There was a line going out the door of the box office for this movie, so hopefully that's a good sign.
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Going to see this once it's released over here but it's not inspiring me with any degree of excitement. It looks like a cross between Attack of the Clones (not good), the Conan remake (not good) and Prince of Persia (not good) thus my expectations are low. I'm sure it'll be a CGI feast but quite frankly everything else looks dire.
Still...I'll judge it on the film because so far this year I've not seen one film that was represented fairly in its trailers both in terms of films that looked like they would be good but turned out to be shit (The Grey) and films that looked shit and turned out to be good (The Woman in Black).
The characters, while not "bad", were all one-dimensional caricatures, and the plot was extremely predictable (sans some rather well done randomness which freshens up the plot a bit), basically jumping from one cliche to another. The movie suffers from the fact that the book it is an adaptation of has been ripped off by nearly every major sci-fi movie that's been released in movie cinema history.
That being said, I enjoyed it, honestly. I enjoyed the world, specifically. It's just an honest popcorn flick, designed to allow yourself to lose yourself in and go on a bit of a mental journey. Don't try to look any more in to it than that.
One might question the logic of my statement above about the plot being predictable but having well done randomness, so to clarify: [SPOILER - highlight to read]: I'm referring to scenes like the introduction of the super fast dog thing, or the anti-climactic but still funny scene where John decapitates that one four armed alien leader in the arena, or the slaps across the back of the head. All very unexpected and served well to bring some life to the story.
Also, I agree with Jaden about the shittiness of movie trailers this year. I'm sure both Avengers and The Hobbit will be good, but the trailers look like shit.
edit- In other news, the movie is in the middle of bombing, just as I predicted. Unfortunate, as I'd like to see them make sequels to tie up many of the deliberately left vague aspects of the story.
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"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Last edited by Tzeentch on Mar 10th, 2012 at 07:00 AM
Edgar Rice Burroughs was infamous for making alot of his characters "one-dimensional." He relied on their actions, in his stories & the imagination of his readers to give them depth & personality...
John Carter could've easily been described as Tarzan on Mars.
And yes, it's a fair guess to say every director with an inkling towards fantasy, science fiction & action probably grew up reading Rice Burroughs & Robert E. Howard's work.
I really appreciated the homage of [SPOILER - highlight to read]: Introducing a young Edgar Rice Burroughs as the "driving force" that connected reality to John's adventures on Mars. That was a very sincere tribute that made the movie a little more special to me.
I saw it last night. I will start by saying that I did really enjoy it. But I ultimately was a little disappointed. I do agree with some of the criticisms (incomprehensible plot, and kind of dull characters), but those aren't really the reasons I was disappointed (like Esau Cairn pointed out, that's kind of true to the book). The film is incredibly well done. And it's very exciting, but I honestly think Disney kind of gay-ed it up. The music was boring and didn't really pull me in like it should have. It just sounded too tame, too Disney. And the battles and violence just weren't done right. I know that's why the blood was blue (for the PG-13 rating), and I'm okay with that, but I didn't like how there were no sound effects for the battle when John Carter was killing maniacally and it kept cutting back 'n forth to footage back on Earth. That totally zapped it of the intensity it should have had. Fail... thanks for ruining it, Disney. [SPOILER - highlight to read]: (And I totally agree, the decapitation was anticlimactic as hell. That should have been drawn out a little bit more. Does Disney do unrated DVDs? Hopefully the DVD release will be better...
Now for those of you who have read the book, please refresh my (poor) memory:
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: 1. I don't really remember John Carter being such an @sshole. He was really kind of a dick in the movie. From my impression in the book he was very loving (while also an amazing warrior) and as soon as he set his eyes upon Dejah Thoris he was infatuated and went on and on and just couldn't live without her. Right? This was far from the way it was done in the movie. I also seem to remember something about John Carter bringing to them a concept of kindness... because they are such a brutal and violent race. Am I remembering that correctly?? I know I didn't imagine it. Anyway, that wasn't really in the movie either and it really should have been, to give it a bit more heart...
2. Was there anything in the book about that weird blue substance or those shape-shifting characters who controlled it? what the hell was it, anyway? I don't think that was explained well. maybe I just missed it. I know Dejah said something about it being some kind of 9th element? (can't remember the word she used) controlled by a machine... but that doesn't really explain it. If they were trying to establish a mythology I think they might have done a piss-poor job of explaining it.
I will admit that I probably raised my expectations a bit too high, heh. (A mistake I will never do again when Disney is involved... :/) I also saw too much footage on Trailers and clips, etc. I hate doing that. But I did really enjoy it for what it was. I laughed quite a lot. It was very funny. And Woola! Woola was awesome!! Stanton has a knack for giving animated characters life and personality when they don't talk (perfect example: WALL-E). Woola was the best character in the whole movie, hahaha... he was superb. The film just felt very different from the book to me. Or at least what I remember the book being like, which was a Heart-Wide-Open Romantic, Violent Action/Adventure. John Carter being kind of an dick sort of ruined that vibe to me. I think now that he's attached and longing for Mars, sequels could really bring that out more with more voiceover about his love for Dejah. I liked how they brought Issus into it to plant seeds for further adventures, but sadly I don't see this doing well at all. Which is very unfortunate, because I'd love to see the next book adapted. It would be epic, but Disney would have to not be involved... heh. Hopefully he'll switch to a different production company and continue this somehow. Cutting the budget some would be fine (in half, even)..
And since my expectations were so high, i will probably wait a week or two and go see it again. 2D though, and see how it plays a second time...
Right now I give it 7/10, but we'll see after a second viewing...
Word. This was way more complex and interesting than Avatar. And Avatar is an easy comparison because of the similar special effects for the alien creatures. The John Carter aliens don't look like stupid cat-people.. so that's a plus right off that bat. However, I did like that there was plenty of heart in Avatar. There just wasn't enough complexity.
I also wanted to add that I really appreciated the kind of Indiana Jones type feel in John Carter. There was a great mix of that oldschool style filmmaking in there even with all the heavy special effects. That was quite admirable.
Probably? You had Carter's balls resting on your chin since the first preview.
Having said that, I'm watching it in several hours, I'm still expecting little more than some eye-candy excitement and cheese acting/dialogue/story; seems by what Blaxican wrote, it is little more than that, which is okay.
I have a feeling that [SPOILER - highlight to read]: They made John look like an ******* to avoid the whole "white man comes to the savage primitive allegorical brown people society and shows them the way of peace and human decency" cliche. In this day and age people don't like that and are tired of seeing it in movies, especially since he was a proud Confederate soldier and all. People in the theater started grumbling once that was revealed, and grumbled more once he was shown to be a better fighter than pretty much everyone else in the film.
There was a similar resentment in the Avatar film, where the super giant pterodactyl thing that none of the smurphs capture, despite them all being raised as warriors their whole lives, yet the thing gets easily dominated by the heroic white man who's only been a smurph for a week. People, myself included, were like "wtf."
__________________
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Last edited by Tzeentch on Mar 10th, 2012 at 09:38 PM
Yeah, but if that's a cliche now, it probably wasn't when the story was written. Sooo... then it fails to capture the spirit of the source material. Boo... Ya know?
It's not looking good. But hopefully other parts of the world will come through and give it a respectable run.
I might watch the 2009 film Princess of Mars, just to see how it compares (it's View Instant on Netflix).
Sure. Though, to be fair... I really don't think anyone cares at all about the spirit of the book except the people who've read it, which is a very very small percentage of the people who will see the film.
__________________
"The Daemon lied with every breath. It could not help itself but to deceive and dismay, to riddle and ruin. The more we conversed, the closer I drew to one singularly ineluctable fact: I would gain no wisdom here."
Yeah, well. I get excited about Sci-Fi. I've learned my lesson, though. When Disney is involved (especially with violence being a major issue) I shall not expect much. Disney is great with their kid-friendly animated stuff, but they can't do violence. I would love to see Tarsem Singh's take on John Carter... that would be effing brutal and amazing.
Oh, another thing: I didn't really like this guys acting: Dominic West. He's too over-the-top. No subtlety... don't like him. There really wasn't an interesting villain in the film, I didn't think. That's a big let down.
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Last edited by Patient_Leech on Mar 11th, 2012 at 01:57 AM
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Mar 9th, 2012 05:49 PM
The film just felt very different from the book to me. Or at least what I remember the book being like, which was a Heart-Wide-Open Romantic, Violent Action/Adventure. John Carter being kind of an dick sort of ruined that vibe to me. I think now that he's attached and longing for Mars, sequels could really bring that out more with more voiceover about his love for Dejah. I liked how they brought Issus into it to plant seeds for further adventures, but sadly I don't see this doing well at all. Which is very unfortunate, because I'd love to see the next book adapted. It would be epic, but Disney would have to not be involved... heh. Hopefully he'll switch to a different production company and continue this somehow. Cutting the budget some would be fine (in half, even)..
