Disney (oops, not – see update) A smart fan releases 720P HD clip of John Carter Warhoon battle scene”I was too late once” —

Michael Sellers Other Stuff

UPDATE: I knew it was too good to be true to believe that Disney had released this clip showing heart, romance, and action all together. Word has arrived that even though this looks official – being in 720p HD and coming with the tag at the end for the DVD-blu-ray release – it’s not. It was done by none other than our pal Danny Quesnel. By the way, has anyone seen any real official promotion for the DVD release other than the original press release and official DVD release trailer?

Anyway, there’s the article as originally written:

Disney has released a 720P HD clip of the John Carter Warhoon battle scene — a scene that fans of the movie swoon over, and which is absolutely hated by one of our more prolific commenters here.   I’m sure we’ll here from both sides.  My view?  It’s a beautiful lyrical piece that works emotionally, visually, and within the story.  Although something like this has been done by other directors — I’m not aware of anyone linking visuals (it’s not just the sword/shovel cuts, the visual parallelism is much more complete than that)……

Aside from whether you like it or not — the other aspect about this is interesting is that Disney releasing this is one of the few signs I’ve seen of the studio pushing any of the heart/romance aspects of the story. Falls into the category of “too little too late” …..

20 comments

  • During my 18 theatre viewings this was and is my favorite scene, I’ve never seen another motion picture achieve this level of emotional involvement, which is at it’s height in this scene.

  • The only one of the names you mentioned, Dr. Robert Z, he has one very brief talking head moment. He mentions his having started reading the books at age 11. He comes just before Chabon and Tyson talk about the astronomer. Extremely brief and nothing that stuck with me. None of the other names are even mentioned. I didn’t include him because it was very brief and I didn’t remember how to spell his name. LOL

  • Thanks Bob,
    And just to make sure — there is no interview of “Erbologists”, right — Tracy Scott Griffin isn’t there? Dr. Robert Zeuschner? Bill Hillman? George T. McWhorter? Jim Sullos, President of ERB Inc?

    Some of those guys were interviewed — then were told that Disney was going a different direction and it wouldn’t be used. Just trying to make sure they didn’t slip them back in.

  • It is called “100 years in the Making”. Runs about 12 minutes. About half of it is ERB’s actual voice describing his beginnings and some observations about his work, this is voiced over still pictures of the man himself, old Argosy and Amazing Story covers, but also some cheese filler, like a guy typing at an old typwriter or some long shot of a guy in turn of the century clothes. These ERB moments are interwoven with the interviews and Stanton talking. They do drop in behind the scenes production footage and art during Stanton’s talking time.

    Jon Favreau talks about his feeling for the book and it’s importance.
    Michael Chabon talks about the story
    Steven Barnes author “The Barsoom Project” These are very brief comments
    Chabon and Neil Degrasse Tyson, Director Hayden Planetarium NYC, talks about how the work of astronomer Percevil Lowell inspired ERB’s imagination, inviting him to Arizona to view Mars at his observatory and his discovery and speculations on the dried river beds or as he christened them the Canals of Mars, supposedly he was little out there for a scientist and he made elaborate maps of the canals and even speculated and named where city hubs might be located. This really lit the fuse for Burroughs and he had a fantastic world to flesh out and populate with his characters.

    ERB talks about how he knew the covers had to do a large part of getting across to the buying reading population what his books were about. He sings the praise of J Allen St.John to the high heavens. There are some nice shots of St. John’s art, including the one you like, the Thoat charge.

    William Stout, production Designer, talks about Clampett, the animator, and shows some B&W and color footage of his attempt at the characters.

    Jim Morris, Producer, says he became interested in the property in the 80’s but there was just no possible way to do it properly with the technology at the time.

    Favreau is gracious, and says that yes, he was disappointed when Paramount abandoned his project but when he heard Stanton was doing it, he was happy because he knew Satnton would do something interesting with it. (Watch out, I feel an MCR eruption coming on)

    The rest is Stanton. Again, this is one of the places where when talking about his love of the property, it is focused on the imaginary world, he never mentions the character of John Carter. He says from the time of his reading of the books he become slightly obseesed with the idea of seeing these stories on the big screen. I think that happened to a lot of us, I attempted a spec script at one point. LOL

    On his goal of adapting the book, he felt the book was too episodic and on the fly. He wanted to “strive to give it a preordained three act structure” and a “sense of a larger grand design”

    That’s about it. Some what interesting but some glaring exceptions also, there is one shot of Frazetta’s POM cover art but know one even mentions his name or the ERB revival of the 60’s that is directly attributable to the Ace edition’s cover art by FF and his clones. That is just plain not right. Nothing on that fantastic art work and pitch reel by Kerry Conran, either.

  • Not even gonna read the trolling. Just gonna say I liked this scene. It had emotional impact for me, and I had mine pre-ordered from the day it became available to do so.

  • Thanks Bob — keep the info coming. Much appreciate it.

    Oh — just thought of this. Could you give some more details about the “100 years of John Carter” or whatever that part is called? How long is it? How much is devoted to ERB info and what does it say? Also who is interviewed in that part?

    These are things that have a bearing on something I’m writing in “Hollywood vs Mars”. Sorry to make homework for you but would appreciate any more detail you can provide.

  • Sorry to interupt MCR’s rant, what you are so sure of, “it is pointless and useless to the story” is just your opinion, most people don’t agree with that view.

    Part one of my 4 disc review that I posted this morning, covering Video quality and featurettes, is under the “Whirling Nerdish” thread.

    The deleted scenes, as I said, not much here but does show some rethinking and adjustments made.

    The original opening is basically a combination of the original opening voice over, but done by Lynn Collins, and a much less satisfying version of her 9th ray demonstration. She does it in this breathy voice that sounds way too much like she is channeling Cate Blanchett from the begining of Fellowship of the Rings. There is some very cool landscape eyecandy which we have never seen before, then when it goes to her live, she is in a dark, claustraphobic circular amphitheater, addressing a group of Martian scientists and her father. Plays out the same way as we have seen but it is a different character that sabatoges her machine. Thank god they re-did this scene and we got that beautiful light and spacious throne room.

    There are few minutes of Ned at school before he receives his uncle’s telegram, the teacher is speaking some mumbo jumbo about bodies and souls, this is trying to set up a foundation for the interplanetary trip.

    There is a scene of John tied across the Thoat’s back on the way to the Thark’s City. He is complaining of being thirsty, so one of the Tharks gives him a water skin. Spit take, unfortunately it is filled with Thoat urine.

    Apparently, after they were caught in the temple, both John and Dejah escape in separate directions. Short scene of Sola confronting Dejah, as she is on the run with sword in hand, she is torn, but lets her go on her way.

    Now, the most interesting one of the bunch is so unfinished it is pretty much just hand drawn in parts but it is John on the run after being caught in the temple. Tars is the one that hunts him down and brings him to ground, then as they are making their way back to the Tharks City they have a slightly more in depth conversation that leads to John guessing that Sola is his daughter and his reaction. Not earth shatteringly different, but better than that practically out of nowhere
    “she’s your daughter” that we ended up with.

    The Matai walkabout just has another really annoying actor doing some of the dialogue before he got to the over tanned old lady. In the final version he gave those lines to the old lady to say.

    I think that is it for the deleted scenes. It would have been nice to see that alternate conversation between JC and DT in her chambers before the wedding, but it is not here.

    I haven’t watched and listened to the commentary or watched with the second screen thing yet. I’ll post as I knock those off.

  • Dotar Sojat wrote:
    “The point is not only obvious, it is reinforced repeatedly throughout the movie. The “point” is that the death of the wife and child have left Carter as “damaged goods”, unable to connect with his inner hero ”

    No the point is Andrew Stanton took a wonderful book and stuffed it with his own tired cliched ideas. The “damaged goods” hero and his his dead wife and kid are just worn out ideas.

    But let’s take a hard look at this. First both Mrs. Carter and the kid are pointless to the story because what is the outcome of this film? John Carter falls in love (after his whining about his cave of gold) and marries Dejah Thoris, one of the few things Stanton even bothered to carry over from the book. Their deaths obviously have now been pushed to the side and now he’s happy with Dejah until Shape Shifter Shang pulled his sequel setup stunt. The problem is that makes the whole subplot with the wife and kid unnecessary since he basically forgets them at the end.

    The other issue is there is no characterization. What’s the kid’s name? Anyone? Yeah that’s how empty and pointless this change was. Stanton couldn’t even come up with a name for the poor child. To me it’s a little hard to have empathy for characters we don’t know anything about. Where did John meet his dead wife? How long have they been married? We don’t know. There is no building up of this relationship, just a bunch of quick cuts of them looking depressed when dad goes to war and then their charred remains. They’re stick figures, nothing more. Heck even Lucas gave Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru some dialogue scenes before they got killed. If Stanton was going to go this route he should have done a better job than just thinking this explains Mopey Carter. Not to mention it destroys one of the charms of ERB’s work which is John Carter’s clumsy attitude towards women and how he almost ruins his relationship with Dejah through misunderstandings of both her culture and women in general.

    Also these characters have no bearing on the plot of the film. It’s not like Matai the Merciless pulled a one armed man thing and John is doing The Fugitive, looking for his wife and child’s killer. Again it serves no real purpose to the story being told and can be removed.

    Finally as you know I don’t care for the “damaged goods” Carter. It’s just as cliched as Mrs. Crispy Critter Carter. But if Stanton wanted to do this well Burroughs does offer some hints. JC doesn’t delve too much into his time in the Civil War. Why not just show the horrors of war or him losing his men in battle? It’s just as cliched but it would fit in with the novel much better than some wife and kid we know nothing about. As for making the Warhoon scene causing unintentional laughter, considering Shang’s fondness for shape shifting into women, the jumping scenes, JC getting his sword kicked out of his hand and having his butt saved by Dejah who openly mocks him for his clumsiness-there’s enough there to cause uninintentional chuckles. The Warhoons if anything at least get off easy compared to that.

  • HRH The Rider Wrote:

    There may be a second and much simpler reason for the inclusion of the “pointless” dead wife: play the action scene uninterrupted, without the intercuts, and it comes across as cartoonish, what with Carter jumping around like a grasshopper and delivering Hercules-style smackdowns. No film maker wants the audience giggling at an innopportune moment such as this.

    Absolutely. Interesting, though, that that consideration didn’t seem to occur to Disney marketing who used this clip repeatedly in trailers and promotions without any of the cross-cutting, producing exactly what you describe–unintended laughter in the theater where the trailer was playing.

  • Michael, you do know that John Carter Videos is not an official Disney youtube page? I created that for the fans remember. Disney never released that clip..I found it..and decided to upload it and make it look official.

  • This scene pretty much sums up what I would love to do to all of the cackling scorn and derision and lazy criticism that has been “sicked” on the film and on ERB’s works secondarily. Stanton’s Barsoom is very good, but there is another Barsoom out there that could slaughter the missteps and misunderstandings that befell this film and could put ERB’s imagination on its proper pedestal of history and heritage.

  • Dotar Sojat wrote —

    ‘Come on , you gotta agree I got ya there. Call it something else if you hate it, but it absolutely has a point so it’s not “pointless”.’

    There may be a second and much simpler reason for the inclusion of the “pointless” dead wife: play the action scene uninterrupted, without the intercuts, and it comes across as cartoonish, what with Carter jumping around like a grasshopper and delivering Hercules-style smackdowns. No film maker wants the audience giggling at an innopportune moment such as this.

    But hey, I can see the blood much better in this clip. And it sounds as if the dead wife’s name is Sarah.

  • MCR wrote:

    And for the most part as cheap audience manipulation at its worst. Now some of it works great-Woola staying, the slaughtering of the Warhoons, sending Dejah away with Sola. But it is hard to feel anything for two stick figures who had no character development and basically were added for what was ultimately a pointless reason.

    Ah, MCR, your crusty old Stanton-hatin’ curmudgeon, you….I knew you couldn’t pass up this piece of juicy, impossible-to-resist “MCR-bait”…..but I thought we sort of agreed you’d called the dead wife and kids “pointless” enough times that we all agreed you’d made your point? Oh well, you did shake it up slightly, I’ll give you that, since you didn’t say, precisely, “pointless dead wife and child” as you did previously 11 times.

    I think — just for fun since it’s Saturday and I’m in a good mood — I will argue with the characterization of the reason for the wife and kid as “pointless”. Clearly there is a point, you just don’t agree with it. The point is not only obvious, it is reinforced repeatedly throughout the movie. The “point” is that the death of the wife and child have left Carter as “damaged goods”, unable to connect with his inner hero — an inner hero that continues to do heroic things (save woola, save dejah, etc) even as the conscious Carter tries to not get involved. So …. while you can call it “bad”, “cliche” , etc — when you call it “pointless” you are, dare i say it? Wrong. Come on , you gotta agree I got ya there. Call it something else if you hate it, but it absolutely has a point so it’s not “pointless”. 😉

  • Dotar wrote:
    ” It’s a beautiful lyrical piece that works emotionally, visually, and within the story.”

    And for the most part as cheap audience manipulation at its worst.

    Now some of it works great-Woola staying, the slaughtering of the Warhoons, sending Dejah away with Sola. But it is hard to feel anything for two stick figures who had no character development and basically were added for what was ultimately a pointless reason.

  • I think for once they choose the absolutely right scene for promotion. It’s one of the most beautiful scenes of the movie because it has emotions, shows action, great CGI and some nice editing.

  • There is a business adage, “Never chace good money after bad.” If they thought the movie was so bad, why would they spend big budet advertising, 100 million dollars, on it? I have a DVR so I can skip the commercials they put on TV. I watch about 40 hours of TV a week, and I only saw John Carter previews twice. I did however watch a ton of them on the internet. I can go to Rotten Tomatoes when the movie comes out and see what the critics and fans think, before I spend 100 dollars for overpriced tickets and popcorn. If it isn’t an epic must see movie, I can wait a year and rent it for 2 dollars at the store or 1 dollar at Red Box.

  • Yes, it is far too late for box office, of course, but it’s good to see them trying to do something prior to the DVD release. I can’t help but think that it’s after dumping Ross they are trying to make up a bit for his apparent apathy for John Carter. Apathy or distain, I can’t tell which.

  • One of my favorite examples of parallel montage is the opening scene in V for Vendetta:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCiGyaSPRhI

    Not only does it comes full circle by the end (“V is all of us”), it also provides tension with the score, and background information via the show on tv.

    In John Carter it is really the defining scene, the turning point for the John Carter character ; or it should have been, since the next scene in Zodanga showed him reluctant again.

  • The scene is a good choice to promote the home video release of the movie. Hopefully the various large blogs pass it along as part of their postings.

    It’d be nice if Disney released a couple more scenes to go along with it. Perhaps an extended clip of Carter’s escape attempt that ends with him accidentally killing a Thark — not sure what else would be good.

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