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John Carter

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Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
Did anyone watch this movie?

I saw it last night and found it enjoyable. On the technical side, I thought the CG was pretty well done, especially the 4-armed green guys. Was enough variation between them that they felt like actual people.

I'm curious as to you guys' opinions. Especially if someone has read the books and can do a comparison.

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  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    I absolutely loved this damn movie! Seriously.

    Peoples biggest problem with it was of course the forced love story but i didn't care. I thought the Tharks were done FLawlessly! The models looked incredible. The scene where tars tarkas is in the prison on his back and you can see his adams apple movie under the skin, rediculous. I will be happy if I'm ever even half as good as that haha.

    I really got a great sense of adventure and wanderlust while watching this movie. Which is for me all i require out of a film.

    I haven't read the books but my coworker went with me and read the books as a child. He said the biggest difference was John carters relationship with the tharks. They of course had more time to develop that relationship in the books over the movies.

    All in all this movie was great for me. I loved it, it really had an old 80's adventure movie vibe to it in my opinion. There were some problems but never anything to detract from the fun-ness of the movie.
  • Slum
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    Slum polycounter lvl 18
    I thought it was great. I'll get it on BluRay, hopefully they make a sequel :)
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    I will see this, I'm a huge fan of the books and it seems like the negative reviews focus on how it tries to stick too closely to the original stories.
  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    I saw it last week. the 1st 10 mins or so feels a little cheesey like the stargate show, but 30 mins in I was sold and loving the movie. that dog thing is ridiculously cute in a ugly/pug sorta way, probably my fav thing about it. the CH was really well done and the designs of things were pretty interesting. overall really enjoyed it.
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    I enjoyed it but wasnt overwhelmed by it to be honest. DONT SEE IN 3D!!!! its retro-fitted and not good, save your moneys :)
  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    I will see this, I'm a huge fan of the books and it seems like the negative reviews focus on how it tries to stick too closely to the original stories.

    Yeah, that's what I'm most curious about. I don't know enough about the books to be able to tell the difference. Please do come back and let us know what you think.

    The most common criticism I hear is along the lines of "There's no way any of that shit was in the books", but of course none of those people had actually read it.

    BTW, anyone knows of any game coming up for it? I would think they would have signed some kind of deal.
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    I really enjoyed it, I was really impressed with how seamless the CG was.
  • wester
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    wester polycounter lvl 13
    crazyfool: never...EVER ever ever see 3d converted movies haha. They are an abomination and only feed studios need to make movies gimicky, not to mention physically painful to watch. The only 3d movies you should see are rendered 3d, animated films as they're rendered in stereoscopic 3d.
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    haha yea, I got me and my lady a cineworld card which gets us unlimited cinema each month and 3d only costs us £1.50 each, as opposed to the usual £9 each!!!!! complete rip off
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    well, there is one change I know they made - in the books everyone is completely naked.
    Bigjohn wrote: »
    BTW, anyone knows of any game coming up for it? I would think they would have signed some kind of deal.

    Well, it's considered a commercial failure so I doubt it :(
  • Talbot
    Last week an alumni came to my school and did a talk about his work on John Carter. He was from Pixar and Andrew Stanton brought him to work on the movie. His biggest contribution was coming up with the design for Woola. It was pretty cool to see the development of the characters.

    Still haven't gone out to see it though. Maybe this next weekend. I've heard it isn't perfect but still pretty awesome. :)
  • Swizzle
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    Swizzle polycounter lvl 16
    I saw it last night. I thought the CG in general was pretty damn solid, especially the animation and shader work on the Tharks. Unfortunately, that's basically the best thing I can say about the entire ordeal.

    There were a couple of shots that were noticeably badly framed, even for someone like me who has zero film or photography experience, I didn't actually care about any of the human (or human/Martian/whatever you want to call them) characters because I simply had no reason to, the bad guys seemed like they were only being bad to, well, be bad, and the number of times I actually winced at crap dialogue was way too damn high for a single movie.

    There were also plot holes galore, such as how and why the moving city was sucking Mars dry, why the Tharks thought John Carter was any different from the human-looking Martians aside from his jumping ability and strength, and why the actual bad dudes were manipulating McNulty* when they could've just taken his shape and the shape of the princess and king and done whatever the hell they wanted. There are even more plot holes and useless devices that were never explained, even with a single line of dialogue, but fuck it; I don't care enough to list them.

    The entire thing was a clusterfuck aside from the very solid character work by the effects people.


    *I honestly can't remember the guy's name, so he's McNulty from the Wire.
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    It was great, but the issues certain other movies made 30M in the opening week vs. John Carter which barely made 10M, leaves much to be desired.

    Honestly, this is the type of movie you enjoy with aliens.
  • Pedro Amorim
    Must say that I loved the film. Pretty awesome :)
  • catstyle
    I was really enjoying it up until the first big fight scene where he takes on that small army

    it had its moments though, and the cg/creature work was amazing

    I loved when he first arrived there and met all the different species/learned how to walk
  • Y_M
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    Y_M polycounter lvl 10
    Whew came in here looking for good/bad opinions rather than spoilers. Survived!

    Going to see this on Wednesday when it's half price. I've heard unanimously from my friends that it's utterly terrible, yet you guys seem to unanimously enjoy it. Since I'm pretty much in it for the CG (same with Avatar really) Hope it'll be good :D
  • skylebones
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    skylebones polycounter lvl 10
    I thought it had some weird pacing issues, but man was this a fun movie! Really enjoyed it. Sad to see it beaten by the lorax.
  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 14
    Swizzle wrote: »
    why the Tharks thought John Carter was any different from the human-looking Martians aside from his jumping ability and strength, and why the actual bad dudes were manipulating McNulty* when they could've just taken his shape and the shape of the princess and king and done whatever the hell they wanted. There are even more plot holes and useless devices that were never explained, even with a single line of dialogue, but fuck it; I don't care enough to list them.

    Carter was white while the rest of the human marsians were red marsians(the tharks are known as the green marsians I think). Only the bald monk guys were white like Carter. As for not manipulating Mcnulty I think the leader of the monks said something about wanting to have things a certain way and they had picked Mcnulty to be the leader or whatever. They were being very vague about it, I guess we'll find out in a sequel or whatever.
    To the guys who've read the books; Are the creatures on mars described as cute looking as they look in the movie? That quick dog looked like something out of a kids story, is it described as cute and round in the books?
  • dfacto
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    dfacto polycounter lvl 18
    It's an adventure film in the vein of Prince of Persia, down to people bitching about it, but with less charm. I found it entertaining, but nothing special. The effects are good though, have to hand them that.
  • Azreality
    I went in with low expectations and came out surprised. I actually enjoyed the movie for what it was... it was very creative I thought and had many interesting tech.
  • conte
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    conte polycounter lvl 18
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    The film made a $260 million loss - which is quite frankly absurd. Whoever game a film a $350 million budget needs their head on a chopping block, because in order to break even, that means around 80 million people need to go and watch it...
  • MainManiac
  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    I see Scott Pilgrim all over again, horrible movies intake, but will make up for it on DVD and post sales, but will force Disney to fold the team anyway.
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    I don't think they'll make this one back with merchandise, I suspect it'll do just as badly on DVD - mostly because it's a tepid film at best.
  • Darth Tomi
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    Darth Tomi polycounter lvl 12
    The previews make it look like a cross between that Prince of Persia movie and a Star Wars prequel, even having JarJar Binks.
  • bounchfx
    saw it with very low expectations... came out really enjoying it.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    John Carter's first encounter with Woola:

    "It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks."

    A Princess of Mars is in the public domain so you can get it for free here at Project Gutenberg.
  • BlvdNights
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    BlvdNights polycounter lvl 8
    I heard that there were too many cooks in the kitchen and Andrew Stanton lost control over editing. Shame too, I love his Pixar work.
  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    John Carter's first encounter with Woola:

    "It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy. The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks."

    A Princess of Mars is in the public domain so you can get it for free here at Project Gutenberg.

    I was thinking about it being in the public domain too, was wondering if that was the case. And if so, that means that anyone can make a game off of it.
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