John Carter of Mars… Earth?... Mars!

I love the idea of retro sci-fi. That’s not to say that I search out 40’s adventure serials or read old science fiction magazines from the era of the pulps. Honestly, those things bore me. But retro sci-fi re-imagined, like the underrated Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, can put me on a high that lasts for months. So when I bought the soundtrack for Disney’s John Carter and heard the sweeping strains of an epic film, I got excited.

One Christmas break during my early college years I read A Princess of Mars, the book on which John Carter is based (apparently they thought calling the movie John Carter: A Princess of Mars sounded silly). The next Christmas I read the second book, The Gods of Mars. Even though it ended with a cliffhanger, for some reason I never went on with the series. But the grand adventure of Burroughs’ story stuck with me.

For a brief time the director of Sky Captain, Kerry Conran, was attached to make A Princess of Mars movie and I was thrilled. Then, as things often do in the film industry, the project fell apart and there was some doubt as to whether or not the world would ever get a John Carter movie. Also disappointing, Kerry Conran seems to have disappeared from the film industry. For all I know, the Grand Rapids native was the guy sitting behind me at the midnight IMAX screening who said at the end, “Well, it was better than Avatar.”

Yes, John Carter is much better than Avatar. And yes, I was at the midnight screening. I said I wouldn’t pay extra to see an inferior presentation (post-production 3D), but they were giving everyone who bought tickets to the midnight show an awesome poster. I couldn’t help myself. And the 3D actually wasn’t terrible.

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A born fighter who was on the wrong side of the Civil War, John Carter has realized the futility of war and lost everything that was dear to him, even his identity, along the way. Now all he wants is to get rich and be left alone. A chance encounter in Arizona cave changes all that. Suddenly finding himself on Mars, an entire planet steeped in war and violence, he finds himself called to save a planet that seems bent on destroying itself.

The story seemed to linger too long in some places, particularly Earth. However, once we hit Mars (or Barsoom, as the natives call it), the story almost moves too fast, giving some of the more interesting characters barely enough time to introduce themselves before we’re off to the next mind-blowing set piece.

But oh how good those set pieces are! The last movie I saw at the theater was Stars Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I’d actually never seen it before. The world looked great, but the movie itself drove me to a place of boredom I’d never before experienced in a theater. The world of John Carter looks just as good, just as developed, and the action was every bit as epic as a space opera’s should be.

In the end, I didn’t mind paying the extra to see it on IMAX. I really, really want this movie to do well domestically so that we get sequels. I’m ready for another trip to Barsoom.