A Princess of Mars discussion

Has anyone seen the new John Carter movie? Will the movie spur interest in Burroughs' great Barsoom stories?

I saw it this weekend. I thought they did a great job. There were a couple of things I didn't like but overall it was a fine movie. I hope it does well and they continue with the series.

All of ERB stuff was great. The Barsoom series especially so. Unfortunately, the Conan movie did not seem to spur a great deal of interest in REH's works, so who knows. I guess growing up with these books makes us see them differently.

I want to see the movie, but I will wait for it on Blu-Ray. After the disaster of the movie version with Tracy Lords in it, I'm almost scared to see it at all.

I was inspired to read Queen of Mars after seeing the theatrical trailer for JCOM some months back. I found the book to be a fun read and couldn't wait to see how the story translated on screen. My husband and I saw the movie this past weekend and loved it! There were a couple of things in the movie that were sort of muddled but all in all it was a great adaptation and very entertaining.

You guys sound very enouraging. I'm glad the movie is living (more or less) up to expectations.

I have seen it today and I was disappointed that so many things were omitted from te book and that so much that is not in the book was added. This simply was not necessary. Many things in the movie are unclear now, but maybe people who did not read the book ask themselves these things. Things like: How comes John Carter to understand and communicate with the Barsoomians. Why is there oxygen on Barsoom? What is the relationship between John Carter and Tars Tarkas? Why do they change from enemies to friends?
Anyway, the movie was a fine spectacle. And given my above opinion: the movie will give the book more attention, to answer the question from the first post in this thread.

@Rene - I loved the books, and from reading the book I can see where it would be easy to follow it more closely. Even that horrible Tracy Lords version covered how John was able to speak the language and the Tars Tarkas relationship. I have not seen the movie yet, and will not until it comes out on Blu-Ray, but it seems many things are changed in movie versions - maybe just for the action aspect, I don't know.

As for an uptick in the books I don't see it. Most of the movie goers seem to be young adults, and a lot of them just don't seem to understand the pleasure of reading a good book. Reading is such a great thing to be able to do.

I just read the book and loved it. The movie did a descent job of portraying the dog like I thought it to be but failed on many of the relationships throughout the story. A spectacle indeed but yes a lot was added. Were the shape shifters in the later novels?

Yes, Woolla was great! He was one of the best characters in the movie. Sadly he could not be seem very often! But he really was like I had imagined.

I read the books back when I was a teenager, after I had already read several of ERB's TARZAN novels. I read maybe the first five, before losing interest. Still, the original trilogy (from which the movie gets most of its plot) were the best.

I caught the film on Saturday (going for the digital, rather than 3-D) and loved it. Not up there with the LoTR trilogy, but certainly entertaining. Personally, I'd love to see a sequel, since there things left unresolved.

Rene wrote: "I have seen it today and I was disappointed that so many things were omitted from te book and that so much that is not in the book was added. This simply was not necessary. Many things in the movie..."

Can't explain everything, but if you remember Carter, along with the hatchlings, are fed something called the Voice of Barsoom. It appears it somehow implants knowledge of the language and possibly other basic knowledge.

I don't know that ERB attempted to explain everything in his novels, but it is a fantasy after all.

Yes it is and remains fantasy, but the explanations ERB gives areacceptable to readers. Apart from that, why had those infamous script writers to change the backgrounds and characters of the main persons? Anyway, I enjoyed the show but it remained very much at the surface.
(Sorry for some mistakes, writing from a phone remains a problem).

I am 23 and an avid reader, but I actually never read ERB until I saw the John Carter trailers. I enjoyed both the book and the movie for their respective good qualities. I thought the movie was entertaining and worth watching. The book is visionary for its time. Books are almost always better, but I did prefer two things from the movie: How Dejah and John's spontaneous romance was handled, and being spared from John's catalogue of virtues from his 1st person narrative. Both were understandable for the novel, but so it goes. I thought Lynn Collins and Taylor Kitsch did a fine job as the leads, and that the movie will gain new readers for the Barsoom series.

This reminds me of the old Tarzan movies. One always had to wonder how it was Tarzan could speak English, having never seen an Englishman (aside from his parents, of course, and being new born surely didn't remember them!). Unless you had read the books, you would never know how he managed this feat, nor that English was not actually his first spoken language - only his first written language.

Thank God for books, and the ability to read them!

I am planing on catching the movie tomorrow. I'll let you now what I think of it. I did see the first 10 minutes via the Disney site and it looked pretty good.

I did catch John Carter of Mars. I found it to be a fun movie and have no idea why some of the critics disliked it so. I'm not a conspiracy buff, but it begs the question, what if the critics really were all Therns? :-)

Bill wrote: "I did catch John Carter of Mars. I found it to be a fun movie and have no idea why some of the critics disliked it so. I'm not a conspiracy buff, but it begs the question, what if the critics reall..."

Hah! I knew it . . . But in all seriousness, I agree about the movie.

Bill wrote: "Has anyone seen the new John Carter movie? Will the movie spur interest in Burroughs' great Barsoom stories?"

I'm not sure. I'd say yes and no depending on what someone is looking for. The movie is loosely based on book 1. It was fun to watch and say "oh that's from the book". I think the marketing people kind of blew it on the marketing because I don't think they figured on Taylor Kitsch's appeal to the females in the audience -- or romance readers in general. I know they changed the title so they wouldn't alienate guys from seeing it and still tried to attract the female audience. They really missed a huge chunk by not playing it up to the women although I notice on FB there seems to be some chatter with the disstaff side and it seems to be increasing.

I've run into any number of people who have no idea it's based on Burrough's series -- they are surprised to hear it and then interested because it's free on Kindle and through Guttenberg. As a romance author myself I enjoyed reading Princess of Mars for the romance -- and even being written 95 years (give or take) ago it's no different than what we write today. Burroughs was in many ways a man ahead of his time.

Rene wrote: "I have seen it today and I was disappointed that so many things were omitted from te book and that so much that is not in the book was added. This simply was not necessary. Many things in the movie..."

Oh!!!!! you missed it! When Sola gives him the drink -- it's like a universal language brew
!

I saw the movie before reading the books and I didn't have any problem understanding what was going on. I loved the movie and thought it was the most fun I'd had in a theater for a long time. I loved Woola (though I didn't know his name until later). I did understand some things people have said they didn't, like the drink Sola gives John and the other tribe of Green Men that attacked them on the river (the Warhoons, apparently).

I read the first book later (free on kindle, yay!) and saw what they adapted and why. I think it's a mixture of the first two books, right? The Therns come in in "God of Mars"? I haven't read that yet. But The Princess of Mars was too simplistic to make a good movie nowadays. I saw what was added and how things were changed and understood why. Especially when it came to Dejah Thoris's character. She is too passive for modern audiences in the book. Red Barsoomians are supposed to be warlike in nature, yet she was not in the book. She was more authentic in the movie, I felt. I really liked the changes to John Carter that the filmmakers made, giving him a backstory that actually provides a character arc for him. ERB wrote John Carter as a pretty flat hero with no real motivation other than his love of Dejah. The movie gave us a great dillema when he realizes he is falling for Dejah and his hatred of war for what it did to him personally. He has to decide if Dejah is worth losing (like he lost his wife) if he is to gain her love.

I think the story was improved by the movie.

Regan wrote: "Bill wrote: "Has anyone seen the new John Carter movie? Will the movie spur interest in Burroughs' great Barsoom stories?"

I'm not sure. I'd say yes and no depending on what someone is looking..."

I think the whole reason that this movie did so poorly is that people didn't realize that it was adapted from a novel. There was no real push by Disney marketing to get the novel out there before the movie released. If they had linked the movie more to the book and pushed the book before the release, the ticket sales might have been better.

I haven't seen the new film, but I actually did enjoy the Asylum version. It was much better than the average Asylum mockbuster, and certainly better than the average SyFy original movie.

It's too bad there couldn't be something in between bargain basement and blockbuster cost. For $250M, we're unlikely to see a sequel from Disney.

I'd read the books a long time ago, and always liked them. I was really excited when I saw the first poster and trailers coming out. Fortunately, I managed to refrain from an advance re-read, so I was able to enjoy the movie on its own, without having the book fresh in my mind and making nitpicky comparisons. However, I couldn't hold out forever, and availed myself of the free kindle download the next day.

I think that most of the changes were for the best. Bringing the Therns into it, for example gave a much better explanation of how he wound up on Barsoom to begin with than the astral projection of the books ever did. Updating Dejah Thoris was also for the best.

Two things I quibbled with, though. First, John Carter's transformation from an old fashioned Man in the White Hat type of Hero, to a depressed, conflicted, reluctant, post modern quasi hero; and second, changing the Jeddak of Helium from a tall, arrow straight, superbly muscled ruler of men into the pitifully put upon, emasculated figure who needed to be chewed out by his daughter that we found in the film.

Now that I think of it, that may be the same quibble. One of the things I like best about this sort of classic sci fi is the use of a truly admirable hero, rather than a fully drawn, flawed and conflicted character.

By no means a great movie, but certainly a good one and an entertaining one.

Just woefully mis-marketed by Disney. (Did they need a write-off from the boatload of cash they'll make from the Avengers?)

Saw it the same day as the Hunger Games, and my wife and I enjoyed this more.

Jesse, I think that, for a modern audience, you have to have a fleshed out character as the protagonist. If they had kept Carter similar as he was to the books, he would have been ridiculed as flat and boring. I know I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Look at movies like "The Scorpion King" and "Conan the Barbarian"(the new one). You pretty much had a flat protagonist that came off pretty mediocre as a hero. I'm a firm believer that a protagonist has to go through an arc that shows his motivation for doing what he does. If it's just because he's there he dives into the battles as Carter does in the books, it's not as interesting as if he's put into a dillema (whether to act or not) like the movie version of Carter.

Robert, with all the hype surrounding Hunger Games, I was disappointed with that movie, though it was a good movie overall. I, too, enjoyed John Carter more than Hunger Games.

I read all the Tarzan and John Carter books when I was 9 and 10 years old and thoroughly enjoyed them. The John Carter film did an excellent job of capturing the "look" of "A Princess of Mars," whose cover and many illustrations still inspire the imagination.

The movie was great yes there are some changes some good some bad but overall its a great movie.

Nick, I don't at all disagree that traditional flat heroes have fallen from grace, to be replaced by rounder, more human characters. I'm just less certain that that's a good thing. For one thing, one of the traditional roles of heroes was to provide a figure to admire, a figure to emulate, someone to look up to, in other words. The second is the fundamental difference between genre fiction, which is typically plot or action driven, and literary fiction, which is much more character driven. In genre fiction, we're concerned with what a character does, and how he does it. In the literary vein, we're much more concerned with why a character does what he does.

This isn't to say that genre fiction doesn't produce great characters, because it does. Look at Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Lassiter, Kimball Kinnison, or John Carter. One of the classic tests of whether a character be round or flat is whether that character has the ability to convincingly surprise us. I don' think any of those characters ever do that. You always know Holmes is gonna to something brilliant and eccentric, that Poirot's going to use his little grey cells, that the rest are going to kick someone's behind or die trying. We don't read them to see them writhe on the horns of Hamlet-esque dilemmas. In fact, seeing Sherlock Holmes soliloquize "To solve the case masterfully, or not to solve the case masterfully, that is the question," THAT would be surprising. No, we read them because they are who and what they are so strongly, so unconflictedly. We read them because they're so good at what they do, that they in essence become what they do. We want to see them be excellent.

As all that relates to the present case, I'd say that a John Carter whom Dejah Thoris must beg to fight for her, who'd rather just go home instead, is no longer excellent, no longer heroic. Heck, he's no longer John Carter.

I think we read series characters because they seldom do surprise us. Not to say that in some long going series the characters do not change in some fashion (age, marry, divorce, become ill, etc.) but there is a consistency to the protagonist that keeps us coming back. Change them too much and the reader might lose interest not only in that particular book, but in any future novel.

I adored the John Carter movie. Thought that it was entirely underrated and better than the book. The book certainly was visionary for its time, but it felt dated, like the era when it was written was obvious because of the "sags" in the story. In the film adaptation, they were able to smooth out the story and make it more believable for modern audiences.

I thought it was ok. I didn't care for making John Carter this reluctant fighter, that was too much of a shift in the character. Adaptations of this book have tended to focus too much on his being a Confederate soldier. In the book, this doesn't define who he is, he's not brooding over the Civil War. The changes to the Therns were radical, but I could accept them. I do wonder what they would have done for the sequel, as the changes to the Therns would have required makign radical changes to The Gods of Mars.

But Disney really dropped the ball on marketing. They decided that "Mars" didn't sell well. But that's not because of the word Mars, it's because they made bad movies with Mars in the title. And they decided that "Princess" in the title wouldn't sell to teenage boys. Have Dejah Thoris dress like she is described in the book, and you'ld have teenage boys lined up around the block to see that princess.

Disney should have played up Burrough's name. Call if "Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars". Get out there with documentaries hyping it up. I would like to see someone remake the movie, but that may take many years. Maybe someone will make another made for DVD movie, and do it right. The bad Traci Lords version could have been good, it was doomed by a bad script, too many WTF moments in writing.

I watched it this weekend; my take on it is if they had left it "A Princess of Mars" instead of completely rewriting the script into a total piece of nonsense, it would have been fine. I think the changes they made in the movie opposed to the book were stupid, they should have just called it "Martian Adventure" or some such as there was very little to equate it to the book(s) involved. ERB is probably rolling over in his grave!

Don't get me wrong, the movie was watchable, but not as as John Carter movie.

@Robert - errr, the Traci Lords version was no worse than this movie (at least she kept her clothes on for the movie!) - the scripts for both were abominable. I think the Traci Lords version on the plot was closer to home than the John Carter of Mars plot.

What little I saw of the Traci Lords version (on SyFy) was much, much worse than this.

There were some missteps in this adaptation, no doubt. But much to admire and enjoy. Unfortunately the perception of the film as a colossal bomb* makes any sequels (showing where they would take the concept) highly unlikely.

*Actually, how a movie that "only" made north of $280M (according to boxoffice.com) can be considered a colossal bomb is beyond me. Admittedly, this was with a combined production and marketing budget of somewhere near ~$300M (estimated). But this leads back to the idea that it wasn't the quality of the movie itself, it was the studio's inability to keep costs under control and mount an effective marketing campaign.

Heck, if the marketing had just opened with, "From the creator of Tarzan..."

Robert wrote: "What little I saw of the Traci Lords version (on SyFy) was much, much worse than this."

I hope that's true, because I actually enjoyed the Asylum version. It's not often I enjoy Asylum Mockbusters.

What surprised me about the John Carter movie is I didn't see a single trailer that interested me in the movie. They just looked cheesy.

I EXPECTED the Asylum version to be cheesy.

Maybe SyFy whacked stuff out of it; I watch it on DVD. To be honest, if the TL version had the opening and ending scenes of the Disney version, it would have been much closer to the intent of the book than the new version. I watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books (including ERB which encompasses all of Tarzan and the Barsoom series) - in my opinion the TL version was certainly no worse than the Disney version. Of course, we are all entitled to our own opinions. ;-)

I just wish there had been a nice compromise between the two, maybe a $25-$50 million version. Then we might have had some sequels.

Yeah, another throw a ton of money at it and don't save any for later! Hollywood at its best.

Too bad Starz or Showtime didn't make a series or mini-series out of it. I would love to see it done like they did with the Spartacus or Game of Thrones franchises.

I didn't see John Carter until it was on DVD; I rented it from Redbox. I think they did a pretty good job of adapting the stories from the books into a film version. It is unrealistic to expect a film company to transliterate a book into film, just as you could never transliterate a two dimensional charcoal drawing into a three dimensional marble sculpture. They are entirely different mediums with different requirements for storytelling purposes.

The producers took the chance of incorporating elements from the first three books and making a few adaptations because they wanted to present viewers with a much fuller experience than if they had simply made a movie out of "Princess of Mars." They may have felt that they would make a better movie that way if they weren't trying to wrangle for sequels.

Regardless of how much it followed the text of the books, the movie very much followed the spirit of the books and told a great story that I think Edgar Rice Burroughs would have been proud of.

I always hear that a movie can not be made that relates to the book. This is just an excuse for a scriptwriter or director, or both, who thinks he know more than the author. Sure, there has to be some amount of difference between the book and the movie, but this was ridiculous. Aside from the opening an ending sequence between ERB and John Carter, along with a few names from the books, the rest was just something the writer/director pulled from thin air. There is nothing wrong with this, but if you are not portraying the plot of the original book, then call it something else.

I assume you saw Lord of the Rings, and read the books? This is how a transition from book to film should be. I have read many books, and seen movies based on the book that hold true to the intent based in said books.

I am not saying the movie John Carter was crap, I'm just saying it destroyed the intent of the book(s) and should not have been sold as part of the Barsoom series. You did read the Barsoom series, correct? If the producers weren't trying for a sequel(s) then they succeeded; there won't be any.

The Traci Lords version is, in a way, truer to the book. It catches the spirit of the character of John Carter much better. John Carter is not a reluctant fighter. The Traci Lords version really screws up at the beginning, on Earth, in the attempt to "update" the story. There are a couple parts where John Carter is given drink that appears to be the sweat of the green Martians, and is given food that seems to be the excretion of some larva. These seem to be there to disgust the audience. In the book, he's given to drink something squeezed from a cactus-like plant, it seems be something like soy milk.

In the Traci Lords version, the martians aren't 15 feet tall with 4 arms, they are normal human height and have only two arms. I'm fine with this, it is not essential to the story. Who they are is more important than what they look like. If the budget won't allow them to be 15 feet tall with 4 arms, then so be it. I wouldn't have cast Traci Lords, I would have cast someone in her mid 20's rather than someone who is 40. She's just not a very convincing Dejah Thoris.

You can't just point to LOTR and say, "this is how it should be done.". Granted, Peter Jackson did as good a job as has ever been done with film adaptations, but he also had a remarkably cinematic starting point. Not all stories work the same way. Lots of what novels do well doesn't translate to the screen. Not saying that's the case w/ John Carter, as that was fairly cinematic itself, but as a general point.

Robert wrote: "The Traci Lords version really screws up at the beginning, on Earth, in the attempt to "update" the story."

The whole point of that was for their marketing. Remember, this is Asylum. They make MOCKbusters. The film was made to piggyback onto the release of Avatar. That beginning is closer to Avatar than ERB.

The tag line for the movie at the time of the release was, "Based on the story that inspired Avatar."

I'm not sure what you're saying, Duane.

@Robert - she was a little long in the tooth, but then at my age, who am I to say anything.

@Jesse - I realize that not everything can be done completely from print to film, like short stories. However, there is no reason that if a project is going to be done it can not be done right. LOTR is only one of many movies that the concept from print to film is true. I do not expect a word for word, scene for scene adaptation, but I do expect what happened in the book to be what happens in the film - at least keep the plot. I find it hard to believe that Traci Lords can star in a film that is for the most part true to the book, and yet, 10 years later, Disney can't manage the same feat? On a book written around 1920? OK, I'm missing something.

Whatever Disney was striving for, they missed the boat. It's a shame, because, done right, they could have milked us for a couple of sequels at least. I love the Barsoom series.

The movie wasn't a great work of art, but the book isn't either. I did read the book in anticipation of the movie, and I was surprised by how much I liked both.

I'm always surprised when people expect a movie to be just like a book. They are different art forms, with different visions producing them. Even if two filmmakers tried to reproduce the same book exactly as it was written, they would have two different movies just because we all see things a little differently.

I'm always surprised when someone makes excuses for the lack of effort by someone else. The reason people go to see a movie based on a book like John Carter is because they have expectations, either because they've read the book or because they've heard about the book. If those expectations are not met due to "artistic license" then who can expect one to be content with it. Obviously, my take on this issue is different than others, but the bottom line is if all you plan to do is use the names of characters in a book, then just write a whole new script and call it something else. This movie could have been called "Booty Call to Mars" and it would still be watchable, and it wouldn't be a letdown to those who feel that there should be some semblance to the work it was based on. Yes, you see it all the time where the movie is nothing even close to the books - the Bourne Trilogy is a perfect example, and yet people say who cares if it's nothing like the book. It doesn't excuse it.

Enough of my standing on the soapbox, I've got reading to do.

I agree with Duane. If you're not going to stay as faithful as you can to the original material, just label the movie as something else.

I also hate it when a movie is labeled as based on a true story, and then takes all kinds of departures from the true story. Either use the true story, or don't. But don't misrepresent and corrupt the true story.

Compromises are one thing. Purposeful departure is another.

But, then, if we believed the movies, you can turn a car into a time bomb by sticking a rag in the gas tank and setting it on fire. Or fire a gun at the car as it speeds away and it will explode in a ball of fire. And a shotgun fired into a group of people 30 feet away will only hit the intended target. Or a round fired from a pistol will lift someone off their feet and throw them back 5-10 feet.

A John Carter that was more true to the books would be a refreshing change of pace. He's not a reluctant fighter, and he's not filled with angst and regret. Sometimes, to go forward you must go back, be true to the original material. John Carter, at heart is a fighting man, but a principled fighting man. It is common these days to have action heroes who are cynical and jaded, and not much different than the villain. It would be a breath of fresh air to have someone like John Carter on the screen.