John Carter and the Princess of Mars

I decided to take in the premier of the newly released John Carter last night and I managed to find a cinema showing the 2D version of it and so myself and mate JTM caught the late showing.

A fan of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books when I was a kid with the Space Opera hero fights lots of bad guys and monsters and saves the princess storylines iot was fantasy/sci-fio which was easy to understand with ray guns and air ships, and scantily clad damsels all that you could want.

When I saw the film was being made I was intrigued, when I found out it was made by Disney I was not impressed. Didn't quite fit. I can say however that I'm glad I went along to see it.

Franzetta image of John Carter
 and Princess 

The idea of a 19th century confederate cavalry officer being accidentily transported to Mars and getting involved in  interplanetary intrigue sounds pretty good, very Victorian Steampunk, I'm up for that.

The idea of lots of fighting, battles, ship boardings (in the sky) last stands, sneaking night attacks, speed pursuits ala Star Wars speeders, and vicious hordes of aliens sounds pretty good.

A pretty attractive, voluptuous princess whose a scientist and hold her own in a sword fight sounds pretty good.

Mysterious bald mystics who serve some greater good scheming in secret with powers none can stand against sounds pretty good.

Sticking pretty rigidly to the story of the first book 'A Princess of Mars' to film translates to book quite nicely into a modern image of the pulp storyline but with only a few typical Disney sentimentality moments creeping in a couple of places but that's to be expected. There are a couple of 'Braveheart moments' which do actually work in the context of the film but might make you giggle, I'll not spoil them for you here in case you go and see the movie but you'll know them when you see them.

The whole effect of the amazing advances in CGI in recent years, a fairly solid but not surprising plot line - (hero finds girl, hero saves girl, hero wins girl, hero loses girl hero gets girl back) sits quite well in the Disney stable and now that I've seen the movie it makes sense. Disney is probably the best conglomerate to make the film.

Great scenics, air ships and the green martian hordes are suitably spectactular as is the scenery in general of an ancient civilisation slowly dying. I was impressed with the rendition of the airships. with the arial battles definitely catching my imagination.

The scenery and ruins in particular are worth looking at and a good source of inspiration for any one looking to build similar for their Sci-Fi games.

All in all a pretty good movie in the 'switch off brain and enjoy' category and enjoy the undeniably stunning visuals. Worth seeing if you've a couple of hours to spare and like the genre, which I do. Definitely go to see it if your at all into Victorian Sci-Fi/Steampunk as I'm sure you'll pick up a few ideas for some sky ships at least. It might be an idea to keep an eye out for what merchandise that might get released, you never know what might be useful?

Till next time....safe landings.