John Carter

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
It doesn't need lots of gore, necessarily. But the intensity wasn't really right. Like the anti-climactic decapitation scene. That has nothing to do with the book. It just should have been drawn out a bit more, making it more compelling. And then the decapitation would have been a better pay off. It just happened too quickly, in my opinion.

I'm gonna see it again, at some point, to see how much these things bother me the second time..

And yeah I was expecting the arena scene much earlier as well.

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
It doesn't need lots of gore, necessarily. But the intensity wasn't really right. Like the anti-climactic decapitation scene. That has nothing to do with the book. It just should have been drawn out a bit more, making it more compelling. And then the decapitation would have been a better pay off. It just happened too quickly, in my opinion.

I didn't think the decap scene was anti-climatic at all.
Tal Hajus was an antagonist but not necessarily a villain.
He was more like a bully or in another sense, an annoying fly that just needed to be swatted.

I mean, I saw the comparison to Jango Fett's beheading & that wasn't drawn out either to be an effective & powerful scene.

Seeing Tal Hajus's head fall to the ground was like seeing a basketball fall into the hoop. The actual sequence may be anti-climatic to watch but the end result in scoring victorious is what matters.

My only minor gripe was the inconsistencies to John's powers on Mars.

Spoiler:
He was able to kill a Thark with one punch but punching the Red Men only seemed to knock them unconscious. His sword fights against the Tharks was almost Godlike & then becomes nothing extraordinary one on one against the Red Men...

Originally posted by Newjak
I fail to see why the violence had to be this big gory mess for the violence to be good or how it would have made the movie better?

And in regards to this: Yeah, it's fine if you're 12 years old and shouldn't be seeing excessive violence on TV and in movies, but I'm much older than that and I like to see violence in movies because it provides a catharsis of sorts and satisfies my primitive blood-lust. 😄

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
My only minor gripe was the inconsistencies to John's powers on Mars.

Spoiler:
He was able to kill a Thark with one punch but punching the Red Men only seemed to knock them unconscious. His sword fights against the Tharks was almost Godlike & then becomes nothing extraordinary one on one against the Red Men...

Hmm... I didn't even notice or think of that. That certainly is strange, because the Tharks are like 9 feet tall. I'll be looking for that next time I watch it. Another thing: if he's on Mars for 10 years, wouldn't his muscles atrophy after a while and he would eventually be less than spectacular compared to everyone else?

Originally posted by roughrider
Like the arena sequence; that's something I would have expected to be in the first third or half of the film, instead of where it got placed.

I didn't mind the arena sequence being so far into the film....

It's so hard not to compare John Carter to other movies but like Gladiator, I felt there was too much scenes in the arena (though obviously warranted for)....so John Carter "eventually" ending up in the arena, already established as a hero was much better for me, then having to prove himself at the beginning of the film..in the arena.

Although the Tharks calling him a "Baby White Ape" was an odd insult considering when you see how huge & powerful they were...

So this movie bombs domestically but does okay elsewhere.

Indeed I like watching the movie,. And Also the movie is based on the very nice concept.

John carter stream

Originally posted by Patient_Leech
And in regards to this: Yeah, it's fine if you're 12 years old and shouldn't be seeing excessive violence on TV and in movies, but I'm much older than that and I like to see violence in movies because it provides a catharsis of sorts and satisfies my primitive blood-lust. 😄

Originally posted by Kazenji
So this movie bombs domestically but does okay elsewhere.

We'll see what happens by the second weekend, if that big spike last Saturday means anything and carries it through the week. One interesting thing both Titanic and Avatar had in common (besides James Cameron) - neither set any opening weekend records, with grosses that were good but not great. But both continued to gross the same amount for weeks, even months in a row. It was a slow but steady push to claiming the modern box office crown for both.

John Carter won't get close to that. But if has a steady performance for a while and hits minimum targets in North America (which means crossing $100 million domestically) and continues to do huge business elsewhere in the world, then there is hope for the series to continue.

It's not bombing like Green Lantern did; in one weekend it's already earned half of that film's overall gross. But success on the level of Clash Of The Titans or Troy still is possible; it was the huge overseas numbers that befitted those films.

I liked it. A little cheesy near the end

Spoiler:
before he goes back to Earth

Little things like the slap to the back of the head made it fun. And I wanted to EF the princess.

That's an interesting point, roughrider. I didn't know that about Avatar and Titanic. But another advantage those movies had was that lots of crazy people went to see them multiple times. We shall see... sometimes the world is depressing, cuz bullshit like THIS makes $700 million.

ugh3

Originally posted by BruceSkywalker
lynn collins is smokin hot..

Originally posted by Barker
And I wanted to EF the princess.

Maybe my standards are higher, cuz I don't think she really looks all that good. With better makeup and clothing she can look a lot better. But she's average looking at best, to me. Disappointing casting in my opinion. I guess they might have wanted the audience to believe that she could be a scientist... haha 😂

LoL, she was/is hot.

That's much better. 😱

She looked just as good in the film.

Not really. Cuz she was smart and hurt people. Duh.

Originally posted by Robtard
LoL, she was/is hot.

If she's from Mars...I'm all outta Uranus jokes.

There, you see? Lynn & Dejah side by side.

I just got back from seeing it the second time. Now being free of having to figure out and follow the plotting, I could see many more details. It definitely gains on repeated viewings. I even spotted Jon Favreau's cameo as a Thark bookie ("You lost your bet" he tells Tal Hajus)

I realize Dejah thought John transported back to Earth after their meeting in Zodanga. And the placement of the arena sequence makes sense now, as the culmination of John's acceptance of his role as the saviour of Dejah, Helium, the Tharks and Barsoom itself. Emotionally, it wouldn't have worked as well if it happened earlier. Just as his stance against the Thark horde earlier was a step towards it.

Hmm.. you intrigue me with your 2nd viewing commentary, good sir. Nice analysis.. *strokes chin*

Too kind, good sir. 😄

I think i realized why my expectations were so high...

I read the first couple chapters of the first book again, and there's just no way anyone can do this writing justice. It's such excellent writing. By its very nature, any film adaptation is going to be a completely different experience. Disney or anybody would have an extremely difficult time doing it justice. However, Disney hardly would have been my first choice... but oh well..