John Carter (2012) pt 1

I'm about 50 minutes into this movie, and so far, reddest bit about the Red Planet is the beginning.  Kind of odd, I'd say, but I wasn't surprised.

I like it so far.  Most of the characters from the first three books are in here,but there have been some changes (again, no surprise).  The Therns are introduced right away in movie, even before we meet our hero.

But man, the title of this movie... what were they thinking?  It's on the screen for all of five seconds if that.  Who would know what they were getting with the marketing here?  Morons.  The movie deserved better than this.

So Remy Lebeau John Carter is played by Taylor Kitsch, who does a pretty good job.  It's too bad they always have make heroes so human these days.  He now has an unfortunate past so he doesn't like to fight.  This is completely at odds with the John Carter of the books.  I know things have to be different, but so different?   Still, he is good as the hero.  Watching him jump over things in a single bound is pretty cool.

The Tharks, the green martians look a little skinny to me. I think I'm used to Michael Whelon's amazing covers from the late 70s and early 80s.  They do cheat a bit to have Carter learn the language of Mars, but that's OK.  Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) is already Jeddak of the Tharks, which is a bit of a change, which does work.

The effects are good, but standard CG stuff.  It's still not very colorful, except for brief splashes here and there.  At least the ships look different than the standard boring spaceships these days.

Dejah Thoris, the most beautiful woman of two worlds, is also slightly different here as well.  She's presented as a warrior and a scholar, which I have to admit is more fun than her damsel in distress two dimensional character from the pulps.  She's played by Lynn Collins,  who was also in the Gambit movie.  She's very appealing, I have to say.

After our heroes meet, the rest of the movie will probably be about how to stop the Therns and Zodanga.  I'm hoping to see some white apes and perhaps even a sith and a banth.  Wow, how many words DID George Lucas "borrow" from these books?