Actually, that totally renewed my hope and faith in this one. I realize the fight was "hokey"...but it was a pulp novel. Hokey is ok. Fantastical imagery is better. Being true to the feel of the novels would be best. I'm back to hoping for the best again.

Am I the only one, then, that can't help but cynically observe that Disney, who has lobbied so hard to extend copyright terms far beyond any reasonable interpretation of the US Constitution, then had to go back this far for material?

I'm not trying to slam Burrough's books. I loved them when I read them almost 50 years ago and it looks like Disney has tried hard to recreate the world described in them. It's the contrast between Disney taking so much from the public domain and returning so very, very little that bothers me.

One would think that the art of styrofoam rocks has improved since Star Trek days (and they were working on a limited budget).

I'm in.

Woof™.

No no... those rocks look like they came right out of Galaxy Quest;)

And all these scenes do look the same... where Tim Allen fights Gorignak, when Obi and Anni fight... everybody in Ep 2. All these rocky dessert type places seem interchangeable. Add an outdoor colosseum, a big beastie or two and a whack of cgi audience cheering and we have a tourney for the ages.

Woof™.

I'll give them a pass on the arena scene because Burroughs _invented_ that cliche.

But not on the rocks.

I suppose you have to draw the line somwheres;)

Woof™.

I dunno, that dialogue in the arena sounded too Disney for me.

I have to see it. I might complain about it, but I have to see it. Actually, the actor playing JC was very good in Friday Night Lights, so I have some hope.

> All these rocky dessert type places seem interchangeable.

Except in older British SF where the disused quarry is the sfnal rocky place of choice.

> I have to see it. I might complain about it, but I have to see it.

It cannot be said better. Here's hoping.

Imma gonna wait 'til you all have seen it and weigh in!

Love, C.

My memory of the Barsoom books is that the great white apes were supposed to be more human-looking than the green men, and not the aboslutely enormous monsters that are in this clip. Am misremembering?

The last minute and a half was the first time I've actually been excited about this movie.

I have all John Carter books and pre-ordered the new one that's announced (short stories by different writers if I'm not mistaken). And of course I have the comics. And I love this character/setting, great stuff.

And to be honest, the more I see of the movie the more I want to see it. Of course, it's Disney handling it, but I want a John Carter movie, period. It looks like they are doing it kind of right. But of course it's not exactly like it's "supposed" to be, it's an adaptation, things get changed along the way, it's always the case with franchises like these.
I hope it will be a very cool entertaining movie with enough respect to the source material.

This is a stupid question, but if John Carter is strong enough to swing that huge chunk of rock around, why couldn't he just pull the chain out of the rock?

It looks to me like they've made him too strong. That might be how it's portrayed in the books, i've not read them, but surely there's no way you'd be that strong and be able to jump that high in martian gravity. I've always understood you'd be able to jump about twice that of earth which is not the giant leaps shown in the film. Looking for realism in this is a fool's business but i can cope with the fantastical as that is what it is yet that little bit of skewing realism really irks and looks silly.

I'm a big Burroughs fan, so of course I'm going to see the film (well, unless it has a rating below 10% on Rotten Tomatoes...).

I am worried about how much the marketing has missed the point. Where's the emphasis on A Princess of Mars being the ur-text from which all other pulp SF has descended? From the author of TARZAN? from the Academy-award winning director of WALL·E and Finding Nemo? something more than "generic SF action movie"?

@Juanan: The big difference on Mars is lowered gravity. Pulling the spike out of the rock is all about the structural strength of the spike and the rock, and the immense friction between them. If you couldn't do it on Earth, nothing about being on Mars makes you able to do it there either. But... on Mars the boulder weighs much less, so you can pick it up there when you couldn't on Earth. Picture all the rocks weighing like they're made of styrofoam, while still being just as tough.

That said, Burroughs did way overstate the extra jumping power you'd get, and the movie is being true to the books there. The other thing that feels wrong to me is that things should be way more "floaty"; moving and falling and trajectories should be slower and softer. Dramatic license FTW.

Of course it's al exaggerated. But was Mars' gravity and all already common knowledge back when Burroughts wrote the John Carter stories (or the first story)?

Well, Bakema, since our knowledge of the various planets was derived from - among other things - the orbits of satellites and Mars has two that had already been well-observed by the 1920s, if ERB couldn't work it out from any number of popular science books he could bought at any decent bookshop or by mail order, he was a klutz.