John Carter of Mars

[Eric Boellner]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hea...eshoots-292488

Looks like Disney's finally making an effort to control PR on this. Not sure I buy it, though -- if the only reason for the reshoots and the massive budget ballooning is because Stanton knew he was going to be reshooting (rather than a mix of that and inexperience with live-action blockbuster filmmaking), I'd think he and Disney would have made that clear from the outset instead of letting this press disaster go on for months on end.

Unfortunately, not sure any of it matters if no one shows at the box office. Still hoping this does well - I like Stanton best of the Pixar directors, and I really hope I like John Carter as a piece of science fiction. We'll see in 3 weeks, I suppose.

-JMT

[pirate40]

I'm not a Si/Fi fan but I just got tickets to an advance screening on March 7th at Downtown Disney, Orlando. I haven't heard of the movie until I got the tickets, should be interesting.

[Eric Boellner]

Was watching The Office on-demand last night and saw a new ad for this -- this time, they actually made an attempt to dispel the belief that JC is a ripoff. The voice-over on the ad said something like, "Before there was Avatar... before there was Star Wars... there was the story that inspired it all..." I thought it was well-done, but a little "day late, dollar short," if you ask me. Still, I've heard a few people say they're really excited to see this, and I myself plan on going opening day. Hope it's great.

-JMT

[Mark Williams]

Yea, I saw that too. It's too bad they didn't start their PR campaign with it.

[Batutta]

Not doing so great on RT. Under 60 percent positive. Even the reviewers who like it seem underwhelmed...Still, it's a must see for me, being a fan of the books.

[Captain Pierce]

Saw it today in 3D, and walked out impressed. I'm familiar with the books in only a very general sense, so I think it should play OK for those who don't know the story. Went with a friend who has read the books, and he gave it his seal of approval from that angle. I hope it does well enough for a sequel, I've heard there are cool airship battles in the second book.

[Batutta]

I wasn't crazy about it. The film had its moments, and I wouldn't call it a bad film, but something about the whole thing just never fully convinced me. When I saw Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, I felt like I saw the middle earth that was in my mind's eye. Even David Lynch's incredibly flawed Dune adaptation, at least looked right from a visual standpoint. This all just felt slightly off to me, like they missed the mark by 10 degrees. The look of Mars was a little too ordinary. Taylor Kitsch felt a little too young for John Carter. The armor designs and the ships seemed too ornate. The action a little too abbreviated. The biggest successes are the renderings of Woola, and the Tharks, but even there, I felt they made the Thark eyes a little too human. Even taking the film on its own terms, I found the narrative too cluttered. It wasn't that difficult to follow, but there were too many threads going on and it felt like all of them ended up getting short shrift, with too many odd story detours. I'm not sure including the Therns so heavily in this film was a good idea. They don't pop up until the second book and for good reason I think. Getting rid of them might have given the story some air and kept the story more streamlined. The film this most reminded me of somehow was Branagh's Thor. And Branagh's Thor isn't bad. I guess for me personally, I never cared about Thor. I have a real fondness for those Mars books, and seeing them done just okay is a bigger disappointment. I wanted it to be great, and it wasn't.

[Eric Boellner]

How the hell did Stanton spend $250mil on this? Got back an hour ago, pretty disappointed. It's like a really poorly done recreation of the third act of Attack of the Clones...

The dialogue was almost entirely exposition, the action was all uneven and poorly choreographed, and the story was just... bleh. Felt like there was so much potential here -- the underlying premise is actually quite cool and could have been the foundation for a sci-fi franchise I could get excited about. The delivery was just a mediocre mess.

-JMT

[GaryinCalifornia]

personally I enjoyed it....

[Batutta]

Well I could definitely see most of the money up on the screen...I think the only time I saw the movie that could have been was when Carter faces off with the Warhoons with Woola at his side. That sequence was pretty great.