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The basic buzz was that John Carter was a hot mess and Prometheus was awesome.
What utter rot. I cannot stand by silently and let this stand. So here, goddesses, is my chock-full-of-spoilers compare and contrast of both movies. Fasten your seat belts.
What the movies have in common: Sci-fi genre, based on preexisting worlds—in the case of Prometheus, the Alien world created in the first movie and in John Carter, the world created by legendary sci-fi writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. The obvious challenges in writing a story based on a fictional world created long ago are that you have to stick to the story-structure. You can’t break the world. You can’t play fast and loose with viewer expectations, those loyal viewers who will make you pay in blood for messing with “their” story. I think both movies did a good job with this. I’m not speaking for the majority on this.
John Carter has been scorched for not sticking to the novel. Well, in the novel John Carter was flat. He was also kind of a jerk, in my very female opinion. The movie gave John Carter tenderness, a heart-rending past, and cast him as a romantic hero just as much as an action hero. John Carter was a highly sympathetic character. In fact, all of the main characters were highly sympathetic in John Carter. In Prometheus, the most sympathetic character was the robot. Prometheus: that poor, sweet robot. John Carter: rooting for every single good guy/girl/dog-slug (you have to see it). Well done! All fantastic improvements. Nothing at all to gripe about.
But speaking of gripes . . . Prometheus. Logic problems and continuity problems abound. First, there is the problem of the space helmets. The set up: The characters are on a distant planet, the atmosphere is highly hostile to humans, the team explores a cave (and it’s not a deep cave, they walk right into it). The atmosphere in the cave is good for humans, and so they take their helmets off. Why? What kind of idiot explorers and scientists are they? What kind of dope takes off his “this allows me to live in this hostile climate” helmet?
And it gets worse. Now that the gigantic helmets, helmets that did not impede their vision at all and, stepping outside the world of the movie to speak as a movie goer, did not impede me seeing the actors faces at all, now that they’ve been removed, they simply disappear. The characters walk around the creepy cave with their hands free, doing scientific stuff and chatting about this and that. Where are the helmets? Never fear. When the characters need to leave the cave, the helmets magically appear in their hands or on their heads.
The disappearing/appearing helmet would be a fantastic drinking game.
And before I leave the subject of the helmets, there is no reason for either the actors or the characters to remove the helmets. As actors, I can see their faces. As characters, the removal of the helmet does not, in any way, further the plot. There is no bad thing that must happen for the story to work that has anything at all to do with helmets being either on or off.
I’m going to say it again: nothing that happens is dependent upon the helmets being off.
Then there is the big fight scene outside of the ship. One of the crew has been mutated and he’s a monster now and they can all see that he’s a monster and they open the door. When the fighting and killing begins, they do not close the door. What the heck? Close the door and keep the monster out!
I’m not even going to go into the plot hole at the end of the movie where the female protagonist jumps to a conclusion (she does that a lot in the movie) and speeds off to do justice, find the bad guy, get answers . . . all of the above. There is no logic to her conclusion. It’s in the realm of “an Australian mugged me; I must find out what the entire Australian continent has against Americans.” Huh?
Now, let’s talk about the beauty that is John Carter. The world-building is complex, realistic, and logical. There is a mystery that is not meant to be solved in this movie; I can live with that. The action sequences made sense from both a plot and character point of view. John Carter behaves in character throughout the movie, and his motives are lovely, romantic, and touching. When he falls in love, we believe it. We applaud it. We applaud him. He is a reluctant hero, much like the typical Harrison Ford standard role. He is a good action hero and marvelous eye-candy (don’t get me started on the lack of eye candy in Prometheus and the appalling waste of Guy Pearce, one of my favorite actors, who had approximately 5 minutes on screen).
John Carter made sense. It was emotionally, visually, and intellectually lovely. Prometheus was fun visually; I really enjoyed the special effects, but the plot of the movie was a mess, and the sets were boring. The same three cave sets, the same four space ship sets, the same one alien space ship set. For all that money, couldn’t we get more sets? John Carter had lots of sets! John Carter was a visual feast. When I go see a sci-fi action movie, I expect thrilling and varied sets along with special effects. Both movies had great special effects. Kudos to that department.
Thank you, John Carter. You were awesome. And I’m a real fan of your leather outfit. Real. Fan. Kudos to the wardrobe department and your personal trainer.
Your turn. Spew away.
59 Comments on “Movie Review Spew”
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I haven’t seen either of the movies, New Guy and I went and saw The Amazing Spiderman last week and it was actually pretty good. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Tomorrow we plan to go and see the first two of the Batman movies in preparation for the third one being released on Thursday. It should be quite interesting.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 5:39 am.
Only Girl saw the new Spiderman and raved. She thought it was miles better than the previous trilogy. I’m eager to see it! This week, for sure.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:42 am.
Apparently it is closer to the comics and Peter Parker comes across as a grittier, more flawed hero which kinda rocks.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 9:19 am.
I love it when they stick with the original intent of the creator. There is a reason why these stories became so popular!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 12:22 pm.
I want to go to the movies with YOU!
I saw Amelia with 2 new friends who walked out discussing how much they liked it. Me? I needed desperately to trash it. Prosthetic teeth in an early scene and they never appear again? Bad, stilted acting all around and we’re just going to let it slide. They were so upbeat I just didn’t have the heart to bring them down by tearing apart all the movie’s flaws – and there was a pirate’s booty worth.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 6:49 am.
There is nothing I like better than discussing movies. I would love to go to the movies with you, Fresh!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:44 am.
I haven’t gotten to either one of these but I will definitely check out John’s leather outfit on Pay per View. Gracias!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 7:02 am.
De nada.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:50 am.
LOL, so…Claudia, I’m taking it that you liked John Carter of Mars and Prometheous, not so much?
I don’t know what makes a movie “classic” most of the ones I’ve watched based on critic’s reviews have been long, drawn out, overwrought with people you want to shake and say “Get Over It! Or go get psychiatric help!”
So, if it looks like a story I’ll like, I go see it. If it has Seth Rogan (Who has got to be related to someone in hollywood because he’s an awful actor) in it, or Will Ferrel in it it’s got about a 90 percent chance I’ll hate it, wait til it comes out on TV.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 7:24 am.
Loved John Carter—and I almost didn’t bother because it was tanking at the box office—hence this review. Thought Prometheus was a mess. I love the Alien world. Love. It. I was so excited about this movie, and then to have it be such a dud? Heart-breaking.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:52 am.
Sadly, I haven’t been to a movie since January. How pathetic is my life??? Although my girlfriends and I are going to see Magic Mike soon!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:04 am.
I just saw Magic Mike. Review in a future blog.
Be prepared: it’s not a “girl’s night out” movie.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:53 am.
Yay for the upcoming review! But can’t wait for the DVD release with the “making of” segment
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:25 pm.
The only part I liked about “Magic Mike” was the dancing.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:07 pm.
There’s more than dancing?? Lol. Okay, maybe we’ll go out for drinks instead!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm.
Claudia and I went with some friends, and it was a very good film. But as Claudia says, NOT a girl’s night out fun thing, as it’s being packaged. Just an excellent movie about the stripper world.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:40 pm.
Thanks for the heads up!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 6:54 pm.
I so agree with you about John Carter. The hub laughed at me because I rarely advocate for people to lose a job, but the people Disney hired to advertise for this movie should be fired….they were awful. The advertising was a hot mess, not the film itself. Disney spent a LOT of money on this film, but apparently didn’t spend enough on a good marketing firm because no one knew enough about the movie to pay the extortion fees/movie prices to go and see it.
I think if they had left the title “John Carter of Mars,” that might have intrigued some of the sci-fi folks enough to at least do some research on what the movie was about. Then, we have the actual trailers, which didn’t really explain what the movie was about at ALL. I actually never read the series. I just saw beautiful Taylor Kitsch and thought I would find out what the movie was about, since the trailer told me nothing. I found out it was based on a series of books and that he was a Civil War officer for the Confederacy and he somehow got sent to Mars, and this was about his journey there–I thought it sounded cool and so did the hub. I got to watch Taylor Kitsch (and James Purefoy!) and he got to watch Lynn Collins–it was a win-win!
We actually enjoyed the movie–and bought the Blu-Ray when it came out.
And, I want the dog/slug! What a fantastic bit of CGI that was!! That character was one of the best parts about the movie.
I didn’t really have any desire to see Prometheus. I’m not usually a fan of those type of movies. Glad I didn’t miss anything.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:40 am.
Wasn’t the dog/slug the best!? I adored that character. Another bit of heart-rending writing. That one character added so much.
I think you’re right about the title. Keeping the original JOHN CARTER OF MARS (and it was so poetic when he changes his name from JC of Earth to JC of Mars—romantic!) would have clued people in who’d read the books. Huge audience, right there. Those books are classic sci-fi.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:57 am.
You can’t blame John Carter’s ad campaign on Disney marketing because they aren’t responsible for it. The man responsible for the ad campaign is John Carter director Andrew Stanton. Disney had a completely different ad campaign that Stanton nixed. Since he was coming off of the successes of Finding Nemo and Wall-e, they went with his ad campaign. It’s something that I heard from someone who worked with Stanton in the past, who works with my dh now.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 11:59 am.
That’s interesting. I wonder if he suspects that the marketing was off?
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 12:23 pm.
I think Stanton realized his marketing campaign failed when the movie tanked. You read the interviews before the movie came out, and he thinks he’s ALL that and more. It’s stuff like how he had to teach the effects houses who did the CGI to do the animation “properly,” that he was thinking 18 months ahead of the rest of the crew because of his animation experience, etc. He makes Brad Bird of The Incredibles, Ratouille, and Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol look humble (and Bird thinks very HIGHLY of himself, but he has the chops to back it up in both animation and live action.). Even though, Stanton lost $200 million for Disney this year, they’re letting him direct Finding Nemo 2 (just announced).
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:00 pm.
Well, at least his confidence isn’t shaken. LOL
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:34 pm.
Oh, Claudia, I’m so happy to read your review of John Carter! I absolutely love the actor (who was my favorite in Friday Night Lights) and really wanted to see it, but the reviews were SO bad. My beloved just said he’d happily watch it with me, so double win.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:41 am.
Yay!! I’m thrilled! I think you’ll enjoy it. The writing is very tight.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 8:58 am.
The only movie I’ve been to recently was Magic Mike and I was so focused on the amazing visuals that I don’t actually remember if the acting was good or bad. <3 Channing Tatum.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:08 am.
I thought the story was very good. It was a somewhat dark movie and it had an uplifting ending. I actually thought it had Rocky elements to it. More on that in a future Movie Review Spew.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:11 am.
That’s exactly what my boyfriend (who went with me) said!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:28 pm.
Great minds.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:34 pm.
I agree that the marketing for John Carter sucked. I had no idea what it was about. Zero. And the panning seemed to start even before its release.
So, NO plot points that require the helmets to be off? I guess that means no romantic anything going on in the movie. Bleh.
What is it with illogical moves with costumes in movies? I remember an Arthurian movie where a character was in bed with his woman, and he was wearing armor. Um. . . .?
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:23 am.
There was supposed to be a romance in Prometheus but it wasn’t fleshed out enough to work. Plus, the romantic partner was a total jerk (no sympathetic characters in this movie!). Such a waste of a great premise.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 12:25 pm.
I agree so completely with you about both movies that it’s kind of scary!
I saw Spiderman last week and was not amazed. Guess I’m just not a Spiderman fan. I wasn’t so fond of the first ones, either. And I didn’t think Magic Mike was as good as I’d hoped it would be.
I loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom. Oh, and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. To Rome with Love was also good. Taking the grands to see Ice Age today…and probably Katy Perry later this week. I get a lot of crocheting done at the movies, thank goodness!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:28 am.
Magic Mike had more heft that the marketing led me to believe. They’re getting people in to see it for the skank factor; it’s not a skank movie.
I can’t wait to see Spiderman just to see if we’ll agree or not.
I am DYING to see Marigold Hotel. It looks fabulous.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 12:27 pm.
My brother highly recommended the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, so I’m going to try to see that one.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:44 pm.
I’m planning to see Brave and Magic Mike this week with friends, then next week is The Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Night Rises with my geeky man. We both love superhero movies. I really wanted to see John Carter, but I didn’t because it had such bad reviews. Now I’m mad, because if it was so beautiful, I would have much rather seen it on the big screen! Stupid critics! I am totally going to rent it ASAP! I didn’t see Prometheus because a friend of mine who loves the Alien films said that it was badly plotted, so I guess that was a good decision.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:41 am.
I can’t wait to see Dark Knight Rises. That’s a powerful story line.
See John Carter!! You won’t be disappointed.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:20 pm.
Haven’t seen Prometheus but I loved John Carter. Why did the critics hate it so?
They have no taste!!!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 11:18 am.
I have no idea. Honestly! What is wrong with John Carter??? It was a great movie!
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:21 pm.
I totally agree, Claudia!! I read the John Carter books, and thought the movie made a tremendous improvement in the likability of the hero. I have no idea why it didn’t do better than it did, unless it’s because Disney kept downplaying that it was based on a classic book.
Prometheus -eh. I’m a big fan of the Alien movies, but I really didn’t see the point of this whole thing. They kept claiming it wasn’t a sequel, but used the same giant alien ship, the same giant alien suit… Baffling.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 12:10 pm.
Suzie, we must DO SOMETHING to salvage John Carter!! What on earth is wrong with critics that they didn’t love it! Insane!
Prometheus was a prequel. And not done well. The heroine was TSTL.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:22 pm.
I had no urge to see “John Carter” or “Prometheus” or the new Spider-Man.
I was debating about the “G.I. Joe” sequel, but they are adding 3-D, and 3-D gives me a headache.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:14 pm.
See John Carter. Even if you never read the books, it won’t matter. The movie is wonderful.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 1:23 pm.
My brother loved JOHN CARTER so much that he bought the Blu-ray because he knew liked that movie and needed to “support” it, even though he knew that it tanked big time in the U.S. (and not International). Sadly, I hadn’t watched PROMETHEUS yet and now am too lazy to watch it, so I’ll just wait when it is out and I can see it whenever I feel like it.
I do plan to watch Batman this weekend. I hadn’t watched Spiderman yet, and I probably will just wait for when it is on DVD, since I’m not heavily invested in the superhero. I’m debating between watching BRAVE or ICE AGE since I want to watch something “light” and animated with the ‘free’ ticket that I received from my movie theater program (which I can only use for 2-wk older and above movies, so I’m waiting one more week, depending if I want to watch ICE AGE). I’m also teaming it up with my ‘free’ popcorn and drink.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:29 pm.
I saw Brave last week. I don’t know what to tell you. I expect a lot from Pixar; Brave was a huge disappointment.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:36 pm.
Yes!!! I agree about Brave. Like I said in my post that I just finished, it’s derivative. I think I give Brave a B just because of the second time I saw it. The first time I saw it, I thought it was maybe a C. What it does have going for it, is that it’s not either Cars movie, which I thought were absolute crap. Cars 2 more so than Cars.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 5:00 pm.
Brave had so much potential. I found the heroine unlikeable and the plot glitchy. The movie lacked heart.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 7:08 pm.
Now you’ve got me curious about John Carter. I may have to see that one, too. I just see so few movies these days.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:46 pm.
It’s really good. A good all round action adventure movie with romance elements. Indiana Jones type of thing.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 7:09 pm.
We haven’t seen John Carter or Prometheus. Maybe we’ll check out John Carter, now. After seeing the Prometheus trailer more than a handful of times, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to work.
I liked The Amazing Spiderman. I think Andrew Garfield’s Spiderman is better than Tobey Maguire’s. With Garfield’s Spiderman you can see why Gwen Stacy or Mary Jane would fall for Peter Parker; Tobey not so much. The wit is much more like the comicbooks. My very particular dd loved it and walked out quoting lines. We saw it the Saturday before it was released, and she’s still talking about it. As far as critics go, she makes Ebert look like Pollyanna, lol.
I’ve seen Brave twice now – once at an industry screening and another time with friends (it was Brave or Katie Perry). My opinions about Brave are influenced what I know about what happened behind the scenes. I don’t think Brave is as good as it could have been. It was Brenda Chapman’s baby, and when there were creative differences, she was fired as the director. Then, she was replaced with a male director. I’d like to have seen Chapman’s version of Brave because I feel like a man can look at the mother-daughter relationship, but not get the dynamics of it, having never lived it. I, also, think that Brave is derivative of the more recent Disney Princess movies. It’s a solid movie; I’d give it a B because it’s nothing new or special. My dd who knows nothing of the back story, says it’s ok.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 4:54 pm.
Really? That’s fascinating. I assumed it was flawed because Chapman was the story creator, the screen writer and the director—I figured she needed outside input to shake her out of her own vision. For me, it was a movie about no one communicating, not even a little bit. I found that insanely frustrating. No one listened! The heroine got on my last nerve.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 7:12 pm.
Dang it – see my reply below.
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 12:48 am.
I really enjoyed Battleship, but everyone else seemed to pan it.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 10:46 pm.
See, I didn’t even see this because it was so heavily panned. I should see it now! Thanks for the tip.
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 9:01 am.
Your reviews are exactly why I wait for them on Pay Per View. I did go and see Snow White and the Huntsmen, and of course Ted. A+ on both of them from me.
Posted on July 17, 2012 at 11:13 pm.
I thought SW and the Huntsman was a really good movie—I can’t figure out what there is to complain about. I’m still waiting for Ted. It looks cute!
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 9:02 am.
Chapman wasn’t the director for the last 18 months of the movie. In animation that’s a lifetime. Anything and everything can and does change. For example, my dh is working on a movie that comes out at the end of September. They’ve had 2 audience screenings since May. Changes were made after both of them. By the time Brave was released, without being on the inside, it’s hard to say how much of Chapman’s original idea was still part of the movie. My dh worked on one feature where there were 6 directors by the time the movie was released.
Oh, here’s a movie that critics LOVED, but hardly anyone saw it. Everyone who I’ve talked to that’s seen it, loves it. Arthur Christmas. FABULOUS Christmas movie – 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Absolutely HORRID ad campaign and title. Anyone who has kids thought that the Arthur of Arthur Christmas refers to Arthur the Aardvark that has an animated show on PBS. Changes should have been made, but this was the director’s baby – lack of perspective for sure with a HUGE unwillingness to hear ANY kind of outside suggestions. I lived thru this one, and the director made it very difficult for my dh to do the last part of his job, which is to get the movie prints made and delivered to the theaters on time. It was such a mess. But Arthur Christmas is a GREAT movie.
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 12:47 am.
Thank you, Janae!! I’ve never even heard of Arthur Christmas! Geez, that movie was buried. I’m going to hope it’s at Redbox.
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 9:04 am.
Yes, Prometheus lost me at the point where you realized ancient aliens had supposedly left star maps on Earth that would lead humans to… yep, a weapons storage warehouse — not a big cosmic secret-to-all-life place. The movie was full of absurdities and story disconnects.
John Carter I loved because it was a good old fasioned rollicking movie of reluctant hero who rises to his calling. Yes, many of the devices in the movie have been used in tons of other movies — that’s what makes them successful, but you have to remember that the Edgar Rice Burroughs book this was based on CAME FIRST. It was the story that gave all the other movies their ideas.
And I agree, there seems to be some sort of snobbery about how Prometheus has subtext and special messages and gifted actors. Nope. The story wastes the actors.
In John Carter all the actors are dramatic and over the top, but look at star wars movies and you’ll see the same. I would spend money on John Carter (yes, it should have been John Carter of Mars) and I so wish I could take back my $$ spent to see Prometheus
Posted on July 18, 2012 at 9:13 am.
It’s so funny that you bring up advance screenings, Janae. I went to college at a school that offered free advance screenings. I saw a couple of movies WAYYY before they came out in theaters, saw a few tweaks in various movies, and saw a couple of movies that never really seemed to hit theaters. (American Dreamz… which I found hilarious, but apparently most of America disagreed with me. It doesn’t really have that much of a “happy” ending, but again, I found it ironic and amazingly realistic satire.
My favorite part about advance screenings in college, though, is something that I would HATE if I were paying to see movies at the theater. Students were encouraged to react to the movie… so when Paris Hilton died in “House of Wax”, the entire audience erupted in cheers. (I know, that’s a little cruel, please don’t judge). When the female love interest in “Constantine” turns away from the kiss towards the end of the movie, I remember somebody screaming “Da**, that’s cold!!”
Ahh, the good old days.
Posted on July 19, 2012 at 5:31 am.