John Carter of Mars

I’m going to pass on seeing this movie.  I have to. 
You see… I watched Starship Troopers.  I watched Battlefield Earth.  Left the theater with teeth clenched, fists balled up tight, and tears in my eyes.  Hollywood ruined a couple of my favorite books. 
I didn’t read comic books as a kid, I read thick novel of epic scale.  The comic kids have had it easy.  Ironman. Captain America.  You don’t have be humiliated saying you loved reading it… Or looking at the pictures as the case may be.  But saying Starship Troopers was your favorite book is tantamount to saying you eat boogers.  Those films of my fondest memories were so bad… I just can’t do this again…

36 thoughts on “John Carter of Mars”

  1. Enjoyed it. Didn’t have the cheesy low budget feel. 15 yr old daughter went along and it introduced her to the characters and basic story line. I s’pect she’ll be putting it on her reading list now.

  2. I look at Starship Troopers the book and the movie as 2 different animals.
    Most of the movie is made up separate from the book, so I do not look at them as related.
    Viewed on its own… the movie never fails to put a grin on my face.
    Compared to the book… its a huge pile of WTF?!?!?!
    The book is AMAZING… the movie is fun, IF not viewed as a movie adaptation of the book.
    I think a true big screen adaptation would have been something to see.

    Jim

    1. I totally agree. I did leave the theater pissed off like the Ogre. The book Starship Troopers was iconic. My expectations of the movie were high and I hated it. Later, I watched the movie again, not really thinking about the book and I liked it for what it was–guess I just disconnected those things in my brain. I can enjoy the movie now and never think of the book.

      Don’t even get me started on Dune.

      I still have nightmares of “greased-up Sting”. Sorry for the reminder…

  3. Yeah, Starship Troopers. I’d been waiting for a Starship Troopers movie since I first read the book, what? forty years ago? The first chapter begged to be put on the big screen and what do we get? Bugs that can poop and target plasma over interstellar space. This was worse than Burglar where they turned a middle aged Jewish man into Whoopie Goldberg and dressed her in leather.

  4. Hmmm. I haven’t read A Princess of Mars, but I’m beginning to think I should before I see John Carter.

  5. Paul Verhoeven should have been crucified on the corner of Hollywood and Vine for what he did to one of the greatest books of all time (aka Starship Troopers), and no, Robocop did not make up for it. A friend went to see John Carter and like it well enough, he said it would have been better without the Disney whitewash. I myself knew it was a bad deal, the Martians didn’t wear clothes you know.

  6. What ever happened to kick-ass movies where a bunch of cowboys are blowing away Indians, or GIs are smoking Germans? Why is everything now about humans vs. some space creatures? Forget “John Carter”, I’m giving up on Hollywood.

  7. Those are great books. You can get the e-reader versions of almost every book Burroughs wrote (54, I think) for free. The Tarzan series, science fiction, westerns; I read them all last year. The movie’s had a lot of good reviews, but if it’s anything like “Master and Commander”, it’ll be a disappointment to anybody who’s read the books. I’ll wait until it’s on TV.

      1. You’ll need to go to the gutenburg.au site for the last four novels.

        Because of a certain cartoon rodent, a big media mogul has had congress extend copyright in the US to ridiculous amounts of time.

  8. I read all the Barsom novels as a kid. I reread the first two in prep for the movie. Disney screwed it up. The plot is a chop job. The Tharks were pretty good and the action was ok. Carter’s jumping was bogus, even for movie physics. And the Martian buildings had stairs!

    1. I reread the first novel too and I was totally disappointed. All the main characters were different, and vital the points were glossed over. Some other studio with the balls to show Zodanga getting destroyed and where the hell was the atmosphere plant?

  9. Starship Troopers is still my favorite book. Did you know there was a board game based on the book? Yep and I have one. Envy me.

      1. Nope. I’ll take a pic and send it to you and if I can ever get my lazy butt up to shoot with you I’ll bring it along. I have absolutely no idea how it’s played but we can always wing it.

  10. Maybe I’m one of those weird people who hated Starship Troopers (the book.) My wife says so… I mean, it wasn’t as bad as the Lord of the Rings, but it was still pretty terrible. If I want to waste my time again reading someone’s disjointed treatise on his own half-baked, homemade political system, I guess it’ll have to be Das Kapital or Mein Kampf.

  11. Dude, go see it. It’s not a perfect adaptation of the books, but its close enough. Reminds me of the movies Hollywood used to make, back when their heads weren’t shoved up their @$$es.

  12. Dejah Thoris in a speech to the Green Martians from the book “A Princess of Mars”

    “A people without written language, without art, without homes, without love; the victim of eons of the horrible community idea. Owning everything in common, even to your women and children, has resulted in your owning nothing in common. You hate each other as you hate all else except yourselves.”

    Sound familiar?

  13. While intertaining, the movie was a hatchet job.
    They got dejas look down, but not the characterisation.
    These days, I suppose all princesses must be warrior princesses.

    The swords were wrong, as were the costumes in general.
    I suppose they couldn’t put Burroghs barsoomian fashons on the big screen, though.

    They made the tharks faces far to human.

    They murdered the therns. They bear little resemblance to those in the novels.

    They threw out the plot for one they made up of whole cloth.
    They didn’t even touch on the one plot burroghs ever used.
    (Boy meets girl, boy offends girl, boy moves heaven and earth to rescue girl,
    boy gets girl. rinse, repeat for sequels)

    I think they got Kantos Kan right, though.

    Even with all this bitchin, I hope the movie does well, as it is better than 90%
    of the dreck out there, and it is the best adaptation of the barsoomian novels to date.

    Mabye we can get a good adaptation of the pelucidar or venusian novels.

    Mogg.

  14. I can happily say it’s not terrible. It’s much more of a movie than ST or BE. Even though I liked both of those movies ok by themselves.

    Plus, the chick is HOT so there you are.

    1. +1 on the hot chick.

      She can act, too.

      I was so afraid they were going to cast a bubbleheaded bleached blonde.

  15. Saw the movie yesterday, was glad I had read the interweb books 1st, It made more sense to me. And agree on bits and pieces of several plots(books) involved. Overall enjoyable movie….but 1 rant….. 10 bucks for sm drink and popcorn…..jeez

  16. I found the book star shiptroopers in my high school, in a box that was being put out by the dumpster. It really made want to join the army. It’s been ten years. That book should be a book guys have to read in high school. GO RANGERS

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