"Just saw the "John Carter" trailer..." Topic

Just saw it at YouTube. Wow, it looks pretty good. Anyone hear if there will be any miniatures or gaming-related licensing from this, yet?

disney.go.com/johncarter

Very nice. Has a touch of "Prince of Persia", but looks very promising. I may even buy the books as I have until March 2012 to prepare.

Cheers,

I'll be in line

I reckon, with Disney in charge, it only has a chance of being on par with Clash of the Titans, if that. Not liking the look of the Tharks so far. Nor the sky ships. And Dejah Thoris is overdressed. It would have been better as an HBO (or Starz) miniseries.

Starz would be too low rent

Lots of gratuitous sex and violence, though.

Honestly, it looked a lot truer to the book than I would have expected it to be. I'm looking forward to it. The only real criticism I'd have from the very brief trailer is the green martian looked too short. And not sure what the scene was with the lit floor…the atmosphere factory, maybe? And the music, sounded like a clone of Johnny Cash's Hurt. Still, pretty cool. Better than I expected.

Looks cool, but Disney?

"And the music, sounded like a clone of Johnny Cash's Hurt."

Peter Gabriel covering a song by Arcade Fire.

"Looks cool, but Disney?"

No! Disney's Pixar. Totally different animal, as I said in the other thread on this topic.

I think the Green Man was viewed from above that's why he looked short. I don't mind the skinniness of him, fits the lower gravity bit, also the build fits Willem Dafoe who plays Tars Tarkas.

I like the feathery ships. Looks much more alien, yet elegant rather than the typical floating boat.

Sweet! This looks like a great take on the classic, can't wait to see it!

Here's the issue:

As much as we nerds would love to see a 100% faithful adaptation of "A Princess of Mars" with visuals inspired by Michael Weyland and Frank Frazetta's artwork, it's not going to happen. Like it or not, Hollywood is a business and their goal is pretty simple: To make significantly more money from a motion picture than was spent to make it. That means they must make a movie that can appeal to the largest audience possible, especially when that movie is going to require a rather large budget.

Well, nude Martians will have to be the first thing to go since the MPAA wouldn't give a film where most of the cast is performing naked anything lower than an NC-17 rating. Most american cinema chains refuse to show NC-17. The same for the violence; no massive, gory, bloodbaths in the Thark arenas. This has to be a movie that you can bring the kids (and charge their parents $6.00 USD a head) to, which means a PG-13 rating, tops. There is a reason why R-rated movies that have a lot of sex, violence, and/or nudity (e.g. horror movies) tend to be low budget flicks: so they can afford to have smaller audiences.

You also have to mindful of 21st Century cultural mores. Let's be honest, ERB was a man of his times which means he was a bit of a racist and a sexist. So we have to tone down the whole "White man from earth comes to save a planet full of non-whites" theme lest you offend anyone who was intelligent enough to notice it. That, and while you still want Dejah Thoris to be sexy (you need that 15-to-35-year-old male demographic), you can't have her just be the demure, submissive sex-object who is constantly being rescued by the big-strong-hero or you'll chase off the female audiences. Give her a sword, put her in a leather one-piece, and let her do some action-stuff too.

Now, get a good toy contract, a McDonalds tie-in happy meal… Oh! 3-D is popular, let's make it in 3-D… and you've got a potential hit.

In other words: You need to make a film for the average movie-going Joe. You can't make a multi-million dollar movie just to please one bunch of nerds. If anything, we should be grateful that a major motion picture company is willing to invest in the John Carter name and finally bring the character to the public's attention.

Believe me, it could be a lot worse: imdb.com/title/tt1531911

Parallel thread:
TMP link

Mutant Q is right: meaning that the movie will be to the books what 'Willow' is to 'Conan the Barbarian', or worse.

Then licensed merchandizing brings sometimes more money to the production than the tickets themselves, specially with movies aimed at pop-corn eaters, so one may hope for a few useable toys -if of appropriate scale.

The American market is the prime target, and our Venerated Editor had to put *unpainted* metal / resin (breast: t i t s was bleeped!!!) in 1/63 behind an 'adult filter'!
I wonder about American art museums: no reproduction of Ancient or Indian statues, no reproduction of Rubens' 'Judgment of Paris', or are they gathered in 'adults only' rooms? Are the reproductions of the Venus de Milo and 'Aphrodite of Cnidus' decked out in brass brassieres?
Here in Continental Western Europe the attitude is more relaxed, but not without a combination of hypocrisy with racism: 1.5 hour long TV documentaries about 'tribes' where all women are topless (and men wear only a penis shaft) are broadcasted at any hour and viewed without any reticence by the whole family, but a (slight) 'taboo' on "White" breasts reappeared. Reappeared, because it had disappeared since the last "60: 'Mon Curé Chez les Nudistes' ('Our parish priest among the nudists'), 1983, for instance, was acknowledged as a *whole family* comedy.

Edited: test: bleeped? nipples
Not bleeped: amusing; English is not my native tongue: is t i t s a 'dirtier' word than nipples? Too 'colloquial'?

Btw, images seem to be posted immediately, with size adjustment but no other a priori monitoring / censoring! And I doubt Bill has an AI-controlled image analyzer to automatically 'pixellate' / 'mosaic' 'obscene' parts of an image: how rash of him! Will he have to add a 'Report shocking images' button? And, how many stifles will I be granted with? Will I be doghowsed?

I love the trailer.

No, it's not a full-strength, faithful adaptation of ERB's vision … but we were NEVER going to get a full-strength, faithful adaptation of ERB's vision, so there's no sense in belabouring the point.

Taken on its own merits, it looks well worth the price of a ticket.

So we have to tone down the whole "White man from earth comes to save a planet full of non-whites" theme lest you offend anyone who was intelligent enough to notice it.

Ironically, that "message" is strongly implied in the trailer but wasn't very strong in the books. Carter spends a lot of his time chasing DT and her various kidnappers around. The apparent ease with which he deals with any native *can* be read as subtle colonial racism, but Carter also marries into these people, gives his utmost for the two largest nations, and counts many red and green men (and women) as close friends and respected colleagues. One of his closest friends is a man who would, were Carter not around, be the action hero of the age. His actions unite two hostile nations of different races. When exiled he wants to go back.

Thankfully there is no invasion from Earth, so this won't be "Dances with Martians".

@Abdul The T-word was one of the 'seven dirty words' that George Carlin claimed could never be used on TV. Never actually banned, as far as I can tell, but was avoided.

Personally, while coarse, it's not amongst my first tier of offensive words, and when speaking mechanical, 't*** up' is just TOO useful.

Back on topic, not liking the Tharks. I need 'em brawny to be properly bad ass.

Doug

Edit: Oh, merde. I just figured out what I don't like about the Tharks. Look too much like Lord Voldemort… ;->=

I remember seeing one of the early props that had been made for the Tharks. At 12 feet tall, it was just too big to a) look good on screen, and b) look believable.

A 6-foot man versus a 12-foot Thark looks like a 5-year-old picking a fight with an adult…

[Message gone to the warp. Next time I'll copy & paste it to simple text before 'submitting'!
The Bug stroke gain! More a Bombardier Beetle than any other kind of bug, for me.]

"White man from earth comes to save a planet full of non-whites"

Read the books long ago -and just realize I'm not as tempted to read them again as some… pastiches would be too hard a word: A. G. Aker's Adventures of Dray Prescott on Kregen under the suns of Scorpio link easier, more enjoyable, more variegated reading imho. But as I remember, John Carter's 'superiority' came mainly from a body accustomed to a higher gravity, so I confess I detected no 'colonial racism' at all. Perhaps because I was reading in parallel 'Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice' by C. E. Callwell, the Late Victorian British 'handbook' of Colonial Warfare!

While you still want Dejah Thoris to be sexy <> you can't have her just be the demure, submissive sex-object who is constantly being rescued by the big-strong-hero

According to a centuries old literary tradition, women are either 'heroines' who scream and have to be rescued, or *evil* creatures a la Milady de Winter. Personally happy with the recent change, even if it leads sometimes to odd consequences (e.g. the 'biased' fandom of Xena) suggesting that the change is more superficial that one could hope.
Btw, what makes you think that males above 35 are no longer receptive to feminine attractiveness? Specially among us wargamers: all said we are adults playing with toy soldiers, thus still young of brain and heart !

not liking the Tharks.

Regarding their anatomy, they look quite faithful to the traditional imagery vehiculed by book covers and 'emphatically NOT Barsoomian' miniatures (Bronze Age, Tin Man). Less faithful to their first description as able to run on (not all) four like 'gorilla-centaurs' (a 'human' torso on a gorilla body), but this feature disappears from later books (the same, if I remember well, for the feathers worn by Red Martians?).

Regarding their size, one has to make allowances (as for the lack of 'powered armor' ins "Starship Trooper") when it comes to put to the screen a written description. In this case, as LitS just pointed out, a 6-foot man versus a 12-foot Thark would look ridiculous: when Yoda (sp.) fights Palpatine he has to jump in a way that makes me think of a green body crab tortured by haemorrhoids!


Ah, and an objective reason to avoid topless Martiennes: it would perhaps be too obvious that they don't benefit of the lower Martian gravity (re. TinMan Princess Delia tinminis.com/TinManCatalog.htm )

abdul666lw: The "T" word is, indeed, MUCH coarser than the word nipples, which is an anatomical term and not considered offensive. This is a subtlety of the American language. It's no more absurd or odd than any other nuance found in any other language.

As for Disney making the movie… that actually gives me a little hope that it will be a quality product with solid production values and a solid chance of continuing as a franchise.

I admit it's been YEARS since I read the books as a young teen, but I must admit that I don't remember the books as having a lot of sex. I remember there being things implied, but not overtly stated. Or am I just not remembering things correctly (and that could well be the case, as I can't swear I read more than a few of the books).

No, Mike, you are remembering correctly. There is no real sex depicted in the books, just love and lust. The stories were written for men's adventure magazines of the time and they reflect that and the era of the early 1900s quite well..

Now, when one remember how Dejah Thoris can be drawn..

link one can only dream of good quality animated cartoon ('Heavy Metal' link like but better)….

Mike: You can borrow mine if you want to. I have many of them. I always liked them and I reread them semi-regularly.

I do hope we get some decent toys out of this. 1/56 scale wouldn't be too much to ask for, would it?

Oh, and mark me down for a spot in the line opening night. Not that I really expect there will be much of one.