The Silver Screen Oasis

I just saw this film today with my 16 year old son, and we really liked it. He is a fan of ERB's Mars (Barsoom) novels. I read "A Princess of Mars" in high school and decided the Barsoom books weren't for me. (Although I loved ERB's Pellucidar and Caspak books.)

To me, "John Carter" is a terrific film, even better than "Avatar" (which I thought was 15 minutes too long.) I liked the frame story, and the movie had a plot that kept developing and showing new aspects (the novelist Michael Chabon -- "Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" -- worked on the screenplay.)

The cast was first rate: Adam Kitsch proved a charming hero as John Carter. Lynn Collins was outstanding as Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars. She convinced me she was princess, a scientist, and a warrior. Without her, the film would have collapsed. Mark Strong was suitably scary as the manipulative villain, while Dominic West showed real power as the impulsive action villain.

The action scenes, such as the fight in the arena and a battle in which Carter takes on a horde of Tharks, were very well handled. Hats off to Andrew Stanton for bringing this very interesting film to the screen. It's a shame the critics are hammering it.

I haven't read the books. But I'm glad somebody has bothered to translate them to film. I'm a fan of pulp; boyish adventure. Gratified that the "classics" are not completely forgotten. How many of today's young people have even heard of Edgar Rice Burroughs?

Well, my son is a bigger ERB fan than I ever was. He has read all the Mars books, all Pellucidar, all Caspak, a few Venus books (boo) and a good helping of Tarzan.

Interestingly, he read none of these as new mass market paperbacks. He read used paperbacks, trade paperback 3-in-1 volumes, a few hardback 3-in-1 volumes, and books available online. It's not like when I was a teenager (the Seventies) when you could walk into pretty much any bookstore and find at least two shelves of ERB paperbacks waiting for you.

Also, I had a talk with a forty year old guy today who knew that ERB had written Tarzan but had no idea ERB had written about Mars.