Selected quotes from the IMDB John Carter message board….

Michael Sellers Other Stuff

As all Edgar Rice Burroughs fans know, John Carter was the greatest swordsman on two worlds and regularly dispatched various bloodthirsty and reprehensible opponents. But none of the battlefields John Carter fought on could possibly be any bloodier than the Internet Movie Data Base Message Board for John Carter (or for any IMDB “wanna be a blockbuster” movie board). Those who spend too much time there run the risk of ending up being permanently scarred, or mentally disabled. I have felt it is my duty to defend JC and ERB’s honor over there, as do many others — but the force of villainy and ignorance are strong…..

Anyway, one of the crowd over there did a collection of the quirky and the humorous quotes from the JC Board, and I thought it would be worth sharing over here. The author — “Princerd” — avoided the more rancorous (thank you!) and one-liners and instead just went for the ones that, instead of evoking anger, evoke a smile or a scratch of the head:

What Did You Say?

Well, I owe myself a dollar. DT is using one-handed sword blocks against her larger, heavier male opponent. xenophile2002

I guess the bottom line one what i’m saying is that the post mortem will need to take all these factors into account. sellers-michael

So I choose “Deluded Fanboys”. As a back-up I blame Obama SpelingErer

Why do trolls always try to inflate the budget? alexchapman77

Why not just toss in abortion, gay marriage, gun control, govetnment, spending, and every other hot-button political issue while you’re at it, Andy? GreatWhiteApeofBarsoom

I’ve always said: If you want the book, read the book. Kuato_and_George

Not being a smart-ass. Maybe I missed something. Kantos_Kan

besides, jackie chan in a full on Nordic beard? i cant see it. leather-jacket13

He was watching the film ‘Primary colors’ and the critic next to him fell asleep twenty minutes into the movie and didn’t wake up until the end. The next morning the critic who fell sleep gave a glowing review of the movie. george-fletcher

Dejah Thoris, tattooed warrior woman who can turn on the snark against heavily armed and trained men mcr76

Then the big ending comes which no one wants me to spoil. baedergarland

I groaned when hearing about the dead family. a-panthan

I live in Los Angeles. It’s very easy to be negative about anything. fatesmith

I was optimistic. jclarke@attglobal.net

Now I did not say that this is a bad movie. It may turn out to be a great movie. I might even wind up liking it. jhjslj

Ok, full disclosure: I have not read A Princess of Mars. That probably influences my opinion that I’d rather he make the film he wants to make rather than worry about what fans think. TribeFan695

This by the way, is why Andrew Stanton had to “read the book, and then throw it away and forget about it” to write his script. fatesmith

I suspect that it will be the kind that leads you to reread the original five times in an effort to forget what you saw. jclarke@attglobal.net

And the way to make a compelling villian is to turn them into space aliens who suck up resources and turn their leader into the Emperor minus the blue lightning and lightsaber? mcr76

Were you there? Did you see him being excited? jclarke@attglobal.net

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man Who Created Tarzan by Irwin Porges –If you seek a book to double as a blunt instrument in a murder plot, this one could do nicely. fatesmith

Who knew criticizing one thing would bring out the Stantonite brigade? mcr76

Things I don’t like, Lynn Collins’ spray tan, Taylor Kistch is not hot enough baedergarland

So why would Martians with a civilization far older than ours be using “1866 era correct” “machinations”? Again Stanton doesn’t get it. Martian society is not steampunk. jclarke@attglobal.net

If you had a city that could move would you bother building a huge flying navy? When you could simply drive your huge city/mega-battle behemoth right up to Helium and pound away at them. jhjslj

I can’t believe how much stuff there is in the world that I never knew existed. I guess I should get out and see more movies. New vocabulary word for the day- ‘steampunk’ baedergarland

Again sorry for the snark. Honestly Burroughs probably didn’t think about it and just made a mistake. He wasn’t perfect after all. Unlike certain directors… mcr76

My mistake then, Alex. I skimmed the posts on this thread, and the implication seemed to be that Zodanga flew. Now you tell me it walks. Honestly I would have preferred to have Zodanga fly rather than walk if the city just had to move. GreatWhiteApeofBarsoom

The ‘dead-wife and kid’, as you all so lovingly call it, maybe takes up maybe 2-3 minutes of the whole film. baedergarland

Thanks for the correction and the history lesson… But man, you’re still raining on my tirade against “Mr. Hollywood Insider”, who should know all this stuff, but suddenly, when confronted with facts, melts away like the wicked witch of the west. citytrader

“Wow! That John Carter’s pretty tough –but thirty years old and never fell in love with a woman? What is that about? Was he a freak or something?” fatesmith

Also if it is “uimportant” to the story then why did Stanton add it? Clearly he thinks it’s important. mcr76

Fine, call ’em Mutt and Jeff and call the story “Stanton’s Fantasy About Mars” and I don’t have a problem with it. But telling your story with another writer’s name on it is simply dishonest. jclarke@attglobal.net

You know, ERB didn’t write that. In a sense though, isn’t it more Burroughs than Burroughs if you see what I mean? fatesmith

On the contrary, you “Hollywood Insider”, you! citytrader

So what would you call ‘I hope it’s a good movie and will be successful and I think it’s entirely possible that Stanton will deliver that, but I would have wanted a more faithful adaptation and no, that does not mean I’m clamoring for a word for word one because I know that’s not possible, I just think it would be possible to make a good movie while staying a lot closer to the source material than Stanton seems to have done’. Pohjanakka

It’s actually quite simple. John Carter is tattooed with the whole history of the Tharks which includes the Barsoomian language. Princerd

@ Princerd, that comment did not deserve 4 rainbow happy faces. Maybe one snarky emoticon. baedergarland

fade in, the words FOUR MONTHS LATER appear on the screen, and hey whaddayano, John Carter can speak Barsoomian. xenophile2002

Everything looks more real than even Avatar. alexchapman77

Well…..If you’re planning to watch the movie on YouTube 360 then by all means, go ahead and judge it that way sellers-michael

You can’t calibrate a monitor to show you how you feel. Psinex6

Don’t mind them, they are just clueless flop_trolls with an irrational hatred for this movie for some reason. seventhid

Well what do you want people to do? NOT have an opinion unless it’s positive? You can’t stop the way you think or feel about something. Kuato_and_George

Don’t try to shoe-horn a mobile metropolis where it doesn’t fit. xenophile2002

Yeah, Ridley Scott fears this movie. Ok. Kuato_and_George

I’m trying to keep a straight face but I can’t. mcr76

You know, it would be really refreshing to see you post something where you actually seem to know what you are talking about. ! citytrader

This message has been hidden because the poster is in your ignore list John_Carter_will_flop

9 comments

  • Excellent thoughts. I particularly like the racism angle — you’re absolutely right, that would have added something and showing that journey…..

  • you covered alot of the thought i had, but honestly I still have more . . . there are just soooooo many possibilities with john carter to give him a story arch

    ummm, there is overcoming greed

    there is the family thing, which I think would be better suited to showcasing the consequences of his immortality

    my personal favorite though has to be overcoming racism, and I think that would have been the best choice for John Carter because this story is there

    you start off with a confederate soldier, so we have a semi racist basis here . . . you start off the book with him calling children ugly, and just downright hateful of the green martians . . . and by the end he is not only best friends with a green martian, but he has taken a red skinned woman as a bride. . . especially effective since we see him slaughtering apaches at thhe beginning

    and you continue onto gods of mars, you have him trying to impart this learned equality onto xodar! by the end John Carter can travel the world and not even blink at the sight of a new race, greeting a yellow man with open arms and saving his life

    that is the story I would have gone with, but dead family would have been my third choice I think. I hope for a scene in Gods of MArs where John Carter shows carthoris a picture of his deceased sister

    Heh, I would have it so carthoris writes letters to her, because growing up in a palace alone with no siblings, a distant mother, and always being different . . . he would need someone to talk to . . . and letters to his deceased sister would be a very sweet thing to incorporate into the character!

    And carters dead wife will have an affect on his and Dejahs marriage, she will always question if Carter loves her . . . and I can think of no better confirmation of his love than conquering a world for her!

    As well, I think that it helps how they died, from my understanding his family died in a house fire not the result of combat . . . John Carter couldnt have done ANYTHING to save them, he is a warrior all of his skills though wouldnt have been able to save them . . . this I think is central to why he rejects this part of himself because he is viewing it as a useless aspect

    On mars though, he learns to be himself again, and on mars . . . being a warrior is good enough, there is no problem on mars that being a warrior cant solve!

    it isnt a story about self discovery, its a story about rediscovery

    personally for me, it actually makes me more connected to carter . .. . with my knowledge of the character, because I couldn’t stand to see the warlord rejecting himself in such a way . . . but, to see him get that back . . . . it will bring me warm feelings!

    to me, it works! and it is not even necessarily contradictory to Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carted whose past is ridiculously ambiguous!

  • So obviously those quotes were taken out of context, but the groan was the initial reaction; after thinking about Carter’s character, it made sense to create an arc. Did ERB not create John Carter to be pretty one-dimensional on purpose? Doesn’t this make it easier for the readers to project themselves onto Carter, thereby living vicariously through him? I thought that was the point of the pulp sci-fi stories: fantasize about going to fantastic places and doing fantastic things. He has no true depth, nothing which would lend urgency/make you care about him in a film, where it is much harder for people to relate to on-screen characters (using their imagination for the books). Hopefully the dead family adds to his depth. Eric, if I left something important out, please add-I would actually like you to go on for ‘weeks’ about this particular topic.

  • I could go on for weeks and weweks about john carters personality, his ambiguity, and how really he isnt a film character

    there are so many reasons . . . so many factors that have to be considered

  • some of the hate has sense, i mean…why put a dead family family to john carter? i mean what´s the point??

  • man, in that drawing . . . I just feel like the USB stick in the computer is too much for some reason XD

    I appreciate teh detail, but that USB stick is driving me MAD XD

  • “This message has been hidden because the poster is in your ignore list John_Carter_will_flop” That is the best one! 🙂

    All that negetivity is why I recently quit going to IMDb.

    P.S. I don’t care if they’re being negitive, I’m just tired of reading it.

  • heh, I think maybe I can beat that if I look on youtube!

    I seem to recall half a dozen comments favorably comparing it to tarzan, from people with no former knowledge that John Carter and tarzan share a creator!

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