Melissia wrote:No, but it is the height of hollywood stupidity and arrogance to suggest that Tom "I'd Like to Crash and Burn... In Your Ass" Cruise is the last samurai

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:My take was that I couldn't relate to any of the characters and no one really had a reason for doing anything they did.

It's worth noting that, all other considerations aside, bringing A Princess of Mars (the primary book on which John Carter is based) was always going to be a difficult proposition. The 1917 novel rambles, following John Carter as he wanders from place to place, meeting people and becoming involved in various intrigues on the Red Planet as he does so. Any cinematic adaptation that wasn't three or more hours long would likely have to concentrate on certain characters and events in order to present a more coherent narrative. In doing so, other events and characters would need to be minimized or dropped entirely, particularly those that don't support the coherent narrative the director has chosen to advance. I readily accept that, which is why I don't begrudge Stanton for most of his omissions.

What I do begrudge him for, though, are his additions, not merely because they diverge from Burroughs but also because they actually make the movie's narratives less coherent than the rambling raw material from which it's drawn. The two biggest problems are its main characters, John Carter and Dejah Thoris, with the eponymous hero being the worse of the two. Here's how Burroughs describes John Carter in his foreword to A Princess of Mars:

My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom I called Uncle Jack.

He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world. We all loved him, and our slaves fairly worshipped the ground he trod.

He was a splendid specimen of manhood, standing a good two inches over six feet, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, with the carriage of the trained fighting man. His features were regular and clear cut, his hair black and closely cropped, while his eyes were of a steel gray, reflecting a strong and loyal character, filled with fire and initiative. His manners were perfect, and his courtliness was that of a typical southern gentleman of the highest type.

The movie version of Carter, though, is nothing like the one described here. He is a broken man, "lost in our world" (as the movie poster proclaims him), suffering from a (totally invented) tragic past. Movie Carter spends close to half the film seeking a way to escape Mars and return to Earth, where he believes a fortune in gold awaits him. Despite the wonders he sees on Barsoom, he cares little for the planet or its inhabitants, including Dejah Thoris, the first human-like being he encounters. He is sullen and self-obsessed, almost to the point of being anti-heroic. There is a moment in the film, shortly after he rescues the incomparable princess from the Zodangans when I thought, for a brief moment, that the real John Carter would finally make his debut. With hordes of baddies rushing at her, Carter grabs a sword -- her sword, which should have been my first clue about how this would end -- and stands in front of her, saying something to the effect of "Stay behind me, ma'am; this could get dangerous."

But, apparently, chivalry is dead, even on the Red Planet. Dejah Thoris is offended by this Jasoomian effrontery and quickly shows Captain Carter that she needs no saving. The scene is, I expect, intended to be funny and to play with our expectations, but it has the effect of further lessening John Carter as both a character and as a hero. Granted I'm a Neanderthal, who wasn't too keen to see female warriors among the Slightly-Tan Martians either, but, even given that, I do think, purely from a storytelling perspective, having Dejah Thoris upstage Carter as a warrior so early in the story does little to make me like him as a character. Indeed, it only contributes to one of the film's biggest problems: why does anyone care about John Carter? Sure, he can jump very high and is equally strong, but so what? As portrayed in much of the movie, he's a withdrawn, bitter grump, who cares more about his riches on Earth than fate of Barsoom. Why would anyone follow this guy? "Because his name is in the title" seems to be the only explanation.

Now, I understand why Stanton changed Carter's character -- to give him an "arc" -- but I hate it nonetheless. Not only does it deviate from Burroughs's portrayal of the character, but it actually made the plot of the film slower paced and less exciting than it ought to have been. When you only have two hours, give or take, to tell a story in a setting filled with wondrous and exotic things, wouldn't it save a lot of time if you don't have to waste time contriving ways to get your protagonist invested in that setting? Had the cinematic Carter been more like the adventurous Southern gentleman of Burroughs, we might have had time to see more of, say, the Warhoons or the atmosphere plants, two omissions I wished hadn't been made so as to allow for other stuff.