John Carter is a 2012 American science fiction action film directed by Andrew Stanton, written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon, and based on A Princess of Mars (1912), the first book in the Barsoom series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was produced by Jim Morris, Colin Wilson, and Lindsey Collins. John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch in the title role, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Willem Dafoe.
The film chronicles the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter and his attempts to mediate civil unrest amongst the warring kingdoms of Barsoom. Several developments on a theatrical film adaptation of the Barsoom series emerged throughout the 20th century from various major studios and producers, with the earliest attempt dating back to the 1930. Most of these efforts, however, ultimately stalled in development hell.
In the late-2000s, Walt Disney Pictures began a concentrated effort to develop a film adaptation of Burroughs' works, after an abandoned venture by the studio in the 1980. The project was driven by Stanton, who had pressed Disney to renew the screen rights from the Burroughs estate. Stanton became the new film's director in 2009. It was his live-action debut, as his previous directorial work for Disney was on the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008).
Filming began in November 2009, with principal photography underway in January 2010, wrapping seven months later in July 2010. Michael Giacchino, who composed many Pixar films, composed the film's musical score. Like Pixar's brave, the film is dedicated in the memory of Steve Jobs. John Carter was released in the United States on March 9, 2012, marking the centennial of the titular character's first appearance. The film was presented in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats.
Upon release, John Carter received a mixed critical reception, with praise for its visuals, Giacchino's score, and the action sequences, but criticism toward the characterization and plot. The film flopped at the North American box office, but set an opening-day record in Russia. It grossed $284 million at the worldwide box office, resulting in a $200 million writedown for Disney, becoming one of the biggest box office bombs in history.
With a total cost of $350 million, including an estimated production budget of $263 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. Due to the film's poor box office performance, Disney cancelled plans for a sequel (titled Gods of Mars) and the trilogy Stanton had planned. 1912, a century before you would read these words. Fifty-seven years before humanity was to tread upon the surface of our moon. More than twenty-five years before Superman might leap a tall building in a single bound.
Months before the first serialized adventures of Tarzan, heir of Greystoke, lord of the jungle, his creator’s most popular contribution to the annals of history. Before all of that, a pulp writer from Chicago took us to another planet. 1912. Readers bounded across the bleached terrain of Mars with a Virginia cavalryman in the pages of The All-Story. The tale was “Under the Moons of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The Virginian, an artifact of the Confederacy, a prospector turned rich. John Carter, eternally 30 years of age. Pursued by Apache riders, he finds sanctuary in a cave and drifts off to sleep. He rises not just from slumber, but from his own flesh, observes his prone body as if a strange voyeur. A specter. He steps out from the cave, looks up into the heavens and spies the distant red gleam of Mars. In the next moment, he stands upon its surface. Call it astral project. Call it a telegraphing of the spirit.
The John Carter who strides under those two moons, Phobos and Deimos, is identical to the one who slumbers in that Arizona cave. He is prone to death on either planet. His consciousness will glide between. But in the end, his soul belongs to Mars. Or as it is known to its people, Barsoom. John Carter and nearly a dozen other Martian novels penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs serve as a foundation for so much of American fantasy and adventure.
In many ways, Carter’s augmented strength and agility were a springboard for creators like Siegel and Shuster to catapult their own creations skyward and into our collective mythos. That it took 100 years to usher the character onto the silver screen might be explained by the limitations of the fledgling medium in those early days. As progenitors, John Carter, Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkus might’ve arrived just in time to inspire countless storytellers, but too soon to garner the kind of acclaim they deserved.
Overshadowed by Tarzan, who got oodles of film adaptations. Not that John Carter and company were left to moulder. No shortage of sequels, reprints, and comics. But Barsoom is just as alien a term to the zeitgeist now as it was in 1911. That’s somewhat frustrating. It’s also a century. Time, man. Time and its hustle. It should also be noted that there’s been no shortage of filmmakers and studios and money men trying.
The team to finally break the tape in this decades-long space race? Disney. Andrew Stanton. Our boy Michael Chabon. Champagne in the winners’ circle? That remains to be seen. In terms of the money, not a whole lot of joy going around. 2012. Or, well, 1868. Taylor Kitsch is a grizzled seeker in the foothills of Arizona’s Pinaleño Mountains. His side lost in that country-splitter of a war and he’s glad to shrug off his saber. He spins tales and sifts creek beds for gold.
He’s seen symbols in the hills and believes he’s on to a vast cache of life-changing riches. When he stops into town to replenish his sundries, he’s taken into the custody of Colonel Powell, the local face of white law in a region reluctantly shared with the Apache. Kitsch chews the scenery like rawhide in these opening scenes, greasy with an unkempt prospector’s beard, alternating between an Eastwood growl and a John Wayne bellow.
It’s over the top, but with each attempted escape from the Colonel’s clutches, his roguish abandon becomes more and more charming. By the time he and the Colonel’s men encounter a band of Apache and find themselves in a mysterious cave with a pale, otherworldly, stranger, the the tone of the film fully manifests. The terrific Michael Giacchino score builds. This is a throwback to an all-too rare brand of fantasy adventure. Especially in this cynical decade. This sprawling, joyous film harkens to the innocence of the original Star Wars trilogy.
It’s this spirit, so true to the tale’s pulp roots, that makes the production so endearing. It’s a polarizing film in that the objective merits of its plot are not so consistent with its riotous level of charm. It’s not that you need a history with the literary franchise to appreciate the experience, but not every viewer will be able to dismiss the convolutions of the Martian mythology. or rather, the way that mythology is sometimes clumsily presented.
That makes rating the film a bit of a gamble. For this reviewer, the joys and invention outshone the murkier stretched of the script. I’d be disingenuous though if I didn’t address the flaws in an otherwise thrilling romp. There are several objective criticisms to be levied at the screenwriters’ approach to bringing Barsoom to the big screen, perhaps especially in the depiction of the Therns and their convoluted endgame.
Overall the movie is too long, or at least curiously paced, often stumbling into unnecessary tangents about the insidious machinations of Matai Shang (an otherwise delightful performance by the typically delightful Mark Strong) and his hairless cronies. The Therns serve as a connection between Earth and Barsoom, but they’re a wrinkle that the original serial never needed for that purpose. Modern audiences might crave a tangible solution to Carter’s mystical traversal between worlds.
But this dark faction of shape-changing overseers complicate a world that’s already quite compelling. The Tharks get some decent screen time, but the feuding sects of the red (human) Martians get short shrift. Though Sab Than and the predator city of Zodanga get a terrific introduction in the film’s opening, the warrior prince swiftly becomes a one-dimensional puppet, a real mustache-twirler of a secondary villain. A pretty thankless role for Dominic West and not much of a presence for the audience to jeer.
The Thern make for a tantalizing presence, but the more they impose themselves upon the tribal conflict and the film itself, the less welcome they become. The political strife between the Dejah’s people and those of Than and Tars Tarkus is more than enough for a backdrop. The initial threat of a failing planet-wide environmental system is lost in all the clutter. As many wrenches as the screenwriters threw into the mix, they also devised some elegant solutions to translating the hundred-year-old pulp to the cinema.
The writers smartly sidestep the concept of planet-wide telepathy, a decision Chabon discussed in a fascinating interview with WIRED. Burroughs bridged the language gap with mental communication, but even he realized in time that opening up an entire planet’s populace to mind-reading doesn’t quite work in tales of intrigue. Here, the Thark pariah Sola activates Carter’s understanding of the Martian language with a kind of telepathic burst.
It’s weird, but once it’s done, it’s done. And in the time leading up to Carter’s initiation into Barsoomian society, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the language barrier. Tarkas misunderstands the man’s greeting and comes to introduce him as Virginia to Carter’s great chagrin. Indeed, Carter’s the butt of the joke through much of the movie and spends nearly all of it in a loincloth. He’s a refreshing protagonist in a sword and sandal movie.
The muscles are there, but there’s little of the bluster. Carter’s a small fish in a very big, very dusty pond. He’s also not the typical action here, quick to violence and itching for a fight. This guy’s an explorer constantly trying to escape those who would have him fight for their cause. When he finally does unleash his full wrath and prowess as a slayer in a stand against a horde of Warhoon, the moment isn’t triumphant, it’s traumatic.
The typical Hollywood brawl is juxtaposed with scenes from Carter’s past, the day he returned home to find his family slaughtered, their home burnt to the ground. The fight escalates as the Carter of the past stabs into the earth with a shovel, digging their graves. It’s a haunting sequence, one of the film’s best, and it encapsulates everything that makes John Carter a unique hero. This man doesn’t fight for the joy of it. He fights only to protect those he cares about.
Those he loves. And this movie presents us with a leading lady well worth fighting for. Though the filmmakers were forced to diverge from the novels’ depiction of a nude battle maiden, the film’s Dejah Thoris remains as alluring and lethal. Lynn Collins’ Dejah, the eponymous Princess of Mars, is downright stunning. She’s already classically beautiful, though here that’s enhanced with piercing blue irises (assuming those are contacts or the saturation is boosted in post) and ornate red war paint.
Let alone an array of spectacular costumes. From the start, she’s depicted as a passionate ruler as well as a dedicated scientist. Carter often refers to her as “Professor.” She’s also a fully capable, even formidable warrior. Later, Dejah winds up something of a damsel in distress, the filmmakers’ attempt to position her climactic wedding scene as a noble sacrifice not entirely convincing as a moment of heroism.
It works in theory, but as a visual, it’s that all-too familiar chapel rescue. It’s a disappointing shift, but once the battle heats up again, Dejah is back as the ferocious fighter we’d grown to love. By the final act, John Carter dissolves into a confused spectacle, and the bookending scenes featuring Carter’s beloved nephew, the meek Edgar Rice Burroughs, get a bit ridiculous.
But at this point, audiences have likely made up their minds about the production and either dismiss Carter’s crazy cat and mouse game with the shrouded Than or fully embrace it as the next wily turn for a lovable hero. It’s a silly, outlandish idea, but it’s the kind of silly a viewer can roll with. More than roll with. Me, I loved Carter’s gambit (no pun intended) and felt it fit with the playful tone of the story.
There’s great worth and entertainment to be wrought from the dark and the low down, but it’s genuinely uplifting to encounter a throwback like this with so little guile. It’s a fun film. It’s an eye-widening film. And it’s a flying leap in the right direction for adventure movies. Who knew we simply needed to look back 100 years to where all of this–all of this–started.
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