![]() ![]() I remember listening to every mention of Jabba the Hutt and trying to work out what might happen to Han in Return of the Jedi. I remember studying every scene on the Death Star and trying to puzzle out the rank insignia on the uniforms. I remember picking out the scant mentions of Alderaan and wondering what those clues hinted at, thinking that if Leia was a princess then surely that implied a king. And each of those small things hinted at the vast world lurking beyond the story on the screen. I recall very clearly how I used to watch Star Wars over and over and over again and each time I’d pick up on some nuance or some missed mention of a race, or place, or character, or motivation. What I found on the second viewing is that, once more, it turned back the clock and made me a kid again. The result is that I’m now a wanton convert. She knows a good story when she sees one, and she knows a bad story when it’s falling apart. And because I trust my wife’s judgment of such things, I wanted to pay attention to how she was reacting. I intended to watch with a critical eye, to put it under the microscope, so to speak. So this weekend I went to see it again, and this time I took my wife. I must have enjoyed it primarily because I wanted to enjoy it. All the bad press got my hackles up because 1) John Carter, while imperfect, is a far cry from a bad movie, 2) I’m tired of seeing great tales like Serenity fall by the wayside because of poor marketing or the failure of studios to understand their own films, and 3) I’m a sucker for an underdog-especially an underdog that looks, sounds, and feels like a good old-fashioned Star Wars movie.īut during the past week, I began to doubt myself. Sadly, those headlines seem to have colored many peoples’ perception of the movie, even if they haven’t seen it. The film cost a whopping $250 million to make and it was being cast as a box office flop. But you wouldn’t know that from what you see reported in the media, because American audiences didn’t know what to make of it. ![]() It took in over $100 million in three days. In fact, it was the biggest movie in the world, despite the fact that it opened with split reviews and a baffling marketing campaign. A quick perusal of Twitter and a few internet haunts quickly revealed that the film was connecting with audiences on a worldwide scale. To my great relief, I discovered I’m not the only one. After all, the film hadn’t gotten very good reviews and the media was calling it the biggest flop since Ishtar (ouch). I started to wonder if anyone else was feeling the same way. I went home that night and lay in bed, kept awake by visions of four-armed Tharks, warrior/scientist princesses, tall ships that sail on light, and the possibility that somewhere there was a world where I could be more than the broken man I am. I couldn’t shake the feeling that for two hours, I’d been a kid again, peering wide-eyed into a fantastic world just beyond the world I could see. I felt a little like I’d just seen a new Star Wars movie, with a dash of Indiana Jones thrown in, but I was bothered by some perceived second act clunkiness, some thinly written scenes, some general goofiness, and, oddly enough, a nagging suspicion of its “almost-greatness.” My reaction was ambiguous, but I couldn’t shake the film. ![]() When I walked out of the theater on March 9th, I was teetering on the verge of conversion. Third, the film is an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series which was the direct inspiration for Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Dune, Avatar, and basically every space opera trope of the 20th (and 21st) century.Īs weird as it looked, I had to give it a chance. Second, the script was co-written by Pulitzer Prize and Hugo Award-winner Michael Chabon of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. First, the movie was directed by Oscar-winner Andrew Stanton of Wall-E and Finding Nemo. I’d seen some really weird looking previews that I filed into the “what the heck was that” drawer and tried to forget about, until a friend pointed me to a few facts that the trailer failed to mention. When I walked into the theater on March 9th, I was a skeptic. ![]()
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