![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
John Carter of Mars
I've been told the following facts about this movie, which may or may not be true. [Comments by me in brackets and italics.]:
Well, having never read much of Burrough's John Carter stories, I'm going to hold off on the prediction (however accurate it might be) that Hollywood is going to butcher it. The extent of my knowledge of that series comes from Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. I know it's considered one of the classics of pulp SF, of that subgenre known as 'sword and planet' science fiction. There's just very little that you can do to a pulp classic with modern film-making and modern Hollywood trends without making it into a comedy or a parody.
Someone on sfconsim-l, made an interesting observation:
Nothing more for now. Pax.
I've been told the following facts about this movie, which may or may not be true. [Comments by me in brackets and italics.]:
- Script by Ehren Kruger (The Ring, North America version) [So... Salvador Dali on PCP and LSD does pulp SF?]
- Directed by Kerry Conran (Sky Captain). It was going to be directed by Robert Rodriguez, but when he quit the Director's Guild of America to make Sin City, he had to be replaced. [Not exactly very promising here; see below. Also, why did Rodriguez have to quite the DGA to make Sin City?]
- Harry "Ain't It Cool" Knowles is a producer. [Which tells you that THIS MOVIE is GOING TO HAVE a LOT of CAPITAL letters. AND exclamation POINTS!!!!!!! In all seriousness, I didn't even know he was a producer.]
- To be filmed in Australia. [Because nothing says 'post-atomic holocaust wasteland' or 'Mars' like Australia.]
- Effects by Alphaville (The Mummy, Scorpion King) [No complaints here, they did some decent effects for both these movies.]
- Paramount hopes to make it the Carter series a "tent pole" franchise. [I'm assuming that this means Paramount hopes to make John Carter it's next "Star Trek," i.e. milk it for all it's worth until it's drier than the aforementioned post-atomic-holocaust-wasteland/Mars/Australia.]
Well, having never read much of Burrough's John Carter stories, I'm going to hold off on the prediction (however accurate it might be) that Hollywood is going to butcher it. The extent of my knowledge of that series comes from Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. I know it's considered one of the classics of pulp SF, of that subgenre known as 'sword and planet' science fiction. There's just very little that you can do to a pulp classic with modern film-making and modern Hollywood trends without making it into a comedy or a parody.
Someone on sfconsim-l, made an interesting observation:
Scott Palter contends that in a true and just universe, you could teach most of Filmmaking 101 by doing a compare and contrast of the first 10 minutes of Sky Captain and the first 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark.Oooh, burn. And yet oh so true.
Nothing more for now. Pax.
