It is almost time for John Carter to hit the big screen, and the center point the entire series of stories pivoted around was the relationship between John Carter and Dejah Thoris. So here is another nice little teaser that focuses on that story aspect, and thanks to Disney for modernizing her character to be even more independent than Burroughs portrayed her as. I have been waiting for this movie since I first read A Princess of Mars when I was 14, and yes, I did manage to track down the other volumes in the series and read them all by the time I was 16. And then I reread them, in the correct order, and after that I tracked down everything else Burroughs had written. He grew up in Virginia in the 1800s after the American Civil War, so the racism built into his 25 Tarzan books as basic assumptions made my skin crawl (and do NOT get me started on the sexism built into every story he ever wrote), but his Mars and Venus series were rousing tales once you learned to spot and toss out that aspect of his writing, separating it from the core stories. And now you don’t have to, because Disney is doing it for you; do NOT miss this film if you love science fiction!
Yep, Stan the Man finally has his own personal web site for all the true comic fans: The Real Stan Lee went online a week or two back. It has all the usual; news, forum, social networking interface, multimedia, and so forth. And to get it launched properly, he sat down with the ever delectable Alison Haislip to do a TV style interview. I should warn you, if you had ever assumed that Stan was in any way shy about promoting himself, or perhaps even humble, this video segment should put paid to your illusions.
First off, a reminder that the Boston Science Fiction Film Festival takes place from the 10th to the 18th of February, but there is new Sci-Fi for folks not in Boston as well this week. Journey 2: the Mysterious Island is based on the Jules Verne book, and is the sequel to the version of Journey to the Center of the Earth from a few years ago. I suspect that is going to be the movie to beat this weekend, but it does have a bit of competition. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is being re-released in is 3D incarnation. This may actually end up being worth watching, because unlike most post-production 3D processing jobs, they have the money to do it right. Now if only they could improve the story and kill Jar-Jar while they are at it.
The latest incarnation of the John Carter trailer is stripped down to 30 seconds for airing on TV. According to the team at SFX, who are not usually in favor of the way 3D is used in movies, the 3D on this film version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic is awesome.
There isn’t much coming out this week, but a few of them are quite good. In Time is a brutally intense little film about using your lifespan as money, and all the implications of that shift on society. The Thing is done as a prequil to Carpenter’s 1982 cult classic film, which was a remake of the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, which was based on the John W. Campbell story Who Goes There.
I couldn’t find any live action TV this week, and even the anime is barely genre, although I did find B Gata H Kei: Yamada’s First Time quite amusing. And the Straw Hat Gang is back in One Piece – Collection 4, which brings that series to episode 103.
No actual genre films this week, although Man on a Ledge could be entertaining. Do not despair, because there actually are a ton of great movies coming out this year yet. Chronicle is out next week, a story about 3 high school friends who gain superpowers and risk loosing their souls. In February we get Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, based on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, it is the sequel to 2009’s film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth (the good one). There will be various 3D versions of the Star Wars franchise released in theaters in the course of the year. Also in February, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance for the adrenalin junkies, and a new treat from Studio Ghibli, The Secret World of Arrietty being a retelling of The Borrowers.
Then in March it all goes nuts, starting out with the long-awaited John Carter movie, which is actually the first book in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars series, not the later story the title might suggest. Near future Apocalypse tale The Hunger Games was written by Suzanne Collins, and Mirror Mirror is a Snow White update with Julia Robert’s as the evil queen. And of course The Pirates! Band of Misfits from the creators of Wallace and Gromit is insane animated fun. The Raven is the fictionalized account of Edgar Allen Poe out to catch a serial killer who has been plagiarizing his books to commit his crimes, and for some strange reason someone thought it would be interesting to make a sequel called Wrath of the Titans. And that’s just the next few months; should be a pretty interesting year in the theaters.