A Very Thorough and Thoughtful Look at John Carter by Larry Klaes
Dotar Note: Larry Klaes is a member of The Planetary Society and is the Vice President of the Boston Chapter of the National Space Society. He is an ardent supporter ofThe Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and is the Northeastern U.S. Regional Coordinator for The SETI League as well as being the coordinator for The Columbus Optical SETI Observatory. He is also the former editor of SETIQuestmagazine as well as the co-founder and former editor of the Electronic Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (EJASA). He has written many articles for various publications; among them are: Alien Spaceships, SETI, and Public Perceptions; The Soviets and Venus Part I , II & III; Astronomy and the Family; The Rocky Soviet Road to Mars; and The One Dream Man: Robert H. Goddard, Rocket Pioneer. He also has a web page covering the “Jan Brady” of the American space program, Project Gemini.
Looking at John Carter of Mars (Part 1)
There is an interesting parallel between John Carter as the main character of the Mars series of adventure novels begun by Edgar Rice Burroughs (from here on called ERB) one century ago this year, and the recently released Disney film of the same name.
Both arrived on their respective worlds – the fictional man Carter on planet Mars, a.k.a. Barsoom, and the motion picture John Carter in cinemas all over planet Earth (a.k.a. Jarsoom) – with relatively little fanfare. Both Carters initially encountered natives who had no real idea who they were and were ready to kill them off. Yet somehow both survived their hostile environments and slowly earned the understanding and respect of their newfound worlds, eventually going on to change things for the better and having a wild time in the process.
Now of course the film version still has a long road ahead to achieve its equivalent of what the novel hero achieved in his fictional and serialized lifetime. To be honest, I do not know if it will ever become as popular and influential as the novels were in their day, if for no other reason than too many other fictional series influenced by the ERB works have left their much stronger mark on the cultural mindset in the intervening century. In addition, while John Carter is better than I feared, the very ironic fact that it looks rather derivative of the very genre it spawned may permanently hobble its journey across the cinematic and cultural landscape.
Read the rest of Part 1 at Astrogator’s Logs
Looking at John Carter of Mars (Part 2)
Burroughs’ Influences
ERB had several strong influences while creating the fictional world of Barsoom. One came from his experiences in the late 1890s as an enlisted soldier with the 7th U.S. Cavalry at Fort Grant in Arizona (still a US territory at the time). The vast desert landscape of the Southwest served as a geophysical model for his drying and dying Mars. The surrounding Native American population became the Tharks. The native women – whom he found to be haughty, beautiful, and very proud – may also have served as ERB’s involuntary muses for Dejah Thoris.
ERB’s other prominent influence for the formation of Barsoom came from a fellow who was also a resident of Arizona around the same time: Percival Lowell. A member of a very prominent Boston Brahmin family, Lowell became fascinated with Mars after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported observing a series of long, straight dark lines on the Red Planet starting in 1877. His intense and focused interest in Mars (along with his wealth) led Lowell to build a professional observatory in remote Flagstaff, Arizona, where he felt he could properly study our neighboring world to better discern its compelling features.
Lowell and others soon came to the conclusion that such formations had to be artificial in nature. Lowell believed that a race of beings much older, wiser, and more advanced than humanity dwelt on Mars. These Martians built a vast network of giant canals to bring water from their arctic regions of ice to their cities on and near the equator. Their plan was to stave off extinction as their ancient world began to dry up, taking the native flora and fauna with it in the process. Lowell and his followers thought they were witnesses to the last great act of an alien civilization.