John Carter comes out next week and I’ve had a hard time giving a hoot. I’ve been reading good things, I’ve heard positive reviews from people who have seen advanced screenings. But I’m not feeling the love and tweeted as much a few days ago…
That’s pretty snarky. And, frankly, kind of mean. But every time I see a commercial on television promoting John Carter, I’m having a hard time finding a reason to care. Watch this TV spot and tell me the movie doesn’t look like a Prince of Persia rehash with about 70% more jumping…
A few days after my original tweet, director Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) tweeted the following:
For some reason (I don’t know why) I felt compelled to respond:
Things were well and good until Brad Bird responded… and retweeted me.
What happened next was a crazy twit-storm of retweets and replies from people I’ve never heard from and it provided me with an interesting window into the fan reaction to John Carter.
(Incidentally, the story was picked up by IndieWire and I was name-checked, so that was kind of cool.)
There are a lot of people who are really excited about this movie. I think that’s great. I’m glad they’re excited. But there seem to be just as many people out there like me who are confused about what John Carter actually is and and struggling for a reason to care.
Perhaps Disney is seeking to prevent confusion. Writer/Director Andrew Stanton’s resume is alarmingly good. But pretty much everything he’s done is for Pixar. Maybe Disney didn’t want people thinking it was a Pixar movie?
Maybe they thought John Carter as a property was attractive enough on it’s own? Lately I’ve been seeing ads propping the character as “Before Star Wars… Before Avatar… THERE WAS JOHN CARTER.” They then go on to explain that Carter was the character that inspired those franchises.
I guess I kind of have to take your word for it. But that still doesn’t mean you’ve given me a reason to care.
Arguably, you could say the same thing about The Avengers – a movie I’m positively gaga for. If you don’t read comics, you probably don’t have a reason to care, either. I guess it’s all subjective.
I don’t want to be put into the position of arguing that the studios should have to spoon-feed everything to us about their upcoming films. But first impressions count for a lot. So if I’m not seeing anything in the promotion of a film that indicates to me that it might align with my tastes, I’m not going to do any additional leg work to confirm if that’s true or not.
Now, if someone had told me before hand that Andrew Stanton was directing, I might have sat up and took notice. But I still feel like Disney dropped the ball on this one. To a certain degree, the die has already been cast.
Does that mean I won’t see John Carter next weekend? Maybe, maybe not. Disney still has a week left to convince me. And who knows? Maybe some positive reviews will come out between now and then that tips me toward seeing it.
Then again, if Brad Bird telling you the film is awesome doesn’t convince me, I guess I don’t know what would. Call me crazy, but he probably knows what he’s talking about. ;D
wait – it comes out next weekend?!
I agree, Disney has dropped the ball. I’m sort of excited about the movie, mostly because I’ve read a few of the books back in my teens when I was on a massive Burroughs kick. Sadly, I see this film looking good, being fun, and ultimately going the way of Prince of Persia, a franchise that should have legs but goes nowhere. It’ll be The Rocketeer all over again.
For what it’s worth, I’m kind of okay with the fact that there’s only one Rocketeer movie. That movie has a soft spot in my heart.
It’s a good comparison, though. Because I had no idea there was any kind of serialized franchise for The Rocketeer before they made a movie out of it. But the pitch was pretty easy to understand. “Man finds rocket backpack. Man becomes Rocketeer!”
I think you and Brad are essentially noticing the same thing, just from different angles. He’s not seeing enough press for a movie he sees as not-just-another-rehash. You’re not seeing enough press regarding why the heck you should care about said movie.
From the trailer, it seems like a sci-fi adventure where some guy who seems to have super powers of some sort has to play hero on an alien planet in order to save his own. And…that’s it? It may not be a movie that has been made before, but it still seems a little rehashy. Making a movie about a subject that has inspired other movies doesn’t seem like anything new. It just seems like we’ll be seeing the same themes played out in a different environment.
I’ve never read the comic books for any of the Marvel characters, but I’m still super excited for The Avengers, but the majority of the public knows the basics of the characters in the movie, so they somewhat know what to expect.
But for John Carter it seems like it’s just not nearly known enough for how they advertising it. Like they expected it to be a publicly known name, and no one I’ve talked to has even heard about it before. I would definitely say Disney dropped the ball on their initial advertising for it.
The advertising, to me, screams, “You should already know who John Carter is so we don’t have to tell you anything about it except that he was before Star Wars and Avatar and it’s brought to you by the same people who brought you Pirates of the Caribbean.” The only thing I think of when I hear “John Carter” is Noah Wyle playing John Carter on the TV show ER.
Now I will say that the ads made me want to figure out why I am supposed to know who John Carter is – and maybe based off of that I may go see the movie. But the ads I’ve seen didn’t exactly make me want to pre-order tickets or anything.
What do you mean, noone knows what it is?!! It’s this film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1531911/. Stark reminder that Traci Lords needs to just stop now…
It was rubbish on Syfy, it’ll be rubbish on the big screen.
They should have cast Anthony Sabato Jr. for the Disney version as well.