They’re suing over trademark of the characters - says so on the copy of the court form - and trademark lasts however as long as the holder can successfully defend it (copyright is life of the author plus 70 years, retroactively, under the Berne Convention). They* are* out of place about claiming copyright/trademark on the titles “Princess/Warlord of Mars” since you can’t protect book titles, only the contents, BUT if they trademarked “Barsoom” and “Dejah Thorris” for use in this context, then they not only want to but have to challenge any unauthorized use.
Yes, essentially they are using trademark to extend copyright to infinity. It took a lot of words for you to agree with me, but let’s get real … that’s what they are doing.
Yeah, it’s something of a weasel move, but it’s been in the books since before the stretching of copyrights. The ERB people feel their optimum earnings strategy is in licensing John Carter of Barsoom and Tarzan of the Apes for derivative work strictly on terms of their own choosing, NOT in a definitive version of “A Princess of Mars”.
There’s also the point that with trademark, if people DON’T actively defend it continually, they stand a good chance of losing the fight when they get to a big threat because there’s no evidence that they were interested in protecting their trademark by looking at all of the other infringements that they let slide previously.
Now, I tend to believe that the estate wants their cut-in, but even if they don’t get much, to protect the trademark, they sort of HAVE to raise a stink, just to show they still care.
As for the film, the promotion so far has sucked utter ass, so I don’t know whether buzz will save it or not. It may end up being a cult favorite, or a sleeper DVD hit, but those don’t make anywhere near the amount of profit that it really needs to.
It honestly looks like Disney just decided last year to write this one totally off as a vanity project and aren’t even TRYING to recover any ground with the marketing and promotions. Which is a shame, because it looks like it could be a decent action-adventure film.
really? I don’t get that sense at all. I’ve seen plenty of ads on TV and at the movies, and the bookstores are full of tie-ins. This is getting much more play that Disney’s last SF outing (which, curiously, also involved Mars) – Mars Needs Moms, which was actually pretty good, and didn’t deserve the press limbo it fell into. John Carter is being heavily promoted, although it still hasn’t seen its major media blitz, which I predict coming up shortly.
Just saw the trailor. Interesting.
I love the books, I will wait for the DVD.
As for the nudity, of course you don’t need to have actual nudity-nudity. Just cover up a few strategic square inches, and there you go.
But the thing is, if you google “dejah thoris” images, most of the ideas there are…all wrong. Too stripperific. Barsoomian nudity isn’t hypersexual, it’s no-nonsense Scandinavian-style nudity.
I guess it’s kind of stupid to expect that sort of thing in a movie, since it’s worst-of-both-worlds…too nude for the prudes, not sleazy enough for the frat boys.
Not only that, but full frontal would call for an R-rating, and I don’t think that’s what Disney and Co. have in mind here… as delighted as my 9 year old son might find it.
Anyhow, I’m becoming more and more of a fan of Ryan Church’s concept work, and it looks like he really found his groove on this one. Although, I could see him pushing the rusty reds a but further into the surreal.
I’m not sure that Dejah Thoris shouldn’t be stripperific, though… What the men wear is described as being functional (belts and harnesses to hold weapons (or conceivably other tools)), but what the women wear is said to be purely ornamental. Precisely what style of ornamentation is left unspecified, but presumably it’s of a sort that complements near-total nudity well, which is also the pool that strippers are drawing from.
I can’t believe you adolescents are obsessing over absence of nudity in a mainstream movie when we are in the age of internet porn.
It’s fine in a book, but entirely inappropriate for this kind of movie’s audience, so they 86ed it. Get over it.
Well if Burroughs’ works were TRULY in the public domain, as they SHOULD be there would probably be MANY different films made with MANY different interpretations of how the Martians would look, from burkas to full frontal, and that would be FINE with me. Let a thousand flowers bloom and all. I personally think nudity or near nudity is more visually appealing, but hey, whatever does or does not float your boat. But ERB and Disney want THEIRS to be the only boats afloat. So to hell with them.
That article is all about the budget and the marketing, not how good or bad the movie is. There was a lot of the same buzz about Titanic. As a movie goer I couldn’t care less about such things.
Aaaaand… Here’s your chance at a 4 minute sneak peek of the Arena/White Ape scene.
CGI CGI CGI, yeh yeh yeh, blah blah blah. But shit, I’m totally down. It’s pulp (really, really, really expensive pulp), but I’m hearing mostly good things about the flick itself from around the web.
I liked that scene!
Outstanding!
I am so there!
Still needs “…of Mars” in the title.
Yeah - why did they remove that? I thought early teasers/trailers had that
I actually thought it was a mistake to put “of Mars” in the title. A century ago, an inhabited Mars was still considered plausible, but now, after all the probes and photos, I think it might strain folks’ disbelief. And given that he got there magically, anyway, there’s no real need for it to be close by. So just call the planet “Barsoom”, and leave it ambiguous precisely where Barsoom is.
Nope. Only the earliest press releases, before production even began, had that. The closest they came to it officially was having a weird little logo made up of “JCM.”
Director Andrew Stanton is asked about this a lot, and he always says “Watch the film, and you’ll understand why.”
Even better… the same guy is starring in the movie Battleship. 
Though I think he’s doing a fine job in Friday Night Lights, which I’m currently running through (hence the present-tense.)