It is entirely possible that a younger and more casual cinema-goer will be looking through the listings in the next week, perusing what’s on offer and wondering if John Carter is the biopic of someone they should know but don’t. Politician, rock-star, ER doctor, perhaps? (Maybe all of them – now there’s a demographic…) Well, no… but in this fast-moving blockbuster industry it’s perhaps telling that they won’t instantly know the name of a interstellar adventurer the way they do of another Edgar Rice Burroughs creation with a similar pedigree, Tarzan.
John Carter’s long-lost diary tells of a disillusioned American Civil War soldier who has seen his family die and now has no wish to fight for anyone but himself. Carter (Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch) is searching aimlessly for hidden treasure, but that quest, with enemies close on his tail, is about to take a bizarre twist as he finds himself transported to another world. At first he simply wants to get back home to his potential treasure, but the longer he spends in this strange new place, the more he is drawn into a war of words and weapons. Soon John Carter of Earth, will find that Mars has a lot to offer. Salvation, redemption, new friends, new enemies…perhaps even a new cause and purpose. And, naturally, a beautiful princess (Kitsch’s Wolverine co-star Lynn Collins).
Andrew Stanton, director of Finding Nemo and Wall-E, gives us his first live-action movie (albeit with a huge amount of CGI and performance-capture) and he’s picked a project that has foxed many a more established auteur for decades. For him, a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels since a young boy, it was a dream come true. Was he ever worried that such a long-standing passion would get in the way?
“Well, it was my dream to go SEE it. I never had the hubris to think that I’d be in film or directing or doing this job. But I was ready to go and buy a ticket since I was eleven. I wanted my passion to get in the way as much as possible. That’s the only thing that will keep you going – making movies, no matter what they are or what the subject is, is hard. It’s going to be wrong, wrong, wrong… then right. What’s going to get you out there to face it – it’s got to be something you love so much. ..” he offers.
Producer Lindsey Collins says there’s a pragmatic reason it never made it to the screen before – the scope of the ‘Mars’ books (for which Burroughs actually wrote eleven tomes) was simply out of the reach of the technology needed to make it believable .
“To be honest there’s so much that goes into making a movie to begin with. Frankly, I think it’s the technology not being ready. I think that’s why they wanted to make an animated film originally. In previous occasions the technology just wasn’t there,” she explains. “ When Andrew talked about it initially, that was the biggest challenge – would we be able to be in the middle of the desert having a conversation between John Carter and (alien warrior) Tars Tarkas (voiced by Willem Dafoe) and actually have it feel believable. If you didn’t buy it for that simple scene, there’d be no point doing the big epic stuff. We had to prove to ourselves that the technology was up to the challenge.”
There can be little argument that John Carter works well on a technical level. The CGI is very impressive and the canvas it unveils is sometimes breath-taking. The entire production designing team should be up for awards and have created a treat for the eyes. Story-wise, there’s a fundamental problem which is not entirely the film’s own fault. Granted, it begins with an overly portentious narration and runs a good thirty minutes too long, but the bigger obstacle is that such was the influence of the original novels that in the almost century since they were written, the best bits have been plundered for more famous and sometimes inferior books and moving pictures. The aliens with the names so exotic they sound like ingredients for a Mos Eisley happy hour, manipulative super-beings with shady agendas, damsels in distress and quests for riches… combined together you need to keep reminding yourself that this film isn’t pinching from others, it’s reclaiming its own heritage, albeit behind the curve.
Though not perfect, John Carter is a film that would normally have seemed destined for a summer release, combined with all the marketing moxie that a distributor could muster. Instead? It’s been released in March, months ahead of the nearest blockbusters and with less fanfare than even a 21 Jump Street remake. If it was awful, one could see the strategy, but there’s nothing inherently wrong here.
What doesn’t help is the dropping of the fuller name from the books and the original intended title: John Carter :Warlord of Mars, which at least gives the film a context. When I ask Stanton about that, and the problems it may mean for finding its wider audience and key demographics, I get only a few words into my question before he interrupts and chastises me for daring to ask the question itself…
“You’re starting WRONG because you think I have to worry about the outside world’s gonna think,” he challenges.” If you go to any interview I’ve had in the last twenty years, since Toy Story, we keep telling you that we DON’T think about who the audience is. So if you ask me this question next year, ten years from now or twenty years from now, I’m gonna keep telling you: ‘We don’t think about who the audience is…’ I don’t expect other artists that I follow in music or books or art to be thinking about who I am and what I want. I follow them because they are following THEIR passion and doing what they want to do!”
But wait... surely it’s a wise idea to at least give an audience an inkling of what your film is about?
“Well that’s a MARKETING problem! That’s their issue about how you deal with getting people past their first impressions. You see it all the time with subtitled movies. ‘Oh, I don’t like to read, so I won’t go see it!’ and they rob themselves of a great movie. Sadly, people are a victim to their first impression, but the worst thing to do is be making content that you’re making out of fear, based on what you think first impressions are,” he grumbles. “They did feel that a lot of people said ‘I don’t like sci-fi…” and walked away. I know it’s hard for you to believe but a lot of people think they don’t like sci-fi. You looked shock, but there’s a lot of people who don’t. “
While it’s clear that Stanton is rightly keen on artistic integrity, his combative stance is undermined by basic logic. In a highly competitive market and in a bad financial climate audiences positively demand - not unreasonably - to have some idea of what they’re going to see - long gone are the days of taking a wild punt in the dark. Sci-fi is big business and while this is a genuinely deeper and fuller offering than most there’s nothing to be lost by admitting it falls in that genre. A basic written title- listing with name alone will give no clue to a casual film-goer of the type of film John Carter might be and any advertising with a poster instantly reveals the extra-terrestrial setting anyway. Removing ‘Mars’ serves NO sensible or positive purpose and can do NOTHING but hurt the eventual box-office the film would need for the sequel that Stanton so wants to make.
But for the moment this Conan meets Avatar romp, - shall we call it ‘sand-punk’ ? I think we will - complete with Frank Frazetta-esque design, three dimensional action and with its heart in the right place, is a solid cosmic romp. Perhaps a little too intricate and mythological for younger audiences, we still have a decent all-ages adventure with a hint of an edge and a great pedigree. It’s just a shame that those most likely to enjoy getting Carter may not even know it’s out there. Literally.
John Carter (12A) is released by Disney on 9th March
8/10
