John Carter

[HoosierJoe]

Anyone seeing the movie over the weekend?

I doubt that I will go opening weekend, but I will go eventually.  Saw a review on Fox website giving it good overall marks. Review says that it gets too detailed and tries to cram too much story from the books into the movie.  Borrows from more than one of Burrough's Mars series books.

It's nostalgia for me.  I picked up some Edgar Rice Burroughs books when I was in Jr. High.  Of course the scantily clad, bosomy heroines on the cover did not influence my adolescent buying decision at all.

A Princess of Mars was one of them.  I really liked it and picked up a few more.  A friend of ours worked at a comic book store and told me that Burrough's is and would become even more of a collectors item in the future.  The important part of this to me was investment potential.   I stated finding Burroughs paperbacks and hardbacks different places over the years.  Junk stores, garage sales, goodwills, etc.  I only bought things in good condition and read quite a few.  I amassed quite a collection ( I also absorbed other things besides Burroughs along the way.)  End of story is I basically just moved it all when I moved over the years and had it in storage when I sold it all on ebay for a shocking amount.  The comic book guy was right.  I spent a few hundred over 25 years and made many times more.  

Got to read some good pulp fiction along the way. 

[RHWright]

I would like to see it, but don't know if I'll make it opening weekend.

Should be interesting from many perspectives:

How do you stay "true" to the original, while updating some of the outdated attitudes and adapting it for a kid/family friendly audience?

How do you make it seem new and fresh after 100 years, especially when so many sci-fi/fantasy movies of the last 50 years took direct or indirect inspiration from the books?

And if that's not enough, have they managed to just make it an acceptably good movie?

Reviews I've seen have been pretty favorable. But then, far too often, I find critics praise movies I find dull and pan movies I enjoy. So, generally, I give a chance to what I think sounds interesting regardless of critics or popular opinion.

[MacMcK1957]

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RHWright wrote:

How do you make it seem new and fresh after 100 years, especially when so many sci-fi/fantasy movies of the last 50 years took direct or indirect inspiration from the books?

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That's the question I wonder about.  So much may seem derivative of other movies because the people who wrote those movies grew up reading Burroughs.

[paulgoatallen]

I just posted a blog about this –

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Explorations-The-BN-SciFi-and/More-Than-a-Movie-The-New-John-...

I just don't want to see the legacy of this series tarnished – so many of my favorite SF/fantasy novels have just been butchered as movies. I'd hate to see Barsoom go down like David Lynch's version of Dune...

[Pavel]

Just got the 5-book special for $4 for my Nook. 70 pages in it, and it looks like a good deal so far.

[MacMcK1957]

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Pavel wrote:

Just got the 5-book special for $4 for my Nook. 70 pages in it, and it looks like a good deal so far.

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Oooohhh...   For anyone else who may be looking, there are multiple editions of the first five books.  This one's only 99 cents:

The John Carter of Mars Collection, 5 Complete Books  

[Tm-Moore]

Since I wait for everything to go to Netflix these days I guess I will have to wait to see it, but I am somewhat disappointed that everyone is calling it a flop. I tend to think that low box office means more people are staying home like me. The price of a ticket and popcorn has made it prohibitively expensive to go to a movie theater and sit in a half empty auditorium, not necessarily the quality of a film. After seeing the trailers I am intrigued to see it, but I would rather they had mentioned Mars in the title. That alone would have brought a lot of space enthusiasts out to see it. Calling it "John Carter" was a little like what I found with "Hancock". I did not know what the film was about unitl I actually worked an extra scene in it, and then I got the idea. If the trailers did not bring out enough SF fans then the publicists failed, and if, like "Transformers" the special effects alone are carrying the film then I would rather wait and see it in comfort so I can yell at the screen all I want.

In contrast, the trailer for "District 9" was a turn-off but once I saw the whole thing I loved it.

Remember that half the current film audience has never even picked up the books these films were based on. They wouldn't know "derivative" if it walked up and smacked them on the behind.

[MacMcK1957]

I find it difficult to remember any movie as poorly marketed as this one.  The overwhelming majority of fans I've heard from who are familiar with the material liked the movie.  Unfortunately, most of the general public have never heard of the character, and nothing in the promos and trailers gave a good indication of what it was about.  I could easily envision an entirely different marketing strategy that would have gone something like: "From Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan: The original epic adventure of interplanetary war, never before brought to the screen: JOHN CARTER OF MARS!!!!"

Then you had ignorant critics describing some parts of the movie as derivative, when in fact people like Spielberg and Lucas would tell you that the original John Carter books were what inspired them.

I wonder if word-of-mouth may actually lead to a second weekend better than the first.  We'll have to wait and see.

[Pavel]

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MacMcK1957 wrote:

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Pavel wrote:

Just got the 5-book special for $4 for my Nook. 70 pages in it, and it looks like a good deal so far.

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Oooohhh...   For anyone else who may be looking, there are multiple editions of the first five books.  This one's only 99 cents:

The John Carter of Mars Collection, 5 Complete Books  

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Now you tell me!

[HoosierJoe]

I am going to have to go ahead and agree with the people who say calling this movie John Carter is a poor choice indeed.

[MDD73]

I just finished the original John Carter trilogy - 'A Princess of Mars', 'The Gods of Mars' and 'The Warlord of Mars'. It is an awesome series and my new favorite. I also read the original 'Tarzan of the Apes' novel. (I downloaded them all for free from Feedbooks and side-loaded to my Nook.) I find Burroughs' writing fascinating, made even more-so by the fact that these stories are 100 years old. Reading the John Carter books today, it's easy to pick out where things have been borrowed by everything from Superman to Star Wars. It added to the enjoyment of it to me.

[paulgoatallen]

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MDD73 wrote:

I just finished the original John Carter trilogy - 'A Princess of Mars', 'The Gods of Mars' and 'The Warlord of Mars'. It is an awesome series and my new favorite. I also read the original 'Tarzan of the Apes' novel. (I downloaded them all for free from Feedbooks and side-loaded to my Nook.) I find Burroughs' writing fascinating, made even more-so by the fact that these stories are 100 years old. Reading the John Carter books today, it's easy to pick out where things have been borrowed by everything from Superman to Star Wars. It added to the enjoyment of it to me.

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Agreed. Talk about (almost) timeless reads.....