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[Lord Anubis]

The solid Tars Tarkas who can move his arms and head and nothing else?  Yeah, I've got that one, too... 

[Rob Pegler]

I don't wanna know your definition of "snorg".

Does anyone else find it odd that there's a novelization of a film based on a novel? Kinda reminds me of when they brought out a video game based on the Street Fighter movie... which was based on a video game.

[Doug (Ancient) Wojtowicz]

I don't wanna know your definition of "snorg".

Hug tightly while snoring.   

Pete, I suck at painting my figures, and am even worse at photographing them (well, my lense sucks).  But, I may take a stab at this.

[MilesB]

Here we go:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/53732

Fan made trailer. Best thing i've seen of this project yet, and I'm a huge fan. Enjoy.

[Lord Anubis]

Supposedly if you go to midnight IMAX shows on Thursday/ Friday they're giving away free posters.

I'm kind of stunned how much Disney keeps trying to sabotage this.  All these releases about "oh, it's not tracking well--oh, it went way overbudget--oh, it's unmarketable."  Remember when Disney would market the hell out of everything and try to convince us Adventure Buddies was going to be the greatest movie of the year and we might go sterile if we didn't see it OPENING WEEKEND!?!?!?

They must really, really hate the guys at Pixar... 

[Lord Anubis]

And that fan trailer is really amazing.  Further proof Disney's marketing people are idiots.

[Snell]

Mmm, I dunno. PRINCE OF PERSIA still looks better.

[frank]

Given the hundreds and hundreds of science fiction novels I've read, how is it I missed out on John Carter?  Really, I'd never heard or read of John Carter, as such.  But I was aware of a series of books set on Mars by ERB.  I just never happened across any of them.  My loss, apparently.

This is my second look at this thread.  (I remember seeing the first trailer L.A. put up and not being hooked.  Now I'm excited.)

Bring it on.

[Snell]

Frank, can I ask you something? It seems like your interest was sparked when you learned that the movie is based on a classic series of books. Is that accurate?

I ask because... it might be that Disney feels the film isn't marketable because they believe it only really appeals to fans of the fiction--which, for the most part, seem to be guys Peter's age. Correct me if I'm wrong, Peter, but your demographic does not constitute the largest section of the market when it comes to moviegoers.

BUT... how can Disney believe for a second that this movie doesn't appeal to the PG-13 crowd?! Fathers, who might be fans, will want to take their kids. It's not really a "family movie," but I can easily see it drawing a good portion of the family-movie crowd.  Plus guys my age; it's the IDEAL theater movie for me. (I can't see the vast majority of women moviegoers being all that interested [look at how many women here have expressed interest], but if the kids and the husbands want to see it... the moms would still have fun, I think.)

Didn't LORD OF THE RINGS do well? Are the two films even comparable, as far as fan base from the original literature, and target audience?

I actually know little about this, so... I wouldn't even call the above a hypothesis. Experts, chime in!

[Lane Adamson]

Really, the Barsoom novels share more background with RE Howard's Hyborian Age than Middle Earth.  The worlds imagined by ERB and REH both sprang from the fertile pulp adventure tradition, rather than relying on classical mythology (skaldic or Eddaic in origin though it might be, Tolkien's work was heavily influenced by the classics).

My Dad's paperback Mars books had some dazzling Frank Frazetta covers, as I recall--again, echoing Conan (though I don't even know which series used Frazetta first; if memory serves, I read the ERB catalog a year or two before I discovered REH).

The Marketeers ought to be playing up the film to the sword-and-scorcery crowd, if you ask me.  We're suckers for a cracking good yarn (which is why the Conan movies keep tanking; they ain't).

[Snell]

Lane, thanks for the background!

I should clarify on one of my qualifiers. Classic-Book-to-Movie-wise, especially big budget book-to-movie-wise, Lord of the Rings was the closest and most recent thing that sprang to mind; it seems like both movies appeal to the same mass audience.

But you know, bringing up genre/sub-genre raises an interesting point: the stories based on ancient mythologies tend to have a certain lasting power, in part thanks to the sheer age and recognition of the lore itself.

Part of that is... if the book based on the lore is studious literature, and the author is one of the lucky ones, the work ends up getting taught in school.  Therefore, the Hobbit becomes more widely known because you're forced to read it at some point. And The Hobbit especially has intertextual merit later in undergraduate school, when you read Beowulf; so the book gets further canonized as a building block.

Shit, I'm giving schools too much credit to be that consciously interrelated.  Even if that's not how it is, that's how it should be.

[Matthew]

John Carter is more like LotR in at least one way. Both movies are actually adaptations of the originals. The Conan movies are based on a character but deal only tangentially with any of the original stories.

[Rakie]

(I can't see the vast majority of women moviegoers being all that interested [look at how many women here have expressed interest], but if the kids and the husbands want to see it... the moms would still have fun, I think.)

AHEM.    I'm totally looking forward to seeing the movie, but i try not to watch trailers ahead of time so i've not got a great deal to contribute to this conversation right now.  Foo to you, Mr Snell! 

[Lane Adamson]

John Carter is more like LotR in at least one way. Both movies are actually adaptations of the originals. The Conan movies are based on a character but deal only tangentially with any of the original stories.

Probably another reason the Conan movies have been such terrible messes.

[Lane Adamson]

And The Hobbit especially has intertextual merit later in undergraduate school, when you read Beowulf; so the book gets further canonized as a building block.

Believe I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I had the most amazing light-bulb moment at one point in my 30s--about the 6th or 7th time I read the Trilogy--when I realized that Tolkien had, in essence, reinvented the Ragnarok myth (and Wagner's Ring cycle) and made it his own.