John Carter: A Fan Laments — It’s Not a Conspiracy. It’s Just Plain Old Corp Round-Table Business

Michael Sellers John Carter News

From Khanada’s Ramblings by Khanada Taylor

I first learned about the film John Carter about 3 years ago. My sister and I were visiting London and we had the rare and wonderful opportunity to meet our favorite actor, James Purefoy. James told us he’d been cast as Kantos Kan and we were elated!

Since that time I have watched any and all developments of the film as closely as I could. And when things really started ramping up ahead of release, I was there! But after I saw the film, one week ahead of its release, and fell in love with it, it was baffling to see how things were going very oddly once it hit theaters. 

The handful of bad (even vicious) critics reviews threw me for a serious loop! Was the John Carter they were tearing down the same John Carter I had seen? Because some of their comments were so far out there that I was, and am still, convinced that some of these horrid critics didn’t even watch the movie but instead sat their fat butts down before their computer screens and made up, out of thin air, every word they wrote with as much bully-headed meanness as they could muster. (And might I add that some of the worst critics are part of publications that belong to rival studios – big surprise, eh?). And when you read these scathing reviews you notice another interesting thing—that many of them seem to share the same verbiage. Did these guys just copy off each other like cheating kids in school? One wonders…

FYI: There are loads more critics who rated John Carter positively, but it’s not “cool” to pay attention to the positive. To slam and destroy things is where it’s at!

Then, on top of those few, unnecessarily harsh, critics and their undeserved bashing, came the strangely lacking Disney “promotion” ($100mil worth? Seriously?). I read, watched, and listened to every little tidbit I could find and I wondered, where were the typical tie-in products (fast-food toys, action figures, plushies, etc, etc – did you see ANYTHING John Carter when you were out shopping? No? Bet you saw loads of Hunger Games, Titans, Lorax, etc., paraphernalia, though.)? Where was the typical saturation of ads for the film and when things were not looking good in the first couple of weeks, where were the updated ads and the defense of their property? Why did Disney skip doing the one thing EVERY other film does that’s based on a book series and/or directed by an award-winning director, ie: “Based On The Stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan and Directed by Oscar-Winner, Andrew Stanton.” Why was Disney so obviously neglecting their very expensive and Blockbuster-potential, property? And not just neglecting, but outwardly thwarting it!?

 

7 comments

  • Thanks for the article Khanada.
    I read it and it sounds that my heart was speaking!
    There is clear someone lying and for me it’s clear ”Disney”!
    But why? I have no idea!?
    To give a guy from ”Pixar”a lesson?

  • Thanks for the article Khanada, great points well put across, i think you`ve more than earned your “metal” so to speak…

  • Excellent article Khanada! Such a shame the film is being treated the way it is, I do cling on to hope that the film will be the start of a new franchise one way or the other, and that at least in time people will see this movie and be quite surprised what they just saw. I’m sure Andrew Stanton is still writing the script/story for the sequel. It’s only a matter of when,how, and if Disney decide’s to go forward depending on the film’s final worldwide results, Or if Andrew decides whether or not to shop the film around to other studios. Oh and Kudos to Taylor Kitsch for sticking to his guns again during a recent interview. What a guy.

  • I remember reading in the talbacks on the AICN website a poster stating he/she went to a John Carter test screening. Oddly enough, they weren’t provided the usual “test cards” to fill. The debriefing was a simple Q&A conversation, with half the question regarding the “Act of Valor” trailer that was shown before John Carter, and it was not even a Disney movie! Of course, hard to verify the comments.

  • Thanks for setting the record straight about this. I bet we would really be shocked if we knew what was going on behind closed doors at Disney. Only real low-lifes try to make themselves look big by tearing others down, but thats exactly whats going on with this film.

    And youre so right — its not some damn conspiracy theory to think this way. It’s become just way too obvious that someone is trying to kill this whole movie project. Great job on getting this info out there for folks to see!

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