John Carter of Mars

[klwilliams]

desperance and I and a friend went to see "John Carter of Mars" last night. I never read any of the books, so I can't compare it to memories of what I read in childhood. I would say it wasn't terrible, though I did have moments where I wanted to check the page number to see if we were close to the end, but couldn't since it was a movie. I wouldn't say it was great, either, though there were a few things I liked. Some comments, which may include spoilers, so a cut:


1. It didn't pass the Bechtel test, or if it did it squeaked by. There were at least two named female characters, one of whom wasn't there in a direct relation to the main (male) character. I don't think Sola or the princess (Jmm. I can't remember her name already. Not a good sign.) spoke directly to each other about something that wasn't John Carter. I could be wrong.

2. I loved the "dog" left to guard the children.

3. I thought the cultural method of branding someone for doing wrong, then killing them when there wasn't enough skin on their back left to brand the next time they messed up was sick, but an interesting cultural rule. It said a lot about the green people (whose name I should know).

4. The tattoos were cool.

5. The steampunk single-person airplanes were cool.

6. Most of it was meh. The acting and plot weren't that exciting. I'm not sorry I went, but I'm glad I paid second-run prices.

Comments

[joycebre.livejournal.com]

you have to remember, the first John Carter book was published in 1914, or thereabouts. So many other books are derived from this series.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Was it called 'John Carter of Mars' in the USA? Here it was just 'John Carter' which was a kind of unconvincing title. It was actually better than I expected, though that's possibly not saying much.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

I think it was called just "John Carter" here, too, though I think of it as the full title.

[kahnegabs.livejournal.com]

He wrote several books about Mars, this movie seems to be a meld of them all. I think "Princess of Mars" was the primary influence.

A Princess of Mars (1917) The Gods of Mars (1918) The Warlord of Mars (1919) Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1920) The Chessmen of Mars (1922) The Master Mind of Mars (1928) A Fighting Man of Mars (1931) Swords of Mars (1936) Synthetic Men of Mars (1940) Llana of Gathol (1948) John Carter of Mars (1964)

[edanam.livejournal.com]

The books don't pass the Bechtel test, so you haven't missed anything.