One Last Trip To Barsoom April 19

white avenger

white avenger
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"Take Me Back To Barsoom"

Folks, for those of you who have seen the movie "John Carter," or plan to, this appeal is for you. Walt Disney Studios has thrown away a truly special movie, the beginning of a trilogy, for some unknown reason. Primarily, they declared "John Carter" a flop before the first ticket was sold. There was no adequate advertizing campaign for the movie the way that we have seen for "Avengers," "Hunger Games," and others. What advertizing that there was, was poorly planned and poorly executed. Now, their ultimate argument for not continuing plans for the remaining two installments of the trilogy is that the movie has been a financial loss. Even at $250,000,000, with several million more thrown in for a failed advertizing campaign, John Carter HAS repaid its production cost, and done it even before the entire Asian market has been considered. On top of that, Amazon.com has reported that "John Carter" DVD preorders are one of the largest that they have ever experienced.

The story of John Carter is at least as good as "Star Wars" or "The Lord Of The Rings,", and it deserves its chance to be completed.

I've said all of that as a lead in to this:

"Take Me Back To Barsoom" is a group on Facebook that is sponsoring a petition to be sent to Disney Studios in an attempt to present our argument that "The Gods Of Mars" and "The Gods Of Mars" DO have a viable market, and a profit CAN be made on them. This is a very special cause for me, because I have waited all of my life to see Burroughs' greatest series presented properly in film, and Mr Stanton has proven that he can do exactly that. If you have seen the movie, or plan to, or if you are a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series, I strongly urge you to go to this site:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/backtobarsoom/

join the group, sign the petition, and make your wishes known. I would be eternally grateful, and I know that Andrew, Xander, and Giles would share my feelings, since they are great fans of John Carter.

Thank you for your patience and indulgence.

WA
 
S
Sweet J
This was a surprising decent film, despite the bad reviews
join the group, sign the petition, and make your wishes known. I would be eternally grateful, and I know that Andrew, Xander, and Giles would share my feelings,


Could you remind me when they expressed their fan status of John Carter? I'm a bit fuzzy on that.

John Carter was 1000 times better than Hunger Games(which is an unashamed giant rip-off of the 1999 Battle Royale book and 2000 film adaption of the same name)

They have my support!
 
This is yet another appeal by me for "John Carter," the movie that the studios abandoned, and the critics slaughtered, BEFORE IT WAS EVEN RELEASED. I know that you're getting tired of hearing about this from me, so just read this:

http://www.sfx.co.uk/2012/04/01/isn’t-it-about-time-you-gave-john-carter-another-chance/

and this:

http://thejohncarterfiles.com/2012/03/what-did-you-think-of-john-carter-join-the-conversation/

and forget about what the damn critics say.

This Thursday, April 91, is the last theatrical showing of "John Carter," in the United States, and thousands of loyal fans plan to visit the El Capitan theater in Chicago, in one last statement of their support and love for the movie and the people who brought it to us. Think of it as the "one last slap in the face" that Angel and his friends dealt the Senior Partners in "Not Fade Away." I know that the vast majority of you can't be in Chicago for this event, but I also know that almost all of you are within access of a theater nearby where "John Carter" will be playing. "The Avengers" is gonna blow everything else away the next day, but please, not for my sake, but for the sake of what could, and SHOULD, have been one of the real blockbusters of the year, and to spit in the collective eyes of Walt Disney Studios and the critics, go, and see this movie. You'll like it, I promise you. Beyond that, quite a few of you will positively love it. So, even if you've seen it before, see it again, and take friends with you. A LOT of friends. In the words of Tars Tarkas, "Leave a Thark one hand and his head, and he may still prevail." In the words of John Carter himself, "We still live." And in the words of someone probably more familiar to everyone here:

"Let's go to work."
 
So, I don't really know who John Carter is or what The Avengers is all about, BUT I thought of [MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION] today while reading my Glamour magazine. On page 246 in an article titled "Five Things I'm Loving This Month" is Number Five: "The triumphant return of Taylor Kitsch, a.k.a. Friday Night Lights' Tim Riggins, and his glorious hair in the sci-fi movie John Carter."

There was John Carter again and I immediately thought of WI and bookmarked the page so I could post this. 🙂
 
E
EvilWillow
Haha, only you would equate an action movie to glamour magazine. Only you, stef. :heart:
So, I don't really know who John Carter is or what The Avengers is all about, BUT I thought of [MENTION=6758]white avenger[/MENTION] today while reading my Glamour magazine. On page 246 in an article titled "Five Things I'm Loving This Month" is Number Five: "The triumphant return of Taylor Kitsch, a.k.a. Friday Night Lights' Tim Riggins, and his glorious hair in the sci-fi movie John Carter."

There was John Carter again and I immediately thought of WI and bookmarked the page so I could post this. 🙂

It's always nice to be remembered and thought of in a pleasant way. I could tell you the complete story of John Carter, but I would still be talking long after the last showing this Thursday. I will say, though, that if you liked the "Star Wars" movies, the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy or "Avatar," to name just a very few modern movies, then you have seen elements of "John Carter," because the trilogy of books that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote, beginning with "A Princess Of Mars" (don't confuse the SYFY's version of this from last year. It's a travesty, and well worth missing) is the direct inspiration for all of them. In fact, James Cameron specifically said that "Avatar" was his homage to John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and all of the fantastic stories that he had written.
 
It's always nice to be remembered and thought of in a pleasant way. I could tell you the complete story of John Carter, but I would still be talking long after the last showing this Thursday. I will say, though, that if you liked the "Star Wars" movies, the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy or "Avatar," to name just a very few modern movies, then you have seen elements of "John Carter," because the trilogy of books that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote, beginning with "A Princess Of Mars" (don't confuse the SYFY's version of this from last year. It's a travesty, and well worth missing) is the direct inspiration for all of them. In fact, James Cameron specifically said that "Avatar" was his homage to John Carter, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and all of the fantastic stories that he had written.

I'm not huge on sci-fi films, but I do like the original Star Wars movies. My mom loves those kinds of movies, so I'll have to recommend it to her!
 
I don't know that this failing was down to advertising, there was loads of advertising for it here in Ireland leading up to it, and I saw it, but thought it was pretty dull, some cool stuff, but afterwards I was kinda 'meh' about it.
 
I think that one of the biggest problems with the movie as it was written and directed is that Stanton truly loves the material, and he tried too hard to present the story of John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkas, and the rest in such a way that it wouldn't disappoint the people who already knew the story. We could fill in the gaps in what would appear to the non fans to be a choppy and confusing story. We KNEW the story of Tars Tarkas, his daughter, Sola, and why none of the other Tharks were aware of their relationship. We KNEW the real story behind Carter's Thark name, Dotar Sojat (and it had nothing to do with "right arm") Stanton sung to the choir and just expected the audience to follow along.

"John Carter" IS a great movie, and it is based on what is almost certainly the single most copied and borrowed from story line of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, the potential audience just never was reached. It isn't the first time such a thing has happened, and it won't be the last. But that isn't any consolation for the fans who have waited most of their lives to see it made.
 
"John Carter" IS a great movie, and it is based on what is almost certainly the single most copied and borrowed from story line of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, the potential audience just never was reached. It isn't the first time such a thing has happened, and it won't be the last. But that isn't any consolation for the fans who have waited most of their lives to see it made.

I could definitely see that as I watched the movie, if Edgar Burroughs wrote that over a century ago then a lot of works after he released his books owe him a great deal of recognition.

I was a noobie to the whole John Carter Franchise going into the theatre, I hadn't even seen the trailer, and walked out pretty impressed by it and could see the potential. The only criticism I had for the movie was that it, in my opinion, it appeared to be trying to appeal to too many different types of audiences, for example young kids and romance junkies, which stretched the plot a little too much for my liking.

So I'm not a fan, but would give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.

Still, I'd recommend it over Hunger Games and Cabin in the Woods.
 
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One of the biggest problems when trying to do a faithful interpretation of one of Burroughs' books in a movie is that there are so many sub plots that it would be impossible to present even a fraction of them in the time allotted, and the overall story NEEDS all of those elements to make it complete. One of the things particular to Burroughs and the writers of his day is that their books were originally printed in installments over 20 or more issues of any one of several men's adventure magazines. Because of this, each installment had to be in effect a story in itself,but each individual story would have to come together in the end into one single cohesive story. We didn't see any of that in "John Carter," which made the end result harder to follow if you hadn't read the books and known the parts that were left out.

For instance, Martians go from infancy to young adulthood in an extremely short period of time, and, upon reaching maturity at about the age of 12 to 15, then show virtually no signs of aging until the last few years of their normal 1000 year life span. None of that was mentioned in the first movie, and it really wasn't needed. However, in the sequel, if it ever does get made, Carter and Dejah Thoris' son, Carthoris, is one of the major secondary characters.

And I'm going to stop right there, or I will find myself writing a huge essay on Barsoomian life in general, John Carter in particular, and how they fit in together. I will leave with this one element to the story. The thousand year life span of the Martians, as opposed to the normal Earth human of only a few decades, is no barrier to the relationship between John Carter and the incomparable Dejah Thoris, because Carter, like another character who he inspired, Connor Macleod, is immortal. And that isn't all...
 
S
Sweet J
I'll check out the books after my exams!
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