Kaor, forumites. Saddly, I can not recomend the movie to either fans of E.R.Burroughs or to neophytes, tis a saddnes of the modern movie industrie's clulessness. The less said the better. :cry:

This is really early Sci-Fi. fantasy and since most if not all of subsequent movies of this genre used similar ideas the movie tends to be a little " expected " and it's hard to not find some of the dialogue a bit corny by modern standards.

The effects are sort of interesting as well as the designs of vehicles and architecture.

I think that the film combined elements of many of the books and the back story and the " Byzantine " Barsoom politics gets hard to follow at times, and even more so for people clueless about the original books.

One can see some things like the jumping over tall buildings like Superman for example.

Also, there seems to be some super-strength involved that half gravity or twice the strength of a local wouldn't explain.

The is also some inconsistencies between how strong John Carter can be in some scenes and how easily he can be overwhelmed in some other scenes ...... errors in internal consistency.

I sort of liked it, but at the same time can't really give it a high recommendation: Sort of ambivalent because I really wanted to like it !

I certainly will go see what Hollywood ended up doing to E R Burroughs novel. This piece is an ancestor of most of the sci-fi super hero genre. It came out prior to WW I, and the interplanetary effects of transplanting humans elsewhere, or vice versa transplanting alien humanoids on Earth, gives rise to a whole series of variations in future generations. Thanks to ER Burroughs, we get the whole Superman genre in the thirties, and from Superman emerges every other combination . Of course the advent of Nuclear power played its role in replacing time travel, or interplanetary travel, as a justification for mutations and different power schemes, but they all stem from the same basic premise : some form of pseudo-scientific explanation. Does anyone know of an earlier example of a novel with a ''super'' hero ? And by super-hero I exclude those demi-gods and other mythological characters who owe their powers to some form of divine intervention ( Achilles in the Styx, Hercules, Thor...). So, I will go see the thing, and I might end up being disappointed as much as I have been by a series of other Hollywood renderings of the Sci-fi/superhero genre. Empty calories for sure, but now and then who doesn't enjoy the guilty pleasure of a bag of chips and a soft drink ?

... Robert E. Howard

... Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Oh gods please let Hollywood stay away from Fritz Lieber, Michael Moorcock, and
Karl Edward Wagner ...

Hello
" A Princess of Mars" was the first book I ever read.And John Carter will always be the greatest swordsman in fiction,to me.So I`ve been waiting for this movie a long time.That being said.It was a decent movie.It did resemble the book"mostly".
Screen writers allways seem to think they can improve on a story,but rarely do.They could have stuck to the story and it been just as intertaining for the action/hero crowd and satisfied those who actualy read the book .Oh-well.....
I didnt much like the swords.Frizetta`s swords are my idea of a Barsoom blade.But beggers cant be choosers.
Bottom line,I liked the movie.For purity i`ll read the books:-)

BTW
The Thurns didnt apear till the next book,and they were charlatans.

Karl, they're perverted cannibal charlatans actually... ;) Best kind of villan ever, you don't ever have to hesitate about slicing and dicing them with swords. Or just shoot them.


Jean, John Carter has always been able to jump like that but he's not invincible or bulletproof like superman. So if you catch him unawares with a suckerpunch or overwhelm him with numbers he can be brought down. This is a great part of the charm of the original stories. Yes, it's not scientifically logical, but it makes for a good story. :)


I know some won't like it, but I just loved the movie from the very first minute to the end. It takes as much from the old and new comics as the original books. Swords and armour are obviously from the modern Dynamite comic adaption, swords from tharkian design and armour (if you can call it that) of Red men. These are actually based closer to the books written desctriptions and the original eary 1900 book art than the charming 80s/90s cover art was.

I found the movie a really charming matiné well worth the price of a ticket. It won't get an oscar of course, but it's good fun, good action, some decent acting and doesn't seem to take itself all that seriously. And Woolah is really cute unless he yawns which gets a little scary with all those razor rows of hidden teeth. Where can I get a dog like that?

Also, one of my favorite scenes was the Return of the Jedi speederbike chase tribute. Same camera angles and everything, all good clean fun. Got to love that.

Johan wrote, ".... they're perverted cannibal charlatans actually." SOOOOOO.....Cannibalism isn't enough?

Its been a REALLY long time since I read any Edgar Rice Burroughs but don't John and Deja Thoris...umm...get it on? And doesn't Deja Baby lay eggs? So who are we accusing of being perverted again?


Actually I plan to see the movie sometime soon. If for no other reason, I want to see how far I can stretch my capacity to suspend disbelief!

Kaor! I discovered E.R.Burroughs when I was 12 or 13 in junior highschool.I bought a comic book serializing John Carter after school then ran 5 blocks back to the book store and bought A Princess of Mars,I was hooked. I went on to collect most of Burrough's work but the Barsoom series was my favorite.Being interested in the sciences over the years I realized that inacuracies and what I refer to as late Victorian era nonsense afected the books but it gave it a certain'charm'.Over the last few years I have worked to correct some of them and fill out Barsoom the way Tolkien did Middle Earth.Basicly my theory is that since Mars sucks as habitable planet it really is the fourth planet in a different star system( my choice is 18 scorpii 45.2 lys away).This solves many problems and for those interested in such things are welcome to contact me. About Carter's jumping that so impressed the Tharks upon his arival. Mars gravity is about 2.66 times less than Earth's so a leap strait up of 1meter on earth would be 2.66 meters (8.72746 feet) there and a standing long jump of 3.7 meters is 9.842meters(32.291602 feet) as described in the first book so Burroughs got that right and Hollyweird goes overboard with it. As a fictional character John Cater is a man of action and great honor who does not live life through fear based decission making like our current crop of political and mangement culture clowns.He should be a role model for all people. Just so you know, my icon on this page is the Heliyan (Heliumite?) imperial family crest. :D

WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS & A GROWN MAN CRYING
I have been a huge fan of ERB's Barsoom series since I was a kid, & I'll probably go see the movie.
The thing is- the more reviews & articles I read, the less excited I become.
I read a review on the i09 website that pointed out all the things in the plot that didn't make sense.
The reviewer blamed these flaws on the movie makers sticking too close the the original source material.
The reviewer had obviously never read any of the books.
Without exception, all of flaws/problems mentioned in the review were deviations from the original stories.
I don't want to complain too much yet, but I will.
I'll give the movie a chance. I really, really want it to be good.
I just can't understand taking a fairly simple, coherent, & entertaining plot & changing it for no good reason.
John Carter wasn't traumatized by his experiences in the Civil war, or by the loss of his family - he was not married & did not lose his family.
In the books, he was extremely well adjusted, happy, & proud to be a professional soldier.
It made him a very likeable character in my opinion.
Why add all the baggage? To add depth to the character?
There was already all the depth that was needed, a perfect gentleman who really enjoyed killing his enemies.
But only in a fair fight.
Deja Thoris wasn't a scientist or a warrior, her father didn't try to force a marrage on her.
Tars Tarkas really gets screwed in the film. Instead of killing Tal Hajus & becoming jeddak of Tharkas in the book, John Carter kills Tal Hajus & becomes jeddak while Tars Tarkas becomes an outcast. Huh?
Tars Tarkas becomes a homeless person instead of a king? A hobo ?!
WHAT??
WHY??
Is Andrew Stanton racist against green martians?
The twelve year old inside of me doesn't want to see John Carter as some bitter, burned out loser.
My inner twelve year old wants the real John Carter.
Okay, I'm finished crying.
I'll most likely see the movie in the next few days, I hope it's not too screwed up.
Thanks for listening to me acting like a big baby.

Just one more thing -
BACK SCABBARDS!
Are you freakin kidding me?!
It won't work on Earth, or Mars.

Okay. I'm really finished this time.
I'm going to go to bed & weep uncontrolably until I fall asleep.

Kaor! In a nutshell? What you see is the weak kneed, liberal Holyyweird world view in what they did to Cater's character.And he's CONFEDERATE soldier! Shocking,horrible.unseemly! It's a wonder they did not try to show him as some kind of war criminal or alter him into the rightous yankee freedom fighter. Backscabards? How do you carry a long sword and a short sword along with knife/dagger and pistol?That has confounded me for some time.The short sword realy is only a backup weapon.

My wife and I made this our 1st trip to the movies in 2-1/2 years (since my son was born). I have only read two of the books. My brother (R.I.P.) modeled his life after John Carter. He loved those books and could quote all of them. My wife and I both enjoyed the movie. I knew enough to know the deviations from the original but I thought it was a fun and entertaining movie. The swords did blow but otherwise I found it to be entertaining .

Lou, I don't think it has to do with liberalism.
It seems more like a combination of greed, hubris, & an over dependency on repeating what worked before.
Rambo was a burn out who didn't want to fight anymore, why not make John Carter into Rambo?
Rambo made lots of money.
Why not rewrite the entire beginning of the story, so that Carter (like Rambo) resists being recruited back into the military.
But so that no one will notice that it's the plot/characters from Rambo, we'll turn his friend (from the book) Powell into an adversary. We can even throw in some Vietnam flashbacks!
Look how creative we are! We've updated this 100 year old relic & made it relevant to modern movie goers!
Make a few changes & the viewing public will never know that they've seen it 1000 times before.
Lets insert a super powerful weapon into the plot. The Death Star worked in Star Wars, it'll work here. Star Wars =$$$$
Maybe we can throw in some giant robots like in Transformers too? Nope, too obvious.
Lets make the city of Zodanga into a giant tank! That's almost as good as a semi truck that turns into a robot. It'll work!

I'm still planning on seeing the movie, & I hope that it's good. I want to like it.

I'm really hoping that they do a remake of Romeo & Juliet where Juliet is a teenage vampire hunter & Romeo is a womanizing British super spy.

I saw it the other day, personally, I'd give it a 6.5 / 10. It's been 40-odd years since I've read any of the Barsoom series, so I can't say how well it sticks to the original story line - it *seems* basicly similar, from what I recall. And don't forget..this *is* a Disney movie after all - fun, adventure and not much concession to *reality* :D
I do like the designs of some of the swords - very falcata / kopis / kukri-ish - they look like they'd be effective. The airship designs are nice, as are the very much manual controls, very steam punk :D

Just please someone tell me they DIDN'T turn this into the latest incarnation of "Dances with The Last Avatar"....