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John Carter (2012)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:02 pm    Post subject: John Carter (2012) Reply with quote




This movie might not be perfect, but it certainly deserved more respect than it gets. It really is a rousing yarn, with all the ingredients necessary for a big hit.

Unfortunately is was a big miss, an epic example of a box office flop.

I've seen it several times (and own the DVD) and I've enjoyed it very much. The big climax during the villain's attempt to marry Dejah Thoris gets a little confusing, but that makes for a good excuse to wait a while and watch it again.

The movie has some debatable story elements that are fun to discuss, like John Carter's surprising ability to leap so high he can practically fly. Naturally it's completely bogus from a scientific standpoint, but it's consistent with Burroughs' description in the novels, so I'm glad they put it in the movie.

My first few viewings were marred by some confusion concerning the mystic Therns and their puzzling powers. I still haven't quite figured them out.

Disney had planned to do three John Carter films, but all that just evaporated when the movie lost so much money. What a pity.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I'd enjoy this trailer a lot more if there weren't so many "slide show" fade-in/out segments. But the movie is loaded with great moments, and the trailer presents a generous helping of them.

Imagine going to a theater when you were about 10 years old and seeing this trailer. If you're older than 40, that would mean you'd have seen it in 1985 (or earlier). If you're my age, that would have been in 1958. Very Happy

Either way, I think we'd have been pretty impressed. Sometimes I wonder if kids will ever be impressed again the way they we were at that age. Seems kind of a pity.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Dr Acula
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 9:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think the Therns are a little like very high technology where it appears like magic to those around them. I think they are there to keep everything going the way they want it to on Mars, so John Carter's appearance throws a monkey wrench into their plans.

I really enjoyed this film, but I tend to like planetary romance as a genre type.
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Rick
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 19, 2016 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well...I didn't hate it.

This was the movie which brought back a question I mulled after seeing AVATAR. Namely, when does a live-action movie become an animated movie?

This one, maybe even more than AVATAR, felt like a cartoon to me. I don't mean it had the pace or the action or the physics of a cartoon. I mean that the thing looked like a cartoon. Not like real people in a real place.

I guess there's a place for such plastic movies, but so far the two prime examples I can think of, this one and James Cameron's blockbuster, don't impress me much.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rick wrote:
I guess there's a place for such plastic movies, but so far the two prime examples I can think of, this one and James Cameron's blockbuster, don't impress me much.

I gather from your comments, Rick, that the basic difference between you and me is that you want movies to look realistic, while I want just the opposite. As as an artist I prefer the stylized look of a painting to the realism of a photograph.

I want to see something that was created by man — not just captured by a camera.

When I saw Avatar I loved it because the hands of the skilled artists were plainly visible. It was the first movie since Forbidden Planet that did this to such a breathtaking degree, right down to the carefully crafted look of the terrain and the vegetation.






Star Wars has been praised for being "realistic" in the way it made the hi-tech world look beat-up and dirty, because that was consistent with the way people allow machinery to get. To me it just looked like poor maintenance and bad housekeeping — realistic, sure, but I don't go movies to see what I can get without ever stepping into a movie theater.

That would be like going to an art museum that had no paintings — just windows that let you look outside at the dirty street.

I'm not saying that everything in a movie has to look pretty. I'm just saying than when a movie uses artistic skill to present a world very different from what we can see in reality, I don't think of it as "plastic movie" or a "cartoon".

It's a wondrous world of brilliant visual creations, a blend of realism and surrealism.

Like this.






If ever there was a movie that could be described as looking like a "cartoon", it's this one. And yet, that's exactly why I love it.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 10:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also there is the fact that both Avatar and Forbidden Planet do not have any equivalent locations on Earth (Sol III "Terra" to us non-humans).
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mach7
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm late to the game here, but I just watched this a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed this movie.

I say movie, not film.

This was a very fun, very visually interesting, and mostly well paced.

I like that it was done as a period piece and they did not try "Modernize" the story.

I agree the climax is very fast paced and busy, I will watch it again in a few weeks.

I have come to despise most CG work in films, I felt this film uses it in a balanced way, if that makes sense.

The Tharks look very realistic.

The way this movie was filmed makes me wish this production company would tackle Ringworld!
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Sir, I admire your comments and I agree with your opinions of the movie. I own the DVD and I've enjoyed it several times.

A very underrated film. Very Happy

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mach7
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks.

Oh, and Lynn Collins is VERY easy on the eyes!
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think that they took the "of Mars!" out of the title actually hurt the box office for this film.

The confusion about the wedding scene comes mostly from the shape changing abilities of the Therns and therefore the difficulty in keeping "who's who" straight.

All in all it was a well done adaptation of the Burroughs novels with a few changes but maintaining the tone of the books.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 16, 2017 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with you, Bud, this film was pummeled by the critics & was really a decent movie.

The visuals were all splendid, the story exciting & fun.

I wonder if JC came out years earlier if that would have made it a hit?
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Actually, I found this a marvelous movie. The simple fact that they retained the correct era to portray it in, and that it maintained the personal "Ed" connection was great! The CGI was necessary to properly portray the richness of Barsoom and was flawlessly done.

The entire film was magnificently filmed and retained the spirit of the source material.

I first read the Burrough's Mars novels in the 60's and was inspired to study fencing and swordplay in college leading to trying out for the Olympics team. I had mastered foil and epee and was working to master sabre.(Didn't qualify, but what the heck I was still learning!).

As a set of stories the Barsoomiam novels of ERB still stand out as the pattern about which all S&S stories are modeled upon: and this film hit the marks on all counts!
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 13, 2019 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

A nice BTS video in three parts. Enjoy!
________________________________


___________ John Carter - Behind the Scenes 1


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___________ John Carter - Behind the Scenes 2


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___________ John Carter - Behind the Scenes 3


__________

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has 54 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text. Very Happy
________________________________

~ While filming at Big Water in Utah, the crew accidentally discovered a 60 foot long sauropod skeleton. The state's land management bureau took over.

Note from me: Perhaps it was evidence of a Martian life form which was transported to Earth by an asteroid strike on Mars! Accept that in this case, it flew through space, like The Giant Claw! Shocked

~ Financially, the film was considered one of the largest box office losses in Disney history. Even though the film performed stronger than expected outside the US, it contributed to Disney's Studio Entertainment division reporting an $84 million loss in the first quarter of 2012.

Such a large loss was attributed to issues with marketing, management changes at the studio, and a lack of merchandising normally associated with such a large budget film. As a result, any plans for the two sequels that were already in development prior to the film's release were scrapped.


Note from me: In other words, the movie didn't fail because it wasn't good, it failed because those Micky Mouse bozo's didn't handle it right! Sad

~ The rights to the novels have since reverted back to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, which is still game to try to turn the books into a successful movie franchise.

Note from me: This is good news! It means that Disney can't hold it up if somebody else decides to take a crack it. Very Happy

~ Andrew Stanton has already confessed that he isn't too satisfied with how the movie turned out. He confessed that part of the problems came from a first-time live action director being "drunk with power" after receiving too much money and creative control.

Note from me: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely . . . especially in Hollywood!"

~ Willem Dafoe accepted the role of Tars Tarkas because he thought it was interesting for him to act while wearing pajamas and walking on stilts.

Note from me: I'll bet that hasn't been a casting inducement used too often in Hollywood!

"Well, guys, the money sounds pretty good, but . . . can I play the role wearing pajamas and stilts?" Cool

"Sorry, Bogie, but that's not the look we want for Rick in Casablanca." Sad

~ Robert Zemeckis turned down the chance to direct, quipping "George already pillaged all of that" with the "Star Wars" films. In other words, most of the best elements of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars fantasies had already been "borrowed" for George Lucas' space operas.

Note from me: Robert didn't seem to realize that a well-down ERB would have a very different look than Star Wars.






~ The book was written in Utah and much of the film was shot in Utah, almost 100 years apart.

Note from me: My late mother lived in Utah for several years in the 2000s, and I visited her several times, during which we took long trips to the region's many State Parks. There's some spectacular landscapes there.

And I discovered this fossilized skull of a gigantic dinosaur! Shocked



___


Yes, that's really me!
Yes, that's a fossilized skull!
(Yes, one of those statements is false. Wink)

~ The film was originally titled and marketed as "John Carter of Mars", but director Andrew Stanton removed "of Mars" from the opening credits and promotional material to make it more appealing to a broader audience, stating that the film is an "origin story . . . It's about a guy becoming John Carter of Mars." The entire title "John Carter of Mars" is displayed during the end credits.

Note from me: So, Stanton removed the " . . . on Mars" so that people who aren't ERB would also go see it. Let's see now, does that make a lick of sense?

Ummm . . . nope. Rolling Eyes

~ The change in title from "A Princess of Mars" to "John Carter of Mars," and later simply to "John Carter" is the subject of some controversy. Conflicting reasons given include that the Disney marketing department or director Andrew Stanton wanted to appeal to a broader audience, or that the studio had hoped to create a film series with the "John Carter" banner title.

Industry lore also suggests that films with "Mars" in the title tend to under perform financially, most notably Mars Needs Moms (2011) which was also distributed by Disney and proved a colossal flop for the studio. Ironically, "John Carter" would prove to be the biggest financial disappointment for Disney since "Mars Needs Moms."


Note from me: More stupidity from Mouse-brained morons at Disney. It never occurred to them that " . . . Needs Moms" was the dumb part of the title. Not "Mars"! Confused

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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