"John Carter and Gods of Mars" Topic

When I saw the White Apes in the stills from the upcoming "John Carter" film I thought that they were going to add them just to make the film more interesting, but from the character list in IMDB it looks like "Matai Shang" and the Therns are represented too, so the film will represent the first two books of the John Carter trilogy at least. That surprised me, but i'm also happy that they included "Gods of Mars" as, IMHO, it's the most interesting of the three novels.

That might explain the blue eyed bald fellow in the trailer. If that is the case we'll get an odd blend of the first two books. Could be worse. Purists will howl, but they already are, so…

Good catch. Of course, they might have also altered the timeline for the movie, or collapsed events.

>>Good catch. Of course, they might have also altered the timeline for the movie, or collapsed events.<<

Yup. That's a very good possibility. I have yet to see an accurately produced version of "Tarzan of the Apes". Anyway, we can be sure that we're not going to see Dejah Thoris lay an egg…even if the movie does. :-)

Well, the white apes were in the first book – and the movie "white ape" is not the same thing as the book white ape anyhow. But yes it does look a bit like they might have thrown in the Therns (in some form) as well. We'll know soon enough.

I'm currently reading the third book in the series at present and I own (well I actually borrowed from my father) at least 10 books in the series.

The white apes appear in the first and second books at least and I'm okay with the film portrayal of them in the trailer.

I'm a bit disappointed that John Carter has long hair and not short cropped black hair as he is portrayed in the books. But then all the artwork I've ever seen have shown him with long dark hair so I'm not surprised.

The thing I'm most disappointed with is the green men who appear to be no more than 8ft tall in the trailer but should be at least 12 ft according to the book.

I'm resigned to paying to watch little more than an action flick but then the books themselves are basically pulp scifi anyway and should be enjoyed as such :-)

I guess everyone knows the books are 100 years old this year?

Good catch. Of course, they might have also altered the timeline for the movie, or collapsed events.

I remember explaining to someone who'd watched The Fellowship of the Ring and complained that he thought the first half of the film took a long time to get started that – in the book – the events took place over a period of over a decade and a half (the look on his face was wonderful).

Cinematic time/plot compression: doncha just love it

That having been said, I'm quite looking forward to the John Carter film as (unlike LotR) it's something I'm not going to go into paroxisms about if it's fiddled with.

John T

I think they shrank the green men and gave them humanish faces (notably around the tusks, and the eyes are a bit more forward than described) to make them easier to interact with on screen. A 12' tall monster with little or no human facial expression is very hard to have an emotive conversation with, and Tars Tarkas is too integral to the story for that. Plus every time they walked side by side Carter's head would be level with his loincloth…

I'm looking forward to it, but I do not really expect all that much from it. All of the books, by the way, are available (free) in various formats on Project Gutenberg.

Doug

>>I guess everyone knows the books are 100 years old this year?<<

Yup. "A Princess of Mars", the first in the trilogy, was originally serialized in 1912 in the the pulp magazine "The All Story" with the title "Under the Moons of Mars". The title was changed to "A Princess of Mars" when it was later published complete in a harbound novel.

I'm resigned to paying to watch little more than an action flick but then the books themselves are basically pulp scifi anyway and should be enjoyed as such :-)

Yep! Movies can't be the same as books, the formats are just too different. Hassling over the fine details is only going to cause stress in the long run. Just let go, and enjoy it for what it is.

Anyway, we can be sure that we're not going to see Dejah Thoris lay an egg

Are you telling me the really hot princess reproduces by laying eggs?!?

Ok, that's an area where I think Hollywood should do some revisions.

Are you telling me the really hot princess reproduces by laying eggs?!?

Yup. But yet her DNA is sufficiently compatible with John Carter's for them to have a son. Science fiction was somewhat more fun, I think, before science became so know-it-all.

Doug

As differences go, that one is relatively minor. "Placental Management" differences. The really long gestation is also doable, especially given that it is mostly external.

We may still see an egg, and be set up for what it means if the early scenes with the Thark rookery are kept, but Burroughs and Disney are both disinclined to show the whole process.

>>Science fiction was somewhat more fun, I think, before science became so know-it-all.<<

LOL! Good one! Man, that really cracked me up!

>>We may still see an egg<<

Somehow I doubt it. It's tough enough to explain the "birds and the bees" without your kid asking "Daddy…how did she lay an egg?" :-)

The new "featurette" adds more Di$ney:
YouTube link

"Maybe I better get behind you…"

I was afraid of that.
I am not going.

So she's more than just window dressing in a he-man's tale. Not a problem.

He shows a typical (for his day) approach to protecting her and gets surprised. Eh. Civil War era attitudes may not play well in what stops being a period piece in the first twenty minutes.

The lack of a Virginian accent bothers me more. The conversion of the Tharks into an emotionally swayable tribe and Tars Tarkas into an orator bothers me more.

Woola looks like great fun. Bring it on.

>>Woola look like great fun<<

I dunno. It looks like a great big to me. LOL

Wow. I think the "bleep" made it worse. LOL

For sure the movie will differ from the text on one point: Burroughs clearly implies total frontal nudity

Yes, Dejah Thoris is oviparous. Even to-day biology is routinely submitted to 'a fate worse than death' more often than physics. That parallel, independent evolution could lead to humanoids so similar to earthlings -with external ears, a nose implying a crossing of respiratory and digestive apparatus, the lower jaw derived from an embryonic gill arch…- is more unlikely than easy time travel. And when it comes to a chemistry so similar that the two species can breed true…. Yet it's the case in Star Trek, in B5: laziness of the script writers, or implicit creationist credo?

But let's merely enjoy a swashbuckling adventure: *what* we'll certainly not see is the face of John Carter when some sensitive part of his anatomy meets Dejah Thoris eggshell lying apparatus
Furthermore, biology can be funny. Dejah Thoris is a mammal, nobody will deny it (even if it's less obvious in the movie than in books and comics covers). Then, as an egg-lying mammal, her closest relative on Earth is the platypus:

And here the fun really begins, since the Protheria link / Montremes en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme have a cloaca…
Yet it could be even more embarrassing: if the Red Martians are slightly more evolved than our Monotremes, their reproductive system can be more similar to that of our Marsupials link and then… how to say it? Dejah Thoris could not be more than half satisfied by John Carter

Btw, I don't remember if Burroughs gave details about the intimate anatomy of Green Martians: is the number of pairs of arms reflected in the number of… well, never mind.

An image search for Sola turns up both results, with the difference being whether the artist went for the "whole second torso" look or the less explainable "double armpit" arrangement. The way most artists have interpreted the Green Men (to help get the height if nothing else), a set of pectoralis majori for each pair of arms seems to make sense.

I'm assuming then when Ms. Thoris lays an egg it must come out of her…ummm…honey pot? Anyway, you might think that's pretty weird, but i once saw this chick in a Tijuana bar who could…errr…never mind. :-)

I'm assuming then when Ms. Thoris lays an egg it must come out of her…ummm…honey pot?

That's an intriguing question: our Monotremes ('single hole' in Greek), like all egg-laying vertebrates, have a cloaca….
John Carter will go from surprise to surprise

As for the shrinking of the Green Martians, it was aesthetically unavoidable. Otherwise, every time John Carter fights one he would have to jump. The lower Martian gravity would allow it, of course, but he would look as silly as Yoda fighting Palpatine, jumping up and down frantically as a body crab tortured by haemorrhoids: not dignified enough for an interplanetary hero!

So she's more than just window dressing in a he-man's tale.

To me, it's as out of place as Cate Blanchett starring in Elizabeth: the Ninja Years. (We might have to get Milla Jovovich for that role.)

Dejah Thoris commanded armies of men who would die for her out of love, loyalty, and devotion.
That's real power.

As for Xena Thoris, her manbeater sister, her, she can fend for herself.

In the first description of Green Martians they are able to run on (not all) four, which requires a 'gorilla centaur' (gorilla torso on the shoulders of a gorilla body) structure.
The GM of the movie don't fit, but indeed this peculiarity disappeared from later texts and was ignored by most illustrators.

Dejah Thoris commanded armies of men who would die for her out of love, loyalty, and devotion.

Had at her disposal, but as I remember did not 'command' on the field.

Seemingly she plays a more active role in the Dynamite Entertainment comics series Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris "that chronicles what the lovely Martian princess Dejah Thoris was doing all those hundreds of years before John Carter arrived on Barsoom."

(reference: sffbooksonmars.blogspot.com).

Indeed 'modern' princesses are not expected to be as restricted as Victorian ones -I'm under the impression that Snow White in '& the Huntsman' YouTube link is no longer a helpless / hopeless 'white goose'.
For me I rather like such evolution: the team work of Confessor Kahlan Amnell and Mord-Sith Cara Mason is the only reason I bothered to watch the 2nd season of the 'Legend of the Seeker' I've fortuitously discovered on TV YouTube link (and the evolution of the relationships between these two women, a 'lawful good' and 'lawful evil' forced to fight side by side because lawful to the same man, is the only element with some psychological depth in the series YouTube link).

Speaking of cast, I find the actress chosen for Dejah Thoris rather… disappointing.
Seeing fortuitously Eva Longoria on the cover of a TV magazine, I though that she would have better fit the 'beautiful exotic face' bill:

(Then OK, she is a little too… skinny ("as flat as an ironing board", as we say in France) for Dejah Thoris as generally illustrated)

It's all a matter of costuming and camera angle.

I saw the movie and was elated to find a tight, reasonably well-scripted and well-acted, compelling cinematographic romp.

I was 13 when I read my first John Carter book but I recognize some changes HAD to be done, either to update the story's tone and attitude or just to succesfully transpose the novel into movie form.

I am spreading word and urging friends into SF and fantasy to give the flick a chance.

Thumbs up for this movie!

-Deja is just fine…Wolverine's girlfriend is even hotter in this movie. And they don't go overboard with her being some kind of super-Amazon.

-Tharks are well done. Told my wife it was refreshing to see aliens that weren't differently-colored Native Americans (I'm looking at you Avatar). Their whole outlook on reproduction, and the fact that their women weren't much different from the males externally, helped make them a bit more believable, or at least as much as could be expected.

-The bad guy pulling the strings is well done, and well played.

-There is a little bit of explanation of the how and why, but no more so than needed. You just have to accept the premise and the rest of the movie works pretty well from there.

-You get to root for the dog.

The film Therns are not the same as the book Therns.

The film Therns are not the same as the book Therns.

abdul666lw, about human/platypus interactions--what happens on Barsoom, stays on Barsoom.

capncarp LOL!

I thought the movie was pretty good for an early matinee. My kids loved it. I never actually read the books when I was kid….just picked up the free versions for my e-reader.

Some of the acting was a bit over the top at times – maybe that was just a factor of all those shakespearean types running around in the principle roles.

The visuals were really well done, especially the dead cities.

Speaking of cast, I find the actress chosen for Dejah Thoris rather… disappointing.
Seeing fortuitously Eva Longoria on the cover of a TV magazine, I though that she would have better fit the 'beautiful exotic face' bill:

(Then OK, she is a little too… skinny ("as flat as an ironing board", as we say in France) for Dejah Thoris as generally illustrated)

Its a while since I've read the John Carter series, but i dont remember DT's vital statistics being quoted! I havent seen the film yet but I've been looking forward to it avidly. Pictures i have seen of Lynn Collins (previously unknown to me) suggest that she may be a suitable choice, but i have long held the view that a more mature beauty would better fil this role. I can see that Eva Longoria would have been a better choice. i suppose the problem is that over a series made maybe over 10+ years, even a classically mature beauty may show a bit of aging which wouldnt suit the role-however sexist that may appear!

Good fun. Not perfect,but worth thd price of admission. In fact I want to go back and see it in imax.

Cheers Xin.

The film Therns are not the same as the book Therns.

The film Therns are what the book Therns *wish* they were.

Its a while since I've read the John Carter series, but i dont remember DT's vital statistics being quoted!

The important part of John Carter's description is the word "incomparable".

Really fun movie for Barsoomians and non-Barsoomians alike. Snooty "theatre" critics, the grandchildren of the snooty literary critics who hated ERB's books 100 years ago, hate it, but that's to be expected. (I was far more impressed that Michael Moorcock liked it.) As a fan, I was prepared to pick many nits, but enjoyed the whole experience too much to complain that the therns were different than those in Gods of Mars or that Col Powell was really CSA, not USA.

The thing I'm most disappointed with is the green men who appear to be no more than 8ft tall in the trailer but should be at least 12 ft according to the book.

Here you go, a 15-foot-tall, true-to-the-book-size sculpture of Tars Tarkas:

Still think that's a reasonable adversary for a 6-foot-tall John Carter?

As I said: just like Yoda fighting Palpatine, JC (John Carter ) would look totally ridiculous, "jumping like a body crab tortured by haemorrhoids".

SPOILER ALERT:

Some thoughts on the movie, in no particular order:

- The first 10-15 minutes of action (arrest, being beaten up) seemed to contribute nothing to the story and were a complete distraction.

- The sky ships were cool, and there could be some great convention battles based on those. Loved the hot women in armor body guards…

- I am a little skeptical how having super strong legs that let you leap far distances also let you land without injury from great heights.

- I am a little skeptical how having super strong legs that let you leap far distances also let you land without injury from great heights.

Landing stresses are the same as jumping his Earth-normal distance. Less gravity, remember? So he falls 'slower' than he's used to.

Its a while since I've read the John Carter series, but i dont remember DT's vital statistics being quoted!

The important part of John Carter's description is the word "incomparable".

Farstar,

And I always thought that "incomparable" referred to her sparkling personality!

Just saw the film last night (birthday present to myself) took my wife, (not a SF fan) she enjoyed it.
First read the books when I was 12(53 years ago) the film was excellent, well worth the wait to see it.
Malcolm

The comic book Dejah above…

from my dark age reenactment days ladies really disliked being sportingly poked or slapped in the boobs, let alone with malice aforethort… a girl that buxom would seek out another career.

Then, as an egg-lying mammal, her closest relative on Earth is the platypus:

It don't matter when it's Arcturian.

Just saw the film last night (birthday present to myself) took my wife, […] she enjoyed it.

Well, that sounds like a winner!

It certainly was a winner with me, but my wife isnt into "sky-fi!"