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John Carter (Of Mars) directed by Andrew Stanton, music by Michael Giacchino


Jay

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Wow that was interesting. Liked the Lost World and Stargate mashup at the end :)

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  • 6 years later...

If people think I have been too hard on Gia off late, let me just state here - I absolutely LOVE this score. I love this movie too to a large degree. I love the book it is based on. I love this universe.

 

But I LOVE Gia's score. I won't say it is his best. But definitely one of his best jewels and one of the crown jewels in his oeuvre. He's rarely been this excellent and inspired. 

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It's so annoying about the way they set up the AFM rule because we could get an expanded edition this year if they had made it a sliding 10 years

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Interesting that the artcle generally blames a lack of marketing and general buzz for its BO failure.

 

That's got nothing to do with why I hated the film - it was just boring and confusing with bad 3D. I'm not a fan of Gia's score by any means - there's around a half hour of somewhat interesting material and his main theme is decent.

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I don't mind the movie. It's nothing particularly special but as a silly colourful and cheesy rollercoaster it was quite enjoyable. I remember watching it at the cinema back in 2012 and trying to figure out why did people hate it so much. 

 

The score is one of Giacchino's best. 

 

Karol

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This is one of the few Giacchino scores I actually tolerate, although I don't listen to that much big and boisterous action music these days. This, and LOST in context of the show.

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The one time I actually met Giacchino, I told him that I really enjoyed the music he wrote for this movie and that I couldn't understand why the movie did this poorly. He said something like: "I don't understand it either". Then he signed my copy of the CD.

 

IMG_20190929_123936.jpg

 

Karol

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Box office never was an indicative of quality, otherwise Fight Club and Blade Runner would be crap and Transformers and Twilight would be classics... Lol

 

That said, I do think the study of box office trends are useful to understand what is popular in a given moment and why.

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IMO the film's title was a huge contributor to its spectacular bombing.

 

Ditching "of Mars" was a mistake, but even in complete form that property's relevance to modern audiences was effectively zero. Abridging it to "John Carter" was simply the nail in the coffin; about as dull, uninteresting and generic a film title as you could possibly conceive (much less for a large-scale action adventure film).

 

There's a reason why Raiders of the Lost Ark wasn't called Indiana Jones.

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4 hours ago, crypto said:

Ditching "of Mars" was a mistake, but even in complete form that property's relevance to modern audiences was effectively zero.

 

Movies featuring the word 'Mars' in their title are doomed commercially. 

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I had never heard a note of this score or seen anything more than ads for the film. Wow! What a lovely score. 

 

If someone wanted to experience as full as possible for the first time, what's available? OST only or was there an FYC as well?

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42 minutes ago, publicist said:

Movies featuring the word 'Mars' in their title are doomed commercially. 

 

True, but unfortunately by removing "of Mars" all you're left with is a bland, uninteresting name for a title. It does little to sell the film's adventurous spirit.

 

It's a shame because I remember enjoying the film quite a bit. I think the marketing team just struggled on how to sell it, which seems to be a common problem with high-budget sci-fi movies. If they were banking on the name of a century old fictional character being recognizable to modern audiences, that might have been a mistake (easy observation in hindsight, of course).

 

And not being American, I have no idea how much this character's name penetrates US culture, but I can say with confidence that few people here would recognise the name nor the subject matter it's attached to.

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58 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Movies featuring the word 'Mars' in their title are doomed commercially. 

 

But they're still awesome films, most of the time. Love everything Mars, and yes -- JOHN CARTER would have been wise to include it. It was a pretty good movie -- Andrew Stanton is a solid filmmaker.

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31 minutes ago, Thor said:

... awesome films ... I love everything Mars

 

Which proves that I was right about you loving everything! No, that doesn't mean literally everything but still a heck of a lot!!!

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31 minutes ago, crypto said:

It's a shame because I remember enjoying the film quite a bit. I think the marketing team just struggled on how to sell it, which seems to be a common problem with high-budget sci-fi movies.

 

It was a very particular problem, of which this movie had quite a few. A built-in concern was that by 2003 this particular IP was pilfered by many others (include this board's two favourite words STAR WARS here, but many others, too). The marketing department had to sell a thing that was half Time Machine, half Mad Max and entirely too much Star Wars prequel in its artifical computer look. Disney had its doubts from the beginning, but gave in to reward a major Pixar guy. As punishment he had to deliver 'Cars 3'.

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54 minutes ago, AC1 said:

 

Which proves that I was right about you loving everything! No, that doesn't mean literally everything but still a heck of a lot!!!

 

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The source material is so freakin’ vivid; unfortunately with the movie marketing they played it safe and shied away from what it is. They should have named it A Princess of Mars and given it a poster that looks like every cover of the every edition of the book ever made:

 

a princess of mars.jpg

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5 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

The source material is so freakin’ vivid; unfortunately with the movie marketing they played it safe and shied away from what it is. They should have named it A Princess of Mars and given it a poster that looks like every cover of the every edition of the book ever made:

 

a princess of mars.png

 

I love the books. Sadly this is not the movie they made. 

 

On 12/03/2022 at 6:53 AM, TheUlyssesian said:

The film is not without problems though. I love it still.

 

This is what i meant when I said this. The movie tries to make an A movie based on what is essentially B grade material. I love the material enough to know that the film they made is unrepresentative of it.

 

I love the movie still. But it is not the book.

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