John Carter

Release Date: March 9, 2012

Watch Date: June 27, 2023

“Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic novel, this sweeping action-adventure is set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). John Carter is a war-weary former Civil War military captain who’s inexplicably transported to Barsoom and reluctantly becomes embroiled in an epic conflict. It’s a world on the brink of collapse, and Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.”

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    John Carter was a flop. There’s no beating around the bush here, John Carter did not perform nearly as well as it was predicted to, and if it did manage to actually make Disney any money – which I don’t think it did – it did so by the skin of it’s teeth. A sweeping sci-fi epic released in the same year as “Marvel’s The Avengers” and it sank like a stone.

    Now maybe the fact that it went up against a juggernaut like “The Avengers” is one of the reasons it failed – “The Avengers was released just two months after this film though, so it’s not like it was in theatres at the same time and pulling people way. Maybe it’s the style of the story, which is based on a novel that was first written in 1911 and has that very unique world building style that you get in books from that time period.

    Now, generally speaking, I’m more of a fantasy girl myself, sci-fi is more Bob’s realm than my own, but I love any piece of media that takes itself seriously enough to create a rich world that you want to explore. I want to know more about what Mars was like with water, I want an entire movie about the Tharks. I want to know how they sail on the light, and how they survive with no visible crops or wild animals to hunt.

    What I want to know less about is the Thern, who I understand are in the novels and are very important main villains, but whose existence over complicates a plot that might have been better served just being about a tyrant trying to conquer a planet – without all this ‘we survive of off dying planets, and we’re immortal’ nonsense. Look, if this had taken off, become a franchise, maybe the Thern would have fit, but as it is it’s just adds another layer to complex politics that didn’t need to exist.

    Bob’s main gripe with the movie was Carter’s political loyalties – no loyal American should want to make a hero out of a Confederate soldier in his mind. Would it have been hard for Disney just to make him a Union soldier? Probably not. But on this they decided to be true to the source material, which meant a lot of Bob rooting for everyone else, and reminding people that no – Carter did not stand up for human rights and what was right in the world, because he fought on the side of slavery. And yes, yes, states rights. But it was states rights to own slaves, and even if it was originally about “states rights” it became about slavery very quickly.

    John Carter the character is incredibly flat, but all the characters from Mars are varied with complex personalities and social backgrounds that – again – I want to learn more about. Really, you could have cut John Carter out and the whole movie would have been much more enjoyable, though poorly named.

    All in all, I think this movie deserved a little bit more love than it received back in 2012, it’s fun and you’re not going to regret spending an afternoon watching it. Would most people rather pop on “The Avengers”, sure, but if you write this movie off just because it didn’t perform well at release…well then I think you’re missing out on an above average sci-fi film that does something different than most other “life on Mars” films do – by virtue of it being one of the first.