It’s no secret that Disney’s been scrambling to counteract bad tracking and mixed word of mouth on their mega-budgeted March actioner John Carter , so it’s worth a look to see what they’ve done with the latest (and “final”) trailer for the Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation. And behold! A trailer filled with nearly everything that makes John Carter worth going to see: Alien creatures, political intrigue, Taylor Kitsch in a loincloth, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, and lots of inventive, fantastical action. The trailer doesn’t bother trying to explain what Kitsch’s American Civil War veteran John Carter is doing on the strange world of Mars, caught between various factions in a planetary war who each want his heightened battle skills to use as their secret weapon. Nor does it try to woo the ladies, or at least what studio execs think of as the traditionally-minded romantic-leaning female demographic, by spending too much time on Carter’s series-defining love affair with the Martian princess. Nope, this trailer gives us action, and from the start: John Carter leaps over his enemies in battle, slashing his way through to victory so well that even Mark Strong’s all-knowing Thern leader has to ask, “Who is that??” We glimpse the film’s breathtaking aerial battles, but those podracer-esque aircrafts are barely seen. Star Wars similarities , begone! The trailer ends as it begins — with a John Carter fight, this time in an arena against a giant white ape. It’s one of the better action scenes of the film, and yet doesn’t reveal too much. Disney’s already (most likely) got the Burroughs diehards in the bag, not to mention whatever Pixar fans may come out to support/check out Finding Nemo and WALL-E director Andrew Stanton in his live-action debut. Does a trailer like this engage the uninitiated male demo enough to turn the tide of bad, or underwhelming, word of mouth? And if Disney doesn’t get a certain female audience with this clip, Kitsch’s niche Friday Night Lights following aside, is that okay? As a lifelong fan of sci-fi and fantasy myself, I was immersed in the world of John Carter as soon as he hit the sandy dunes of Mars. If you aren’t interested by now in at least checking out John Carter , no amount of calculated marketing is likely to change that. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Noooooooooooooo : “But get this — there’s another MIA actor that’s getting far more attention for the fact that he’ll be missing the ceremony this year. In fact, our source says it’s who most inquiries are about these days: The Artist ‘s Uggie. Yep, our sources confirm the pooch is out for the grand ceremony. And that breaks our hearts! Heck, the dog probably is more deserving of a Best Supporting Actor nomination that Jonah Hill, but that’s just our humble opinion.” Preach it , boys, preach it . [ E! ]
I mean, obviously : “Now, anyone who’s ever been grossed out in hindsight by the big smooch Leia gives Luke in A New Hope (whose renaming here is way too hysterical for us to give away) be forewarned: The incestuous high-jinks go way, way further in this version. For one, in an effort to earn her freedom, Leia (Allie Haze) blows daddy-o Darth Vader (Lexington Steele—speaking of which, at what point exactly did Anakin turn bla … never mind). For two, Luke (Seth Gamble) joins Han in double-teaming Sis as celebration of blowing up the Death Star. And the effects! Yes, we’ve seen a lot of highly impressive effects in adult productions over the last several years, but this undeniably and unequivocally sets a new bar. The lightsabers, the battle ships, the droids, the Death Star … if you didn’t know any better, you’d think someone from Lucasfilm actually had a hand in crafting this.” [ AVN , link NSFW]
If you enjoyed watching Liam Neeson battle territorial wolves in Joe Carnahan’s The Grey — and plenty of moviegoers have — then you’d be well-advised to look into Lee Tamahori’s 1997 thriller The Edge . Starring Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin and perhaps best characterized by screenwriter David Mamet’s trademark clipped dialogue, the film is an unusually strong entry in the survival-story tradition — and one to which The Grey owes at least a spiritual debt (if not more). This genre is certainly well-trod territory, and perhaps for good reason: Dramatically speaking, it’s pretty hard to get it wrong. You strand characters in the harsh wilderness. They experience hardship. Eventually they learn to face mortality with some measure of grace. They make it out, or they don’t. The Grey is the more genre-typical of the two films and draws more readily from those aspects that are common to all stories of its type, with the added attraction of some great camera work and a strong performance from Liam Neeson. The Edge , however, transcends those trappings to offer a more philosophical, character-centered naturalist meditation. Don’t let the overcranked trailer fool you: The difference between the two films is all the more striking if only because their plot points are so remarkably similar, even for a genre that necessarily has to hit a few key points. In both, a plane crashes in a forest, and the survivors are forced to fend for themselves against the elements and wild beasts. While in The Grey , we see a marauding pack of arctic wolves randomly picking off crash survivors one by one, The Edge features an equally bloodthirsty grizzly bear. Both films have leaders emerge in the forms of Neeson’s Ottway and Hopkins’s Charles Morse, who each tries to save his respective group from starvation and creeping despair. And in each film there is a character who vocalizes the direness of the situation at every turn, a stock role that should probably be known as the “Game over!” guy, after Bill Paxton’s panicky emergency-narrator from Aliens . Thematically, both films juxtapose the behavior of modern men with the untamed wild, showing that the safety of civilization can be blinding to what is essentially human. The Grey is a lot harder-nosed, preoccupied with the endurance of man as an animal; The Edge , meanwhile, focuses on the ingenuity of man as a thinking being. And while the latter film’s emphasis on reason ultimately makes it the stronger of the two, that isn’t to say that The Edge is all profound rumination. There is still a ravenous bear to be faced, a lot of great action and one of the greatest motivational speeches in film history: The idea that being stranded in the wild eventually amounts to a spiritual boon for those stranded — even as they are exposed to all sorts of peril and privation — is present in almost every survival story. But this theme comes off especially well in The Edge , because as a survivalist, Morse understands that mere survival is not enough. He’s more than just a Robinson Crusoe-figure, whose main goal is to persevere by taming the wilderness. Instead, Morse allows himself to be changed. He doesn’t feel the loneliness of, say, Tom Hanks’s character in Cast Away , or the alienation of the protagonist of Into the Wild — both of whom experience a character arc that could have happened in a different setting. With Morse, Nature itself, and his right relationship with it, is the point. His communion with Nature doesn’t have an ulterior motive, which achieves a strong personalization of a universal idea: Getting right with the material world and, in the process, regaining his own humanity. Nathan Pensky is an associate editor at PopMatters and a contributor at Forbes , among various other outlets. He can be found on Tumblr and Twitter as well.
A trade report last month suggested that Disney’s March sci-fi tent pole John Carter was in serious trouble owing to Pixar vet Andrew Stanton ’s relative inexperience directing live-action film, citing rumors that production reshoots and late-game rejiggering had bloated the budget from $200 million to as much as $300 million. Speaking with press Thursday, Stanton called the report “a complete and utter lie,” insisting that he stayed on time and on budget – but it’s easy to see how the Pixar way of moviemaking may have made for a bumpy transition for the filmmaker. John Carter , adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom sci-fi/fantasy series (created in 1912), introduces a hero and world that influenced many an iconic property that followed, from Star Wars to Avatar ; Stanton, a lifelong fan of the series, makes his live-action directing debut with the pic which combines live-action and CG to create an entirely new world on which its titular hero ( Taylor Kitsch ) finds himself a stranger in a strange land populated by eight-foot tall, four-armed aliens and fantastical creatures. The scope and detail of John Carter ’s alien world and its inhabitants is ambitious, which is both the draw and the risk. The Hollywood Reporter ’s Jan. 19 report cited insiders close to the production and talent in its assessment calling the costly Disney actioner out as being plagued with various problems stemming from Stanton’s inexperience with live-action filmmaking. “Industry sources with links to the project believe it might lead to a staggering write-down,” wrote Kim Masters, portending doom for the ambitious potential trilogy-starter. At the film’s press junket, Stanton and Co. were eager to refute the rumors. “I want to go completely on record that I literally was on budget and on time the entire shoot,” Stanton said. “Disney is so completely psyched that I stayed on budget and on time that they let me have a longer reshoot because I was such a good citizen, so I find it ironic that we’re getting accused of the opposite.” That said, Stanton and producer Lindsey Collins confirmed that the process of hammering out the John Carter story was a long and laborious one even after a first cut of the film was submitted. Collins, a Pixar producer who worked with Stanton on WALL-E , described it as a learning process for translating the Pixar way of doing things into huge-scale live-action filmmaking – first working out the basics, then moving around the pieces until a satisfying film falls into place. “It’s the way we’ve always worked and certainly at Pixar that’s how we work – we get it all up there and put it up and we watch it and go, ‘That’s not working, let’s move that over here,’” she said. “So it doesn’t surprise me at all that that’s how Andrew worked on this one.” That process has resulted in stellar storytelling at Pixar, where films are famously developed and worked over for years with seasoned teams of writers and animators before coming together. The problem comes when that way of working is applied to a project like John Carter , in which live-action footage must first be shot with actors against green screen, sent off to VFX houses to be merged with CG environments, creatures, and effects, and then returned in order to even begin the editing process. Because of his background, Stanton was involved in the animation process more than many directors might have been. The level of involvement was unusually demanding of visual effects vendors who were working on various moving parts with the director, according to Collins. “[Stanton] himself was drawing in all of these draw-overs,” she said, “because when you shoot that stuff 90% of it’s not there. He’s actually cut together these shots of Taylor, by himself, acting to nothing. Andrew was like, for us to be able to look at it narratively I have to be able to draw in these other characters that should be there. It was the only way that we could watch it as a narrative film and see what’s working and what’s not, ‘That’s dragging or that’s playing too fast’ or ‘I don’t understand what’s happening here.’” As reported by THR , even after putting together a first cut Stanton was rewriting major character arcs and story sequence. The lead female character of Martian princess Dejah Thoris, played by actress Lynn Collins, wasn’t quite as strong initially as she is in the final cut, according to producer Collins. Stanton then rearranged key character reveals and scenes — nothing new or shocking to any filmmaking process, live-action or otherwise, but a process that could become incredibly demanding of resources if story was still being hammered out after principal photography. Meanwhile, rumors of skyrocketing budgets aren’t the only issues facing John Carter , which opens March 9. Poor tracking numbers and audience confusion about the project are also concerns Disney is trying to address in the weeks leading up to release. The film’s title, for one, was changed from John Carter of Mars to John Carter to avoid too much of a science fiction/genre association to general audiences, but the truncated title now leaves those unfamiliar with the Burroughs book scratching their heads wondering what John Carter is about. Despite a great initial trailer , subsequent spots have lent too much of a Star Wars feel to the proceedings, and the studio is scrambling to convey that the John Carter of Mars tale isn’t derivative of many of the genre properties of the last few decades, but is in fact the series that spawned many of them. But while nobody’s talking yet in definitive terms about sequels, Stanton’s already prepared to continue; he’s already outlined a full trilogy, filtering the entire John Carter saga down from eleven books, and last week delivered a 25-page outline for the first sequel. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
