There is the film’s leading star Taylor Kitcsh in the title role as a former Civil War veteran turned muscle bound savior of the red planet, for example, that begs the question, “Who’s he and what’s he starred in?” Not everyone has watched Kitsch’s high school football series, "Friday Night Lights" (2006-2011), which ended its NBC to cable run last year, least of all me.
"John Carter" certainly had plenty of computer-generated eye candy (hence the $250 million price tag) that included creatures, six-foot four-armed double horned barbarian alien tribes and a beautiful scantily clad princess (Lynn Collins) despite the fact the warships the humans (I guess I should call them Martians) flew in battle looked like giant prehistoric mechanical insects.
The film made me wish there was actually such a creature as a “Woola”, a cute but ugly Martian rendition of a faithful pet dog with sharp teeth and a big mouth that runs just as fast as the little Yorkie I got. The thing would be the perfect home security system for my house much like the black rescue panther the married couple adopts in that Geico commercial.
I believe the number one reason why "John Carter", however, failed to connect with audiences younger than myself (and NO I don’t listen to the film critics, many of whom have given the movie mixed reviews) is because the story is based on a 100-year-old sci-fi series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I am willing to bet most of them never heard of or read those books.The ones I have found who enjoyed "John Carter" immensely are those my age who read Burroughs’ series. There is already a fan driven petition set up called “Take me back to Barsoom! I want "John Carter" to have a sequel!” on Facebook that as of this writing has 3,942 members.
I don’t blame director Andrew Stanton much the way I don’t blame directors Zack Snyder for the box office failures of his comic book superhero epic, "Watchmen" (2009), and Steven Spielberg for last year’s animated 'The Adventures of Tintin", which was based on a comic series that is popular in Europe but not in America. In the case of "John Carter", as was with Watchmen and “Tintin” all three filmmakers wanted to be faithful to the written works.
“I tried to be as faithful as I could, because I’m the biggest fan,” director Stanton said in an article about "John Carter" in SciFiNow. “I think in the best adaptations, you should be able to watch the film and not be able to sense what’s changed. Most important of all is that it carries the spirit of how you felt reading the book. Feeling, for me, is the huge thing about adapting a book that must be protected at all costs.”
The trouble is adapting movies based on decades old books and comic book novels with cult followings are not to everyone’s liking these days. Younger audiences today are only interested in the most current books like the Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games series. If author Suzanne Collins’ "The Hunger Games" were to be remade into another big screen movie 100 years from now as John Carter was, would it bring in audiences? I doubt it no matter how faithful the filmmakers are to the material.That’s the real disappointment behind such costly debacles as "Watchmen", "The Adventures of Tintin" and "John Carter" because although I have never read them, I am certain the printed adaptations are just as good as the Harry Potter and Twilight books, if not better.
Even more depressing is the fact audiences will only be able to identify John Carter star Taylor Kitsch after seeing this summer’s "Battleship", which is based on a Milton Bradley game and whose budget is reportedly at $200 million.
If "Battleship" manages to gross twice its price tag for distributor Universal Pictures, I’ll find that far more disturbing than the number of studio executives at Disney whose heads will roll as a result of John Carter’s less than successful box office run.
©3/22/12
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