MANY IMAGES FROM JOHN CARTER WITH STUFF IN THEM! [UPDATED WITH POSTER]

I've been crossing my fingers that Stanton can really pull this off (in quality, if not freshness), but damn that ugly poster immediately tainted my hopes.  

Renn Brown, Is John Carter supposed to be inside...The Sun?  It is hard to tell he is on a planet!

Whoever is in charge of this marketing campaign needs to be fired.  NOW.

Calling it:  next year's biggest bomb.   They'll be wishing for Green Lantern grosses.  

Also, they should have plastered a razzle dazzle trailer in front of every print of THE MUPPETS.  What are they waiting for?

...Eh, I'll see it. The vistas look suitably vista-like, I trust Stanton, and I like the designs so far.

Of course, I have no emotional connection whatsoever to the original Burroughs novels, so that probably helps.

Unless I hear absolutely horrid word on this, I'm seeing it no matter what.

Hahahah, I really thought that poster was fan-made before I read Renn's piece.  It's as if they took ALL of the red they could've used on the film itself and pushed it all onto the poster instead. 

It kiiiiinda reminds me of the approach they took to marketing Prince of Persia.  Remember those?  They just looked like perfume/cologne ads from a magazine.  I ACTUALLY kinda dug the fact that they didn't go an obvious route. 

But John Carter?  Fan poster.

The designs look cool, just a little generic. Not being familiar with the books, what concerns me about their efforts at marketing this thing so far is the lack of specifics on what this thing is actually meant to be about. What makes this different to the other eight dozen CGI-heavy fantasy epics out there? All the materials I've seen so far seem simply content to scream, 'HERE'S MONSTERS! ON A DESERT PLANET! AND A GUY WITH HIS SHIRT OFF! SO WHAT!' The poster may look like a shaving off the Eye of Sauron, but it's nearest this campaign's gotten to offering anything that stands out.

I haven't seen a worst, or more amateur-ish poster this year. Why not just draw it in Crayola, Disney?

Trailer hits this Thursday I believe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Workyticket 

The designs look cool, just a little generic. Not being familiar with the books, what concerns me about their efforts at marketing this thing so far is the lack of specifics on what this thing is actually meant to be about. What makes this different to the other eight dozen CGI-heavy fantasy epics out there? All the materials I've seen so far seem simply content to scream, 'HERE'S MONSTERS! ON A DESERT PLANET! AND A GUY WITH HIS SHIRT OFF! SO WHAT!' The poster may look like a shaving off the Eye of Sauron, but it's nearest this campaign's gotten to offering anything that stands out.

In a nutshell: It's a few years after the Civil War.  John Carter is a Virginian ex-soldier who gets into an altercation with some Indians.  He escapes them by going into a cave.  While in there, he's overcome by a desire for sleep and travels (astral projection?) to Mars.  Mars is a dying world with many different races, most of them humanoid in appearance but with different tones of skin.  Because of  the stronger gravity on Earth, he is stronger than the normal person on Mars.  He's able to jump/leap great distances and perform other remarkable feats of strength.  He get embroiled with the different races and falls in love with a princess, Dejah Thoris.  He also befriends Tars Tarkus, a leader amongst the race of green skinned, 4 armed Martians called Tharks.  War, romance, all of that stuff ensue.

They're good novels.  I prefer the Tarzan novels, but these are worth the read.

I'm floored that they aren't in some sort of licensing contract with the estate of Frank Frazetta.  Those would be some fantastic posters.

That poster looks like it could have been a cover of an edition of the book from the 70s.  Something like this:

Which would be great if I'd seen it on a rack at the library, but not if I'm trying to sell this to the masses.

Look, no way this bombs at a Green Lantern level. Know why?

Ladies love Tim Riggins. Men love Tim Riggins. Everybody loves Tim Riggins. Fact. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subotai 

Trailer hits this Thursday I believe.

It'd better be a stunner if they want to avoid a Green Lantern scenario.  This is coming from someone who loves the source material and wants to see this turn out well AND make money.  I didn't mind seeing GL tank because it wasn't very good.  I'll will definitely be upset if this one is good and ends up tanking.

I've always been torn on this. On the one hand, I'm concerned that they're completely defanging the material--not that it was HARDCORE TO THE EXTREME to begin with, but there was an edge to it, a level of sex and violence, that genre pulp used to have, and that the "neo-pulp" movies like Sky Captain always leave out. This looks like more of the same. (Is Dejah Thoris even Dejah Thoris if she's wearing clothes? I mean, that's like putting Sheena, Queen of the Jungle in a pantsuit.) And there's no denying it, the trailer and visuals have all been pretty bland.

And yet Stanton's more than earned the benefit of the doubt as a director--he's my least favourite Pixar guy, but he's still the dude who directed Wall*E and co-directed Toy Story 2. There's no way this turns out as badly as Green Lantern or Prince of Persia. And for all the trailer's blandness, it DID have a level of elegance and technical skill that was admirable. Plus, you have to cut them some slack for the lack of creatures--this is the first time in a while I've seen a movie's marketing be willing to hold off on the CGI entirely because it wasn't up to par. And finally, while John Carter is full of elements that have been swiped wholesale for other movies over the years, it looks like they're keeping in the immortality/reincarnation/astral projection stuff, which is certainly unique, and it looks like they might have found some thematically interesting stuff to say with the material.

I repeat what I said in another thread: this seems comparable to Tintin, in that the source material has been copied so much it makes this movie seem a tad irrelevant, so no one's into it yet. But I suspect that'll change as we get closer to the date.

My problem isn't the lack of CGI creatures and craziness in the teaser.  I can completely understand them not wanting to show that stuff before most of it is finished, especially after what happened when WB tossed out those first Green Lantern that were filled with wonky CGI.

My problem is that if you have an FX heavy film and the "money shots" are too incomplete to safely show them off, then you shouldn't be tossing out a trailer in the first place.  I'm sure they wanted to get awareness going as soon as possible and they managed that.  The problem is that it's mostly negative at the moment.

I think there's difficulty in finding the right tone for this. What Worthington and Cameron really sold well on Avatar was the feeling of actually exploring a new world. The amazement in Jakes eyes played a massive role. Now in afterthoughts, Pandora is pretty bland with creatures that are just lazy variations of our animals. It's not that awesome actually, but watching it again it does feel awesome again because they're awesome at making you feel like that.

That is something most similar movies miss. For example Prince of Persia had fun banter, good action scenes, nice visuals and a good flow. But you didn't give a shit about anything and didn't feel part of that world, nor wanting to explore that world. Meanwhile, Jackson totally delivered this on Rings and Kong. Tron Legacy failed at that. Conan the Barbarian failed at that. Green Lantern totally shit it's pants at that. A good comparison would be Jurassic Parks 2 and 3. 2 was still good at the OMG DINOSAURS! part... but in 3 it was just okay, dinosaurs.

The moment Gambit realizes he's no longer on earth needs to be huge. The moment he meets the first aliens, their city, their princess. When dropped in the arena, he can't SMIRK or just look busy. If there's a 12 feet high monster charging at him he needs to react accordingly. The first trailer doesn't show that. I hope the second does.

I actually kinda dig elements of that poster. I love the red. I love the kind of impressionistic look of the outline of the sun/Mars/whatever. However... I dislike the silhouettes behind Carter, as they look kind of silly and AVATARy. Also, I don't see how you design a giant honking red poster, and then don't call your movie JOHN CARTER OF MARS. JOHN CARTER isn't a more "accessible" title.. it's drab and boring. It tells you nothing. At least with a giant red poster and "OF MARS" up there, you'd get a feel for the epic space vibe of the flick

So I wouldn't add this to a "great posters" thread, but I'd say it's better than it could have been. I love the various hues on display at least

Yeah, it definitely needs switched back to John Carter of Mars.  Also, what's up with including the 'M' in the logo if you aren't going to have the word in the title.

Had I never heard of JCoM before, I would've guessed from the poster that this movie was an epic drama about an orange grove plantation owner in Florida who's forced to fight for his land at the turn of the century.

That's a little unfair, don't you think, Art?  I mean, he's shirtless.  

It's clearly a searing drama about beach volleyball.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Judas Booth 

In a nutshell: It's a few years after the Civil War.  John Carter is a Virginian ex-soldier who gets into an altercation with some Indians.  He escapes them by going into a cave.  While in there, he's overcome by a desire for sleep and travels (astral projection?) to Mars.  Mars is a dying world with many different races, most of them humanoid in appearance but with different tones of skin.  Because of  the stronger gravity on Earth, he is stronger than the normal person on Mars.  He's able to jump/leap great distances and perform other remarkable feats of strength.  He get embroiled with the different races and falls in love with a princess, Dejah Thoris.  He also befriends Tars Tarkus, a leader amongst the race of green skinned, 4 armed Martians called Tharks.  War, romance, all of that stuff ensue.

 

They're good novels.  I prefer the Tarzan novels, but these are worth the read.

 

Thanks for the summary - you see, that's a great concept that they just don't seem to be selling at the moment. Similar to the blandness of just calling it 'John Carter': diluting any signs of high-concept pulp when that is exactly what the story is, that made people think it would be a worthy movie in the first place.

The current marketing would be improved a hundred fold just by changing the title to A Princess of Mars.

Too bad Disney is avoiding anything that blatantly references princesses and mars in the title.

I want to see someone try to make another film of Gor, if we're talking trashy pulp material. Oh boy. The firestorm and shit and the defanging that would get. Hee. 

Hey Disney, maybe Mars Needs Moms bombed because of the word "Moms", not "Mars".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman 

I want to see someone try to make another film of Gor, if we're talking trashy pulp material. Oh boy. The firestorm and shit and the defanging that would get. Hee. 

Somehow doesn't seem like a project Disney would go for

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

Hey Disney, maybe Mars Needs Moms bombed because of the word "Moms", not "Mars".

John Carter Loves Moms:

starring Taylor Kitsch

Think I'll wait till the trailer to pass judgement but it looks fine to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Myers 

I think there's difficulty in finding the right tone for this. What Worthington and Cameron really sold well on Avatar was the feeling of actually exploring a new world. The amazement in Jakes eyes played a massive role. Now in afterthoughts, Pandora is pretty bland with creatures that are just lazy variations of our animals. It's not that awesome actually, but watching it again it does feel awesome again because they're awesome at making you feel like that.

That is something most similar movies miss. For example Prince of Persia had fun banter, good action scenes, nice visuals and a good flow. But you didn't give a shit about anything and didn't feel part of that world, nor wanting to explore that world. Meanwhile, Jackson totally delivered this on Rings and Kong. Tron Legacy failed at that. Conan the Barbarian failed at that. Green Lantern totally shit it's pants at that. A good comparison would be Jurassic Parks 2 and 3. 2 was still good at the OMG DINOSAURS! part... but in 3 it was just okay, dinosaurs.

 

The moment Gambit realizes he's no longer on earth needs to be huge. The moment he meets the first aliens, their city, their princess. When dropped in the arena, he can't SMIRK or just look busy. If there's a 12 feet high monster charging at him he needs to react accordingly. The first trailer doesn't show that. I hope the second does.

When you don't give a shit about the characters in a movie - usually because they're less 'written', more 'broadly sketched' - then nothing that happens to them has any emotional weight. It's actually incredibly simple, it's just not where corporate Hollywoods priorities lie in churning out product.

I see no indication that Disneys priorities are any different in this case. I'd loved to be proven wrong, but this film just screams 'blah' to me at the moment.

Stanton is the very opposite of a guy who doesn't care about the characters in his movies.  I'm quite confident that the film will be solid at the very least.  Disney's priorities may not be about telling good stories, but Stanton's is.  I hope the fact that this is his first foray into live-action filmmaking (despite being involved with some of the most successful films over the years) doesn't give the studio some bullshit reason to restrain his creativity. 

I would love for this to be another "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" situation, where I go in without expecting the world and come out having been blown away.

Richard Dickson, No, Disney wouldn't call the film...A Princess Of Mars, for a very good reason.  Without Dejah Thoris in the poster, audiences unfamiliar with the Barsoom Books, would think...Taylor Kitsch is the...Princess Of Mars!

Wayward_Woman, A...Gor film?  Who would direct it?  I am not sure there is even an audience for a big budget movie about Alien Slavers that kidnap Earthwomen for pleasure and profits!

Disney currently owns the novel rights for A Princess of Mars, Gods of Mars, Warlord of Mars, and John Carter of Mars (and possibly the rest of them as well).  All would be preferable titles to just plain "John Carter".

S.D. Bob Plissken, I would go with...Warlord Of Mars!  John Carter could really be about anything.  JC could be a doctor, lawyer, farmer etc.

Could it be, after Cowboys & Aliens, the marketers of this are utterly loathe to connect a civil war era character to aliens on a far away planet? Maybe they're not stupid, just utterly terrified of being associated with and maybe even next years answer to this years bomb?

If that's the case, it was really stupid to start their latest trailer with Kitsch waking up alone in the desert just like Daniel Craig did.

Quote:

Originally Posted by duke fleed 

Richard Dickson, No, Disney wouldn't call the film...A Princess Of Mars, for a very good reason.  Without Dejah Thoris in the poster, audiences unfamiliar with the Barsoom Books, would think...Taylor Kitsch is the...Princess Of Mars!

 

Wayward_Woman, A...Gor film?  Who would direct it?  I am not sure there is even an audience for a big budget movie about Alien Slavers that kidnap Earthwomen for pleasure and profits!

Oh come on. You don't see a film about alpha males forcing the latest starlet to wear nothing but a loincloth? It'd be like Raquel Welch in a fur bikini back in the day. Internet nerds, man. Internet nerds and adolescent misogynistic tendencies running free and unfettered.

It's not like we've seen a myriad of 'epics' or slightly less well known books set up to try to capture the magic of the 'next big thing' (Ahem, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, Comic book films, followed by all the near clones they've produced as people try to cash-in on the latest thing). Let it be said, I think the Gor books are a pisspoor ripoff themselves of Burroughs and Howard and deserve any and all teh criticism they get.

And I say: Verhoeven. Oh the lulz. 

What gets me in gigglefits is if someone did try to adapt it who didn't have balls, all the concessions they would make to fit it into the 'next big thing mold' - especially considering how they're neutering  "John Carter of Mars." And Conan! For all the tits in it, Conan 2011 doesn't have half the gumption of Milius' take. 

That being said: Taylor Kitsch does look rather femme in the pictures from the film. Princess of Mars indeed. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayward_Woman 
 And Conan! For all the tits in it, Conan 2011 doesn't have half the gumption of Milius' take. 

That's because, very unlike Milius, Marcus Nispel had absolutely nothing to say.

I just had an image of Nick Offerman playing an older, burlier John Carter.  A MAN, man.

I say: Give me Frazetta or go home!

Seriously, sometime in the last decade or more, America has seemingly forgotten how to produce leading men for the movies. At what point did it go from a classic mans-man template to frikkin glorified underwear models?

This is why so many heroes in the movies are being played by Brits and Aussies, we still produce men apparently.

You produce men who have charisma and chops to go with the image!

I remember someone (maybe it was me) posting an article about this very trend.  One of the reasons cited was the homophobia in the US causing the arts to be seen as an unmanly pursuit.

EDIT: Here it is
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/why_cant_americans_get_cast_as.html

Aside from just kind of being bored by what I've seen, that's my biggest problem with Kitsch as Carter, he's too pretty. Also, I have to agree, I think simply calling this thing John Carter is going to come back to bite Disney in the ass, it doesn't mean anything anyone whose dollar is going to count.

He's too pretty? Seriously?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rain Dog 

Seriously, sometime in the last decade or more, America has seemingly forgotten how to produce leading men for the movies. At what point did it go from a classic mans-man template to frikkin glorified underwear models?

 

This is why so many heroes in the movies are being played by Brits and Aussies, we still produce men apparently.

Rain Dog, if you are talking about Kitsch, you have no idea what you're talking about.  Then again, you're one of the folks who refused to watch FNL, so it's not surprising.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subotai 

He's too pretty? Seriously?

You think he's not? Really? Guy looks like he should be rockin a Tommy Hilfigger billboard in his all-together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Subotai 

Rain Dog, if you are talking about Kitsch, you have no idea what you're talking about.  Then again, you're one of the folks who refused to watch FNL, so it's not surprising.

You FNL kids are adorable and all with your knee-jerk butthurt for your beloved Tim Riggins (seriously, how many average fans even know this actors real name?), but I'm speaking to a wider phenomenon. Maybe you've got so used to milksop Zoolanders in your movies you've forgotten what a manly hero is meant to look like, but trust me, what we're getting aint it. But whatever, enjoy your pretty boy TV star and his attempt at the big time, even Luke Perry made it into a few films.