Michael Corvin

I don't get it. It just went off the air in 2009.

clappj

I believe the Nook book is actually just the first three volumes of the eleven volume "Mars" series.

Kal-El

Count me in as one of the very few who automatically picture Noah Wyle whenever I see/hear the title of this movie.

Solid Snake

I was a kid when ER was in it's prime. Didn't give a fuck about it. Didn't care about it to watch it as I grew up. I've known of the name John Carter cuz of the influences it's created. Didn't even know there was an ER character w/ the same name. I'd say....The books are more popular than the ER character.

bluetoast

This reminds me of a few times in college when people looked at my bookshelf and thought Gray's Anatomy was about the TV show. They were like "Why do you have a book on that?/You don't watch that show." That was just....yikes.

Giles

only three years?, god it feels like more years than that.

mndtrp

Or, since they are in the public domain, you can just get them for free from Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/sear...uery=burroughs

Solid Snake

ooooh..thanks, mate.

riley_dude

I don't know why people would give Avatar a chance but not this one.

bluetoast

The album is also $3.99 at Amazon for anyone who's interested.

Link

davidh777

Tarzan would be, but not John Carter of Mars. ER was on for 15 years, and highly rated for most of them, and Carter was a central character for most of them. The ER character is more prominent in popular culture, especially among women.

The Bus

I've never heard of John Carter prior to the announcement of this film series. I also watched ER for 5-6 seasons.

John Carter is a generic enough name that it shouldn't bring anything specific to mind for 90% of people.

"They're doing a movie about Bill Smith?!?"
"The lexicographer?"
"No, you idiot, the jazz clarinetist!"

Matthew Chmiel

Fox had $500 million riding on it at the end of the day and Cameron has name recognition based off a little film called Titanic.

People don't know who Andrew Stanton is nor do they care.

Pizza the Hutt

Avatar had years of advance hype, James Cameron at the helm, good reviews and a great ad campaign not to mention a fascinating, beautiful look and terrific use of 3D. Nothing I've seen in any of the John Carter commercials has intrigued me. I haven't read the books and I don't care if if it's some century-old mythology. It just doesn't look that interesting to me and Andrew Stanton's name on it does nothing for me as well, I think his Pixar films are overrated anyways.

TGM

not by a long shot. the general population has never heard of John Carter from Mars. millions of people (including myself) think of the ER character when you hear John Carter. It WAS only the most popular show going for, oh, 8 years?

Ash Ketchum

I'm with Solid Snake on this one. I read the John Carter books back in the '70s. I've never seen ER, nor did I know there was a character on it named John Carter until reading the relevant posts in this thread. But then, our pop culture landscape has become so fragmented in the last 20 years that such disconnects have become quite common.

Oh, and the New York Post gave one star (*) to this film. "Trash for Cash," he calls it:

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...SKczRSiBKzQhIL

Michael Corvin

I just can't bring myself to believe Andrew Stanton is capable of a 1 star film.

AVP77

Add me to the people who had no idea there was some TV character with this name. I've heard of the Burroughs books, haven't read more than a page or two, though.

Add to that, people feel a lot more connection to things they read, if only because it actually requires some engagement. TV is a lot more disposable and no matter how popular a show is, half the people watching are probably in some kind of comatose daze.

Ash Ketchum

Another negative review - "One Long, Muddled, Uninvolving Flashback Made To Set Up A Sequel":

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...et-up-a-sequel

And an interesting take by Anne Thompson on what went wrong at the studio level on this project:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsono...ating-disaster

Michael Corvin

This debate is silly but what the hell...

Very true. However, as mentioned it was the #1 show in the country for multiple years and hung in the top 5 for about 8 years averaging 20 million viewers. That's a lot of damn people.

Second, we're a couch potato nation. Outside of Harry Potter or maybe Twilight, is there a book out there that garnered that many readers the US? Now factor in the fact that A Princess of Mars is 100 years old and you lose nearly all of those readers.

Third, and lastly, we're all dorks who grew up on sci-fi media growing up posting on a message board. The number of folks who know "John Carter" from Burroughs posting here is going to be highly skewed compared to the common movie goer who watched ER for 15 years.

So ultimately, I can't say either way. I didn't read Burroughs growing up, but loved ER. That being said, I didn't make the ER connection until someone else posted. So, uh .

davidh777

This for sure

A call-out to jazz clarinetist William O. "Bill" Smith on DVDTalk!

Ranger

Yeah, add me to the people who first thought of the ER guy.

Disappointed that reviews are negative, was hoping it'd be good. I think this might be like Prince of Persia - weak in US ($90million) but decent overseas ($244 million). Its budget was $200 million.

I really like the suggested John Carter and the Princess of Mars title, but does she have enough screentime to justify it?

BJacks

Yeah, she gets a ton of screentime in this.

Terrell

I don't feel sorry for Disney one bit. They risked 250 million dollars on a complete unknown in Taylor Kitsch, a guy who can't act. In fact, most of the cast are complete unknowns. If they were betting on Stanton, then that was a foolish bet considering he's spent his career in animation, and live action is an entirely different beast.

I wish I could say I had any interest in seeing this, but from the very first footage, I was completely uninterested.

devilshalo

Watched this last night. This was about as epic as Stargate. Didn't get into the film and thought it was ok. Glad it was a free screening, not sure I'd pay to see it.

Was this shot for 3D or a post conversion? Some of the shots worked great while other parts didn't.

Lynn Collins' Princess reminded me a lot of Pamela Hensley's Princess Ardala because they looked very similar.