The Glade 4.0

That was kind of my thought, yeah.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Ah-ha! This explains why an M.I. movie is sitting at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes!

Apparently, J.J. Abrams hired Brad Bird by texting him, "Your mission, should you choose to accept it..."

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It's out. Getting badly panned from everything I've heard and read so far. Can't see it this weekend, maybe next so I can contribute to a good second weekend. Hope it lasts that long in theaters! :p

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

It was an early 1900s pulp space fantasy turned into a movie. I got what I wanted out of it. I don't know what other people were expecting from the movie.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I took Lachlan to see it tonight.

From the standpoint of a parent who wanted to be entertained while her nine year old son enjoyed himself, it was spectacular. Reasonable acting, epic story, great special effects. So what if half the story items were clichéed? The book is 100 years old. Burroughs probably invented some of the clichés.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

We saw it last night and enjoyed it. I agree with Talya's take above.

My prior experience with this series is when Heinlein used Barsoom as a setting in the utterly horrible Number of the Beast, and it appears in the second GN for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I haven't gone back to check out the original books yet.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

So far it's projected to be the biggest box office flop ever, despite respectable ticket sales.

A $250 million budget (exacerbated by Stanton's inability to recognize that, unlike a Pixar movie, being a perfectionist with reshoots costs lots of money), and the most inept $100 million ever spent by a marketing department, means that the current $181 million in box office receipts won't come close to paying the bills.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's too bad, I actually really enjoyed the movie. So much that I might go read the books now.

OK, finally (second weekend!) saw it, on Sunday. Not in IMAX or even 3D - since I'm unemployed and it devolved into a hurried outing with two kids and no wife, I went for the cheap $4/seat showing at a local theater.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I will admit that I somehow choked up at the end.

Now, would I have enjoyed it as much had I splurged and dropped $50+ to see it in IMAX? Good question, but I think that the answer is yes. Maybe even more - I enjoyed the spectacle of the film quite a bit.

And, yeah, the cliched bits? I don't know whether a critic started this or the Disney marketers got the message out, but they've been making quite a bit of the idea that Burroughs created many of the things we're used to seeing in our movies. After we came out of the movie, I told my daughter (10) that this was written a century ago. A bit later, she pointed out that the arena scene was "just like Star Wars," and then realized that this predates Star Wars, so that maybe it's Star Wars that's derivative. It was fun to see that realization hit her.

I started to re-read it this week, and I'm beginning to wonder if Stanton's storyline is actually better than the original.

Anyway, I'm glad they made it, and sorry they're taking such a bath on it that the planned sequels will probably never see the light of the silver screen.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

I agree with everything you said, Aethien.

Except that the Colloseum in Rome predates Burroughs by a couple thousand years, so perhaps man vs. beast in the arena is an older idea than that.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I haven't seen it yet (I really want to, and we're hoping to go this weekend), but based on my readings, I think this is a case of the entertainment journalists (and several of the critics of lesser integrity) actively wanting to see the film be a failure, and crafting the narrative to fit that desire, which in turn helped the reality follow suit. Poor pre-release tracking was blood in the water, and it summoned the sharks.

Hah! Good point! Really, Burroughs just crystallized a lot of this stuff for us. Heck, even he was influenced by other writers, I would imagine.

Hope you enjoy it, Farsky. I have heard that the 3D actually worked well in this film, which kind of makes me want to see it again. I may end up taking the IMAX plunge, if it's still around.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

The problem is not the Sharks ...

Lord Doom may or may not have done some completely legitimate business with some friends regarding the textual fidelity of the film as compared its source material and, thusly, also may or may not have ensured the film be relegated to depths shared by the 1970s Dr. Strange film starring a now dead porn star.

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Alternate fan made trailer.

http://io9.com/5896146/now-this-is-the- ... ohn-carter

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Okay, that trailer was much better than anything I saw advertising the movie.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

We just got out. I thought it fantastic. Not flawless (could have trimmed the fat a bit), but one of the few great latter-day pulp movies. Phe enjoyed it and wants a Woola now.

I hear Stanton made a good movie, but that's still not John Carter ...

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Meh. Few people care about the books. I'd never heard of John Carter until this thread, and based on what I can see of the plot in a wiki summary, I like the movie more. You could argue that Disney's "The Little Mermaid" bears little resemblance to Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. It doesn't matter. Disney redefined the story. HCA's version is obsolete. :p

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

On a more positive note, John Carter is at about $235 million at the box office. $15 million more, and it officially breaks even (even if the reality is not that close.) Blu-ray/DVD sales should make the movie ultimately profitable at this point.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I could cheerfully strangle you right about now.

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You obviously read the original books. Ironicly, you're the tiny minority at whom the marketing was targeted (despite the story not being highly faithful to the original.)

This was the main problem with Disney's marketing for that movie. They relied on non-existent cultural name recognition. Hardly anyone knew what the hell "John Carter" or "Barsoom" was...and the marketing did nothing to explain it. It's an obscure series of pulp-trash serial sci-fi written by an author that, while reasonably popular in his time, doesn't have the level of name recognition required...most people couldn't even tell you he wrote Tarzan.

(Look at the response to the poll in this thread, then remember we're a forum of sci-fi/fantasy geeks. Now imagine how most of the english-speaking world would have answered it before this movie.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I'm with you, Taly. And I'm a pretty big Burroughs geek (although I was always more of a Pellucidar fan than his other stuff).

But, this is one of those (rare) cases where the movie is better than the book. My first example of this was Jaws, 1975.

_________________
This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

FWIW, the Kindle edition of A Princess of Mars is free. I downloaded it today.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

John Carter is now officially in the black, with a worldwide box office take of $254 million dollars and climbing.

The vast majority of this was overseas, with it being hugely popular in China. Apparently it is still scheduled to open in Korea and Japan, where they expect it to climb significantly higher still.

Of course, the marketing budget was rumored to be over $100 million too, so it remains to be seen if it recoups it all at the box office. However, early requests at Amazon indicate a strong demand for blu-ray - it will be almost impossible at this point for JCM not to finish up making a profit for WDC.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No matter the box office, I imagine it's very hard to lose money on major tentpole releases. Home video sales, merchandising, tie-ins, product sponsorships, premium cable, basic cable, and broadcast licensing...and none of that has any bearing on box office. That's all icing.