Escape to the Movies: John Carter

[theSteamSupported]

Also, does anyone else find it interesting that this main character gets critizised for being nothing more then a generic "good guy", but Captain America got praised for basically the same thing?

According to Bob, the CA movie wasn't as afraid of its source material as the JC flick was.

JC wasn't as much of a generic "good guy" character in the movie as in the books. Judging from Bob's review, as I haven't seen the movie itself, Carter ironically got blander because of this.

That's at least how interpret it. After all, this is is coming from a critic who hasn't explained exactly how and why The Artist is more gimmicky than Sucker Punch.

 

[Gatx]

Man I get don't care about all those criticisms, it looks decent enough, and since I didn't read the books, all of Bob's praise in the beginning of the video is what I really paid attention too. I'm just glad that it didn't completely suck.

 

[maxben]

You know Bob, I kinda see where you're coming from some of the time, but the whole "shouldn't be afraid to be true to the original" critizism you slap on every single movie that is an adaptation of something you love is getting rather repetative and uninteresting, especially since someone like you should be able to see how being too true to something obscure that most people don't have a connection with would only serve to alienate audiences that the producers can't afford to alienate. You might have a good point about it in this movie (I can't judge because I have neither seen it nor am familiar with the books) but seriously, there is a reason Hawkeye won't be wearing a ridiculous purple mask in the Avengers movie.

But I think he makes the point quite well that certain things that the source material says "just go with it", movie writers feel the need to expand and explain. Sometimes this is necessary, but sometimes that and the convoluted ideas the movie writers come up with just brings down the whole movie. Its not so much about being true to the original, but there is a reason the original did things the way it did, and sometimes its more translatable to the big screen if you just kept them the less "mainstream" elements.
On the other hand, I understand why they didn't keep the giant plant mutant alien thing in Watchmen, though it upset me nontheless, and Bob agrees as well as can be seen in his Big Picture episode on it

 

[Avatar Roku]

Would you say the plot is in retrograde from the original story Bob?

Good try, but Venus is retrograde, not Mars.

 

[elitestranger1]

i thought it would be watered down for the mainstream from the trailer, kinda lousey like the POP:SOT movie.

also AC3 is soo unoriginal, how can you be impressed by it? the new engine needs to up the game a lot if its gonna grab me, and give me a chalenge with more stealth and take away all those pointless tack ons like bombs, ect.

 

[MovieBob]

That's at least how interpret it. After all, this is is coming from a critic who hasn't explained exactly how and why The Artist is more gimmicky than Sucker Punch.

"The Artist" is more/worse in terms of gimmickry because it's a gimmick without a point - there's NOTHING going on or being "said" by the gimmick of shooting it as a silent movie other than "Hey look, We made a silent movie ABOUT the end of silent movies! Aren't we clever?"

"Sucker Punch," while it definitely bites off more than it can chew in terms of complexity, aims to use it's various visual/structural gimmicks to MEAN something and to SAY something. In lieu of re-hashing just what those "somethings" seem to be, I'll just link to this: http://www.lunalindsey.com/2011/03/analysis-of-sucker-punch-feminist.html

 

[Canadamus Prime]

The REAL problem here is that no matter what movie it is; If it's based off of another property (books, games, comics, cartoons, etc) there will ALWAYS be someone who will say that "it could have been better".

Another problem is... No matter how many times you re-do it, it will NEVER do the original source material justice.
Especially when the original source is FU*K'N WIERD!!!

My recommendation is... Let the movie stand on it's own.

I second that. When a property is adapted to film from another medium there is ALWAYS going to be something lost in the translation. So knowing that you have two choices: A) you can either wallow in hatred and nitpick the living fuck out of it which only serves to make you miserable or B) you can instead judge the thing on it's own merits and maybe acknowledge the parts of the source material they got right.

 

[Mr_Jellyfish]

Nice review, I can tell expectations were pretty high for this one! I have a feeling the inevitable rubbishness of The Avengers is gonna hit Bob pretty hard.

 

[jecht35]

I wish hollywood took more chances more often, every other movie is starting to look generic to me, holloywood is makeing me jaded. Oh and Bob I still like the artist but I do agree that it was a silent film just because it can be, and of course oscar bait. Although there were some clever scenes in that movie. I still don't get suckerpunch it was just an ok movie to me.

 

[Kuth]

Hmm so the movie is just common day fodder despite is being a good contender for being a semi-literal Elder Scroll of Sci-fi? If Hollywood haven't made so many cruddy movies the last decade, I would call Bob a nut. Now, well I am no longer shock, they are making Candy Land into a movie, and I fear for humanity over that.

 

[daxterx2005]

100 years old huh, thats pretty awesome.

 

[Odinsson]

I saw it last night. I thought it was incredibly entertaining, if a little formulaic. Twelve-year-old me would have loved this movie, and 18-year-old me thought it was definitely worth the watch

 

[omegawyrm]

Hmm, I think Bob's actually being fairly harsh on the movie. I've not read the originals but I've seen plenty of stuff like DC's Adam Strange that is very much the same story from what I understand, and I really enjoyed the movie. I guess I'd say Bob's review sounded like a 4 or 5 out of 10 and I'd rate it more like a 6.5 or 7. The films not without it's flaws, but both me and my fiance were really swept up in the mythology and felt the world it created was a really neat place. I really enjoyed how the Therns gave the story a much greater sense of scale than I expected, and especially thought the story trick at the end with the framing narrative was pretty clever. I've read a lot of reviews comparing it to Avatar, but felt John Carter was way more enjoyable than Avatar was. I felt the difference was mainly in that while Avatar's world felt like it was entirely built around conveying it's fairly basic themes, John Carter's world feels more like a believable place with the story arising as a logical consequence of the mythology, and I felt like that made it a much more enjoyable film. On the downside, I did feel like Carter himself didn't get to do a lot of character building, and I think it's weird that Bob called out Dejah as a great character since I felt she was a little flat too, but I was mostly willing to forgive that considering she seems remarkably progressive for a female character from a hundred years ago. But, yeah, other than feeling the two leads were a little weak, I'm kind of confused about all the problems most reviews have said they had with it.

 

[Zydrate]

I'm fine with "okay".
I'll probably go see this next week.

I need something better, since Safe House was such a disappointment.

 

[BrotherRool]

I was so uninspired by this. I think I'm put off by the whole muscly man in ridiculous gear thing. I've never got Conan either. And then when you take some nice sci-fi and turn it back into that?

This could even be a good film, it's just the images never make me want to see it. Whereas you can take Mass Effect (which I don't like ) and one picture of Omega, or a flash of the opening intro of ME2 makes me want to see more

 

[punipunipyo]

So... question for Bob...

"so... embracing the original materiel/feeling/culture is good... only ONE movie I see so far does just, that is Watchmen... to you, Watchmen is perfect, no? and why?"

Because I love that film to the death, everything is MATCH OBJ by OBJ! music, action, characters, and the only 2 things they toss away are (to me) HIGHLY forgivable, Personally I think it's best film EVER! (until I see wrath of titans)...

 

[wiiwiieddie]

I completly agree with you, Bob, on ACIII. i know it seems ignorent to be more excited cause it is set in your homeland, but i'm excited to be able to see places i see often 300 years beforehand. i think that, after i play the game, ill probly take a trip around town.