John Carter

Title - John Carter
Language - English
Genre - Sci-fi

Characters

John Carter - Our hero, an earth man & a bit of a rogue

Dejah Thoris - A Red Martian princess

Tars Tarkas - A Green Martian warrior

Sab Than - A red Martian, our villain (kind of)

John Carter is a Disney film based upon ‘The Princess of Mars’ by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan and follows John Carter a soldier in the American confederate army who finds himself transported to Mars.

I have to say that when I started to watch John Carter I was unsure of what to expect as most of the review’s I had read had said how bad it was but I have to disagree with them.

The film is not entirely faithful to the book but it keeps the same feel. For example When John is transported to Mars in the book he is chased by Native Americans into a cave where he experiences a strange sensation, hears a creature behind him and then passes out to wake up on Mars, where as in the film he is chased into the same cave but he finds a dying Martian who is attempting to return to Mars but who ends up sending John instead, this is all part of a slightly new story line which does work well in the film.

There are some quite funny moments in John Carter some of which are brought from the book.  When John first arrives on Mars he doesn’t know where he is and so doesn’t expect the difference in gravity resulting in his comedic attempts to move, this scene is played for laughs but also sets up  things for further in the film.  I’ve read that this scene in the book was part of what influenced the creation of Superman who, when he first appeared couldn't fly but could leap tall buildings with a single bound and, when seeing it on the screen it is easy to how the two could be linked.

Another good thing about the film is the portrayal of  Dejah Thoris who is a Martian princess who is being forced into marriage for political reasons.  Although she is being forced to marry someone she doesn’t want to she is not portrayed as needing saving and shows, more than once that she can stand on her own to feet.  It’s worth noting that she is also depicted wearing more clothing than in the book although this is probably due to the film being a Disney film and so aimed a younger audience.

One thing worth mentioning are the effects.  One of the reasons John carter is slated in other reviews is the amount of money it cost to make but you can see that a lot of it went into the effects.  There are three intelligent humanoid(ish) races on Mars in the first book as well as the animals and in the film there is an extra race.  The new race and the red Martians are the most human so they would be the most easy to do but the four armed green Martians and the white apes of Mars needed to have some money spent on them otherwise they may have looked out of place or tacky and it was obvious that the money had been spent on all of the film and not just the main characters, this was shown in the baby green Martians.

One thing John carter avoids is the slight racist tone of the books which is a sign of the time they were written in although this was more obvious in the second book than the first.

Over all I found John Carter a quite enjoyable movie that would be fun to watch with the family.