Seems to me the stories as written would seem more than a bit hokey to today’s audiences. And you are right, hardcore ERB fans are a pretty small segment of the population. We are not talking about Harry Potter.
Excuse me? Nekkid Dejah Thoris. Built in market segment right there, if they had the guts to go for it. 
There is a short piece in the latest Newsweek that makes it sound like this is going to be a box office disaster.
What the hell is a “capo”?
It was a term used for the Jews in concentration camps who earned a few more weeks of life by hauling bodies around and pulling gold teeth.
Not much about the movie, mostly about management.
I’m not giving up hope.
Yet.
I see a lot of posts regarding changes from the novels, try to remember – this film is a Disney/Pixar production. So no naked red-skinned Dejah Thoris. I’m not a Disney hater, they do good work, but its always an adaptation.
I think that the studios are looking to repeat the franchise success of the Harry Potter films. They’ve tried to do this with the Lemony Snicket, Narnia books, etc. Most of these attempts have not been successful. Now they’re trying with the Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars novels.
Not Pixar, just Disney. Though the Director originated from Pixar (and will always remain associated with it), this film has nothing to do with their Studio.
She doesn’t have to be naked, just wear something more suggestive of nudity so she doesn’t look so overdressed standing next to John Carter.
Well I used to want the movie to succeed like gangbusters so there would be other imitators that might be a little more liberal about Dejah Thoris’ costume. But ever since I found out that the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate is suing Dynamite Entertainment for doing a realistic Princess of Mars, I’ve lost all enthusiasm for the project. Let 'em bomb. Hell the book was written about a century ago, but I guess copyright is infinite now.
I have heard the term “capo” used to refer to a captain in a Mafia family … basically, a guy who is in charge of a particular racket or territory and does the family’s bidding.
Clearly Burroughs’ will needed a “Don’t give my work to prudes” clause.
Looks like the only thing this movie might have going for it is Andrew Stanton directing (Wall-E, Finding Nemo). Perhaps it’ll be a huge loss for Disney at the box office, but I’m hoping Stanton was able to corral his crew, and wield his story telling intuition on this film (Finding Nemo was perfection, and so was the first half of Wall-E, but that second half wasn’t nearly as good.)
Although, everything I’ve see so far hasn’t been bad, per se. It just doesn’t seem to have a particular intrinsic draw I thought something like this should have.
The marketing has been week and flat, and losing “Of Mars” from the title takes away a certain weight, a big mistake IMHO.
I agree.
As the article linked on the previous page by River Hippie says:
For myself, i can live with the lack of nudity, but it seems to me that they’ve messed around too much with other aspects of the books, including things like the scale of some of the creatures. It’s been a while since i read the books, but the white apes in the trailer look WAY to big. In the books i’m pretty sure that they were about 12-15 feet tall; big, but not some Godzilla-like megafauna, which is how they look in the previews.
For me, one of the most interesting parts of the first book was the ethnographic aspect of it, the time that Carter spends living and traveling with the green hordes and learning about their way of life. I realize that this probably wouldn’t make for a very compelling movie, but the movie they’ve made doesn’t really look to me like it’s maintained much of the spirit or feel of the source material.
I recognize that Burroughs is not exactly highbrow literature, but i loved the Martian series for what it was, and i think i’m going to be disappointed with this movie.
This may be a biased sample, but preview screenings are getting good buzz. Might actually be pretty decent.
Having said that, no negative reviews at all is a tad suspicious.
Sometimes buzz can really make up for shit marketing. If the movie ends up being a real treat, word of mouth could save it, but they’ll have to haul in Avatar levels of ticket sales.
$250,000,000 is an utterly gigantic budget.
But, I am still looking forward to it. It may not be the pulpy 70s Barsoom we’re all used to seeing, but it might be a really strong scifi action/adventure. I’m also curious to see how Andrew Stanton fares with his first live action debut (hot on the heels of Brad Bird’s success with Mission Impossible).
Shit, look how many times Tarzan’s been adapted and reimagined. I don’t have a problem with reinventing it somewhat. The scope looks truly epic, and I actually love the ship designs. They feel almost crustacean-esque.
Fingers crossed.
Has anyone noticed that the star’s name – the guy playing john Carter – is Taylor Kitsch!!!
Apparently it’s his real name. I’ve managed to miss his other films, so he’s been under my radar.
In case you don’t know, Kitsch:
Remember: if it’s bad, it could always be worse. One commenter after this Daily Beastarticle claims Tom Hanks, of all people, was willing to get all buff to play John Carter. Could be BS, but it reminds me of Clark Cage.
I’ve seen the cinema trailer a couple of times, once in 3-D and once in 2-D. I’m happy watching 3-D but for this film the 2-D definitely looks better to me; the 3-D stuff seemed confusing and rushed.