I wonder if scifi/fantasy fans today appreciate just how ancient Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" books are. This is on of the "subject zeroes" of genre-fiction - think "War of the Worlds." Think "King Solomon's Mines." It was old when "Lord of The Rings" was young. The "bedrock" stories modern writers and filmmakers try to live up to today were themselves trying to live up to this.
People have been trying to put the series (which concerns a Civil War veteran named John Carter who is transported to Mars and gets caught up in an alien conflict) on film since the invention of film. This first "real" attempt comes courtesy of Pixar's Andrew Stanton... and it looks VERY close to a "nailed it."
I like everything about this trailer - starting from the fact that they're apparently keeping the "journals kept by a dead relative" framing device and ending with the not-at-all-generic music choice and editing. It'd be nice to see some more of the aliens (whose outlandishness is what's largely kept the series unfilmmable until now) but I'm liking the look of it - yes, even what looks like a logical-compromise in the realm of costuming (Burroughs was BIG on "going native" machismo, and was seldom without an excuse for his heroes and heroines to do their fighting essentially naked.)
It'll be interesting to see how a general audience reacts to this - the inherent problem in adapting older genre material is that it's been so thoroughly cannibalized by it's descendants that literally EVERYTHING about it will be somewhat familiar dozens of times over - what "Star Wars" borrowed from Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon borrowed from John Carter. So far, I like what I see... but will what boils down to "Conan in Space" go over with anyone else?
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