John Carter

Last night I watched my new DVD of the recently released film JOHN CARTER. Before I get into the specifics of the film I must immediately tell all of you that JOHN CARTER is FREAKING AWSOME!!!! I loved this film and has become one of the few films that I will re-watch on a regular basis. The movie was beautiful to watch, had deep and rich character development and a story that was so good, NO GREAT, that it captivated me from the very beginning.Now I have read some reviews that stated that the beginning portion of the film was too long. Well, all I can say to that is NONSENSE! The beginning, as well as the entire film, was extremely well paced. Now granted I do not have ADD or ADHD so maybe my attention span or my personal desire to see all good stories have a solid beginning may prejudice me in this regard, but I do not think so. The beginning was well paced, not slow, and definitely needed to set up not only the character of John Carter, but many of the plots and sub-storylines that were revealed during the film. For example, why John Carter dies, supposedly, at the beginning, who the mysterious individual was who was following him at the very beginning (i.e. an undercover Thern, who are the mysterious and secretive protagonists of the film), what was John Carter doing with all that stuff and other artifacts in his study, what was he looking for and why? How did he get to MARS (Barsoon), etc. The beginning was needed to set all of this up for the rest of the film and it did so beautifully and perfectly in my opinion.Next the film goes and takes place on Barsoon (i.e. Mars) and a rich history of the red planet is developed along with an intricate fedual and caste system that is at the same time familiar and unique. We have noble Jeddaks (Leaders, Kings, Rulers) that control either large tribal societies or more advanced like civilizations. We have the beautiful and well acted Viola Lynn Collins playing the Pincess of Mars Dejah Thoris that had an incredible and sexy screen presence and very good chemistry with Taylor Kitsch. Collins was able to balance the right degrees of beauty, brains, compassion, bravery and vulnerability that truly and woderfully brought the character of Dejah Thoris to life. Because of Collins acting the character of Dejah Thoris stopped being a character and became real and I connected with her on an emotional level feeling her anger and desperation and love for John Carter throughout the film. Big time Kudos for Lynn Collins and her performace.Now we come to the main character John Carter wonderfully acted by Taylor Kitsch. Kitsch received alot of flak over the fact that he was playing a leading man role, but was not very well-known and that did not or could not carry the title role or the entire movie himself. That criticism is completely WRONG! I loved the fact that Taylor Kitsch was not a big name star because I did not focus on him, but on his character. I did not focus on his name, but his contribution, which was hugh, to the overall movie. Kitsch brought a depth and sensitivity to John Carter that a truly admired. Any actor can play a hero, but very few actors, great actors, can play flawed heros and pull it off. Kitsch pulled it off and he did so in spades. Not only did Taylor Kitsch carry the title role of John Carter, but he most definitely carried the entire movie. Taylor Kitsch was more than leading man material, he was movie star material and he did a great, great, GREAT job.Then we come to the noble and compassionate Tars Tarkas played and voiced by a well-known and great actor himself Willem Dafoe. Dafoe portrays Tar Tarkas exactly as Edward Rice Burroughs envisoned him - as a great warrior and leader among his people the Tharks possessesing a sense of compassion and empathy uncharacteristic of his race which is otherwise brutal and merciless. Tars Tarkas is the first Barsoomian John Carter encounters when he appears on Mars, and while initially attempting to kill him realizes that John Carter is something or someone special and sets out to protect him and then grows to respect him. The range and breath of emotion that Defoe brought to the character of Tars Tarkas bespeaks of his greatness as an aged and experienced actor that has well-honned his craft of acting. In a word Dafoe's performace was EXCEPTIONAL!The Romance between John Carter and Dejah Thoris left an indelible mark with me because of the great acting of Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins and the marvelous chemistry they had on-screen. The Nobility of Tars Tarkas, the villiany Matai Shang (the undercover Thern who is the main protagonist of John Carter), who does a magnificent job himself in this movie, and just oozes arrogance and meanness that made me want to see John Carter kick his ass all up and down Mars, and the relationship, although fleeting, that I saw between John Carter and his Nephew Ned (good old Edward Rice Burroughs writing himself into his story) that was actually very touching.Finally, the action scene where John Carter single-handedly attacks and defeats the monsters unleashed by the Therns so as to save Dejah Thoris, while at the same time having flashbacks of his family in Virginia massacerd by Union troops and he did not arrive in time to save showed the incredible pathos and angist in John Carter and why he was so against fighting in any other wars or conflicts so that no further evil may come about. a Subtle, but powerful message and a clear defining scene for the character of John Carter.Overall John Carter was a Great, Epic Film that had a great story, great character development and REALLY great acting that deserves 4 out of 4 starts with a fifth star added just to make it absolutely clear how incredible and wonderful this film truly is. 5 stars!The Movie John Carter CLEARLY suffered from bad marketing on the part of Disney and did not deserve to have people turned off to it because of the bad marketing. A sequel to this film needs and must be made. So go out and buy this DVD, Blue-Ray, whatever, and let people and especially Disney know that just because their marketing sucked, the movie John Carter did not, but was actually the exact opposite in that it was Great, Great, GREAT from start to finish. 5 stars all the way to Mars and back for John Carter!

Ex-Confederate cavalry officer is accidentally transported to mars... SAVE THE PRINCESS SAVE THE PLANETI have been reading John Carter novels for fourty years and I appreciate all the efford made to bring it to the big screen..including the shoostring asylum effort "Princess of Mars", which had a few good scenes but most people found it less than appealing. Whicl leads to the name game for "John Carter". I am sure to avoid confusion with the asylum "sucker punch", "A Princess of Mars", was left at the starting gate. "John Carter of Mars" is actually the title of the last book in the John Carter/John Carter of Mars/Barsoomian series so that may be why it was left out as well as not trumping the moment when John Carter of Earth decicdes he is John Carter of Mars. "John Carter under the Moons of Mars" would harken back to the origional magazine release title, but is a mouthfull and telegraphs that he is going to mars..trumping another nice revealing moment in the movie. "John Carter and the Moons of Mars" is catchier, but since, in a later book in the series he actually goes to one of the moons of mars, it might be a tad confusing. "John Carter and the Princess" is nice..since it starts out as a western there could be a native american princess he could meet..but, on mars, since they kept the knowledge that Dejah Thoris was a princess from John Carter for over half the movie, it might be considerd too revealing (in the book it was not kept hidden). Also, all of the books concern princeses including his daughter and granddaughter. Lets see..."John Carter: Man of Two Worlds"...not bad and somewhat historical..."John Carter's Great Adventure" ehh..."John Carter's Fantastic Adventure" is somewhat historical but it would be considered overstating or too revealing..."John Carter Begins" is a bit modern, but its does put grin on my face...but since they were thinking it might not do well they would actually think of it as "John Carter Ends"...but John Carter won't end, his motto in the book is "I still live"...and now that we have the first movie in the can, he can be rebooted, or retroed, or begun by someone else if Disney doesn't continue. "John Carter: I still Live!"...I like it, oops, they forgot to put his motto in the moive!...though perhaps he said something like "I am still alive" near the end or in his diary, so it couild be ok. I will go with that. It's not any worse than their choice for sure. As for touching moments in the movie, it does have a very telling "My Jeddek" scene, but its not with John Carter who has apparently left the building...the princess has finally come to terms with her fate...its such a quick scene but it says so much....which leaves only Dotar Sojat to save Helium. Tars Tarkas, sola, Wolla, Kantos Kan and the princess bring a lot of wit, humor, and banter to the show. After all, this a love story in the midst of wars that have been going on for many generations. But it doesn't feel that way entirely, thanks to our heroes who are hoping that things can be differant. Its a much smaller world then ERB imagined (some twenty-five plus city-states have been reduced to two and a couple of green martian hordes out of five)...but it has great detail which I cain't wait to look at on blue-ray (the Jasoomian 10th ray!)...In the book "A Princess of Mars" there were a few princesses....in the movie we have two...most probably overlook the fact that Sola is a green martian princess...in true ERB fashion she is a hidden princess... The Barsoomina 8th ray (which repels against "mars" and is treated as a gas in sealed tanks in the book) appears to be used in conjunction, so it would seem, with another ERB technology, the "equilibrimotor" to move the craft since they no longer seem to have movement via propellers driven by radium powered motors. Per the screen play, the "motor" is solar powered and extra energy is stored. Hence the dramatic flying action is driven in the movie by having the sun dimmed by shadow or sandstorm... Age isn't mentioned in the movie...in the book 1000 years is normal (optional trip down the River Iss at that point) and you probably start to look old long before 2000 years have passed...so the princess, given her accomplishments is probably in the 35 to 80 range...I say this as the viewpoints of the characters in the movie are very clear...they have had a lot of time to think about things...The sound track is quite good, I listen to it while doing chores or killing orcs in LOTRO... I consider it a very good movie...many scenes are quite captivating and not easily forgotten...its nice to have another scifi adventure that you can watch with your family...I am hoping for extended scenes on blue-ray and for more of the 11 books to come forth as movies. Saddly, there is not much tie-in to the movie...a sound track, some books...a few other things for kids....where is the mmorpg? If they can do it for Lord of the Rings, Connan, and Star Wars..why not Baroom? A high level inner circle group of ERB fans came up with a private report showing the sad state of Barsoomian computer games, most are incompleete and a lot will never be finished...two are funtional, but one of them is on an obsolete computer...the other has five massave Barsoomian scenarios written by me for the 1994 popular strategy game Empire Deluxe...which amazingly installs and runs on win7 32bit. So I have been conquering Barsoom with one of the six major factions for fifteen years...but its real nice to see the beautiful small scale action in the movie.

Sure you can catch this on cable, but this blu ray includes the documentary, 100 years in the making, a superb short feature detailing director Andrew Stanton's long, tireless battle to adapt his boyhood hero for the big screen. This awesome addition is worth the purchase price alone. That being said, the movie, itself, is fantastic and greatly underappreciated . Buy this now

I still don't really understand why this film scored so poorly from critics when it was released or how they got the marketing of the film so wrong - many people have never even heard of this film, despite the fact it had a huge budget from Disney as well as some decent well-known actors involved.It's based around the character of John Carter from the novel written by Edgar Rice Burrough but absolutely does not require any previous knowledge of this or having read the book - it works great as a stand alone magical sci-fi adventure following Carter's expeditions to the planet Barsoom/Mars and is full of wonderful and creative creatures and alien landscapes that look awesome thanks to some very impressive and believable CGI. The story is engaging and easy to follow for kids/younger viewers, but with a decent amount of depth to it for older viewers to enjoy it in a more involved way beyond the spectacular visuals and interesting characters.It's one of my favourite sci-fi films to watch with nieces and nephews and I really wish the film had done much better at the cinema so they could have made a few sequels.

The first time I saw this movie was on Netflix, & I was pleasently surprised as I quite liked it. Then I saw it a second time on TV, & enjoyed it even more. Then I found out that the critics slammed the film, & that it wasn't popular with cinema goers only wiping it's nose at the box office. I find that incredibly hard to understand, as this is a good movie. I bought it on Blu-Ray to watch again, & I thoroughly enjoyed it yet again. I lent it to a mate (not telling him anything about it so he had no preconceptions), & he said it was the best film he'd seen all year.The CGI is spectacular for the most part, & the Tharks look utterly stunning. The story is great too, & the guy playing Carter does a damn good job. I think that this is one of the most underated movies of recent years, & that it will become a hidden gem to future generations. Give your eyeballs a treat to the 250 million dollars they lavished on this movie, & ignore all the miserable naysayers. This is retro science fiction/fantasy action as it's best.

Disney just makes movies that promote 'THE MESSAGE' but back when this was made in 2012 they were brave, no preachy movies, no propaganda just entertainment, this was poorly marketed, most people I know just know its "supposed to be really good" but they don't know what it was about, marketing was dire, Tron Legacy was the year before and is absolutely incredible, one of the best examples of stereoscopic movies, it had great depth and one of the few movies shot in 3d rather than post-processing 3d transfer, I digress (might watch Tron now, I bought the last 4k HDR10 Dolby Vision 120htz tvs ever to be built, it's incredible with upscaling, buy both on here quite cheap, trust me if you haven't watched them they are far better and still hold up extremely well than todays sludge they pump out now, we wll know what word goes along with Disney.......is it roomer.......boomer....gr...you know.

Treated in a very cavalier manner by the critics upon its release, John Carter is almost the perfect SF movie. It captures the romance and adventure of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Captain John Carter and his exotic journey on Mars. It manages to stay true to the pulp-story wonder of Barsoom, while updating the characters just enough so that they feel eal to us moderns. So we get the airships that fly on light-waves, the giant four-armed alien tharks, but we also get a cavalryman who has a sly sense of humour and a Princess of Mars who is brave as well as beautiful.Taylor Kitsch is very good as John Carter, Lynn Collins is both sharp and beguiling as Princess Dejah Thoris. As a big fan of Burroughs Mars novels I can confidently say that this movie doesn't put a foot wrong. The opening acts which take place on Earth are simply magnificent.It's worth buying the Blu-Ray. The production design of John Carter is superb, decayed desert cities, marvellous beasts (especially the White Apes) and the visual quality of the Blu-Ray makes the movie a feast for the eyes.

An epic sci-fi movie that received rather mixed reviews when it was released; I knew of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character through illustration work long before the film, so I already had an interest in this.It's visually spectacular, with impressive character design, CGI work and settings; I don't have any issues with it's pacing or the character development – it is, after all, a lightweight adventure story that doesn`t have any great intellectual ideas to push - so relax, go with it and it's perfectly enjoyable.I found it mildly objectionable that Disney didn't have the guts to market it as a proper sci-fi fantasy, but otherwise I don't see any reason for some of the more vitriolic criticism some have meted out.Watch it yourself and make your own mind up.The standard UK DVD release has an audio commentary, a 10-minute “making of” featurette and English subtitles are available.