John Carter of Mars

lol. Because Firefly did so well, and westerns are hot right now.

Gotta give them credit for being committed to box office failure, I guess

Seems more He-man than Conan.

  On 7/14/2011 at 8:20 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 7/14/2011 at 6:16 PM, patternoverlap said:

Not what I was expecting at all. Looks more like Conan on Mars.

edit: why does Mars look exactly like the south west? even Red Planet and Mission to Mars had a better looking Mars than this, i'm shocked actually.

yeah this stuck out for me too, so much so that i thought maybe it's an element of the film that he's not actually on mars.

yikes. also this ISN'T pixar. it's andrew stanton and disney.

Great film, bad promotion. They should write a book about how this movie was greenlit and ballooned out of control. If Andrew Stanton hadn't made 2 of the most successful Disney-Pixar movies ever, this $30 mill opening might not have happened. Disney still hasn't learned how to manage a beloved fantasy novel series:

Hitchhiker's Guide - killed

Narnia - pushed to Fox and killed

Warlord of Mars series - DOA after dismal opening

Please Disney, don't do this again to our beloved nerd culture!

was it greater than most of the reviews are saying? Besides a few notable visual set pieces it seems like there is a consensus on a horribly convoluted non interesting story

I agree it was confusing, especially for a younger Disney audience. Having read the book helped, but Stanton spent too much time setting up a trilogy. And fucking with the name has to be a legendary boneheaded move. Like I said, a string of bad ideas outweighing a good story. Disey expected to launch a tent pole franchise w subject matter from 100 years ago? grrr

when is the last time a $250 million dollar movie was made with almost an entire cast of relatively un famous actors? that alone seems like a bad move. The Watchmen was kinda like that but even the least famous people in it still had some notoriety

Listen to this review

  On 7/16/2011 at 12:37 AM, lumpenprol said:

lol. Because Firefly did so well, and westerns are hot right now.

 

 

 

Gotta give them credit for being committed to box office failure, I guess

bad form to quote myself, but erm...told em so

Actually, I think casting it with unknowns was a great move. Worked for Star Wars, and I think it can still work now, given the right hype (Avatar anyone? Besides Sigourney Weaver and arguably Giovani Ribisi, it featured unknowns). I also like the look of the JCM logo. I think it's just a matter of Western (or Conan) + desert settings + sci-fi = box-office poison. Remember that before Pirates of the Caribbean, pirate movies were box office poison as well. Eventually a great Western will come round again and re-vitalize the genre temporarily (a la Unforgiven). But I think in the long haul, the Western as a genre is doomed to the scrap-heap, as Victorian period dramas have been (the brief "flash in the pan of Sherlock Holmes notwithstanding). I think WW2 is about the limit of our historical "event horizon" at this point. Basically, you mix anything with Western and you get fail (Cowboys and Aliens, anyone?).

Genre mixing can work under the right conditions - a la the Matrix. But the things you're mixing (virtual reality + hong-kong action) have to be hip in the first place. Also the Matrix was an all-around well made flick that captured the zeitgeist, which John Carter clearly is not. Probably a good flick for kids though, if I had kids I'd take them.

By the way the lady in the trailer looks like a tranny, that could be another reason it flopped.

  On 7/15/2011 at 9:33 PM, Bubba69 said:

why all the disney hate? disney is responsible for some of the greatest movies of all time.

Speaking only for myself and no one else here, but IMO this is plenty reason to hate Disney:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#Support

speaking of 'a great western will come along' i think of all the shitty remake ideas we've seen in the last 10 years, the potential to do something possibly decent with West World is there. The original movie isnt great but it inspired a lot movies that came after

From what I'd heard about the books seemed like there would be a good movie, to be made, in there somewhere. My enthusiam waned a lot when I read that they took Mars out of the title because in test marketing "women didn't respond well to it".

John Carter of Menopause

  On 3/12/2012 at 11:16 PM, Awepittance said:

speaking of 'a great western will come along' i think of all the shitty remake ideas we've seen in the last 10 years, the potential to do something possibly decent with West World is there. The original movie isnt great but it inspired a lot movies that came after

I could see where this could happen given the right people involved. However, given Hollywood's track record with remakes and that it's a favorite of mine, I'll say leave it alone.

Just watched the trailer and I make a prophecy here and now that this will be the worst movie of all time.

everyone i know who's seen it said they liked it

but no one i know has taste

  On 7/15/2011 at 9:33 PM, Bubba69 said:

why all the disney hate? disney is responsible for some of the greatest movies of all time.

Because with the exception of Pixar and maybe The Lion King, there have been no greats since the 60's.

i dont know if its already been mentioned in this thread, but the worst thing Carter has going for it is that it looks about as aesthetically pleasing as the star wars prequel Attack of the Clones.

in comparison to those other movies you mentioned with unknowns, the casting of those movies seemed relatively natural they weren't forcing a generically good looking person on you as a lead role. In john carter the 2 leads have no where near the appeal as anybody in Alien or Star Wars a new hope, they just look they are supposed to titillate the general public.

It's a bit of mindless fun, that really shouldn't have cost $250 million.

It looks like the fucking stadium thing in attack of the clones, but I still have a hunch this will be fun.

It's a kids movie, step it up and save your money for teh tween movies coming out soon like Avengers & Hunger Games heh

shit, i don't remember saying anything about this.. but after seeing the trailers, yo im up for a piece of that Romanic, destructive, shit on his face, pie!

it looks most enthusiastic and entertaining.

this story, having been in print for a century now, has been pillaged by everything from Avatar to Star Wars so yes some things seem familiar. If I'm not mistaken, the Princess was one of the first female lead characters to be aggressive and fight to defend herself, themes George Lucas got a lot of credit for.

  On 6/16/2011 at 1:26 AM, lumpenprol said:

I thought Avatar already came out

the tharks are very avatar like i thought that too

saw it last night and enjoyed it. had low expectations going in and it wasn't half bad. IF I WAS INCLINED i could pick it to pieces i'm sure but on a rainy tuesday night it was alright.

This just came out last Friday here in Japan. Unfortunately I couldn't watch it in 3D because the 3D version was dubbed into Japanese. I found the film very entertaining and was my first trip to the cinema in 2 years. I do highly recommend it as an entertaining film and I certainly don't feel it deserved all the bad reviews it received.