John Carter and the Lone Ranger

Recently I watched the more recent “Lone Ranger” film with Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the title character.   It’s another CGI orgy with Depp essentially turning Jack Sparrow into an American Indian.  Enjoyable…to an extent.

Ages back I caught “John Carter” in the movie theater and then watched it on Blu-Ray.  Like “Lone Ranger” it was heavy on CGI, but had a fairly decent story and no awkward Depps lightening the mood.  Taylor Kitsch played the title character, Lynn Collins played his love interest Dejah Thoris [they played together in an earlier X-Men film], and Mark Strong – who always seems like Steve Carell’s bad-ass evil older brother – as the quasi villain. 

Both were financial failures as movies.  “John Carter” (2012) totaled out at $350 million production and marketing, yet only grossed $284 million worldwide.  “Lone Ranger” (2013) combined production and marketing was $375 million yet only grossed $260 million worldwide. 

Another big similarity is both had archaic source material.  “John Carter” was based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter trilogy from 1913.  ERB, not to be confused with Naked Lunch writer William S. Burroughs, is much more famous for Tarzan, which remains a popular franchise.  His John Carter character is mainly known among sci-fi fans, as Carter is arguably the template for Conan and all other swords & sorcery heroes we’ve had since.  Robert Heinlein was a huge fan of ERB and even wrote a book, Number of the Beast, in tribute to ERB.  James Cameron also cites John Carter as an influence for his big film Avatar.  But since 1913, there had been only one film adaptation, in 2009, which was not great:  it was direct-to-DVD and pretty much tanked.  In any case, I reviewed both the source material and the 2009 film in my prior blog, dated 4/30/10.

The Lone Ranger was significantly more successful prior to the 2013 film.  The 1933-54 radio show was very popular, followed by the similarly popular 1949-57 TV show.  Although many actors have portrayed the Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore is most popularly associated with the role.  The theme song, better known as the William Tell Overture, is well known, as is the Ranger’s famous catchphrase, “Hi Ho Silver” (which even figures in some Frank Zappa shows). 

Ok.  But look at the films:  110 octane CGI orgies of 1080p eye candy.   In Dejah Thoris’ case, serious eye candy.  Most of the people know who of John Carter or the Lone Ranger are old folks who don’t care much for that type of film.  You won’t get that demographic into the theaters to see these films, or even to watch them on DVD at home.  “Matlock is on!’ 

Clearly Granpa wasn’t the desired demographic.  What about his XBOX/PS4 playing grandkid?  Yeah, that’s the ticket.  He’s the one you thought would shell out $15 at the megaplex to see them in 3D IMAX.  But with no familiarity with the source material – and no reason to care – he stayed at home playing XBOX or PS4.  So the movies tanked.

The studios must have thought:  hey, this is easy.  We have ready-made stories here!  John Carter and Lone Ranger were written ages ago.  We just need to tweak a screenplay a little and we’re home free!  No original thinking necessary!  It’s like printing money!  WRONG. 

The sad part is, neither film actually sucks.  Of the two, “Lone Ranger” is less reverential.   We get Reid’s backstory – a naïve prosecutor who doesn’t believe in guns – but the film is told from Tonto’s point of view, and Depp can’t resist giving him, as noted above, the full Jack Sparrow treatment.  “Carter” was more straightforward.  It’s vast, epic, and again, did I mention Dejah Thoris?  Yeah.  For my sci-fi readers out there, by all means check out the original source material.  

John Carter, Warlord of Mars

A few years ago I read one of Robert Heinlein’s later books, Number of the Beast, which was a bit strange.  The crew members encounter fictional universes and fictional characters brought to life – even Heinlein’s own creations, Lazarus Long (from Time Enough For Love) and Jubal Harshaw (from Stranger in a Strange Land).  But the four main characters were Zachariah Carter, his wife D.T. Burroughs, her father Jacob Burroughs, and his wife Hilda Burroughs.  D.T. is short for “Dejah Thoris”.  This led me to read the books which apparently inspired Heinlein, the John Carter trilogy.

 The books are Princess of Mars, Gods of Mars, and Warlord of Mars.  Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author, is best known for his other creation, Tarzan.  These were written around 1913-16, and have a very stilted form of writing which even Tolkien and Moorcock don’t reach.  The closest is Robert E. Howard of Conan fame, but even Howard wasn’t this pompous and stuffy; nonetheless, I’d find it hard to believe that Howard wasn’t influenced by Burroughs.  Having said that, though, Howard’s stories are somewhat more Byzantine and complex than the John Carter stories, but it seems as though the John Carter stories definitely provided a solid bedrock of ideas and basis upon which Howard was able to craft Conan.

 Carter himself is a Civil War veteran from Virginia, who mysteriously finds himself teleported to Barsoom (Mars); how he got there is NEVER explained.  There he meets a warlike race of very tall green men with four arms.  He finds the gravity to be much lower than Earth, so he can jump around.  His warlike bearing and skill at arms soon earn him the respect of Tars Tarkas, one of the Jeddaks (chieftains) of the green men.  Eventually his travels take him to Helium, land of the “red men”, and he meets the Princess, Dejah Thoris.  He wins her love and her heart, and the rank of Prince of Helium, a title he uses in the next books.  By the end of the first story, he has to fix the atmosphere plant which provides the sentient races of the entire planet with breathable air – yet is suddenly and abruptly (again, never explained how) teleported back to Earth without knowing whether he succeeded or failed.

 In Gods of Mars he returns to Barsoom and meets black men – though they are not negroes, just apparently caucasians with black skin; and Therns, who are white men who wear blond wigs (see Carter disguised as a Thern, above middle).  This time he is catapulted 20 years into the future, and chases after Dejah Thoris, and meets his son by her, Carthoris.  Unwittingly, he has destroyed Barsoom’s major religion by revealing its goddess, Issus, to be mortal.  Dejah Thoris is imprisoned in a temple for a year, so we don’t know if she will survive.  Thus ends the second book.

 In Warlord of Mars, the story is wound up.  He continues to chase after Dejah Thoris (who did survive), who has been captured by a renegade black man and one of the Therns.  He finds jungle men (some variant of the red men) (what? No Tarzan?) and finally yellow men (not Asians, just white men with yellow skin) in the frigid wastes of the north pole of Mars.  There is a climactic battle in which his allies (of course) come to rescue him, very much the Martian cavalry of the story.  Like Conan, John Carter seems to enjoy a strikingly convenient supply of good luck which he, of course, is amply able to take advantage of to his benefit and the detriment of his enemies, who consistently underestimate him.

 While there are plenty of swords, I see no sign of sorcery.  Flying machines get their power from repulsion rays.  The flying ships are described and illustrated (see above middle) in a way which brings to mind the ones in “Return of the Jedi”.  All the technology has a curiously simple explanation like ERB simply made it up with a minimum of thought. Guns are rare; most of the fighting is with swords and spears.  Despite plenty of religion, no magic occurs and the one deity is exposed as a mortal.  Except for the green men, a race of plant monsters, and a race of white haired apes, all the races are pretty much different-colored Caucasians (no Blue Man Group, though).  The sex, to the extent there is any, is merely implied (how else would Carter have a son with Dejah Thoris?), although most inhabitants of Mars, including the women, are consistently scantily clad.  And ERB never explains how they got to Mars or whether any of the races are actually indigenous to Mars (unlikely, as they all need an atmosphere plant).  

Princess of Mars (DVD). Until 2012, this was the only actual film treatment of the stories.  Despite the fact that these stories were written before 1916 and have been known for ages, this film was made – apparently direct to DVD – in 2009.  John Carter is played by a soap opera heart-throb, Antonio Sabato Jr., and the only other major star is Traci Lords, the former porn actress, portraying Dejah Thoris.  I can appreciate her effort to find normal roles, but the reality is her acting stinks: she simply scowls 99% of the time like a female Clint Eastwood.  Although I found the overall acting in this to be equally bad, they did stick pretty much to the story.  Hell, they even came up with an explanation on how he got to Mars.  Give them a B+ for effort and a C- for execution.

 Recently Disney took a shot at this, with Lynn Collins & Taylor Kitsch (both in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) as Dejah Thoris and John Carter, respectively, which came out in 2012.  This had an all-star cast, which also included Willem Dafoe (as Tars Tarkas), Thomas Hayden Church, and Mark Strong.  I liked it much more than the prior attempt, but the moviegoing public seemed to prefer "The Hunger Games", which I refuse to see for that reason.  While they took a few liberties with the plot, overall it was extremely well done.  Even Bryan Cranston (Walt White) is in here as decrepit Union cavalry officer.  Good job; more people should have seen this tribute to one of the earliest, most original forms of science fiction, rather than waste their attention on the completely unoriginal "Games".