John Carter - The Movie

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, I went and saw this tonight, and I will say I loved it. It's not a movie that can be understood at first, and there are many things I want to see about it again, but will have to say, it followed the book quite well, and while I wasn't sure about the guy playing the main character, (didn't seem quite right for the part), after watching it, I am now totally all for him playing it. He did good.

About the only thing I really found off was the fact that in the book, only John Carter had blue eyes, no Martians had them, and this movie kinda let that slide by and did sort of the opposite, and gave Dejah extreemly blue eyes. Oh, and the woman that played her was really good too.
All in all, I can't wait to see the next one!

[Sister Sonya]

I'm glad that you liked the movie. I read the Barsoom books when I was a teenager and always preferred them, and John Carter, to Tarzan and the Tarzans.

When you consider all of the Tarzan movies that have been produced, and that so much of the science fantasy genre has come through the John Carters, and this is the first, it's really criminal.

When I read the reviews and the background I was discouraged. I remember when Star Wars came out, most of the serious critics were way off base even if they liked the special effects at the time.

But then, I throught there were so many great things about Hugo, and it bombed, so what can I say!?

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, I think that it may be a bit hard for today's kids to get into the right mode to watch it. It does follow the book quite well, and if you are a fan of ERB John Carter of Mars books, you'll love it. There are parts that seem like they are "copying" Star Wars, but remember, ERB wrote them first!
About one of the things that might "rub" you wrong, is how fast John learns the language, after being given a "drink", and how quickly he also learns how to fly one of the personal flyers, having no previous experience really with one. But then, that was how it was written in the book, too, lol.

The special effects were amazing, and things blended together well, and the story is really close to the book (as far as my rusty memory can remember), I'll have to dig out my series and re-read them again, has been a few years.

But I really liked it, and would see it again. Will definately be looking for the DVD when it comes out.

[salamanca]

it's not the first. Syfy had on "A Princess of Mars" saturday morning. And it was horrible.

I also decided since it was free, I would download a copy of Princess of mars and reread it this week. The book drags in tons of places. It's obviously padded to fill a word quota and a third of the way into the book, you are still waiting for the hero to do anything remotely interesting beyond reacting to events acting on him.

I am pretty sure it could have been edited down by 30%. The film needs a stronger lead actor and more concern for plot over effects but that's true of all action films.

[Sister Sonya]

Syfy had on "A Princess of Mars" saturday morning.

Yeah, wasn't it the one with the X-rated actress?

[Rebecca Iavelli]

Well, I enjoyed watching it, and actually found myself laughing in parts that I don't remember laughing at when I read the book. Like where he is learning to walk on Mars. The film does much better in its showing his problems than the book did, in reading it.

You got to stop looking at all the "negatives" sometimes, and just watch it for good clean fun, which it was.

[Black Jack Rackham]

Saw it tonight (Her Magesty took the kids to a museum) and, while I would guess I have been influenced by everyone who saw it and said that it was better than described by the critics, I gotta say I enjoyed it too. The thing I see people complaining about is the same thing they complained about in Captain America. The storytelling is faithful to its source material. We're used to the slam, bang, crash of all-action movies like Transformers (which btw I've never seen, so I'm basing my criticism off the commercials) and these movies simply aren't that. It's a shame it looks like this'll take a loss (especially when its up against cinematic abominations like The Lorax (which I took the two littlest to earlier today, in a word, "DON'T")) cause I would quite like to see a sequel.