John Carter Gets an Honorable Mention on an iO9 List

Michael Sellers Other Stuff

Charlie Jane Anders at iO9 has come up with a list of “10 Decent Movies That Were Doomed by Unfair Memes”, and John Carter Makes the list.  Here’s what’s written about John Carter:

9. John Carter

We still like this movie a lot — Andrew Stanton and Michael Chabon took on the Herculean task of translating Edgar Rice Burroughs’ epic to the big screen, and created something messy but beautiful. This film has some of my favorite moments of any 2012 movie, along with some clutter and some head-scratching decisions.
The Meme: This is Andrew Stanton’s crazy ego trip and he needs to be punished. All of the discussion of this film prior to its release seemed to focus on how high-handed Stanton had gotten, as if his desire for creative control over his project was unforgivable hubris that needed to be punished with a box office flop of epic proportions. Nobody wanted to talk about the actual film, or the many things it was doing right.

And here’s the link to the full article

So, WTF is a meme?

I have to confess I had a general idea but would have stumbled and bumbled if someone asked me to define it.  So here is what Mr. Google has to say:

A meme (pronounced /’mi?m/, rhyming with “cream”[1]) is a postulated unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.

Otherwise, in this context, known as buzz?

Isn’t that pretty much what is described re John Carter — the sum total of the buzz that was passed around before the film came out?

(Thanks to Rus Wornom and the BTB Facebook Group for tipping us on this one.)

2 comments

  • I do agree with Pascalahad about the soundtrack, it was one of the few things that was great about this movie since Giacchino captured the epic sweep and romance a lot better than Stanton did.

    Concering this “meme” first I did laugh at wondering over what “Herculean” task Stanton and Chabon did. Did they wrestle over who got to hold the lid and which one got throw the books in the can? Beyond I do admit it was not fair to the movie to be overshadowed by all the press about the budget, Stanton’s ego, etc but really Stanton brought this on himself. Look at all of the comments he made even a month prior to the film coming out: Disney feared HIM. HE couldn’t make a movie for 5 million. HIS Pixar Method was infallible. HE could do whatever since there was no Harry Potter sized fanbase. The discussion should have been about the movie but instead Stanton kept placing himself front and center and making it about him, not the movie. If the movie had been front and center-despite its shortcommings-that would have been the focus but that wasn’t the case and Stanton is much to blame as the press for this.

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