{"id":13775,"date":"2015-04-22T14:01:20","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T18:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=13775"},"modified":"2022-12-08T13:11:50","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T18:11:50","slug":"rethinking-john-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/rethinking-john-carter\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking John Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"pvc_stats_13775\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"13775\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" version=\"1.0\" viewBox=\"0 0 502 315\" preserveAspectRatio=\"xMidYMid meet\"><g transform=\"translate(0,332) scale(0.1,-0.1)\" fill=\"\" stroke=\"none\"><path d=\"M2394 3279 l-29 -30 -3 -207 c-2 -182 0 -211 15 -242 39 -76 157 -76 196 0 15 31 17 60 15 243 l-3 209 -33 29 c-26 23 -41 29 -80 29 -41 0 -53 -5 -78 -31z\"\/><path d=\"M3085 3251 c-45 -19 -58 -50 -96 -229 -47 -217 -49 -260 -13 -295 52 -53 146 -42 177 20 16 31 87 366 87 410 0 70 -86 122 -155 94z\"\/><path d=\"M1751 3234 c-13 -9 -29 -31 -37 -50 -12 -29 -10 -49 21 -204 19 -94 39 -189 45 -210 14 -50 54 -80 110 -80 34 0 48 6 76 34 21 21 34 44 34 59 0 14 -18 113 -40 219 -37 178 -43 195 -70 221 -36 32 -101 37 -139 11z\"\/><path d=\"M1163 3073 c-36 -7 -73 -59 -73 -102 0 -56 133 -378 171 -413 34 -32 83 -37 129 -13 70 36 67 87 -16 290 -86 209 -89 214 -129 231 -35 14 -42 15 -82 7z\"\/><path d=\"M3689 3066 c-15 -9 -33 -30 -42 -48 -48 -103 -147 -355 -147 -375 0 -98 131 -148 192 -74 13 15 57 108 97 206 80 196 84 226 37 273 -30 30 -99 39 -137 18z\"\/><path d=\"M583 2784 c-38 -19 -67 -74 -58 -113 9 -42 211 -354 242 -373 16 -10 45 -18 66 -18 51 0 107 52 107 100 0 39 -1 41 -124 234 -80 126 -108 162 -133 173 -41 17 -61 16 -100 -3z\"\/><path d=\"M4250 2784 c-14 -9 -74 -91 -133 -183 -95 -150 -107 -173 -107 -213 0 -55 33 -94 87 -104 67 -13 90 8 211 198 130 202 137 225 78 284 -27 27 -42 34 -72 34 -22 0 -50 -8 -64 -16z\"\/><path d=\"M2275 2693 c-553 -48 -1095 -270 -1585 -649 -135 -104 -459 -423 -483 -476 -23 -49 -22 -139 2 -186 73 -142 361 -457 571 -626 285 -228 642 -407 990 -497 242 -63 336 -73 660 -74 310 0 370 5 595 52 535 111 1045 392 1455 803 122 121 250 273 275 326 19 41 19 137 0 174 -41 79 -309 363 -465 492 -447 370 -946 591 -1479 653 -113 14 -422 18 -536 8z m395 -428 c171 -34 330 -124 456 -258 112 -119 167 -219 211 -378 27 -96 24 -300 -5 -401 -72 -255 -236 -447 -474 -557 -132 -62 -201 -76 -368 -76 -167 0 -236 14 -368 76 -213 98 -373 271 -451 485 -162 444 86 934 547 1084 153 49 292 57 452 25z m909 -232 c222 -123 408 -262 593 -441 76 -74 138 -139 138 -144 0 -16 -233 -242 -330 -319 -155 -123 -309 -223 -461 -299 l-81 -41 32 46 c18 26 49 83 70 128 143 306 141 649 -6 957 -25 52 -61 116 -79 142 l-34 47 45 -20 c26 -10 76 -36 113 -56z m-2057 25 c-40 -58 -105 -190 -130 -263 -110 -324 -59 -707 132 -981 25 -35 42 -64 37 -64 -19 0 -241 119 -326 174 -188 122 -406 314 -532 468 l-58 71 108 103 c185 178 428 349 672 473 66 33 121 60 123 61 2 0 -10 -19 -26 -42z\"\/><path d=\"M2375 1950 c-198 -44 -350 -190 -395 -379 -18 -76 -8 -221 19 -290 114 -284 457 -406 731 -260 98 52 188 154 231 260 27 69 37 214 19 290 -38 163 -166 304 -326 360 -67 23 -215 33 -279 19z\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Carter Trailer\" width=\"805\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nlvYKl1fjBI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>After recently going through the first five of Edgar Rice Burroughs&#8217; 11 <em>Barsoom<\/em> books,<\/strong> I decided to give the 2012 Disney film, <a title=\"Wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Carter_(film)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Carter<\/a>, another viewing. This two-hour-eleven-minute film bombed at the box office, and when I first saw it, I was deeply disappointed. But on reflection after a second viewing, it isn&#8217;t all that bad. It&#8217;s not great, but it deserves a better rating than it received, and it wears well in a second viewing.<\/p>\n<p>It isn&#8217;t quite the <a title=\"Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Barsoom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Barsoom<\/a> I grew up with, true, but it borrows heavily from Burroughs, enough to make it a close cousin in many parts. It&#8217;s the parts where the writers went off to play mix-and-match with other scifi franchises and stories where it&#8217;s actually weakest. That&#8217;s where the storyline unravels, but not so much it falls apart.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, no film or TV series can ever live up to the books, if for no other reason than that no matter how spectacular, no film cannot live up to the imagination. Reading always wins, hands down, regardless of the film&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n<p>I initially saw John Carter\u00a0through my own lens as a lifelong fan of ERB, who had grown up reading and rereading Burroughs&#8217; tales and still has a substantial library of his novels on my bookshelves. That&#8217;s a mixed blessing, because while it allowed me to immediately understand the story, setting and the characters, it made me overly sensitive to that context. I compared the actual novels and the plots to the film from\u00a0a purist perspective and found them\u00a0wanting.<\/p>\n<p>I should have been looking at the film more as a tribute, set in the Barsoomian universe, rather than a strict retelling. The film plays homage to the first two Barsoom novels, but also takes many liberties, conflating plots and characters and adding extraneous non-Burroughs elements. I didn&#8217;t like these additions at first, but now I understand better what the writers and director were trying to achieve\u00a0by enhancing\u00a0the drama.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Everything Wrong With John Carter In 15 Minutes Or Less\" width=\"805\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4K2yDm-yvcQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The consensus of reviewers on <a title=\"Rotten Tomatoes\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/john_carter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> &#8211; where it has a mere 51% average approval rating &#8211; is:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While John Carter looks terrific and delivers its share of pulpy thrills, it also suffers from uneven pacing and occasionally incomprehensible plotting and characterization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ouch. But wait &#8211; this basically sums up about 95% of all Hollywood films and TV series.<\/p>\n<p>Is it fair? Critics are often quick to comment, and may only see a film once because they&#8217;re onto the next screening, too busy to go back and watch one again. A second viewing actually helped me appreciate the movie for what it was, rather than what I wanted it to be.<\/p>\n<p>And compared to some mega-bombs like the Transformers series, which are physically painful to watch, John Carter seems\u00a0almost flawless.<\/p>\n<p>These past few days, I read a lot of reviews and watched many YouTube videos\u00a0about the film and the first thing that struck me was that few, \u00a0if any of the reviewers had actually read Burroughs&#8217; Barsoom books before they criticized the film. Without that background to explain the plots, races and the politics, the film is a lot harder to understand &#8211; but few critics seemed keen to educate themselves in the Barsoom of the tales. In fact, some even<a title=\"YouTube idiots\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hQU_NYCW574\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> boast of their ignorance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So you have to read\/watch those reviews with this in mind: these reviewers often had no idea what story they were watching. Instead, they keep referring back to Avatar, Star Wars, Waterworld and other recent scifi films as if the John Carter story was derivative of them, rather than the other way around. That&#8217;s a lame, inexcusable way to review any film. It&#8217;s like reviewing a car from its paint job without actually driving it.<\/p>\n<p>[youtube=https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QiQ13b8ar0A]<\/p>\n<p>Also, most reviewers didn&#8217;t seem to realize that the original tale was published as a magazine story in <strong>1912<\/strong>. That&#8217;s only a few years after\u00a0Henry Ford started building the Model T car! It&#8217;s decades before radio, talking movies and many more before commercial TV.\u00a0It wasn&#8217;t published as a book until 1917 (then it was released as <a title=\"Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/A_Princess_of_Mars\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A Princess of Mars<\/a>). It was written more as an adventure; a swash-buckling romance set on another planet, rather than as what we think of today as &#8216;science fiction.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Several reviewers commented on the technology in the movie as if it was a modern invention, not something imagined more than a century ago! Frankly, too many reviewers over-think the film. It&#8217;s entertainment, not a documentary. And no, it isn&#8217;t Mars: it&#8217;s Barsoom, a planet entirely constructed in ERB&#8217;s imagination.<\/p>\n<p>Burroughs inspired generations of writers &#8211; especially scifi writers &#8211; to expand on his ideas and his worlds,and to create the genre we know and love today. As <a title=\"Wikipedia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Edgar_Rice_Burroughs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ray Bradbury<\/a> famously said of\u00a0ERB,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world&#8230; By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In <a title=\"ERB ZIne\" href=\"http:\/\/www.erbzine.com\/mag37\/3734.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an interview<\/a> in the New Yorker, Bradbury also said of his childhood \u00a0what I can relate to:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I memorized all of \u201cJohn Carter\u201d and \u201cTarzan,\u201d and sat on my grandparents\u2019 front lawn repeating the stories to anyone who would sit and listen. I would go out to that lawn on summer nights and reach up to the red light of Mars and say, \u201cTake me home!\u201d I yearned to fly away and land there in the strange dusts that blew over dead-sea bottoms toward the ancient cities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I too, read and reread those books and yearned to be transported to the ancient sea bottoms of the red planet when I was young. Some days, when the nonsense and vulgarities of the world weary me, I still do.<\/p>\n<p>Watching the film again this past weekend, I saw it through different eyes. I saw the Burroughs&#8217; stories within, but also the changes, additions, conflations and expansions. It is, as some reviewers have noted, choppy in places, and some of the elements are not nearly as well explained as they should be (not a problem, of course, to those familiar with the stories), but overall, it hangs together as an entertaining, exciting spectacle &#8211; if you pay attention.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a grand scale, action film, not quite steampunk, more like swords-and-sandals-punk. It&#8217;s also not quite scifi, and something more than adventure or even fantasy. Yes, it&#8217;s worth watching a second time. And maybe even a third, once I&#8217;ve finished reading the rest of the series.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IGN Reviews - John Carter - Video Review\" width=\"805\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YjXxGDZAmKI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"pvc_stats_13775\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"13775\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" version=\"1.0\" viewBox=\"0 0 502 315\" preserveAspectRatio=\"xMidYMid meet\"><g transform=\"translate(0,332) scale(0.1,-0.1)\" fill=\"\" stroke=\"none\"><path d=\"M2394 3279 l-29 -30 -3 -207 c-2 -182 0 -211 15 -242 39 -76 157 -76 196 0 15 31 17 60 15 243 l-3 209 -33 29 c-26 23 -41 29 -80 29 -41 0 -53 -5 -78 -31z\"\/><path d=\"M3085 3251 c-45 -19 -58 -50 -96 -229 -47 -217 -49 -260 -13 -295 52 -53 146 -42 177 20 16 31 87 366 87 410 0 70 -86 122 -155 94z\"\/><path d=\"M1751 3234 c-13 -9 -29 -31 -37 -50 -12 -29 -10 -49 21 -204 19 -94 39 -189 45 -210 14 -50 54 -80 110 -80 34 0 48 6 76 34 21 21 34 44 34 59 0 14 -18 113 -40 219 -37 178 -43 195 -70 221 -36 32 -101 37 -139 11z\"\/><path d=\"M1163 3073 c-36 -7 -73 -59 -73 -102 0 -56 133 -378 171 -413 34 -32 83 -37 129 -13 70 36 67 87 -16 290 -86 209 -89 214 -129 231 -35 14 -42 15 -82 7z\"\/><path d=\"M3689 3066 c-15 -9 -33 -30 -42 -48 -48 -103 -147 -355 -147 -375 0 -98 131 -148 192 -74 13 15 57 108 97 206 80 196 84 226 37 273 -30 30 -99 39 -137 18z\"\/><path d=\"M583 2784 c-38 -19 -67 -74 -58 -113 9 -42 211 -354 242 -373 16 -10 45 -18 66 -18 51 0 107 52 107 100 0 39 -1 41 -124 234 -80 126 -108 162 -133 173 -41 17 -61 16 -100 -3z\"\/><path d=\"M4250 2784 c-14 -9 -74 -91 -133 -183 -95 -150 -107 -173 -107 -213 0 -55 33 -94 87 -104 67 -13 90 8 211 198 130 202 137 225 78 284 -27 27 -42 34 -72 34 -22 0 -50 -8 -64 -16z\"\/><path d=\"M2275 2693 c-553 -48 -1095 -270 -1585 -649 -135 -104 -459 -423 -483 -476 -23 -49 -22 -139 2 -186 73 -142 361 -457 571 -626 285 -228 642 -407 990 -497 242 -63 336 -73 660 -74 310 0 370 5 595 52 535 111 1045 392 1455 803 122 121 250 273 275 326 19 41 19 137 0 174 -41 79 -309 363 -465 492 -447 370 -946 591 -1479 653 -113 14 -422 18 -536 8z m395 -428 c171 -34 330 -124 456 -258 112 -119 167 -219 211 -378 27 -96 24 -300 -5 -401 -72 -255 -236 -447 -474 -557 -132 -62 -201 -76 -368 -76 -167 0 -236 14 -368 76 -213 98 -373 271 -451 485 -162 444 86 934 547 1084 153 49 292 57 452 25z m909 -232 c222 -123 408 -262 593 -441 76 -74 138 -139 138 -144 0 -16 -233 -242 -330 -319 -155 -123 -309 -223 -461 -299 l-81 -41 32 46 c18 26 49 83 70 128 143 306 141 649 -6 957 -25 52 -61 116 -79 142 l-34 47 45 -20 c26 -10 76 -36 113 -56z m-2057 25 c-40 -58 -105 -190 -130 -263 -110 -324 -59 -707 132 -981 25 -35 42 -64 37 -64 -19 0 -241 119 -326 174 -188 122 -406 314 -532 468 l-58 71 108 103 c185 178 428 349 672 473 66 33 121 60 123 61 2 0 -10 -19 -26 -42z\"\/><path d=\"M2375 1950 c-198 -44 -350 -190 -395 -379 -18 -76 -8 -221 19 -290 114 -284 457 -406 731 -260 98 52 188 154 231 260 27 69 37 214 19 290 -38 163 -166 304 -326 360 -67 23 -215 33 -279 19z\"\/><\/g><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p>After recently going through the first five of Edgar Rice Burroughs&#8217; 11 Barsoom books, I decided to give the 2012 Disney film, John Carter, another viewing. This two-hour-eleven-minute film bombed at the box office, and when I first saw it, I was deeply disappointed. But on reflection after a second viewing, it isn&#8217;t all that bad. It&#8217;s not great, but it deserves a better rating than it received, and it wears well in a second viewing. It isn&#8217;t quite the Barsoom I grew up with, true, but it borrows heavily from Burroughs, enough to make it a close cousin in \u2026&#8230;&#8230; click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,420,560],"tags":[569,562,423,392],"class_list":["post-13775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-pop-culture","category-scifi-and-fantasy","tag-adventure","tag-fantasy","tag-film-reviews","tag-scifi"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":5072,"today_views":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13775"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29642,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions\/29642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}