John Carter

Cyre2067

Cyre2067

The Living Force
Basic Premise: Semi-Immortal Hyperdimensional Life forms manipulate planetary political structures in order to ferment War among its populace. They give power to the most war like and remain hidden in the shadows manipulating them. John Carter kills one of these beings, takes his magic amulet and gets transported to Mars where he has to rediscover himself, save the planet and its warrior-princess.

Oh, and did I mention the super-speedy, ridiculously cute martian pitbull that helps him?

The movie is dripping with hidden truth about our collective reality, highly recommended, skip the 3D though, it only makes it hard to follow the action (of which there is lots).
 
I saw the movie last week and really liked it. I did see it in 3D and it too was good (could not get a good show time for 2D).
I liked the idea of the overseers which reminded me of 4D STS beings, which the film alluded to. They gave power to men of little wisdom so they can create the destructive energies which feeds them in the higher immortal realms. When the worlds which they have manipulated destroyed itself through war, strife and fear, they move on to the next.
Mars, at the time of this story, was at it last days of existence. John Carter was the wild card which allowed their game become more exciting. These being were so much more advanced that the current civilization, it seemed more of a game to them and even John Carter became part of their plans.

Go see this if you can. In the US, most people did not like it. I think the reason for this would be that it takes too much thought to understand what was going on, most got bored fast when they could not get the action 'hit' that most action movies give now days. You don't have to think when watching show like X-Factor, Dancing with the stars and others which are driven on only emotion and are so numerous these days... I weep for humanity...
 
Hubby took me to see this last night, and we both liked it.

It was nice to see a 2D show, I didn't think 3D would do more than give me a headache.

Hubby asked me for a summary of what I thought the 'bad guys' were, and I told him: 'deluded, arrogant politicians, with better toys.' He almost snorted decaf up his nose. :lol: We did discuss the 4D aspects, but Hubby tends to discount hyperdimensional things. It scares him on a visceral level, even when discussing movies. I don't push it.
 
I thought the film was wonderful. I saw it in IMAX 3D and it was definitely a spectacle. In fact I thought it gave a better sense of scale and awe than any other film I can think of.

The idea of the overlords was an improvement over the novels, and we're both more relevant and used to good effect. Stellar acting (except maybe for the hammy John Carter) and highly recommended. If I'm not mistaken this was director Andrew Stanton's first live action film, but he certainly visited the theme of oppression with Wall-E so it's something he has a history with.

And being a sucker for a hero story, I cheered when the heroics kicked in. Awesome spectacle, and I fear that in North America we've let the critics decide for us. Too bad. I just hope they make the sequel!
 
I liked it from the perspective of having read and loved all the books in adolescence, just to see what they'd do with it (a prior SyFy Channel interpretation was horrible). But, from a movie-making perspective I thought it was a very disappointing disaster and understand its commercial failure. It's such a simple, straightforward story, all from the viewpoint of John Carter for most of the first book, yet the film makes a complete mess of it. John Carter doesn't really know about or understand the workings of the Therns (the hyperdimensional gods) for quite some time, and it's unnecessary to know what they're doing until the end.

I mean, they should have been carefully introducing interesting characters, rich new cultures, a new world -- this in itself was fascinating in the book, and two films could have been made just to cover the first, slim, 150-page book. The Tharks, by the way, should have been better developed to resemble the near-psychopaths that they are (a devolving, war-like, negative, brutal, fear-based society that breeds out "weaknesses" such as conscience and empathy, with a few exceptions who have to hide their shreds of "humanity"). But the film blows it, choosing instead to rush through, giving no depth, no character development other than shallowly for a few, introducing three disparate threads at once. It's no wonder most audiences were confused. Really, really not smart.

I read that the studio chiefs basically forced unwelcome changes upon the film-maker, forcing compliance with formulaic, lowest-common-denominator Hollywood elements, and now the Disney studio chief has resigned in disgrace over it. From a business perspective, they blew what would have been a franchise cash cow that would have gone on for fifteen or twenty years. Dumbfounding, really.
 
I watched this movie the other night (I've never read the books). While I really liked the story I thought the movie had way too much of a "Disney" feel to it, and the movie's soundtrack never got me too deeply feeling the emotions trying to be expressed. A lot of it was really cool action scenese and that dog character Puck mentioned was super adorable.. but there was just something missing... I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read your post PopHistorian. I'm sure I'll enjoy the books a lot more (they're going on the list ;D )
 
Having watched the film for the nth time (I'm a sci fi nut), I can certainly say that it's a more enjoyable film than 95% of the drivel out there.

I think what strikes me the more I watch it is the 4D STS hints in the Thurns, even going so far as to say "feeding [on humanity] if you will". I can certainly see why the PTB would not want this film to succeed and give anybody any ideas. That would just be terrible!
 
Personally, I could not sit through this entire movie, even though I like science-fiction. The hyperdimensional manipulation parallels may be interesting, but as PopHistorian said, the movie itself is quite a mess. I enjoyed watching 'The Hunger Games' more than this one...
 
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