John Carter (of Mars)

[Matt]

Troy is pretty much dead on in his assessment. It's devastatingly OK and that's it. What works, works. What doesn't work falls extremely flat. It's a real shame.

[FilmNerdJamie]

Its... great.

[Matt]

My main issue is with the overall structure of the script. It just feels...OFF. It's like the writers took the essential plotpoints of the novel and pinned them to a wall and threw darts at it to determine a pecking order. Once that was done, they filled in the gaps with flapdoodle exposition.

One of the charms of the novel is it's relatively straightforward, simple story. The film over complicates matters...major characters are almost completely disregarded, and minor characters are fleshed out and given shit to do that does not service the story. The pacing is completely fucked.

Still, the overall look of the film is kinda great. The humor is quite effective when it appears, and the battle sequences are fairly solid. The acting isn't too bad, and I didn't have the issue with Taylor Kitsch that many people seem to have...he's not great but he's not a deal breaker either. Lynn Collins is definitely the highlight, though.

[Timothy225]

My main issue is with the overall structure of the script. It just feels...OFF. It's like the writers took the essential plotpoints of the novel and pinned them to a wall and threw darts at it to determine a pecking order. Once that was done, they filled in the gaps with flapdoodle exposition.

One of the charms of the novel is it's relatively straightforward, simple story. The film over complicates matters...major characters are almost completely disregarded, and minor characters are fleshed out and given shit to do that does not service the story. The pacing is completely fucked.

Still, the overall look of the film is kinda great. The humor is quite effective when it appears, and the battle sequences are fairly solid. The acting isn't too bad, and I didn't have the issue with Taylor Kitsch that many people seem to have...he's not great but he's not a deal breaker either. Lynn Collins is definitely the highlight, though.

THIS.

Jen and I saw this last night. We enjoyed it, but, man, I see what Troy was getting at re: exposition. Like Matt said, the novel is pretty straightforward and simple to follow, but the flick has a lot of clunky, bolted-on junk that wasn't necessary. They could easily have shaved about a half-hour or so off this film if they'd jettison some of the extraneous crap re: Carter on Earth.

Also, what the fuck was up with Mark Strong's character and his posse? If I recall they weren't this active in the first book, so WTF Disney? Save that shit for the sequel where the Therns take center stage.

[Matt]

The therns don't show up until the third book, if I remember correctly. Even then, they're just evil priests at the end of the river Iss; they aren't some evil galactic puppetmasters (not that I recall, anyways).

What the writers added to A PRINCESS OF MARS:
- the amulets as a means of travel. Non-existent in the books. It's simply astral projection that gets John Carter to Mars.
- the Therns as the bad guys.
- the magic potion that allows John Carter to understand the Martian languages. In the book, he's there for a long time, and Sola teaches him the language.

The writers also greatly expanded the role of Sab Than and made his city mobile. He's there, but he lacks any sort of super-weapon. The crux of the actual plot of the book is the creation of an alliance between the Tharks and the city of Helium. Once that's done, they go after Sab Than and wipe it out. Boom, done.

Plotlines/characters disregarded from the book:
- Sarkoja is the main antagonist for the first third of the book. In the movie, she's relegated to being a bitch who is torn apart in the arena by chance.
- Kantos Kan (James Purefoy) is a major supporting character in the battle against Sab Than...kinda a Wedge Antilles. He's got one great scene in the film and that's it.
- The atmosphere processing station is completely gone. That's a MAJOR deletion from the film.

I actually enjoyed the stuff on Earth. It had a good look and feel to it and worked within the film.

[BillyG]

Holy shit this movie has Sinestro, Green Goblin, McNutty, AND Mark Antony and still manages to fuck it up?

[Anderson]

Holy shit this movie has Sinestro, Green Goblin, McNutty, AND Mark Antony and still manages to fuck it up?

Fuck it up still seems strong.

Let's put it this way. Solid supporting cast = poor final product.

It's not like any single party fucked it to death, it's more like a collection of poor decisions ran together and caused it.

[Matt]

It's not like any single party fucked it to death, it's more like a collection of poor decisions ran together and caused it.

I agree 100%. I understand the desire to turn this into a franchise and create something EPIC EPIC EPIC and create connecting tissue to further installments. However, the main thrust of what should have been 'the story' get buried under extraneous stuff that, quite frankly, does NOT need to be there. Not yet, anyways.

A fan re-edit to reduce this movie to what the book actually IS would be amazing.

[B_Metal]

Hollywood scoffs at source material. I am Legend has yet to see a good adaptation and it's had what 3 or 4 chances? It seems like film makers all have an ego trip where they think changing things here and there from the source material ALWAYS makes it better when sometimes it does not. I'm sure there are cases where it does, but more than not it doesn't.

[Matt]

I'm sure there are cases where it does, but more than not it doesn't.

JAWS comes to mind.

[teledork]

I'm sure there are cases where it does, but more than not it doesn't.

The Godfather agrees with you

[Ben Thomas]

The Godfather agrees with you

Nailed it.

100+ years and Hollywood still hasn't learnt that, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is a maxim that rarely fails.

[Martin]

Lynn Collins is definitely the highlight, though.

Toldja. It's not a great movie, but I saw it for free, and it wasn't horrible, far from it. I was entertained, but I haven't read the book so I can't complain about the adaptation.

[BillyG]

http://io9.com/5892594/some-random-t...carter-flopped

If that's true about Stanton rejecting marketing advice then he needs to run back to the sweet embrace of Pixar and stay there.

[Anderson]

http://io9.com/5892594/some-random-t...carter-flopped

If that's true about Stanton rejecting marketing advice then he needs to run back to the sweet embrace of Pixar and stay there.

Well, if they're reposting Film School Rejects, then I can say that Mr. Fure is pretty correct in his assumptions.

Stanton won't come out of this looking good, but I'm not willing to say that it is solely his fault.