{"id":11222,"date":"2012-03-26T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=11222"},"modified":"2012-03-26T05:30:07","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T09:30:07","slug":"edgar-rice-burroughs-his-failed-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/03\/edgar-rice-burroughs-his-failed-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Edgar Rice Burroughs & his failed movie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I mentioned to our daughter that we were going to the movies this weekend.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you going to see,\u201d she asked, \u201cHunger Games<\/em>?\u201d\u00a0 No, I told her, we are going to see a movie of an equivalent wildly popular young adult book from back when your mother and I were young adults:\u00a0 John Carter<\/a> [of Mars]!<\/p>\n

We needed to see it quick because I had heard that it is slated to lose $200 million, making it the biggest bomb of all time.\u00a0 So it probably isn\u2019t going to be in the theaters for much longer.\u00a0 But we had been looking forward to this movie for a long time, so we weren\u2019t going to let its failure stop us!<\/p>\n

When I was a kid\u2013not a young adult at all, just young\u2013it was Edgar Rice Burroughs who transitioned me from comic books to reading actual novels.\u00a0 Comic books seized my imagination, in stark contrast to the \u201cSee Spot Run\u201d books we had to read in school, but when I somewhat randomly picked up a Tarzan book, I found that reading a novel is a lot better than comic books, movies, and TV shows.\u00a0 While I was reading about Tarzan and that lost city with the dinosaurs and La performing human sacrifices and the whole thing, I found myself completely immersed in the story.\u00a0\u00a0 The other media kept me at arms-length from the action.\u00a0 But the book worked on my mind and on my imagination, giving me a vicarious experience like nothing else I had found.\u00a0 My love of reading came to life, and it led me to where I am today, as a literature professor.<\/p>\n

\nNow when I read Edgar Rice Burroughs, I see his faults, and I eventually grew in my taste.\u00a0 But I feel I owe him something, at least going to the movie someone finally made of his John Carter tales.\u00a0 I never got into that particular series myself, but my wife did, liking them better than Tarzan, and I respect her judgment as a science fiction fan.\n

The movie got distinctly mixed reviews\u2013Rotten Tomatoes<\/a> scores it as receiving 51% \u201crotten,\u201d which means that 49% of the critics scored it as \u201cripe\u201d\u2013with audiences generally liking it more than the critics did.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what could have helped its reception.\u00a0 Just calling it \u201cJohn Carter\u201d and leaving out the \u201cof Mars\u201d part couldn\u2019t have helped.\u00a0 Young adults today probably think, wasn\u2019t he a president?\u00a0 And, yes, a lot of this sort of thing has been seen before, even though Burroughs did it before anyone else did.<\/p>\n

We thought the movie was pretty good, actually.\u00a0 The story by today\u2019s standards was convoluted\u2013a number of critics complained they couldn\u2019t understand it\u2013and over-the-top and without a shred of irony.\u00a0 But it reminded me of the fun I used to have at the B-movies growing up.\u00a0 Yes, it was too expensive to make, with special effects required in nearly every frame, but we got a kick out of it.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned to our daughter that we were going to the movies this weekend.\u00a0 \u201cWhat are you going to see,\u201d she asked, \u201cHunger Games?\u201d\u00a0 No, I told her, we are going to see a movie of an equivalent wildly popular young adult book from back when your mother and I were young adults:\u00a0 John Carter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,31,34],"tags":[730,1181],"class_list":["post-11222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-movies","category-personal","tag-edgar-rice-burroughs","tag-john-carter-of-mars"],"yoast_head":"\nEdgar Rice Burroughs & his failed movie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I mentioned to our daughter that we were going to the movies this weekend.\u00a0 "What are you going to see," she asked, "Hunger 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