“The true life, the life eternal has been found – it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in you …. Everyone is the child of God …. As the child of God each man is the equal of every other man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist
“There is no God. … Yea, there is no God.” – Isaiah 44:6-8
“I’m going over to Los Angeles this week to dip my head in the pond.” – Matt Smith
Sarah Palin on George Washington: “how hard he must have worked to keep that farm going!”
Sarah Palin on Paul Revere: he “warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots.”
“We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free-market economy.” – Mitt Romney
First the Pirates of Venus movie becomes Carson Napier. And now the John Carter of Mars movie becomes John Carter. Why the planetophobia?
Maybe the feeling is: everybody nowadays knows that Mars and Venus are a) uninhabited, and b) inhospitable to human life, so audiences won’t buy seeing human heroes without protective suits running about in Martian or Venusian cities having adventures with the natives. If so, I think this greatly overestimates audiences’ concern with scientific accuracy and/or underestimates their willingness to suspend disbelief. (After all, Avatar audiences bought this.)
On the contrary, I would think that the phrase “John Carter of Mars” – which (even for people who’ve never heard of the books) promises science-fiction action-adventure – is a bigger draw than “John Carter,” which for most audiences suggests nothing in particular. (And ditto, mutatis mutandis, for Carson of Venus.)
Another suggestion is that the studio shortened the title in order to be able to establish IP rights to the name “John Carter.” (They already own “John Carter of Mars.”) But it seems to me they could do that just by releasing a five-minute animated tie-in called “John Carter,” and leaving the movie with the cooler title.
Actually I’d prefer the proper title, “A Princess of Mars.” But I’d be willing to bet that some studio exec thought, “Male audiences will be scared off by a film with ‘princess’ in the title; they’ll think it’s some girly rainbow thing.”
And now there’s a trailer. The anglophone pronunciation of the name “Tintin” makes me wince – I mean, he’s supposed to Belgian, right? – but otherwise it looks promising.
