OH LOOK, A FRAME OF JOHN CARTER WITH SOMETHING INTERESTING IN IT

man, does he looked photoshopped in.

Oh God, they're going to do that hack thing where the gigantic monster roars into the camera for no good reason aren't they. You know the thing. Like in the new Star Trek film where the beast is chasing Kirk and it decides to stop the pursuit for a second just to roar at him. For no reason. That thing that completely undermines any terror they might have built into the situation by reminding the audience they're only watching a creation.

Don't do it Stanton. Don't you fucking do it.

^it worked in the greatest action/dramatic film of our time.  CONGO!!!

Renn Brown, To me, the...Problem, John Carter has, is that there is almost nothing media related about him.  Asylum produced a dtv of John Carter, and outside of a trade paperback of Marvel's John Carter Of Mars, and some recent comics, the character will be wildly...unknown.  Until there is a...cooler trailer adding more Tharks, more Dejah Thoris in less, maybe an actual fight or...Something more exciting than the first trailer, audiences might just say...No Thark You, and walk out of the theater during the film.

Looks like  a dude fighting a space ape - beyond that I can tell nothing.

Some people see ATTACK OF THE CLONES, I see CONEHEADS. Either way, not good.

That explains everything

creature design makes no sense.  For a creature that has such giant, oversized arms, much like a Gorilla, it would have no need for four legs.   Having four legs, over two, would in this case, slow the creature down.  I would expect it to run like a real gorilla, in using it's giant arms to swing his small legs forward when chasing down someone, having four legs would make that impossible to do. 

Yeesh, guys. I know this movie hasn't been blowing anyone away, myself included, but that seems like a perfectly cool pic. As Devin pointed out on Badass, the problem with John Carter is that it's kind of an ur-text for pulp SF/fantasy, so a lot of it has already been cannibalized by other movies. So that's a shame, but it's not the property's fault.

I've actually been surprised that more people haven't raised the same issue with Tintin, which is in a similar boat with Raiders and its ilk having surpassed it in the public eye. Actually, as I recall people were rolling their eyes and yawning at the Tintin news six months ago, now people are more excited. I have a hunch this movie will follow a similar pattern.

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Originally Posted by NickP 

creature design makes no sense.  For a creature that has such giant, oversized arms, much like a Gorilla, it would have no need for four legs.   Having four legs, over two, would in this case, slow the creature down.  I would expect it to run like a real gorilla, in using it's giant arms to swing his small legs forward when chasing down someone, having four legs would make that impossible to do. 

 

 

So you're on board with a guy essentially dreaming himself to Mars, and it being populated, but it's the giant four-armed ape where we suddenly have to adhere to the laws of science?

That pic and the scenario Stanton describes sound like classic Burroughs pulp to me.  The only problem is we've seen it done to death over the last 80+ years.  It's sort of like what Nick said in his FOTR review -- it might seem to be simply filling in a template, but dammit, it WAS the template.

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Originally Posted by Richard Dickson 

Quote:

So you're on board with a guy essentially dreaming himself to Mars, and it being populated, but it's the giant four-armed ape where we suddenly have to adhere to the laws of science?

 

 

Where did I say I was on board with this film at all?  I think when the trailer came out, I said the films looks spectacularly unimpressive.

Blame the Walking Dead thread, has made me into a cynic.  But for the record, I have no idea what John Carter is exactly, so if it is about a guy dreaming himself to mars, and whatever... sure, stupid looking four legged gorilla things!  AWESOME!

The problem is for me that this creature looks like its been designed by humans, and not something that could physically exist. For example, like the process of eating something would be complicated with its bizarre oversized jaws ETC. I know the article explained its because the creature lives under ground or something.. But I'm sorry, it just looks terrible. Creatures can be fantastical, but this thing looks like its  an anime inspired sketch from some high school students note pad brought to life, and not a creature that strikes fear into me in any way

Make it big, sure, but don't just make it bulky and furry, make it weird and sinewy, long faced and creepy

EDIT and from the photo, the way it's flailing it's arms around tells me that it's animated in that weightless, hurried CGI way that has ruined so many monsters in recent years. The pose does not suggest it has any physical presence

But it wasn't like Burroughs was doing this exacting piece of world-building.  He was writing pulp adventures and figured a big four-armed gorilla would be cool.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Dickson 

But it wasn't like Burroughs was doing this exacting piece of world-building.  He was writing pulp adventures and figured a big four-armed gorilla would be cool.

Is this in response to my post? Because I have no problem with the fact it's a big white alien gorilla, my issue is that it's design is anonymous and entirely earth bound. There is nothing really weird or outlandish about this thing, because it looks like every other monster I've seen for years

EDIT: if it's a big gorilla, it should have an expressive almost human face, instead it has that generic kraken face thing going on

Feh.  I prefer this big gorilla wolf motherfucker to the horses/rhinos/dogs (plus more limbs!) in Avatar.  Heheheh

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Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Feh.  I prefer this big gorilla wolf motherfucker to the horses/rhinos/dogs (plus more limbs!) in Avatar.  Heheheh

To be perfectly honest I'm not really too keen on many of the AVATAR creatures. A few definitely suffer from the same problem. It's just that a gorilla, a relative of humans, has a wonderfully intimidating, expressive face. A big white alien one with a long, drawn angry looking face with contemplative eyes would be awesome. It could be very freaky, and move with intelligent cunning. So instead they make it blind and give it a kraken face scrunched up into a perpetual roar, that jumps and thrashes around like something out of ATTACK OF THE CLONES

PS I thought Turok Makto was a cool design, as were the glowing hover lizards, and the spirit tree, just to point out some positive AVATAR design work
 

PS I also recall liking the blue beetle monster from AOTC, but the rest of those creatures were terrible. I can't even remember what the third one was other than the bull

PS I also enjoy the AVATAR SPIRIT TREE SEED, and all the military base / vehicle design work as well

Princess Kate, I cannot wait to see John Carter on...MARSch 9th 2012!  I am a big fan of Pulp Heroes.  Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Conan The Barbarian, and their modern decendants...Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, The Rocketeer etc.  I hope that John Carter the film...Pulps it's competition in March 2012!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucho 

Oh God, they're going to do that hack thing where the gigantic monster roars into the camera for no good reason aren't they. You know the thing. Like in the new Star Trek film where the beast is chasing Kirk and it decides to stop the pursuit for a second just to roar at him. For no reason. That thing that completely undermines any terror they might have built into the situation by reminding the audience they're only watching a creation.

 

Don't do it Stanton. Don't you fucking do it.

I agree with this. The monster roar is the stupidest of the many ways in which CGI creatures don't act like real animals do.

I like to think a former Pixar guy will be better with this stuff than JJ Abrams, though.

I'm pretty sure he will.

Pretty sure John Carter's brilliant solution is going to be to take the ape out for a beer and then try to fuck it.

Except in every bit of marketing material before the film's release, stills, trailers, etc. Oops.