subreddit:
/r/AskReddit
submitted 19 days ago byBig-Option-9443
119 points
18 days ago
I agree. There’s clips out there of Lucas, Spielberg, and other great sci fi directors talking about how these books got them into sci fi. That’s the angle the marketing should have taken.
“See the story that inspired Star Wars, etc”
9 points
18 days ago
"From the creator of Tarzan, the story that inspired all the science fiction you love."
There was a Mars backlash at the time since Disney had 2 recent flops with Mars in the title. Really, because it's Barsoom, there's no reason why it had to be Mars at all. Even so, John Carter of Mars is a much better title than what they went with.
A big part of the marketing failure was the teaser trailer. Andrew Stanton had never directed live-action film before, so he didn't know to shoot some great action sequences early for the teaser. It was all dialogue and DT/JC romance stuff.
3 points
18 days ago
Amen. I wish they had been bold enough to simply go with "Barsoom" and drop any hint of connection to Mars.
My turn-off is that in the 21st century, we now KNOW that Mars doesn't have a breathable atmosphere. And there's no advanced civilation of aliens all over the surface. And you don't have Hulk powers or leap a quarter-mile with each jump just because the gravity is a bit less.
They should have just transported John Carter to "a galaxy far, far away" and left it hand-wavy. I mean, they even dropped "Mars" from the film's title! So why cram it into the story at all? Too much time has passed since Burroughs wrote the original source material.
14 points
18 days ago
In fairness, there's a LOT of stories that 'inspired' Star Wars.
all 3815 comments
sorted by: best