[-]
Jul 9 12 3:15 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Also, look at things like At the Earth’s Core, The Land that Time Forgot and The People that Time Forgot which attempted richer landscapes and saturated colors (with a smaller budget): Fantasy cinema just doesn't have the color palette that it once did. As a result, a lot of films look a bit murky at the drive-in these days. (Provided you live near a drive-in.) The color on those movies is beautiful. AlLIEN resulted in the 80's being a "lost decade" for color photography in sci-fi films. It wasn't until the mid-90's that the whole "blue and smoky" fad finally ended. It ended in the mid-90s? I still see that muted bluish tinge lingering in horror, sci-fi and fantasy films. (The UNDERWORLD franchise, SILENT HILL, WOMAN IN BLACK, the current cinematic Batman series, the latest version of THE RAVEN, as well as a lot of interior sequences found throughout the Harry Potter saga. When it's not blue, then it has a dingy grunge look, like the new CONAN or CLASH OF THE TITANS.) Both Ridley Scott's ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER helped to drain the warm colors from the genre films that followed. Those lush colors of Hammer horror and AIP's Poe films are long gone.
hermanthegerm		#307	[-]
Jul 9 12 5:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	With digital photography it much easier to mess around with the image intead of capturing what is actually in front of the camera. I for one am already sick of the drained, dirty look, or the overly (green, blue, whatever,) processed image. Maybe with the new high end digital video things will improve (let's see what The Hobbit brings,) but I kinda doubt it. There, for sure, is a lot of ugly or bad photography out there. "There is a lot of money tied up in this film and people expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them a boom." George Lucas as quoted by Harlan Ellison's WATCHING
CinemaDave		#308	[-]
Jul 12 12 4:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	"John Carter" just reminded me how unoriginal George Lucas is. `http://Cinemadave.Livejournal.com "...for those who enjoy the entire experience of movies, from the promotional hype to the criticism given at the dinner table....."` http://AdventuresofCinemaDave.com
ARGumshoe		#309	[-]
Aug 10 12 10:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Just watched this and.... Ak Ohum Oktay Weez Barsoom.
Servant of Legendre		#310	[-]
Aug 11 12 5:47 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As someone who hasn't yet read the books... Finally saw this last night and - ho hum. For the first hour or so it was really quite good, but then it just seemed to lose it's way, whether in the writing or the editing I don't know. Dejah Thoris - or whoever played her - was miscast and badly acting, as if she was in a school play. Everybody else acted just fine, I thought, and I loved the Tharks. Great production design all around, I thought, and the sequence of the newly-transported JC trying to find his feet in Martian - sorry, Barsoomian - gravity made me laugh. But all the stuff with the Therns and their 'serving the Goddess' became, I think, just too bewildering for the casual viewer. Too much was left unexplained. In short, it was no FLASH GORDON. On the plus side, it made me want to read the books.
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GregNyman		#311	[-]
Aug 11 12 2:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Servant of Legendre wrote: But all the stuff with the Therns and their 'serving the Goddess' became, I think, just too bewildering for the casual viewer. Too much was left unexplained. In short, it was no FLASH GORDON. On the plus side, it made me want to read the books. The parts of the film up until Carter leaves the Tharks was pretty faithful to the book for the most part, but most of the stuff after that was made up for the film. I agree that it became a bit bewildering, and I've read the books! Overall I liked the movie, since I finally got to see a big budget John Carter film, but I was also disappointed in some of the puzzling decisions made. The biggest disappointment for me is that we won't get to see a movie of the second book, which is one of my favorite action-adventure tales ever. And yes, you should read at least the first three books; they're great!
Servant of Legendre		#312	[-]
Aug 14 12 6:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	They're on my 'to do' list.
ARGumshoe		#313	[-]
Oct 7 12 6:52 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Gave this another watch and enjoyed it just as much, if not more so, this time around.
hermanthegerm		#314	[-]
Nov 23 12 12:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	John Carter is making the worst of the year's lists (natch) but the public's comments below are surprisingly supportive. People who actually saw it liked it! It seems that the only blame then lies in the initial critics' reviews and the wishy-washy marketing: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/box-office-flops-2012-turkeys_n_2172979.html It gives one hope. "There is a lot of money tied up in this film and people expect to hear a boom when something blows up, so I'll give them a boom." George Lucas as quoted by Harlan Ellison's WATCHING Last Edited By: hermanthegerm Nov 23 12 12:57 PM. Edited 1 times.
jamesenstein31		#315	[-]
Nov 26 12 2:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This was a pleasant surprise, certainly not the turkey that has been described virtually EVERYWHERE else. JOHN CARTER remains surprisingly faithful to the original stories in both incidents and characters, but even a well-read fan will find themselves lost, due to some structural problems, which are the film's lead issues. At over two and a half hours, the film has trouble with pacing and some additions(such as Carter's backstory and a few modern revisions) do not hold water. However, the spectacle of the thing, made me wish I had seen it on the big screen. I'm usually in agreement with the percentages on Rottentomatoes, since they are usually more or less accurate, however this film, which flawed and not a great film, is not deserving of the many knocks afforded it. I hope to write a lengthier review later on my blog.
Dr Acula		#316	[-]
Nov 26 12 2:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	jamesenstein31 wrote: This was a pleasant surprise, certainly not the turkey that has been described virtually EVERYWHERE else. JOHN CARTER remains surprisingly faithful to the original stories in both incidents and characters, but even a well-read fan will find themselves lost, due to some structural problems, which are the film's lead issues. At over two and a half hours, the film has trouble with pacing and some additions(such as Carter's backstory and a few modern revisions) do not hold water. However, the spectacle of the thing, made me wish I had seen it on the big screen. I'm usually in agreement with the percentages on Rottentomatoes, since they are usually more or less accurate, however this film, which flawed and not a great film, is not deserving of the many knocks afforded it. I hope to write a lengthier review later on my blog. Glad to hear another positive - even your avatar agrees! My God, what's Bond doing?... I think he's attempting re-entry, sir. http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/ Cole's Comics: All About Jack Cole http://colescomics.blogspot.com/
jamesenstein31		#317	[-]
Nov 27 12 8:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yay! My review(sloppy, too): http://monstermania-batcat31.blogspot.com/2012/11/lost-in-our-world-found-in-another.html
SteveZodiak		#318	[-]
Dec 10 12 3:52 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Saw it on Bluray over the weekend and thought it was pretty decent. The Princess was somewhat weak, but most the rest was good. I have not read the books, my only ERB reading is Escape On Venus, so no preconceived notions. Why do I have to waste my time outwitting morons?
Gadfly		#319	[-]
Dec 17 12 12:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Shonokin wrote: Your thoughts pretty much mirror my own Bud. I had 35 years of build up and expectations. But I went in absolutely knowing it wouldn't equal that. I enjoyed it quite a lot. What Disney marketing did to the film is shameful. FWIW, I stumbled across a fan-made trailer for the film that seemed to me to do a decent job. Gadfly
Scathach80		#320	[-]
Feb 3 13 9:14 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Carl Eyesnheart wrote: Could that be it? They knew they wanted THE AVENGERS to do ridiculous business in every single aspect, so they threw more money at that, and took the toys and such away from JOHN CARTER? Or they didn't want that much merch on the shelves? http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/33143?page=7 Tony Rivers posted an article that suggests so.
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Disney's JOHN CARTER