Actually they were family movies, designed to appeal to a wide ranging audience. And in fact that’s not true either, they really just made the movies they wanted to make, which happened to be family oriented movies. As they have progressed they have become a little more experimental, which has alienated the family demographic a little bit, with Cars being aimed at auto enthusiasts, and Ratatouille being a little less kiddy fare.
I would imagine that they will be realistic and recognise that this kind of film, if it’s true to its source, will need to be aimed at adults and teens. I hope so, anyway.
That depends if the Chinese have a shortage of the lead paint needed for the toys or not! No lead paint? Make it for grown ups! Enough lead paint to turn us into a nation of chromosomially damaged slack jaws? Kiddie flick!
That’s a slightly harsh assessment of Marauders of Gor, an agreeable yarn in which Tarl Cabot, temporarily in remission from total paralysis, voyages to Torvaldsland and basically rediscovers the sense of self he lost in Raiders. It also features a trip to Torvald’s lost tomb which pretty much carries the message “Waste no more time looking for legendary heroes. Be one”, and an illustration that, cruel as Gor may be to women, men have it worse. The male slave Tarsk (“Pig”) is sentenced to a flogging, with a whip not unlike a Russian knout, by the man with the strongest arm in the settlement - a vicious punishment which he might well not have survived - for the crime of looking as though he was going to touch a slave girl. And at that, the whipping is the punishment he is let off with.
Fair enough, although you’re about five books off the pace for the early 1980s (Marauders is volume 9 of the series; the 1980 Gor book was volume 14, Fighting Slave of Gor) - not enough of a handicap to prevent you getting a general flavour of the series.
I’ll stop hijacking now - if anyone wants me to start an “Ask the guy who’s read all 26 Gor books” thread, I’ll gladly oblige.
I for one like to believe that we live in a world of shades of grey. That there is a difference between a series that posits women as damsels in distress, and one that portrays them as being nothing more than sex slaves who need to be taken by a “master.”
Furthermore, I believe that there isn’t anything inherently wrong with a person enjoying the occasional primal “macho” story ala Conan or Barsoom. A person can enjoy such a story even though they are fully aware of the inappropriate manner in which it protrays some things. If someone wants to see that element of a story maintained (because it’s a key characteristic of the story, and because it’s been so thoroughly scoured from modern media by and large), that doesn’t automatically mean they’re a closet misogynist.
Seriously, why don’t we all try reading peoples statements without analysing them for the slightest hint of something that can be broadly exaggerated into something monstrous. If this isn’t Godwin’s Law in action…
PS. Honestly, I think most people read Gor as either “dumb but fun” action, or as fetish porn. I’d be surprised if more than a token minority of its readers actually take that tripe seriously. Even the author seems to recognize it as schlocky entertainment (in poor taste), based on the statements by him that I’ve seen.
I once met a woman at a science fiction conventioon who was dressed as a Gorean Slave Girl. She was clearly into the fantasy – evidently this floated her boat, and she was clearly seeing this as fantasy and entertainment, bot as counter-education and degradation. It’s the folks who don’t discern this you gotta watch out for.
I myself read the first book (well before Norman started getting into the fetish side, and never read another one. I wasn’t interested in retread Burroughs – I’d had enough of that from Otis Adelbert Kline.
Personally I have been amazed at the number of women I’ve cyber-met over the years who are heavily into Gor, as slave-girls, and as some way beyond mere fantasy and entertainment. :dubious:
After the first book or two, the sense of a cheap ERB knock-off dwindles.
Check out The Incredibles. It’s not a Disney-style little kids movie, but a top-notch action/adventure superhero story that’s not afraid to throw a character into a jet engine for a good joke. That’s probably the single best indicator of what direction they’d take John Carter in.
And while Tom Hanks did star in their first movie, it’s worth noting that this was in 1995, when Hanks was just breaking through as a major movie star. Forrest Gump had only come out the year before, well after he would have been signed to voice Woody the Cowboy. And that was about the biggest celebrity they’ve ever had voice one of their movies. The leads from their other films have been folks like John Goodman, Dave Foley, Albert Brooks, Craig T. Nelson, and Patton Oswalt. Lots of familiar names, lots of very talented people, but hardly the sort of supestar stunt casting that mars animated movies from Disney proper, Dreamworks, or Fox Animation.
I’ll second that the Gor novels don’t read all that much like the Warlord of Mars novels. I think Gor reads a LOT more like Talbot Mundy’s Tros of Samothrace series. Except of course, I don’t think Tros had much bondage in it, or sex in general. Like the Tros storeies, most of the Gor novels revolve around Ar (transparently, Rome) and its satellite states, whereas Burrough’s Mars, although he clearly borrowed from a LOT of different sources, is a more original creation, in terms of the its setting.
Google “tuchux” and you’ll get what you deserve, since that’s an illiterate pluralisation of “Tuchuk” from Nomads of Gor. There are a lot of pretenders about the place. Anyone who wants to email me is welcome to do so, though I don’t pretend to be an expert.
Well, except for “Outlaw”, “Priest-Kings”, “Nomads”, “Raiders”, “Captive”, “Hunters”, “Marauders”, “Tribesmen”, “Slave Girl”, “Beasts”, “Explorers”, “Savages”, “Blood Brothers”, “Kajira” and “Players”. There are slight Arian influences in the last two, but they’re tangential. The last half-dozen cover the story arc that leads to the fall of Ar and past it, agreed. Three not on my list, “Fighting Slave”, “Rogue” and “Guardsman”, are centred in some minor cities loosely connected to the coming strife between Ar and Cos, but the plot has more to do with river pirates.
INMKE - I just know a bit about it, and there are a few lifestylers I like and respect. We can worry about true Tuchuks when we meet people who come from the Plains of the Wagon Peoples and follow the standard with four bosk horns.
I may have phrased this clumsily. When I read Tros of Samothrace, the background of the stories was of a guy knocking around the Mediterraneian and hinterlands like Britain in a world dominated by Rome. When I read Gor novels, I get the same impression, except substitute “Ar” for “Rome” and “Gor” for “the Mediterranean and hinterlands.” When I read about the Barsoom, I do not get this feeling. For better of for worse, the Barsoom is its own planet. It’s much more of an original creation, slapdash though it is in certain respects.
