Monday, March 3, 2014

John Carter part 2

Finished this up and quite enjoyed it.  It's fairly true to the books, except for the part about the Therns.  I suppose that's what the sequels would have been about.  They didn't even have to try to explain how Carter got to Mars anyway, it's only hinted at in the books.  Leave a little mystery!

The movie wraps up pretty well,  with the obligatory giant army of green martians scenes, epic battles and lots of fighting, some real, a lot of cg video game imagery.  It could have been  worse, I suppose. 

There were no banths present, but we did get white apes, which barely looked like apes.  Why make them blind?  Carter's ability to leap over tall apes and buildings is used a lot, which is pretty cool.  His upper body super strength is not used much.
The end of the movie has him back on Earth, looking for a way back to Mars.  Takes him ten  EARTH years (about five Martian years) but he manages it.  It's an old trick but it works.  Kind of odd to see ERB portrayed as an almost teenager, but it was a nice touch, since the character is present in several of the books.

All in all I wish I had seen this in the theater, and that it had made enough money for some sequels, since the first three books all make a good story arc.

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