TALE AS OLD AS TIME: I see the new trailer for Disney's adaptation of John Carter is out. I'm reasonable excited for this, although coming in the heels of Avatar it will look derivative of, rather than the source, of one of the great tropes of science fiction: Earthman leads native aliens against their oppressors.
I am more curious, however, about the decision of Disney to restyle "Princess of Mars" as "John Carter." Perhaps they did not want to get Dejah Thoris mixed in with the pantheon of Belle, Cinderella and Ariel. Understandably, since Dejah Thoris would have slit Gaston's throat before dawn and gutted the Beast before he'd ever had a chance to explain himself.
It took me a while to connect this with anything other than Benton's protege.
ReplyDelete"Princess" has been deemed too female-skewing (part of why "Tangled" did not have "Princess" in its title), and especially for a big-budget action flick, you want to avoid that.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in both this and "MI: Ghost Protocol" because they represent the relative rarity of exceedingly successful animation directors taking the jump into live action. I'm hoping in both cases they can keep the imagination that's made the animated films work so well without losing complete tether with reality.
I always had the opposite problem, expecting Dr Carter to walk out on a cold Chicago evening to get himself transported to Mars, whine about the Martian approach to medicIne (ie, euthanasia for anything beyond trenchfoot), and ask Grandma to wire him money
ReplyDeleteI would have no interest in either film, based on all marketing to date, if I didn't know who was behind them. But since I do, I'm very interested.
ReplyDeleteI used to have the opposite problem: I always expected John Carter to wander out of the ER, stare up at Mars and be transported to a world where he was outraged by the state of Martian medicine (i.e., euthanasia for anything worse than Trenchfoot) and spent years moving across the Martian wastes trying to find a way to get Grandma to wire him money.
ReplyDeleteI've rewritten this comment 5 times trying to say something sort of not nice without being too mean about it, so here's what I will say instead: MI: GP has great buzz and I think looks rad. No comment on other.
ReplyDeleteI will say the New Yorker article on Stanton a few weeks back where they followed him through a few days of work was a very odd mixture of being utterly fawning toward Stanton while simultaneously seeming to show that he was hopelessly over his head in making this film.
ReplyDeleteIs this movie taking place on Mars? (That is, are they just going to call it Barsoom? Mars is less exotic now than it was in 1917.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, is it progressive or prudish to have a Barsoom film in which Dejah Thoris is wearing considerably more clothes than John Carter?
The Disney version, by whatever title, and howsoever whomsoever shall be dressed or undressed, will almost certainly be superior to the last attempt to remake this particular classic.
ReplyDeletehttp://rrhunsinger.blogspot.com/2010/03/princess-of-mars-traci-lords-is.html
Tim Riggins lives!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. The plot descriptions of John Carter leave me pretty cold, but the New Yorker profile of Andrew Stanton made me want to see the movie, just for him.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, I think the name change is about plain old boy-dollars-are-better-than-girl-dollars sexism.
ReplyDeleteI doubt this cover art will be used for the movie tie-in edition...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Princess-Mars-Barsoom-Book/dp/0957886853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322917716&sr=1-1
I do not suggest anyone google image Dejah Thoris while at work...
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