"John Carter of Mars" Moving Ahead!

[LaxScrutiny]

One thing about giving the exposition first is that the rest of the movie essentially plays like a sequel.

Let's look at Alien. No opening exposition, we explore, learn, and are terrified along with the crew. The movie is self-contained. In Aliens, we already know what the monster is, the movie plays like a typical sequel (not to say it is bad, but it is structured that way.)

If we get the exposition first, we are getting a 5-10 minute "recap" and then the rest of the movie assumes we know who the monster is; it plays out like it is the sequel. The advantage, such as it is, is that the structure of the movie will match any actual sequel, the audience is set up for the same experience with John Carter II, etc. It is a homogenous formula, which is what the corporation likes. If the first movie is a hit, then the second will continue the formula.

The "no exposition" method isn't a guarentee of a good story. It was an excellent method with Alien, not so amazing with Cowboys and Aliens. But when it does work, it can turn out great.

 

[Mr Light]

I would imagine that it's confusing for Joe Q Public to be shot at with five minutes of complicated names and places and concepts with no context and then go into the proper story. Wouldn't it be easier on his mind if he got that information piece by piece along with the main character?

 

[Yminale]

The problem is that "Princess of Mars" is a NOVEL and a movie adaptation doesn't have the time to set things in place.

 

[Caliburn24]

I have always been surprised that the opening text crawl from the Star Wars movies is not a more commonly used device for genre movies.

You eliminate clunky expository opening scenes and can get right into the story. Also, because all you did is have your audience read some text, the visual reveals later on still pack a punch. "Oh! That is Darth Vader? He was that guy they talked about at the beginning."

I guess having your audience read for a minute at the beginning is too demanding an exercise.

 

[Maurice]

I have always been surprised that the opening text crawl from the Star Wars movies is not a more commonly used device for genre movies.

Borrowed from old movie serials of the 1930s. Star Wars just brought it back.

 

[Maurice]

(1) $275 million indicates total grosses, not revenue. Exhibitors get a significant cut of that and if anyone involved has points on the gross, then Disney will be receiving even less from the box office.

(2) In the blockbuster economy of Hollywood, $275 million can, sadly, mean failure. In this case, it certainly does (see: Walt Disney Chairman being fired over the movie).

The budgets on these things are out of control. There's too much of too much in them. They throw set pieces and visual effects in willy nilly to try to make them more exciting, but end up making them astronomically expensive and more difficult to turn a profit on. Frankly, it's stupid.

 

[Reverend]

Did anyone else get a serious Irulan/Dune vibe for the first few seconds of that scene? No? Just me then.

Dumping exposition at the front of the movie is always a tricky prospect and since LotR the preference does tend towards this form. Jackson did a pretty good job of it precisely because they took pains to cut back on the detail to just the bare essentials. 'Hellboy II' is another good example as it kept things interesting by framing it as a story being told and depicted the events as a sort of marionette puppet show. Thor too, also used this with a fair degree of success, though for the most part that worked thanks to Hopkins, who, like John Hurt, just has one of those really good storytelling voices.

But yeah, I have noticed the trend away from opening crawls. Star Wars may be the most memorable, but I can probably think of half a dozen films in the last 30 years that have used it. Blade Runner, Conan the Barbarian and Judge Dredd spring to mind. Plus of course the aforementioned Dune. Yeah, I know it's not a text crawl, but the principle is the same.

 

[Sindatur]

Rented the Movie on Cable On Demand yesterday. I don't know the books, so the beginning was a confused mess, but, I really enjoyed it once it got going and I stopped being so confused.

I have no way of knowing if they were true to the book characters, but, I really enjoyed the portrayals of John Carter and Deja Thoris

 

[CaptJimboJones]

Rented the Movie on Cable On Demand yesterday. I don't know the books, so the beginning was a confused mess, but, I really enjoyed it once it got going and I stopped being so confused.

I have no way of knowing if they were true to the book characters, but, I really enjoyed the portrayals of John Carter and Deja Thoris

They were actually fairly close with the characterizations. Keep in mind that even in the books these weren't exactly deep complex characters - John Carter is a fairly typical hero and Dejah is a fairly standard damsel in distress.

One disappointing departure in the film was that in the books Dejah is basically described as being naked most of the time.

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Well, everybody is. Barsoom is clothing optional.

 

[Ptrope]

Pretty much everything that could be done wrong on this film was done wrong. I've read the Mars/Barsoom/John Carter books several times, and the way they changed it around just really screwed the story up, as well as the characters. Once again, if you're not going to tell the story you paid for a license on, write a new story! Don't say it's one thing and make something else entirely.

Making the Therns aliens that plunder a world and then move on????? Independence Day did it better, and much more clearly. The Zodanga city-machine? WTF??

Calling it only John Carter because they thought people would associate it with Mars Needs Moms? Only if they have a piss-poor marketing department .... wait, clearly, they do! There were plenty of marketing possibilities to this; include a reference to ERB ("From the creator of Tarzan!" "From Edgar Rice Burroughs, the father of modern fantasy!"); reference its place in the sci-fi universe ("The Story That Inspired the Science Fiction Blockbusters of the 20th Century and the 21st!", "Over a Century in the Making!"). "Mars" should have been prominent in the marketing, not hidden away as an embarrassment ("Before robots explored Mars, before America panicked at an invasion from Mars - one man took a fantastic journey to save the red planet!").

There were so many possibilities.

Visually, it was a mess. The Martian landscape looked like Utah (duh!), so it looked like a western in the ads that showed John Carter waking up there. The scene of him fighting the white apes looked like the scene from the SW prequel, so there was a sense of 'been there, done that.' During the aerial battles, the ships looked so similar, it was impossible to tell the 'good guys' from the 'bad guys.'

I had high hopes when Andrew Stanton took this on - his successes at Pixar pointed to great things, but the script, the story, the visuals all made this the new Sky Captain, and Disney just compounded it with what has to be the most incompetent marketing effort of the past 30 years. And now they've apparently compounded it with the video release. The folks in charge of this fiasco deserved to be fired.

 

[Aeolusdallas]

I didn't agree with any of that. Yes the movie had bad marketing but other than that inthough it was quite good and I loved the books

 

[Skywalker]

I just finished watching the movie a few minutes ago and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I haven't read any of Burroughs' books, so I can't really comment on how accurate the movie was, but I though it was a pretty fun adventure movie. I agree that the Martian landscape was very bland, though. It didn't look nearly alien enough, and where was the red?

It's too bad the marketing for this was so awful, because I think it deserved to make a lot more money than it did.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I didn't agree with any of that. Yes the movie had bad marketing but other than that inthough it was quite good and I loved the books

Well, certainly a lot of call-outs to Burroughs and the claim that "this inspired it all" are not going to move the box office numbers one bit.

 

[RevDMV]

Saw this on my plane flight last week. Pretty much agree with most folks. Started out really poorly, doesn't follow the books, but after things got rolling it was enjoyable on its own.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Once again, if you're not going to tell the story you paid for a license on, write a new story! Don't say it's one thing and make something else entirely.

Well, I couldn't agree more with that.

 

[Warped9]

I picked up the BluRay recently and this evening I watched it again.

This is pure unabashed planetary adventure...and I loved every minute of it. It's a lot of fun.

My only regret is that Disney in its infinite "wisdom" likely isn't going to give us any sequels. What a damned shame because I really like this movie and find myself grinning and laughing along the way. Good stuff. This film deserves a lot better than the all the unfair press it got.

I realize it isn't one hundred percent faithful to the original books (but what is really?), but I've only read the first book and I found the film faithful in spirit. As such I'm not hung up on what it might have changed. Also as blasphemous as this might sound I think the film improves on certain aspects of the book.

My only disappointments with the disc is a very pedestrian and uninspired cover art to the packaging. That and there isn't any additional footage (that I noticed) to the disc version. There are deleted scenes, but most are somewhat rough and unfinished. It's just as well because I don't think any of them would have really added anything of substance to the film as it stands.

But I'm okay with it because I still like the film as it stands.

 

[Shurik]

This is pure unabashed planetary adventure...and I loved every minute of it. It's a lot of fun.

That's what I thought - it's just fun to watch, every single second of it.
I've only read the first book and I liked the movie better.

 

[Warped9]

Woola kills me! He was great!

Watching Carter in action when he first saves Deja Thoris. Well if original readers of the books envisioned something like that then it's easy to see how someone could have been inspired to create a character like Superman. I thought those scenes of Carter leaping were great.

 

[stj]

Rewatched it on DVD last night. It still holds up, despite the loss of big-screen impact, which surprised me. It still has too many openings, and it's still true that John Carter only had to say "I've already lost my war." But I could appreciate Willem Dafoe and Lynn Collins and the new improved Dejah Thoris even more, and Giacchino's score. Considering what they had to work with, the scriptwriters did a much better job than Joss Whedon Quimself.

But one thing just glared out on review, concerning the title, John Carter. I've just sort of passed my eyes over all the talk about marketing movies with Mars in the title, etc. But John Carter announcing himself to be John Carter of Mars was a major character beat. John Carter instead of John Carter of Mars was correct. Since Carter's choice between Mars and Earth basically was Carter's "character arc," or, rather, dramatic resolution, John Carter is arguably a better choice than A Princess of Mars.