Can a movie (like John Carter) be a victim of genre success?
An interesting article sent along by HRH Rider. The question it poses is, can a film become a victim of “genre success” in that the genre’s conventions become so well known and familiar that it doesn’t work? Actually the author, Greg Ferrara, phrases it better than I just did: “can the progressive efficiency of a genre retroactively make an early example of the form tired and predictable?”
First, here’s a link to the article at MovieMorlocks.com Can a movie be a victim of genre success?
And here’s the piece dealing with John Carter:
Recently, this question was raised with the release of John Carter of Mars (hereafter, John Carter), directed by Andrew Stanton and based on the character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912. I still haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on the artistic success of the film one way or another but many a reviewer criticized the film for being too similar to many adventure movies before it, including Star Wars. The problem is, Star Wars creator George Lucas used much of what was in the original John Carter stories for his movie and, as bad luck would have it for John Carter, the Star Wars saga became the single-biggest thing in adventure since the beginning of ever. So now it looks like John Carter is copying Star Wars instead of the other way around. But does it matter?
Many critics seemed to think so, or at the very least, claim that, through no fault of its own, it seemed a little old-hat, thus acknowledging backhandedly that John Carter technically got there first but before anyone cared. On the other hand, voices I trust far more, like Roderick Heath of Ferdy on Films (he and Marilyn Ferdinand, for whom the site is named, are two of the best critics out there), felt that the movie succeeded beautifully despite the familiarity of its plot elements. Like I said, I haven’t seen it yet but I’ll be honest, when I do, I’ll probably have Rod’s sensibility in my head more than the “it feels old and tired” one. After all, to me, if something’s been done a thousand times before, it can be done a thousand times more and still work as long as the people doing it know what they’re doing.
My two cents — yes, this can be a problem but it can be addressed in two ways. The first way is within the story itself — this is the obvious one. Stanton certainly did that with John Carter. Whether he did too much or too little updating depends on your perspective. But I don’t there is any doubt that he was aware of this kind of an issue and approached it “with a plan”. But the problem is, that if you try to stay true to the original in any meaningful way, you’re always going to come up short in the eyes of some viewers and especially in the eyes of jaded critics.
But I think the other piece of it has to do with promotion — particularly in the case of John Carter. When the thing that is being created is the original you have to tell people that and sell the notion that it’s a special opportunity to finally see the thing that was the wellspring for the genre. I think by now it’s pretty well established that people who went to the movie with that understanding tended to have a different reaction than those who didn’t.
Having said that — the promotion may solve some issues with audience interest, but what about the critics? Virtually all of the John Carter reviewers who beat up on it for these kinds of reasons, did so with the full knowledge that it was the original and Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Avatar, etc were the derivative stories. They just didn’t care. So I don’t know. Maybe you do have to really re-invent the genre in some way, or fall victim to this syndrome.
4 comments
TNT, I know what you mean about the appeal of the John Carter stories all taking place on one planet. The conflicts feel more immediate. There is no virtually limitless galaxy to escape into. On a planet of continual warfare, the different groups either have to make peace somehow, or drive each other into extinction. Having everyone be dependent on the atmosphere factory creates an interesting dynamic. All the races have a shared history if you go back far enough, etc.
As far as the genre issue, one way to approach a property like John Carter would be to promise the meat and potatoes of adventure sci-fi, with the added hook that it’s “a story that started them all,” and then surprise audiences with something more, whether it’s a reinvention of the genre, or an unexpected spin or emphasis. Give them what they expect, plus some. The sense of having “discovered” something can achieve breakthroughs with critics and audiences and really ignite the word-of-mouth. LOTR delivered more than was expected from medieval fantasy at the time, and The Avengers delivered more than was expected from a superhero movie.
The John Carter stories are full of possibilities for delivering something more than the expected sci-fi adventure. Barsoom has strong historical epic and fantasy qualities as well. Beneath the fast-paced adventures are some dramatic undertones. Some or all of that could be leveraged and fleshed out into something that would far exceed what anyone would expect from a “pulp adaptation”, and which would still be distinctly Barsoom.
One thing I still don’t understand is why Stanton never tried to give a distinctive visual identity to the movie, one that would be its own. He said comparisons were “inevitable”, so, as I understand it, he didn’t even try.
There were ways to make John Carter look different than the hero of Prince of Persia, by giving him the short haircut of the novels. There were ways to make the one-man flyers distinctive from Return of the Jedi’s speeder bikes. There were ways to make Barsoom look more alien-looking (again, by sticking to Burroughs’ descriptions. Of all the characters of the movie, it’s Barsoom I missed the most, it’s just not here at all). It’s not as if every audience member didn’t know the story took place on Mars.
“When the thing that is being created is the original you have to tell people that and sell the notion that it’s a special opportunity to finally see the thing that was the wellspring for the genre.”
Well it is as you said: Disney failed to promote that. Andrew Stanton also shares in the blame there-his constant criticisms of the books for their shortcommings instead of what did work and why they were important was never talked about or mentioned.
“To me, the concept of Barsoom’s struggles seem more romantic in a literary way than the broad intergalactic scope of Star Wars. I guess the intergalactic scope of SW was derived from Star Trek. ”
Actually not TNT it was derived from John Carter of Mars, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Not Star Trek. Star Wars has the romantic elements-at least the original trilogy-not Star Trek. I’m not bashing ST but neither franchise has that much in common.
Finally:
“After all, to me, if something’s been done a thousand times before, it can be done a thousand times more and still work as long as the people doing it know what they’re doing.”
Oh that is so easy to be contrarian with that statement. 😉 Maybe if they did know what they were doing-or had respect for the source material-things would have gone differently. At least there should have been someone around who knew how to make a live action film, count the pennies and tell Stanton no. That didn’t happen here and the results speak for themselves.
The thought occurs to me that small favorable factors for the creation of the John Carter movie now regarding the Star Wars saga are that the original Star Wars trilogy was done quite a few years ago with much older film technology, the newer three had great visuals but very weak dialogue and plots (so predictable because we knew where each main character would end up) and seemed to drag on forever, while JCM took great advantage of the latest CGI and benefited from the scope of action being contained to one alien world. To me, the concept of Barsoom’s struggles seem more romantic in a literary way than the broad intergalactic scope of Star Wars. I guess the intergalactic scope of SW was derived from Star Trek.
I agree with, “After all, to me, if something’s been done a thousand times before, it can be done a thousand times more and still work as long as the people doing it know what they’re doing.”