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.

 

Quatermass and the Pit

Title - Quatermass and the pit  (five million years to earth)
Language - English
Genre - Horror, Sci-Fi

Quatermass and the pit is the third Quatermass film, the first in colour and the last one by Hammer horror.

The film starts with a team of workers digging to extend the ‘Hobb’s end’ tube station in the London underground when they discover a number of skulls and skeletons.  The site is then handed over to Dr Mathew Roney who believes that the skulls belong to an ancestor of man who roamed the earth five million years ago.  The excavation is halted when the team discover a strange item that is believed to be a bomb of some type.

At the same time Professor Quatermass has been called in to a meeting with Colonel Breen who tells him that his rocket/moon project is now being controlled by the military, Quatermass is not happy about this.  The meeting is interrupted by a message to Colonel Breen asking for him to go to the Hobbs end site with bomb disposal to examine the object they have found.

The object is said to be safe so it is fully uncovered.  The team find an entrance and, once inside they find a room full of what appears to be giant insects.  Breen believes that is an old experimental German V weapon and the creatures are fake, put there to scare British during the war but Quatermass and the archaeological team believe it is something else and that is is tied to all the tales of haunting that have been reported around Hobbs end all through history.

Out of the four films Quatermass and the Pit the most different, the other three concern themselves with an alien threat that has come from beyond the stars and, even though the first two take some influence from horror as well as sci-fi Quatermass and the pit is, at it’s core a horror film with leanings towards Sci-Fi.

There seems to be an anti military message in Quatermass and the pit.  this is first evident when Quatermass finds out that his project is going to be taken over by the military, he is outraged as he sees the colonization of other planets as a way of leaving our old warlike  behind.  The theme is carried on by the way the army is portrayed.  Both  Quatermass & Breen  refuse to believe that any of the supernatural events are connected to the find at hobbs end, in fact both refuse to believe in the supernatural at all, but as the film goes on  Quatermass begins to accept that there is something odd happening and that it is connected to the aliens whereas Breen just becomes more and more stubborn and un-receptive to anything other than his own theory.  There is also a hint of an army with the aliens/ possessed human as they go ahead with the racial cull.

The Aliens in this film seem to be better developed that in the previous two films, they have a better back story and more of a reason to want to conquer us although this does cause a problem with the effects.  This is overcome well though, the scenes on Mars are always seen through grainy footage and the alien corps’ are meant to be degrading so they are not seen for long.

The intertwining of Sci-Fi and horror is also handled well, the way the memories of the aliens have become change over time to become our devils is used well and the explanation that phenomenon such as ghosts and poltergeists are actually caused by latent psychic power inherited from the Martians is interesting.  It is interesting to note that there a similar theories about poltergeists in the real word, minus the aliens of course.

I feel that Quatermass and the pit is best of the four films, it has a strong story and a good mix of horror and Sci-Fi and is definitely well worth a watch.