Disney has released the first full length trailer for its upcoming John Carter film, which is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels about the character.
The teasers we’ve seen so far have just been action free shots of landscapes and cityscapes, with very little display of the characters or plot. Fortunately, these two minutes give us a much better idea of what the film is going to look like, and I certainly couldn’t be happier with what is shown.
The trailer itself is powerful and impressive. I know that a lot of that is actually due to the manipulation of my senses with epic music and well-times explosions, but I stil can’t help looking forward to the film.
Sure, there are some changes to the plot of A Princess of Mars, upon which this film was based, but I’m willing to accept this fact. Disney has made it abundantly clear in multiple interviews and releases that the movie is based on the characters of the Burroughs books, but not necessarily the exact stories. This is quite different from the modified Akira plot-line for a few reasons:
First, Burroughs was writing in a time when science fiction did not need a lot of heavy action to be interesting to its core audience. If the film was a direct adaptation of the action in the books, it would likely be a pretty boring one.
Second, Burroughs wrote a whole series of books, and so pulling elements from various novels to get a new, more compelling tale for modern audiences is artistically legitimate, at least in my opinion. Finally, and most importantly, it doesn’t seem like they’ve changed the themes and objectives of the story, just some plot details.
It’s still a story about the redemption of a man who found himself without purpose on Earth, and once ‘translated’ accidentally to the fantastic surface of Mars, he finds a world which actually needs and wants him, so much unlike the world he came from in so many ways. The characters are in-tact, and that’s important to an adaptation, if not the most important thing.
When the cast was first announced many months ago, I was skeptical, but this trailer finally brings me on-board fully. I still think Deja Thoris could be more orange, but I get it; orange skin, at this point in our culture, would not be seen as ‘alien’, it would just be silly looking. Thanks, Jersey Shore.
John Carter will hit theaters March 9, 2012.
