John Carter (of Mars)

**PeterWilliam** · March 17th, 2012, 07:16 PM

I really liked it. Much of what I might say would merely echo tmso's comments from HERE and Anders' comments HERE.

Overall, I'd say very good and worth seeing. While not necessarily great, John Carter was far better than the box office receipts would lead one to suspect.

**Westsiyeed** · March 17th, 2012, 08:20 PM

I read an article today and it mentioned some of the causes of the box office failure is the use of unknown actors as the 2 main characters, and the uninspiring title.
I want to see it, though.

**saintjon** · March 18th, 2012, 11:06 AM

I don't think they did enough advertising ahead of time. Other than Junkmonkey's link I only heard anything about this movie like 2 weeks before release. Who can get motivated on that short of a notice to go see something with the economy being what it is?

**Jennifer P** · March 19th, 2012, 08:57 AM

I loved it. I seem to be in the minority, but I simply can't understand why it got so badly panned. Admittedly I haven't read the books so if anything got mangled, I missed it...but it was awesome.

As for the unknown actors - give me a break. They were great.

**Banger** · March 19th, 2012, 08:26 PM

The reviews seem very mixed - Rotten Tomatoes currently has it at 51% (thought the "top critics" were less kind - 35%).

There's an interesting defense of the movie (and attack against The Lorax!) here.

I was hopeful about this film given the source material, but I'm probably going to wait for dvd.

**Gumboot** · March 22nd, 2012, 04:47 AM

Anyone interested in the death of this film (one of the greatest flops in cinema history, with Disney already announcing a staggering $200 million loss) should read this article:

http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/john-...t-trailer.html

The article begins:

This weekend, eight months of indifferent and often confused chatter culminated in Disney's John Carter — which cost just shy of $250 million to make — grossing only $30.6 million domestically. (Insiders tell Vulture that for the film to break even, it would have had to have opened at nearly twice that amount.) The reviews were the very definition of middling, with a 53 rating on Metacritic.com, and yet critics rarely doom a family-targeting blockbuster this big: Just a week earlier The Lorax got a 47 Metacritic rating and grossed $70.2 million in its debut weekend, and another $39.1 million this weekend. No, this high-leaping hero was grounded from the moment the movie's first disastrously impotent, muddled, and largely action-and-effects-free teaser trailer debuted last July and left audiences saying, "What was that?" By the time its not-much-better Super Bowl ad played, the film had become a punch line — to those on whom it managed to make any impression at all. Even the star, Taylor Kitsch, seemed pained by the campaign, telling Metro last week that “there’s things, yeah, that I would love to have seen different.” While this kind of implosion usually ends in a director simmering in rage at the studio marketing department that doomed his or her movie, Vulture has learned that it was in fact John Carter director Andrew Stanton — powerful enough from his Pixar hits that he could demand creative control over trailers — who commandeered the early campaign, overriding the Disney marketing execs who begged him to go in a different direction. “This is one of the worst marketing campaigns in the history of movies,” a former studio marketing chief told Vulture before the film opened. “It’s almost as if they went out of their way to not make us care.” If that was the goal, it worked.

The article is a really fascinating read, particularly for writers because this is a case of a film failing badly precisely because the filmmaker was so deeply dedicated to the original source material. The guts of it can be summed up with the following:

Stanton ... was working from the belief that John Carter was still as universally iconic a figure to people as Dracula, Luke Skywalker, or Tarzan. “It was my Harry Potter,” he said during an interview at Google last week that was streamed live on YouTube. “All I ever wanted when I read that book was to believe it.” He believed that audiences would gasp in delight at John Carter’s very appearance in much the same way that a Batman teaser might only need to flash the Bat Signal. As such, he felt that the very first John Carter trailer needed only to intrigue, not explicate. “To him, it was the most important sci-fi movie of all time,” recounts one Disney marketing insider present for the pitched battles. “He could see no idea in which someone didn’t know who John Carter of Mars was. But it’s not Frankenstein; it’s not Sherlock Holmes. Nobody cares. People don’t say, ‘I know what I’ll be for Halloween! I’ll be John Carter!’”

**tmso** · March 22nd, 2012, 10:08 AM

That is very interesting.

Since I knew nothing of the story or the movie, I went to it with absolutely no expectations, and I liked it for what it was - an romantic adventure story on Mars.

That's too bad, but does illuminate the importance of getting the marketing, or story message, right the first time.

**FuzionFilmz** · March 22nd, 2012, 10:15 AM

I have yet to see the film but I am not so sure on the iconic nature of John Carter. I was/am an avid reader of SF but ERB was always associated with Tarzan. It was not until I read Heinlien's Number of the Beast did I discover the Carter series. Even now I do not consider them pillars of SF writing.

**saintjon** · March 22nd, 2012, 07:38 PM

If the director is also responsible for the Pixar ads then I can understand perfectly how things went horribly wrong. Pixar movies are great but the ads are almost universally horrible. Especially the first trailer. It's always some really dopy tease that does next to nothing to make you want to see the movie. Then you see the Pixar logo and it's like, well whatever obviously it's good in some way.

**Luke_B** · March 23rd, 2012, 06:22 PM

Well, I enjoyed it (saw it last night). I thought the bracketing in New York was a bit clumsy and I prefer my John Carter less angsty, but overall I enjoyed the look of the film and the sword-weilding shenanigans. For a long movie it whizzed by so I certainly wasn't bored. And Lynn Collins is very much a princess worth fighting for.

**tmso** · March 23rd, 2012, 06:35 PM

Originally Posted by PeterWilliam

While not necessarily great, John Carter was far better than the box office receipts would lead one to suspect.

Right, which is so puzzling. It is not a bad movie. Not like the last one I saw which was so bad I can't even remember the name...the one with that MMA chick in it? I was ready to see some woman kick some butt, but the whole thing was soooooo bad that what little fighting there was was just stupid.

Originally Posted by Luke_B

I thought the bracketing in New York was a bit clumsy and I prefer my John Carter less angsty, but overall I enjoyed the look of the film and the sword-weilding shenanigans.

Right! Shenanigans is the perfect word! It was supposed to be fun and I thought they did a good job of that. The doogie creature was cute and funny. I snorted water through my nose when it keep outsmarting him when he jumped out of the den.

**NeonKnight** · April 6th, 2012, 06:08 AM

Have not seen it yet but I did hear a plausible theory on all the bad vibes around the film:

Seems as if it is all about internal politics and backstabbing. New studio boss at Disney does not want his predecessor to have a hit. Instead of recouping their huge investment in the film, new boss in town releases bad publicity and snarky comments, so the movie would flop. Compounded by the horrid title, on the theory that titles with "Mars" mentioned usually tank.

I thought the lead actor was from the hit TV show "Friday Night Lights"? Heard he has some acting chops from that show, so I think he is considered a rising star, and hardly unknown.

I like that they didn't even attempt to give this sword anything resembling an edge....

Looks like a practice session sword to me. Haven't been to sword fighting practice lately, but my recollection is the blades for practice are fairly dull...

**Westsiyeed** · May 18th, 2012, 08:57 PM

I watched this last night and thought it was good, but not great - maybe 3 out of 5 stars.

The visuals were fantastic and definitely one of the highlights, but some of the dialogue was very cliched and unoriginal, especially the sentimental stuff from the princess. Favourite "character" was the Woola the "dog" - very cool!

**Pluvious** · July 13th, 2012, 07:07 PM

Pretty bad movie. I had no expectations but was bored by it. Bad acting. The action was not interesting. Silly in a non-funny way. I'm not really picky either.

**Triceratops** · July 13th, 2012, 07:44 PM

Haven't seen it yet, but also heard the "ho-hum" reviews and opinions about it. Just when SFF needed a booster shot to help things along, we get something not so spectacular.

chris