JOHN CARTER PATREON WATCH ALONG Alex Vazquez

Hey, Deasha of Jasoom! You survived your journey to Barsoom! I had a blast with you and I'm glad you had a positive takeaway! EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS, author of "Tarzan of the Apes", had his first Martian adventure, "A Princess of Mars", published in 1912 in the pulp "All-Story Magazine". There are 11 books in the series. This 2012 film by Andrew Stanton was the centennial celebration of its cultural impact! Carter's nephew, Ned, played by Daryl Sabara, was Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. He would often begin his adventure stories by claiming to acquire first-hand knowledge of the exotic worlds he described from primary source accounts like his eccentric uncle, Captain John Carter. I loved how Stanton incorporated that element into the film. Burroughs practically invented the genre known as SWORD-AND-PLANET in which an ordinary man gets whisked off to a strange primitive civilization in turmoil on other planets or in the center of our own Earth! His heroes always have a decent core and can't help but get involved when they see injustice. When forced to choose between an easy out that would weigh on their conscience or a hard commitment that satisfies their sense of honor, they always select the more difficult fate. There is often a beautiful and capable female alienated from her society who partners with Burroughs' protagonists and, together, they completely shift the world on its axis. Burroughs' heroes usually make staunch allies and dreadful foes but, in a clever trope, friends can become enemies and enemies can become friends! The reason Carter can leap about and kill great opponents with a single blow is that Mars is a lower gravity world than Earth so his muscles and skeletal structure are denser than any Barsoomian. Dejah notes this when she pats his butt. Lol. "A Princess of Mars" is acknowledged as the inspiration for Superman, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, The Martian Chronicles, Dune, Star Wars and Avatar! Superman is a benevolent alien whose exposure to our sun's radiation enables him to perform superhuman feats like leaping tall buildings and possessing super-strength making him an exemplar to mankind. Flash Gordon is an athlete from Earth who is transported to an alien world oppressed by the merciless overlord Ming who he opposes with aid from allies whose loyalty he must win. Buck Rogers is a pilot transported to a distant apocalyptic future where his contemporary morals are precisely what's needed to revitalize a moribund civilization. The desolate Martian wastes navigated by wind-propelled skiffs that once glided across long-vanished oceans is the dying Mars humans colonize extinguishing the last of its indigenous people in "The Martian Chronicles". The threat of extinction by ecological collapse and the hope of renewal pervade all the Martian books as much as in "Dune". Princess Leia's partial template was DEJAH THORIS! George Lucas used terms that sounded like Burroughs words such as 'jedi' instead of 'jeddak', 'bantha' instead of 'banth' and straight-up cribbed 'sith' from a later book! Sully's use of a powerful Navee body and the ecological threats to Pandora in "Avatar" are rooted in Burroughs' Mars! The great fantasy artist Frank Frazzetta painted the definitive images of John Carter, Dejah Thoris, Tars Tarkas and the multi-limbed creatures of Burroughs' bestiary in a series of sensational pieces that adorned the dustjackets of the hardcover editions of these books! Andrew Stanton was a Pixar director making his live-action debut. He understood the material, respected it and brought the film in on time and under budget which was admittedly huge. The cast was excellent including four players from HBO's "Rome" which were Ciaran Hinds (Julius Caesar) as Dejah's father Tardos Mors, James Purefoy (Marc Antony) as Dejah's friend Kantos Kan, Polly Walker (Atia) as the snide Thark female Sarkoja and Nicholas Woodeson (Posca) as Carter's executor Dalton. Dominic West as Zodangan Jeddak Sab Than and Mark Strong as the evil Thern Matai Shang were terrific villains. Lynn Collins was extraordinary as Dejah and Taylor Kitsch brought the right amount of sympathy, reluctance, awe and grit to Carter. Willem Dafoe was the Thark Jeddak Tars Tarkas and he performed his role on stilts as did the other Thark players like Thomas Haden Church as the envious Tal Hajus and Samantha Morton as the uniquely kind Sola. Bryan Cranston of "Breaking Bad" played the cavalry officer Powell. The Thark subplot gets short shrift because Sola's parentage is a great revelation in the book unknown even to Tars. Kindness is bred out of the Tharks culturally as a weakness due to Barsoom's harsh realities but Sola's unique ability to empathize makes her a pariah among her people and Carter's first friend. The Thark hatchlings are raised communally to prevent individual attachment for the collective good but Tars Tarkas' mate nursed their egg in isolation which resulted in the aberrant Sola. Carter's deep affection for Sola enables him to intuit its source in the only other reasonable Thark around which is Tarkas, Dafoe's character. Reuniting the two is a great gift to Tars and bonds him to Carter for the rest of his life. The second book, "The Gods of Mars", exposes the religion of Barsoom as a sham and the Therns as frauds. It is darker, deeper and ends on a great cliffhanger! This was supposed to be a film trilogy but, unfortunately, Disney marketed the film poorly to a general public that had become ignorant of the source material and it tanked so abysmally at the box office that it has become a cautionary tale! It's a shame because I've never met anyone who saw it and wasn't charmed by it. Disney still owns it so I hope they revisit it one day but their current track record of ruining their properties like Marvel, Star Wars, Willow, Indiana Jones and the like with woke claptrap and identity politics would indicate that maybe it's better off left alone for the time being. If promoted properly and helmed by someone like Stanton, Disney is sitting on its own 'cave of gold'!

Alex Vazquez