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John Carter

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I think I'm going to go along with 90% of the posters in this thread that haven't seen the movie, but have an opinion on it.
 
My wife and I went to see john Carter last night - one of the worst movies I have ever seen, long, boring, drawn out,,,, can I please have my money and my 2 hours back?
 
Doppel said:
One of the dumbest names ever for a sci fi action movie, might as well have named it tree trunk or something else forgettable, whether based on books nobody has read or not. Reviews indicate it's probably half decent, but nothing great. The premise sure sounds absurd to me and a lot of others it appears.
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The premise is from 1911.
 
Saw it with the kids on Saturday (didn't bother with the 3D, as we would have had to drive an extra 15-20mins). While not the most original film, it was not terrible either. I'd put it somewhere in the range of 6-7 out of 10. Effects were very good, though the plot/screenplay didn't make a lot of sense in more than a few places. Cast was competent, if not good. Not a bad popcorn flick overall.

At the very least, there weren't scenes in it that made me cringe like with Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

EDIT: I read somewhere that they were hoping to make a series of movies out of this, but I'm guessing the poor results (unless they pick up substantially over the next few weeks) would put an end to that. Sad, that would be similar to the Last Airbender movie, another franchise-killer.
 
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My friend reviewed this travesty for me. So I will not be going to see it. I read that series multiple times growing up. And John Carter is one of my favorite fictional characters.

They should have went either LOTR or Game of Thrones direction, where they could have stuck closely to the source material. While hour long sword duels and such cannot be done, most of it could be.
 
ffddpm.jpg

john-carter-of-mars-Dejah-Thoris-epic-tits-1024x675.jpg

shoulda kept with the original style😉
 
Just got back from it, and I enjoyed it. Of course, that may be because we saw the normal, not 3D. 99.5% of 3D movies suck totally and even attempting to make them 3D drops em about 3 stars most of the time. But this was fairly well done, fun enough, entertaining, etc. Not worth current ticket/concession prices of course, but then only 1 or 2 movies a year are.
 
disaster of epic proportions

“In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31. As a result, our current expectation is that the Studio segment will have an operating loss of between $80 and $120 million for the second quarter. As we look forward to the second half of the year, we are excited about the upcoming releases of The Avengers and Brave, which we believe have tremendous potential to drive value for the Studio and the rest of the company.”
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Disney’s $200M write down for John Carter appears to be the biggest loss to date for a single film — exceeding the inflation adjusted $147M deficit from Cutthroat Island, the 1995 film that starred Geena Davis and proved to be the last straw for Carolco Pictures which went out of business. But investors are just beginning to wrap their minds around how serious the debacle is for Disney. The loss far exceeds analyst forecasts of about $100M to $150M. On Wednesday, Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible said that “the impairment may not be as bad as feared”: He estimated $53M, with $180M only in a “worst case scenario.” Miller Tabak & Co analyst David Joyce also was surprised by Disney’s new figures. He expected the Studio unit to lose about $37M in the current quarter; Disney now says the loss could go as high as $120M. Joyce just shaved 2 cents off his earnings forecast for the fiscal year that ends in September, bringing it down to $2.99. While the Street is clearly disappointed, it isn’t stunned. Disney shares are down less than 1% in after-hours trading. At the end of the day, the Studio just accounts for 16% of the company’s revenues and 7% of its profits. Proving that hope springs eternal, Joyce says he believes “investors will look forward to the summer franchise releases” which include The Avengers and Pixar’s Brave. But there’s a larger lesson that could color how people look at future box office disappointments: “John Carter is a great example of how there’s no more safety net from DVD sales,” says BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield. “Failed theatrical movies increasingly don’t sell at all in the DVD market.”
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txt
 
Fritzo said:
Is it just me, or could that have been a modernized version of He-Man?
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he-man probably ripped from john carter

This more frantic trailer reveals the most problematic part of John Carter, and possibly why it was doomed to underperform no matter what happened: Because the Barsoom books were so influential to cinema's greatest sci-fi auteurs, just about everything in it had already been plundered and reused by other hits. And as a result, the more that was revealed of John Carter, the more derivative it looked, even if its source had originated these ideas. Look at what George Lucas took from Burroughs for his Star Wars movies alone: In his movies, the Sith are evil Jedis; in the world of John Carter, the Sith are evil insects. Star Wars had Princess Leia; John Carter has Princess Dejah. Leia’s infamous bikini in Return of the Jedi? Worn by Princess Dejah first. That flying skiff she’s standing on next to Jabba the Hutt? Carter again. Even those banthas in the Star Wars were culled from the John Carter books, which are populated with similar-looking beasts of burden called banths. Looking beyond Lucas, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry famously pillaged the books, as did James Cameron, who in numerous interviews called Avatar “almost an Edgar Rice Burroughs kind of adventure.”

“Every great scene in the book has been reaped,” explains Don Murphy, the producer of movies like Transformers and Real Steel, who’d tried to bring John Carter to the big screen almost a decade ago, but abandoned the effort. “It’s all been done before, so you actually have to find a way to make and market it in a way that’s actually less faithful to the original material.”
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Disney: 'John Carter' loses $200 million:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/20/news/companies/disney-john-carter/index.htm?hpt=hp_t3

"It's official. The Disney movie "John Carter" is a flop of legendary proportions.

"John Carter," based on a Martian adventure novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is expected to lose $200 million in Disney's fiscal second quarter, which ends March 31.

The swords-and-loin-cloths epic, a blend of sci-fi and fantasy, has raked in $184 million at box offices globally since its March 9 debut, according to Disney (DIS, Fortune 500).

The loss of $200 million was much higher than anyone expected, said Nomura analyst Michael Nathanson, including him. He had forecast the film would lose $90 million."
 
The more I read about why it's bombing the more I believed it was worth watching so I went to see it today. I enjoyed it more than Avatar, which isn't saying much, but I can see people who wrongly think it's derivative enjoying it far less. My main complaint was that it was boring in several places with a lot of "people going places in boring desert environments." They never dwelt on it long, but they were right back to another scene of it with them going someplace else in no time.

Worth watching if you read up and understand the setting of the novels but only otherwise if you're a "Prince of Persia" kind of guy.
 
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