The film comes into focus as 'John Carter' gets a new trailer and poster
While the ads still aren't compelling, it definitely looks ambitious
'John Carter' is ready to ride as Taylor Kitsch appears on 'Good Morning America' to premiere the new trailer for the long-awaited space opera
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It's no fun when a campaign simply isn't working for me.
Especially when the film in question comes from a director I'm very intrigued by, features a cast that has real potential, and is based on a property I've loved since childhood. "John Carter" should be a film that has me on the hook from day one, a film I can't wait to see. At this point in the campaign, with the film coming out in March, I should be frothing at the mouth, ready to go, dying to see how the whole thing comes together.
I'm curious, certainly, but this week's launch of the new poster and the new trailer have left me just as cautious as I've been each step of the way so far. I think I just don't get the hook of this campaign, and that's totally removed from what I know about the film or the original Edgar Rice Burroughs books about a Civil War veteran who ends up embroiled in a new conflict on Mars or the various behind-the-scenes goings-on for this one. Just looking at the trailers and the posters, I'm interested in a "there are aliens and spaceships so I'll be there" sort of way, but not in a specific "you've got me" sort of way yet. Carter himself is so bland in these materials that it seems odd to have the film be named after him when he's the least dynamic thing we're seeing in the materials.
Don't get me wrong… I think campaigns and movies are separate beasts. I've seen many great campaigns for movies I didn't like, and I've seen movies I love sold in ways that would never get me to see them. I'm not saying I know any better than this how to put together a series of posters and trailers that would make this into a must-see event. All I can say is that I want to be convinced, and I don't feel like I am. Maybe you'll feel different.
Here's this morning's "Good Morning America" debut of the trailer, which is a somewhat edited-down version. According to director Andrew Stanton on Twitter, there will be a full, unedited version tonight on "Jimmy Kimmel" and at Apple.com at 9:00 PM EST tonight. For now, this version's the best one out there:
And here's the new poster, which sure is red:
What really confused me about that is that the poster is the sort of red that we've come to expect from cinematic treatments of Mars, but the movie isn't. At all. That's just a strange disconnect.
UPDATE: Here's the full trailer, courtesy of IGN:
Whatever the case, "John Carter" is finally almost in theaters. Considering this film's century-long trudge from print to the screen, it is sort of hard to believe that's almost over. Can't wait to finally see Barsoom on the bigscreen, and fingers crossed that the film hooks me in a way the trailers haven't.
"John Carter" opens in theaters March 9, 2012.
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Login or create a HitFix account Login Signupgregel
November 30, 2011 at 1:56PM EST Reply to CommentBoy that poster is terrible.
I. S. Yep. I think they might have something worth seeing, but you wouldn't know it from the marketing.
November 30, 2011 at 2:48PM ESTKurt Hendricks
November 30, 2011 at 1:57PM EST Reply to CommentLynn Collins is really gorgeous and very talented. It'll be an incredible performance, just wonderful.
potty break
November 30, 2011 at 2:19PM EST Reply to CommentEmphasizing the word "Disney" is not the way to sell sci-fi movies. For most people, "Disney" still means kid stuff.
UGABugKiller
November 30, 2011 at 2:43PM EST Reply to CommentHmmm... well, the advertising was awesome for Cowboys and Aliens, only to find that the actual film wasn't all that good.
So here's hoping the opposite is true here.
Stormshadow4life
November 30, 2011 at 3:34PM EST Reply to CommentI don't think that music was appropriate for the a movie like this, so that immediately turned me off. Nothing about the look of the movie says "Mars" to me either....so that's kind of confusing. We'll see...maybe it'll be good
Stormshadow4life Didn't even realize that was Lynn Collins. I usually think she's quite fetching....but I don't like how they make her up here.
November 30, 2011 at 3:35PM ESTFastbak
November 30, 2011 at 7:19PM EST Reply to CommentWas that "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin used in the trailer? I love, love, LOVE that song but I don't think using was a good idea. It didn't do the Godzilla remake back in 1998 any favors!
Megalodon
November 30, 2011 at 7:58PM EST Reply to CommentWow, from the trailer, I would have absolutely no idea what was going on. And was that Mark Strong again?
Mark
November 30, 2011 at 8:19PM EST Reply to CommentYikes, major miscasting in the title role. Fingers crossed...
Rob Couldn't agree more. John Carter, as written, is a square. This is a book series I absolutely love, but I've seen nothing so far that makes me want to see the movie...
December 1, 2011 at 7:17AM ESTJay
November 30, 2011 at 8:20PM EST Reply to CommentThough I've never read the books, I've always been curious about them. But I saw the first trailer and it really felt flat.
Playhouse
November 30, 2011 at 8:38PM EST Reply to CommentNailed it. I don't know if Stanton just isn't giving the marketing guys enough to work with or if they somehow feel it's too dense (or seemingly too much in the vein of all of the other properties that were, ironically, inspired by Burroughs' work), but they don't seem to be qualifying any kind of identity for the film. I keep hearing people derisively dismiss it as 'Prince of Persia', which seems altogether wrong given the material, but not surprising considering the way they are packaging it. This trailer should've been a way into the film, exposing its epic qualities. Instead, we get someone trying to push a blockbuster, which is counter-intuitive to getting people to see this particular film. I don't doubt that it could be a huge one, but give people a reason why to show it any interest at all. Everything done to promote it so far has left me cold as well.
hamish
December 1, 2011 at 7:47AM EST Reply to CommentI kind of agree with you Drew. Trailers either hook you on spectacle or premise, neither of which they land here. Some of the prop detailing (eg the gun he shoots) promises a little bit of steampunk quirk, but otherwise it just looks bland. And all those crowd shots of the aliens just gave me bad podracing flashbacks.
VLaszlo
December 1, 2011 at 9:14AM EST Reply to CommentBland casting in all but the minor supporting roles, CGI characters that could not be less believable (unless he's going for a 'Roger Rabbit' mixed-media vibe), and a completely incoherent presentation of story. That last one is the trailers' fault, and I agree about the bizarre packaging of this 'Disney John Carter' -- they've altered the name to showcase nothing but the character (and Disney logo), and then offered nothing unique about him or his situation in any of the marketing. He doesn't even have a godsdamn sword on the poster, for crying out loud.
The dialogue chosen for the trailer (only the 'you killed him with one blow' of which can even be traced back to the novel) isn't doing Stanton (or Chabon) any favors, either.
I wish I could even be cautiously optimistic, but nearly everything about this looks precisely as wrong and underwhelming as every decision sounded as news throughout production.
Daniel Land
December 1, 2011 at 9:16AM EST Reply to CommentBland casting in all but the minor supporting roles, CGI characters that could not be less believable (unless he's going for a 'Roger Rabbit' mixed-media vibe), and a completely incoherent presentation of story. That last one is the trailers' fault, and I agree about the bizarre packaging of this 'Disney John Carter' -- they've altered the name to showcase nothing but the character (and Disney logo), and then offered nothing unique about him or his situation in any of the marketing. He doesn't even have a godsdamn sword on the poster, for crying out loud.
The dialogue chosen for the trailer (only the 'you killed him with one blow' of which can even be traced back to the novel) isn't doing Stanton (or Chabon) any favors, either.
I wish I could even be cautiously optimistic, but nearly everything about this looks precisely as wrong and underwhelming as every decision sounded as news throughout production.
Robert Sanders
December 1, 2011 at 7:04PM EST Reply to CommentThe "John Carter" trailer starts off looking like Attack of the Clones, then Avatar, with a bald Mark Strong again as a baddy, Ciaran Hinds looking like Caesar once again, and all with the petina of Prince of Persia. Not encouraging.
roy_batty
December 2, 2011 at 3:02AM EST Reply to CommentTo make the "Mars" ommission even weirder, they are keeping the logo for the visual campaign (look on the poster's lower right corner), a clear JCM sign, that is, JOHN CARTER of MARS!!
And I DO like that poster. As Drew pointed out, it echoes the old paperback covers.
As for the guy who was asking about the music playing on the trailers, it was Peter Gabriel's cover version of Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" for the teaser, and it is Gabriel again for the trailer, this time with a mix of his "Rhythm of the Heat" with some bases from his score for Scorsese's "Last Temptation of Christ" (published as "Passion"). And yes, some phrases from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", but not quite; to my ears, it sounds like "Come With Me", a repurposing of that song by Robert Plant himself along with Puff Daddy for the soundtrack of Emmerich's GODZILLA.
mmcb105
December 2, 2011 at 6:21PM EST Reply to CommentI keep getting a strange Avatar in the desert type vibe from this movie. And aside from the source material being plundered to the point of making this movie seem derivative, the trailer music isn't helping it seem any more original.
Lisa "Bitchboom" B.
December 6, 2011 at 4:23PM EST Reply to CommentDrew, do you remember when you said you felt sexism in film wasn't as pervasive a problem as I stated to you. I thought this article, quoting a PIXAR mastermind, no less (they're supposed to be the ones who understand kids, right?) really sums up a lot of the problem, thought you might find it interesting if you haven't already read it.
Here goes -
Andrew Stanton Explains 'John Carter' Name Change, Says Girls Won't See A Movie With 'Mars' In The Title
News by Drew Taylor | December 5, 2011 | 13 Comments
Many fanboys and literary fanatics became ruffled when Disney (and director Andrew Stanton) changed the name of this spring's Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation "John Carter of Mars" to simply, "John Carter." Apparently Stanton was in London to screen 20 minutes of footage from the hotly anticipated film and during the presentation he explained to assorted journalists (including someone from Bleeding Cool) why it had undergone a surgical title snip. And, well, it's not exactly going to silence those that feel Pixar (which was unofficially involved in "John Carter") is a boys club.
"Here’s the real truth of it. I’d already changed it from 'A Princess Of Mars' to 'John Carter Of Mars.' I don’t like to get fixated on it, but I changed 'Princess Of Mars'… because not a single boy would go," Stanton told the journalists.
Keep in mind that Pixar, the studio where Stanton wrote and directed "Finding Nemo" and "WALL-E" (and where he serves as part of the secretive, highly influential Brain Trust), has been loudly criticized for its perceived lack of interest in telling stories with strong female characters (or really, any female characters at all). The studio came under fire again when they fired Brenda Chapman, who was set to be the studio's first female director (on next summer's "Brave"), severing her ties with a highly personal project (and, indeed, forcing her out of the studio, including her own position on the Brain Trust, completely). Disney is trying to claim that Pixar had very little to do with "John Carter" but from what we understand it was conceptualized and developed almost wholly at Pixar (and when selected journalists were invited to preview footage out of the editing bay earlier this year, well, they didn't go to Disney, they went to Pixar). Basically, if you called "John Carter" "Pixar's first live action film," you wouldn't exactly be wrong.
This title change, and the reasoning behind it, especially put into the terms Stanton uses, sounds like the big money equivalent of "ewww girls are icky," but Stanton tries to put on a brave face. With a move from "Princess of Mars" to "John Carter of Mars," well, apparently that still sounded too manly for little girls who can't handle things associated with the red planet (or the Roman god of war) and presumably only want to play with dolls and wear pink bows in their hair.
"And then the other truth is, no girl would go to see [a movie called] 'John Carter Of Mars'. So I said, 'I don’t want to do anything out of fear, I hate doing things out of fear, but I can’t ignore that truth,'" Stanton explained at the London presentation. We wonder if he's referring to "Mars Needs Moms" too, since that was a costly animated flop for Disney earlier this year (one that effectively ended their relationship with Robert Zemeckis and his ImageMovers Digital company).
While the move was clearly a nakedly commercial one, he also dug down and tried to explain it away thematically, "All the time we were making this big character story which just so happens to be in this big, spectacular new environment. But it’s not about the spectacle, it’s about the investment. I thought, I’ve really worked hard to make all of this an origin story. It’s about a guy becoming John Carter. So I’m not misrepresenting what this movie is, it’s 'John Carter.'" Right.
If there are more films (and, given the amount of cash Disney has sunk into this sci-fi money pit, that's a pretty big IF), Stanton promises that "of Mars" will be part of the title. "Mars is going to stick on any other film in the series. But by then, it won’t have a stigma to it." Andrew Stanton - clearing Mars' good name! Well we can all get a good look at the Mars-less "John Carter" when it opens March 9th, 2012. Get your ass to Mars!
SNIP
And Drew, you're clearly intelligent here. Knowing the JOHN CARTER books, too, as you and I both clearly do, can you tell me how the book series paints the Princess as a hero of equal footing with John Carter? Nope. And I'm sure the movie won't follow suit.
So, the message we get is:
Girls can't understand/aren't interested in space travel. But they LOVE princesses.
Boys hate princesses (why is this being reinforced again? Oh, wait, because princesses are girls, and boys are taught by society to hate girls, just as men are taught to hate women at the same time as wanting to conquer and destroy/defeat them for sexual gratification)
Movies are only for one gender.