John Carter of Mars coming to the big screen

[hepcat]

'Ok' doesn't make me go to the theaters these days..

Can I quote you when the next transformers movie opens?   

[PR_GMR]

'Ok' doesn't make me go to the theaters these days..

Can I quote you when the next transformers movie opens?   

Im a Transformers fanboy. That's why I support the Bayformer movies. I would probably go watch a student filmmaker's crude stop-motion Transformers movie if it was released in theaters. So sue me. 

[PeteRock]

'Ok' doesn't make me go to the theaters these days..

Can I quote you when the next transformers movie opens?   

Im a Transformers fanboy. That's why I support the Bayformer movies. I would probably go watch a student filmmaker's crude stop-motion Transformers movie if it was released in theaters. So sue me. 

Even if it were four hours long?   

[PR_GMR]

'Ok' doesn't make me go to the theaters these days..

Can I quote you when the next transformers movie opens?   

Im a Transformers fanboy. That's why I support the Bayformer movies. I would probably go watch a student filmmaker's crude stop-motion Transformers movie if it was released in theaters. So sue me. 

Even if it were four hours long?   

 

I'm still astounded that Eco made a freakin' 4-hour stop-motion film. Do you know how hard is to do stop motion? I watched the first few minutes but haven't been able to watch more. They had some good sweeping camera moves too. 

[PeteRock]

I'm still astounded that Eco made a freakin' 4-hour stop-motion film. Do you know how hard is to do stop motion? I watched the first few minutes but haven't been able to watch more. They had some good sweeping camera moves too. 

Do I know?  It's how I started my acting career.  The shoots were endless and physically grueling. 

[rickfc]

I'm still astounded that Eco made a freakin' 4-hour stop-motion film. Do you know how hard is to do stop motion? I watched the first few minutes but haven't been able to watch more. They had some good sweeping camera moves too. 

Do I know?  It's how I started my acting career.  The shoots were endless and physically grueling. 

Weird. They way they edit those scenes, it's only like 5 minutes from pizza delivery to money shot. 

[hepcat]

 

[Blackjack]

This blockbuster self-destructs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/john-carter,1170714/critic-review.html

"John Carter" is being hyped as the first blockbuster of the year, but it's really the first big flop.

Budgeted at a reported $250 million, this dreary slog of a mess (or is that mess of a slog?) seems to exist primarily to remind viewers of older, better movies. Audiences ancient enough to remember Ray Harryhausen will pine for the days of that animator's great 1950s stop-motion epics. Anyone who came of age with "Star Wars" will inwardly sigh and forgive Jar Jar Binks. Heck, compared with "John Carter," even "Cowboys and Aliens" looks good.

You do apparently get to see Taylor Kitsch with his shirt off leaping like an adrenalized frog, and Lynn Collins is apparently quite attractive. Those appear to be the highlights...

I haven't seen this many truly nasty reviews for a big-budget sci-fi film since maybe Battlefield Earth or Waterworld. Though strangely, Ebert's review is among the closer to positive (2.5/5 stars).

[hepcat]

 

[PR_GMR]

There, there, hep! There, there!

(PR gives hep a hankie)

[hepcat]

Ah well, I'm still going after work.  I found a 3D matinee that's actually cheaper than the 2D matinee at an even further away theater.  Most reviews seem to indicate it's fun, if somewhat broken.  I sat through all of the Transformers movies, so I'm used to a much greater degree of the latter...without much of the former.   

[th'FOOL]

Fuck the haters. It's good. Seriously.

[hepcat]

You sir, are a voice of reason in a sea of confusion!  

Every now and again you just have to say "screw the critics" and let your inner (non critical) 12 year old free.

4:00 ticket obtained via fandango.com.  All systems are go.  Returning to "want to see!" mode.

p.s. I'm not seeing nearly the level of hate towards this movie that Battlefield Earth had.  Not sure where blackjack is seeing THAT level of disdain.  

[Azhag]

More GT reviews needed so I can decide whether to go...

[Isgrimnur]

Given that it's well past the 2-hour mark, I figure that hepcat is curled up in a ball in the corner of the multiplex bathroom rocking himself back and forth while chanting, "The year's first blockbuster, the year's first blockbuster, ....".

[hepcat]

Sorry, posted this on oo earlier:

Just got back from the 4 o'clock show.  Saw it in 3D.  Theater was practically empty.  

My thoughts?

It's...okay.  I would recommend it for fans of the series as they really did try to stick to the original aspects of the pulp novels.  but you could see Disney's hand in most of it.  It followed the Disney formula fairly closely (2 dimensional bad guys...for the most part, family being all important, etc..) but you could catch glimpses of what might have been from time to time.

I'm still not a big fan of Kitsch, but he did a passable job.  Same for Dejah.  She wasn't the princess I would've chosen, but at least they didn't go with someone from Gossip Girl.

Seeing McNulty as yet another bad guy was a bit disappointing.  When is that poor guy gonna get the respect he deserves?  He would've made a far better John Carter, to be honest.

The CGI was great.  Not too intrusive, had some "real world weight" to it (mostly) and wasn't made into the star of the movie.  The Tharks looked a little less bulky than I always imagined them to be, but weren't too ridiculous...except for their faces.  They looked like characters from A Bug's Life in close up shots.  

I wish they'd started the film with John instead of setting up the political situation on Mars via a narrator and some action scenes.  The books are great because you feel like your right there with John as he discovers this new world and its inhabitants.  The movie pulls back from that at crucial moments in my opinion, leaving us feeling a bit detached from the tale unfolding on screen.

The battle scenes are quite good, the wrap around story fairly interesting and McNulty underutilized.  The main bad guys are enigmatic enough, but they could've been delved into more.  

Would I recommend it to non Carter fans?  Yeah, I guess.  If you liked Pirates of the Caribbean, you'll like John Carter.  It has much of the same feel.  I just wish they'd gone with more pulp than family film, though.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a solid 7...but I AM a huge fan of the books.

p.s. the 3D wasn't that bad.  The only problem I had was that the grander the scale of the shot, the more toy like it looked.  But for simple vista shots, it worked quite well.

[Roman]

Not at all surprised by this. The marketing touting this as the must see movie by saying ' before Star Wars there was John Carter.....' sets the bar pretty high IMHO. Sure I am negative a lot of the time.

I have never read the books and have no idea what it is all about but what resonates with me is a cross between Star Gate and 10000 BC and Dances with Wolves.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[hepcat]

The John Carter series was written at least 75 years before any of the movies you mention were made.  

[faide]

Went with the wife and kids this evening.  I loved it.  It was a lot of fun.  I have not read the books, but the first one is now on the kindle waiting to be read.

[USMC Kato]

My wife and I really enjoyed it. Very entertaining and I hope the Basroom series continues.

[Bullwinkle]

The bait has been set...

[hepcat]

My wife and I really enjoyed it. Very entertaining and I hope the Basroom series continues.

I was just in the basroom.  I should lay off the cheese.

[CeeKay]

beaten by The Lorax.

After months upon months of box office speculation, John Carter finally opened and as expected was a huge disappointment. The mega-budget sci-fi epic wasn't even able to unseat The Lorax, which held first place for the second-straight weekend. The other openers, Silent House and A Thousand Words, also performed poorly on a weekend where the Top 12 earned an estimated $123.35 million (up just five percent from last year).

The Lorax fell 44 percent to an estimated $39.1 million. The movie held about as well as Horton Hears a Who! (45 percent), and a bit worse than Despicable Me (42 percent). On Sunday, The Lorax is expected to pass The Vow to become 2012's highest-grossing movie at $122 million.

John Carter opened to an estimated $30.6 million from 3,749 locations. That's lower than practically any similar movie, beginning with those that came out around the same time of year. It was obviously way off from 300 ($70.9 million) and Watchmen ($55.2 million)—what's more concerning, though, is that it was even a tad below 10,000 B.C. ($35.9 million) and Battle: Los Angeles ($35.6 million), both of which were modest movies in comparison.

I wonder if it would have had a better reception had they had waited for the summertime blockbuster season.

[Covenant]

Saw it over the weekend and it was OK I guess.  My big issues with it were that the editing was poor, and the pacing felt off. The story itself was cool but I found it hard to follow in lots of places even though nothing was particularly complex about it. It also seemed to have a problem deciding what it wanted to be.  I never read the books but perhaps this was a case of following the book a little too closely?

I would give this one a C+ I guess. Go see it if you feel like getting out and nothing else catches your eye, but don't expect anything too great.

[hepcat]

That's how I felt.  I don't regret spending the cash on a matinee and I certainly enjoyed myself, but I felt that in the hands of a better director it would've been a fantastic franchise full of pulp novel goodness.  Just imagine what might have been if del Toro, Jackson or Branagh had been behind the scenes on this one.

[Purge]

Sorry, posted this on oo earlier:

Just got back from the 4 o'clock show.  Saw it in 3D.  Theater was practically empty.  

My thoughts?

Seeing McNulty as yet another bad guy was a bit disappointing.  When is that poor guy gonna get the respect he deserves?  He would've made a far better John Carter, to be honest.

McNulty? Could you use Domenic West's name for those of us who didn't watch the Wire? Hell, you'd be better off calling him Theron.

"This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this. I'm not your King."

His pic on IMDB reminds me of David Burke, last seen playing Sheldon's boss  in The Big Bang Theory.

I could see Domenic playing a good character, though. I think that he's done such a good job as a villain that he's getting typecast in the role.

[hepcat]

Your logic fails in light of the fact that recent polls show that 99.9* percent of the world has watched The Wire.  

*.1 percent reflects Canadians that refuse to watch anything that doesn't prominently feature Alan Thicke.

[Purge]

This is an international community, filled to the brim with .1%'s (and less). Thousands of us, really.

[hepcat]

Well, to be fair, canada isn't really international.  We in the states like to refer to it as "Little America".

[Purge]

Well, to be fair, canada isn't really international.  We in the states like to refer to it as "Little America".

We're the American Dream, fully realized.

[hepcat]

There ya go, little buddy.  Who's a big country?  Who's a big country?  You are.  yes...you...are.  Now...Daddy America has some work to do.  You get a juice box out of the fridge and go watch cartoons with Newfoundland, okay?

[Purge]

Daddy, why do you keep blowing other countries up?

[hepcat]

When you grow up, you'll understand.  Right now all you need to worry about is putting these damn Legos away.

[PR_GMR]

A Disney exec was quoted that they would be happy if it opened with a 3 in front of its box office take. It did take $30.6 mil this weekend, so it did technically cross the finish line.

[hepcat]

Supposedly it's doing gangbusters overseas.  Hopefully they'll make their money back...but dear god, a quarter of a billion dollars was spent on this film.   

[rickfc]

Supposedly it's doing gangbusters overseas.  Hopefully they'll make their money back...but dear god, a quarter of a billion dollars was spent on this film.   

$70 mil overseas
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=johncarterofmars.htm

I wonder how it's doing on Mars? 

[rittchard]

Saw it over the weekend and it was OK I guess.  My big issues with it were that the editing was poor, and the pacing felt off. The story itself was cool but I found it hard to follow in lots of places even though nothing was particularly complex about it. It also seemed to have a problem deciding what it wanted to be.  I never read the books but perhaps this was a case of following the book a little too closely?

I had some similar feelings to Cov's comments but overall enjoyed it much more.  Of course I did see it in IMAX 3D which tends to make everything cooler (Avengers trailer was SMOKIN!).  And also of course I may have been mesmerized by his gorgeous body being paraded around throughout the entire movie.  Definitely agree that certain things were a bit hard to follow; at one point I was totally confused because I had mistaken one of the actors for another.  I thought overall it might have been too ambitious and possibly, as Cov said, trying too hard to follow some source material.  That said, a lot of the visuals were stunning (not just his pecs and biceps), with some great 3D aerial work.  Plus the jumping was so damn cool.

- - -

On a side note, I do have to wonder a bit about the way hype/reviews work or don't.  If I am being completely objective, I look back at this movie and my overall feeling is it compares pretty much 1 for 1 with the way I felt about Avatar.  In some ways I think JC was actually a better movie (particularly the wrapper around the Mars content), and at least it didn't come across nearly as preachy or irritating.  If you gave me the choice on which I'd rather see again, I wouldn't hesistate to say this one.  Hot guy in exotic locale jumping around?  Check.  Interesting alien races?  Check.  Hot princess love interest?  Check.  Foreign element comes to help natives?  Check.  Lots of stuff flying around and exploding?  Check.  Gladiator speech?  Check.  Super 3D effects?  Check.  Lots of action and hand to hand combat?  Check?  Super duper jumping?  Double check!

Somehow Avatar manages endless rave reviews and feedback (plus Oscar nominations!) and eats up the box office, yet this movie gets critically panned and dogged up, and was announced as a failure (at least in the US) even before it released.  I don't get it.  Sometimes it just seems like the momentum of bad (or good) press just takes a life on its own and ends up clouding everything.  I wonder how the movie would have fared if it had been given the same (or at least close) kind of hype that Avatar got.

[PR_GMR]

Somehow Avatar manages endless rave reviews and feedback (plus Oscar nominations!) and eats up the box office, yet this movie gets critically panned and dogged up, and was announced as a failure (at least in the US) even before it released.  I don't get it.  Sometimes it just seems like the momentum of bad (or good) press just takes a life on its own and ends up clouding everything.  I wonder how the movie would have fared if it had been given the same (or at least close) kind of hype that Avatar got.

Rittchard makes a good point here. The media loves a loser, because it knows it can get more headlines and get more traffic out of a loser blockbuster film than a good one. 'John Carter', in previews, didn't look any worse than 'Avatar' (a movie which I saw only once and never felt the need to revisit). So some of the fallout here seems media-drive and rather unjust.

[hepcat]

While I want to agree with you guys wholeheartedly, was Avatar actually praised for its story and direction or just because of its technical achievement?

edit:  whoa, I had forgotten that avatar was nominated for best picture in 2010.     yeah, that makes no sense as the story in avatar was not all that great.

[Misguided]

Your logic fails in light of the fact that recent polls show that 99.9* percent of the world has watched The Wire.  

*.1 percent reflects Canadians that refuse to watch anything that doesn't prominently feature Alan Thicke.

What's "The Wire"? Is that like "The View"? I've heard of that one. Seriously.