John Carter: A Retrospective Rant On Originality by Mike D

Damn, damn, damn!!! Why? Why?? Why??? How come people couldn't just bite the bullet and go out to see John Carter last week? Where is the blind faith that propels shit movies to record breaking numbers at the box office and makes Avatar the highest ranked box office film of all time? How can a company that is as seasoned and well respected as Disney not generate the build up necessary to get Carter going in the right direction? Especially since the movie is pretty fucking good.... why? If any of these things would have happened, I wouldn't be sitting here about to bitch and moan about one of my favorite fictional properties of all time. But since Carter only made 30 mil this week at the box office, it looks like it's rant time... so here goes nothing!!!

Click after the jump to see the rest of the article:

John Carter & Deja Thoris  by Franz  Frazetta

Here is the thing: I never hid the fact that I was excited for this movie.  I have read 7 of the 11 Martian Chronicle books from Edgar Rice Burroughs and they are some of the best written stories that I have ever read. But to me the thing that always blows my mind is that Burroughs did this way back in the day... like 100 years ago! When you take this into consideration, it is absolutely mind blowing. Burroughs wrote a sci fi tale about space travel that involved space ships, time travel, and all other types of advanced technology long before cars and television were even common in anybodies home!!! Given the technology we posses today, it is easier for a sci fi author to "take it to the next level" when they are writing their stories. But to make this stuff up out of thin air with relatively no real life things to base them on... now that is impressive!!!  In my eyes this makes the Carter stories that much cooler.

This brings us to the next point: John Carter rips off sci fi movies like Aliens, Avatar, Star Trek, Total Recall, and Star Wars. This is so fucked up. How can something that is OVER 100 YEARS OLD be stealing from movies written in the past 30 years? Yet this is the general opinion that is being pushed in movie reviews across the 'Net and in mainstream media publications. That is a travesty that a bit of fact checking and a quick trip to Wikipedia could have prevented. In actuality, John Carter is the property that was stolen from... repeatedly!!! Need some proof? Ok, here are a few general examples:

1.  Green Men from Mars in 100s of Sci Fi movies like Mars Attacks & many more
2. Avatar has an Earthling who goes to a planet and has encounters with a colorful alien species that is much taller and physically dominating than him. The other animals on the planet in Avatar seem strikingly similar to the animals animals in the Martian Chronicles.
3. Beneath the Planet of the Apes takes the mutated human enemies from the Martian Chronicles (The Therns) and makes exact replicas of them in a lazy sequel.
4. In Enemy Mine Dennis Quaid has an uneasy friendship with an alien who originally want to kill him ... hmmmm, that sounds a bit like Tars Tarkas & Carter's relationship to me, just 80 years prior!!!
5. The death cults and human slavery/sacrifice of the later John Carter tales wre easy picking for the guys who wrote Indian Jones & The Temple of Doom, a series that borrowed heavily from the pulp serials of the 1920's & 1930's.
6. The Scorpion King was an ancient Egyptian/Greek mythological creature, but was also a central character in a Carter story long before The Rock brought him to the big screen.
7. How about all the sword fighting in Star Wars despite the fact that technology is extremely advanced in the films? You got aall these space ships, Death Stars, droids, clones, etc.... yet you are telling me the best way to fight someone is with a laser sword that has a range of two feet, tops? Sword fighting played a huge part in ALL of the Carter stories. His superior swordsmanship is the only thing that made him a viable fighter on the foreign planet. And don't even get me started on the desert planet of Tattooine being an exact replica of Barsoom, and some of the creatures of the Star Wars univers being EXACT replicas of creatures from Carter's Mars (The Taun Tauns/Thoats & the White Apes/Wampa comes to mind) 
8. What about Superman? Supes has been around for quite a while, but not nearly as long as Carter. He is the exact replica of Carter. Carter is a regular human who gains super like powers due to the different atmosphere on Mars. Supes is an Alien whose powers become immense due to the power of Earth's atmosphere. It's exactly the same.... just flipping the planet of origin of the hero. 
9. Teleporting has always been the most recognizable part of Star Trek, with the "Beam Me Up Scotty" catchphrase burnt into the mind of everyone in the world. Yet Carter gets to Mars and travels back & forth from Mars to Earth in future books using this very same method of travel. Must just be another coincidence, right?
10. In George R.R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice & Fire' series the Stark children all posses a Dire Wolf puppy that grows into a fierce beast that is their companion. The pets that are protective over their owners are one thing, but the fact that they are traditional vicious and untameable animals that become completely subservient to their masters is exactly like Woola the Calot in the Mars Chronicles. Way to much of a coincidence for me....  

Now that was just 10 examples of blatant rip offs..... and there are tons more. To hear that Disney's Carter is ripping of these established films just hurts me to my heart. And now that the film is not performing well, people are just piling on and hating randomly, not even thinking about what they are saying. I'm not sitting here saying that everyone HAS to like John Carter.... shit, hate the film if you want! But don't say that you hate it or it's no good because it is rehashing ideas of other films. This is the BLUEPRINT for all the sci fi you have ever seen!!!

This sets up an interesting situation. Disney has to decide if they want to go forward with a Carter sequel. The second book, The Warlord of Mars, is an insane book that may very well be the best in the series. It is wild story and could make for a great movie. I see it as a chance at a film that could be a successful in it's storytelling as Empire Strikes Back. But will they even take the shot considering how expensive this film was and d the amount of money it hasn't made. It's sad. I hope it does well enough here in the US and internationally to justify a sequel, and maybe it will break through with round 2. I thought the film was great. Go see it. Or tell me you hate it.... but don't try to call it a carbon copy. Andrew Stanton has done quite well on this one.  What is your opinion? Tell us in the comment section below...

Every Time I See Another "John Carter" Poster I Need An Ice Pack After Banging My Head During A Fainting Spell

O. MY. GODDDDDDDDDD!!! I really, really, REALLY have not been this excited for a fucking movie in a long time. I feel like a little kid all over again. March 9th will forever mark the day that my favorite rapper (Biggie) died, but hopefully it will also be the day that the movie franchise of the future is launched. In my opinion this film has the potential to be Star Wars to my son's generation. Let's hope Andrew Stanton comes through on this one. Check the new poster featuring Tars Tarkas, the great Thark warrior from the planet Mars. Oh shit son!!!!

Lost Animated "John Carter of Mars" Footage From The 1930's Is Blowing My Mind Right Now....

Ya gotta love Youtube and the rest of the magic that the 'Net brings to our fingertips. Just yesterday I wrote a post about the upcoming John Carter film from Disney and how I have high hopes for the franchise. But I couldn't help but wonder how a book series that has been around for almost 100 years and has a very famous author (Edgar Rice Burroughs also created Tarzan) has taken so long to formally hit the big screen. So I did a bit of wiki research and found out that legendary Looney Toons director Bob Clampett wanted to do an animated version of the Burroughs series because both he and the author felt that a real life version would have been just to expensive and not actually possible to pull off.

Please continue reading after the jump...

Frank Frazetta's legendary rendering of John Carter (Got Frazetta up twice in one week... sweet!)

Clampett even planned to use rotoscope technology and had Burroughs son as a co-collaborator on the project. But at the last second MGM pulled the project because they didn't think people wanted Science Fiction. A year later Flash Gordon hit the screen and was a hit, and the rest is Sci-Fi history. The test footage was thought to be lost for years, until it was unearthed by Burroughs grandson Danton back in the 70's. Enetr Youtube, where I found the footage. Now I bring it to you. Here are a few examples of test footage from what would have been the John Carter animated film... which if it would have came out would have beat Snow White as the 1st animated full length feature to receive a theatrical release. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

On a side note, I was shocked at the recent false starts on the franchise in the past few years. Robert rodriguez and John Favreau were both attached to this film at some point, and Rodriguez only left the project because of the whole beef he had with the Director's Guild after crediting Frank Miller as Co-Director. Can you imagine if he would have done this movie???? Wow! Thanks to Wikipedia for all teh information... read the John Carter article here.

John Carter Gets An International Poster... I Just Fainted & Hit My Head On The Coffee Table Again!!!!

I can not possibly be more excited for a movie than Disney's John Carter. Ever since I read the books about four years ago I have yearned for this story to make it to the big screen. I have said in the past, and I will say it again, that I think John Carter has the potential to be my son's generations (he is 8 years old, about to be 9) Star Wars. My thought process is that Disney will not skimp and truly bring the world of Barsoom (Mars) to life in a way that we have never seen before. The creatures, the aliens, the fighting, the chicks... good god, this is gonna be great! It has the potential to be an epic spectacle, and with the possible sequels it could be to the youngsters of today what Star Wars was to us children of the 70's/80's and Harry Potter was to children of the 2000's. Lets hope they don't fuck it up. The movie comes out on March 9th. View the full size International movie poster after the jump...

Thanks to Jeff for sending me this and causing me another passing out concussion... lol!

When Did The Full John Carter Trailer Drop???

Fuck me Freddie... when did the full John Carter of Mars trailer come out? I can't believe I missed this!!! I was over at my boy Cap'n Carrot's cool ass blog 'Xplosion of Awesomeness when I came across the full 2 minute clip... and lets just say that my mind is COMPLETELY BLOWN!!! Those of you who don't know the source material (novels by the great Edgar Rice Burroughs) are in for a dense story with some wild creatures and characters. The action in the books is always at a high pace and the story lines are really well written. Let's hope Disney sticks to the script and don't change to much. So far it doesn't look like they have deviated much. Check out the full trailer after the jump...





What do you guys think? Please leave some comments in the section below... I want to hear your thoughts!!!

John Carter Gets An Official Poster... I Promptly Faint!!!

I got into the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burrough's kind of late in the game... I started reading them about three years ago and once I did, I couldn't stop. Given the fact that they were over 80 years old and supposedly the inspiration behind most of the Sci-Fi classics I love, I figured I should give it a shot. Boy was I glad that I did. each book was better than the previous, and after I finished the saga all i could wonder was why nobody had taken a crack at this franchise as a big budget feature. Come to find out, Disney was on the fast track to get it done. With a pretty solid cast (Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Bryan Cranston, Dominic West, and Thomas Hayden Church) and the power of the House of Mouse behind it, I have pretty high hopes for this one. This poster hearkens back to the old pulp novel covers that the movie is based on, so I'm even more pumped for it. John Carter hits theaters on March 9th, 2012.... Click after the jump for the full poster.

The John Carter of Mars Poster Is Causing Me Trouser Issues

Nerd Boner!!!! One of my favorite books series of all time would have to be the Edgar Rice Burrough's 'John Carter of Mars' collection. My god, these books were phenomenal. They are in public domain now, which means if you have a digital reader (Ipad, Kindle, etc) you can download them for FREE. I suggest you do.

Anyway, director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) is tackling the first big budget film adaption of the books, with Taylor Kitsch (Gambit in the Wolverine:Origins movie) playing Carter. It's coming from Disney and everything that has been shot already is going to be coated with digital animated effects to give Mars the creepy feel that the Red Planet deserves. The whole film has been shot, and now they will take the WHOLE year of 2011 to treat it in Post Production.With the finished product just about a year away, we are finally getting the first look at the movie poster.

Wow... that looks awesome. I have high hopes for this one. If you are looking for some summer reading, this is the way to go. You will love these books. If not, the film opens on 3/9/2012. It features Kitsch plus Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church, and Samantha Morton. I can't wait.