![]() Why not go with a Lord of the Rings opening? Show how distant Barsoom is a dying planet, with less water and less air each passing year. But is this the best Stanton could do? My pal and sometimes Longbox Graveyard contributor Chris Ulm pulled a better opening out of his backside. Look, opening the picture with a bang and introducing the audience to Barsoom is a great idea. The Wire’s own Jimmy McNulty - Dominic West - played the heavy in John Carter, and I put him here because it is probably the last chance I’ll get to reference my favorite TV show at Longbox Graveyard Incoherent action, sky ships blasting anything and everything, characters we don’t know snarling at each other … then McNulty is confronted by three flying dudes who give him some kind of nanotech wonderweapon and I am supposed to care because …? The film opens in a strident rush of yelling and explosions and over-amped action that left me lost - and I’m a guy that’s read all the books, and blogs about this nonsense. I was one of the few Americans who turned out for this picture on opening day, watching the film in IMAX 3D, and my militant optimism turned to dismay almost from the opening curtain. None of that was on display in this first lifeless trailer:Īnd it is not too much of an exaggeration to report that it was all down hill from there, with an increasingly off-kilter marketing blitz just muddying the issue right up until the movie was delivered, dead on arrival, at theaters this past weekend. From the creator of Wall-E and Finding Nemo! From the writer of Tarzan! Pixar’s first live-action movie! There was no attempt to connect this movie to contemporary audiences. That trailer was all about loss, and mourning, and dust. ![]() I knew the moment I saw that first brown, tepid, dirge of a teaser trailer last year that this picture was in trouble. John Carter was never deterred by long odds I had faith that Andrew Stanton - the flat-out genius behind Wall-E - would do justice to the sentimentality and the heart that is at the core of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian romances. In the run-up to this movie, when I read that director Andrew Stanton was picking and choosing from the books, and throwing out what didn’t work … I felt great! That’s exactly what this series required! Mine the books for ideas, find the heart of the series, and make a movie for 21st century audiences! The books frankly aren’t that good - and I say this as a fan! Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ novels are full of wonderful ideas and imagery, but as fiction they are a tough read. ![]() When the Conan movie tanked last August I reached back to the books and offered up a fist-full of suggestions about how the Cimmerian might be better treated on film, but I have no such prescription for John Carter. It’s probably not top ten for me, but it is comfortably in my top twenty. Not as much as I love Conan, or The Lord of the Rings, but I do love the series. This picture deserved to be GREAT! Anything less is the cinematic equivalent of a Barsoomian airship captain leaping from the prow of his doomed flyer - a symbolic act of surrender. The problem is that with all the money, talent, and ambition that went into John Carter, “good” isn’t good enough. Put a radium pistol to my head and I will admit that the movie was … good. My personal grade of C+ puts me a little ahead of the the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, and only one letter grade behind John Carter’s CinemaScore rating by audiences exiting the theater. I am severely conflicted about this movie. There won’t be a sequel, there won’t be a John Carter movie franchise - just this single, flawed, oh-so-promising misfire. Even worse - barring some miraculous international box office - the movie is going to perform so poorly that it will turn the entire property into a toxic tire fire. (all art in this blog by the immortal Frank Frazetta!)Īs I noted in my update to last week’s column, John Carter gets more things right than wrong … but the things it gets wrong are so wrong that it torpedoes the whole enterprise. I stand naked before you, beneath the hurtling moons of Mars!ĭisney’s John Carter pierced me through my fanboy heart! ![]() This subject does matter to me and I am seething with nerd rage. So what the heck … one more John Carter column isn’t going to kill anyone. Acknowledge my love of the property, excoriate the Marvel Comics run for being so crappy, express my anxiety over the movie, and finish things off with a one paragraph review of the film.īut today I got into one of those protracted geekfights that makes you think about things, and reevaluate, and get worked up all over again. I intended last week’s John Carter, Warlord of Mars column to be my first and last word on the subject.
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