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


Jay

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If this score gets some Academy Awards Consideration (and I am thinking that it might), we might get some Promo FYC CDs with a lot of the unreleased music.

But inspite of some pieces missing, I think the music on the OST is well chosen and represented. Most of the major cues are present.

Well...we know this score isn't going to get any Academy Awards Consideration (because of the film and its nature), and as publicist so cleverly pointed out, this is already a big release, so I wouldn't count on a promo.

Meh this is not a Williams scores so expect leaked recording sessions within 3 months

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That one might be too soon to tell, though I'm hoping they leak fairly quickly. There's a few alternates I'd like to get in better quality.

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Well the sessions for Super 8 haven't leaked, have they? Unless you are just counting the FYC CD.

They have, and so have Star Trek, Monte Carlo, and Mission Impossible 4, etc. They may not all be "public" yet but its only a matter of time. I haven't seen John Carter yet but seriously - everything score he does has the sessions leak eventually. It's great!

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The score was one of Gia's finest IMHO. And the film was a pleasant surprise also. Far from perfect but fun enough. I saw it free because my Tron:Legacy Blu-ray had a promo-code for 12 dollars towards John Carter. Maybe that added to the sweetness of the film, no heafty ticket price in lingering in the back of my mind. I've never read the books or heard of them until recently, any good? I hear John Carter has quite a fan-base.

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The people who were hired to market this film should be fired and to never market a film ever again.

Just the title of the film is an extension of The Princess and the Frog. You see, while that was a great film, it didn't do as well in the theater as the suits wanted. They came to the conclusion that the title had the word princess in it, and all the boys didn't want to see a silly princess film.

So, Disney decided to rename the Rapunzel film to Tangled and stress the male character to entice more boys to see the film.

Since Tangled did better then they assumed that they should apply that to John Carter. If they called it John Carter of Mars, then it would scare away the females who aren't interested in Sci-fi. It they called it the Princess of Mars then it would scare away the men.

So we get John Carter and some asinine marketing.

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The film is not that bad. Just terribly out of touch with modern audience. It's the kind of thing that appeals mostly to nostalgic older audiences. And it is a real problem when you spend so much money to make it.

Karol

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John Carter is simply a case where its all been done before and its been done better. There was nothing that interesting in JC to the point where it became even a boring film. Some occaisonal moments came up to humour the audience, but other than that, the music is the only thing to salvage out of the film.

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It's only a 'flop' because of how much money Disney has lost from it. $150 million in revenue, while poor for such a huge film, is still revenue.

If the film had cost a more sensible 100M then they'd probably be turning a profit within the next few weeks, and certainly with BD/DVD sales.

I really think the film's downfall was 2 problems: constant reports that it's boring (and a runtime of 2 1/2 hours really doesn't help), and the crappy marketing. Neither the trailer or the posters tell you what the film is about beyond looking like some Star Wars knock-off.

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There is no two ways about it. This is a gargantuan humungous capital D DISASTER. Disney is relying on Avengers to make for this.

Giacchino's career is unharmed, he possibly made the finest contribution of all involved to the film and will continue to get good big projects.

But a really huge loss for Disney. The marketing was terrible and I still can't believe they dropped "of Mars" from the title. One of the worst decisions in the history of the studio system.

But like some one said above, I wonder if this film even had any business being made at all. I liked it well enough, and I love the book, but it has already been indirectly made quite a few times. But ah well, such is film business.

But in all this hullabaloo about John Carter, people forget that even Scorsese's Hugo was a massive disaster and lost a ton of money. The case with Hugo was possibly worse because it was financed out of the studio system. The producers of that movie are really losing their shirts on that film. But it won universal critical acclaim, and many critics awards and Oscars so people think it was still a success, maybe so, artistically and critically it was a huge success, but financially a disaster.

John Carter seems even more of a disaster because it got panned badly even by critics and will get ZERO awards of any kinds.

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But a really huge loss for Disney. The marketing was terrible and I still can't believe they dropped "of Mars" from the title. One of the worst decisions in the history of the studio system.

Ha!!!!!!

Yes, of all the mistakes made in the history of Hollywood studios, dropping "of Mars" from the title is the biggest error ever. Hell, the title is hardly the problem with the movie.

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Ok saw this movie in 3D and I must say I actually really liked it, and if I'm being honest I've enjoyed listening to the score much more since seeing it. In fact it has been playing constantly since I saw the movie on Thursday. I do happen to love all of Giacchino's work but there really is something special here. Every time I hear the get Carter track I get chills.

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All the sentimental and action stuff in the score is really good, but one of the coolest bits in there must be this Rozsa-esque Roman-like fanfare at the end of Carter They Come, Carter They Fall. You just don't get stuff like this in movie music these days.

(Yeah, one of those posts where you mention stuff for no reason)

Karol

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  • 2 weeks later...
:lol: Taylor Kitsch had really let himself go before the shooting of John Carter.

Well e.g. Shyamalamadingdong's Lady in the Water was a bomb (not of Carter's magnitude) but he has done 2 films since that flop plus I am sure is still menacing viewers in the future with some kind of awful and trite films. So I don't know if Andrew Stanton's career can be said to be over yet.

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But in all this hullabaloo about John Carter, people forget that even Scorsese's Hugo was a massive disaster and lost a ton of money.

HUGO roughly earned his budget back and surely never was expected to be a blockbuster like JOHN CARTER, hence it didn't ride on a big marketing budget.

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finally saw this movie.

it was entertaining and the score, yes i think that even if its not my favorite giacchino (yet...?) i think it's his greatest score, in scope and structure.

he finally made a non-minimalistic love theme :)

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i said it... entertaining :P

Well it was another sci-fi film, but i enjoyed the story and design. maybe its a little too long and will grag on repeated viewings. the cgi was ok (there were earthly locations for mars, didnt it? if not the cgi was excellent then :P )

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But in all this hullabaloo about John Carter, people forget that even Scorsese's Hugo was a massive disaster and lost a ton of money.

HUGO roughly earned his budget back and surely never was expected to be a blockbuster like JOHN CARTER, hence it didn't ride on a big marketing budget.

Hugo's budget was 175 Million Dollars and earned just 179 Million worldwide. Atleast 80-100 million was spent on marketing. Any film with that huge of a budget is gonna have a big marketing push to get the budget back. And with the fact that only half of the theater gross goes to the makers, Hugo is most definitely a disaster.

There are articles online where the producer (it was independently financed outside the studio system) himself claims that he has lost a huge amount of money on the film. But Hugo is very critically acclaimed so people skip over this fact.

Review by Christian Clemmensen finally up at filmtracks.com. Its a positive review with 4 stars. But Clemmensen does not seem to have heard the score properly cause he's able to clearly delineate only 2 themes, whereas I was able to identify many more.

John Carter: (Michael Giacchino) It only took one hundred years for Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 science fiction novels to be adapted to the big screen, but not due a lack of trying. The concept was originally set to become the first feature-length animated movie in American history in the mid-1930's, though MGM pulled the plug after years of production work because the concept was deemed to outlandish for audiences at the time. Through the subsequent decades, the concept languished in limbo due to perpetual assessments that special effects technology had not matured enough to do justice to the story. When Disney finally went ahead with John Carter in the 2010's, the studio envisioned a trilogy of adventures, the first establishing how the titular Earthling came to become a hero on Mars. The former American Confederate Cavalry solider is transported accidentally to Mars in 1868 and finds himself in the midst of a civil war between various races of creatures that range from normal humanoids to the tall, nasty-looking green aliens more commonly associated with the planet. A mixture of beasts from Middle-Earth and flight technology from the future collide in this conflict, and Carter fortunately discovers that due to Mars' lesser gravity and his own bone density, he has movement and fighting capabilities beyond those of the native inhabitants. There is, of course, a princess involved, as well as massive battles for control of the planet and some misdirection back on Earth to set up a cinematic sequel. Disney, however, did not impress critics and American audiences upon the debut of John Carter, the highly mixed reviews (largely praising the look but lambasting the script) translating into surprisingly poor domestic box office numbers. While the international earnings for the movie were substantially better (seemingly bringing overall grosses nearly even with the $250 million budget), Disney publicly declared the film a massive loss after all considerations. Oblivious to all of this turmoil was composer Michael Giacchino, who was instructed by director Andrew Stanton to write a hugely orchestral space opera score from the height of the 1970's and 1980's for the concept. Giacchino had affirmed his feature career scoring Pixar movies in the 2000's, but for Disney and John Carter, he impressively supplies music of a different level of bravado and scale in the fantasy genre. It's the kind of throwback assignment that typically makes composers giddy, especially with the resources available to Giacchino for this project.

For enthusiasts of John Williams' redefinition of fantasy and adventure music during the height of his career, Giacchino's approach to John Carter will be a pleasure to hear. Few composers were allowed to dominate films with shamelessly melodic and massively orchestral music in the 2000's, and such emotional sentimentality was clearly the intent here. It helps that Giacchino was once considered a possible clone of Williams back in the days of his "Medal of Honor" video game scores; while he largely abandoned that emulation after his transition to television and cinema, the composer finally returns to resurrect some of that Indiana Jones character once again for this context. To lesser degrees, you also encounter influences from Maurice Jarre (who unintentionally seems to have defined the sound of sweeping desert vistas on any planet) and James Horner (whose common use of "hanging," anticipatory bass notes resolving a few beats late is utilized several times in this work). The scope of the score is broad but conventional, using orchestra and choir in standard methodology for most of the score's duration. Exotic solo vocals and spicy percussive flavoring are afforded to the civilizations of Mars, offering some of the most intriguing moments of music in the film. The orchestra is the centerpiece, however, and Giacchino wastes little time exercising to define the score's main themes with grandeur. Two themes dominate the work, the first for the primary character (and the general adventure mode) and the second for Princess Dejah and their relationship. These ideas are woven into nearly every corner of the score, each suggested when not obviously called for and performed by conflicted sets of instrumentation to denote conflict and/or conquest. The main theme is a rollicking affair introduced in full near the outset of "Get Carter," stated with heroic brass layers and prefaced by the Williams-typical pulsating bass string rhythms. The progressions of this idea are vaguely reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia, soliciting the aforementioned Jarre connections. Its tempo resides closer to the swashbuckler domain, however, easily applying the melody to whipping and roaring action sequences later in the film. Giacchino cleverly adapts the theme to the instrumentation of Mars with increasing saturation as the score progresses, pitting it in sonic battle with the percussion of the warring species and eventually stating it fully in the choral spirit of the planet's softer tones in "Thernabout." The translation of the theme into a full-blooded waltz for the comedic "Gravity of the Situation" is a surprising highlight and a great exhibit of the composer's sense of humor.

The love theme in John Carter will be blindingly obvious to Giacchino collectors in each of its performances because of its adherence to progressions and instrumentation nearly identical to a pivotal theme from the "Lost" television series. Teased out in "Thark Side of Barsoom," this theme flourishes with melodrama in "A Change of Heart" and poignantly punctuates the end of "Not Quite Finished." It joins the main theme in anchoring the meaty second half of "John Carter of Mars." Giacchino's secondary melodies for the various species and interests on Mars are not stated as clearly for suite purposes, but his integration of these representations is equally impressive. The themes, which range from hopeful three-note phrases to domineering five-note fanfares, cover the spectrum of the planet's peoples and their conflicting motives. The quasi-religious end is covered in the flowing theme of "The Blue Light Special" (repeated in the mid-section of "John Carter of Mars") while the militaristic alternative is handled with brass figures of dread over Giacchino's usual infusion of creative percussion sounds, in this case emphasizing metallic clicking and clanging. The composer keeps the score fresh by constantly rotating between these themes, and it always helps to have a core of robust action cues of Williams-like style. The pair of "The Prize is Barsoom" and "The Fight for Helium" are a highly engaging and enjoyable pinnacle to the action featuring the main theme, the latter even referring back to the waltz sequence for a moment. Few moments of outright dissonance (usually reserved for crescendos and stingers at the ends of cues in "Lost" style) exist in John Carter, making its listening experience on album a smooth one. The lengthy sequences of easily digestible, tonal calm or light suspense, including nearly the entire post-battle storyline at the end of the film, are worth noting for their Up-like sincerity. The final cue confirms that Giacchino's primary themes are memorable enough to anchor a trilogy, should Disney decide to take the chance. The score as a whole is extremely enjoyable, and skeptics of the sometimes deadening, muted mix of the composer's work by Dan Wallin will be relieved by a more vibrant presentation here (though reverb is still too diminished for a fantasy score of this size). The weaknesses of the work relate to its somewhat muddy enunciations of its Mars-related secondary themes and a seeming inability by Giacchino to nail the narrative flow of the story through satisfying transitions (with an extended sense of anticipation). A more clearly delineated suite of all the themes would have been merited as well. The level of Williams' story-telling mastery is constantly suggested but remains an arm's length away. Still, it's a romp of a score that touches upon several of the composer's best attributes with dynamic enthusiasm. ****

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This site loves to hate on Clemmenson, but I've never really understood it. Sure, he rates some things differently than I would (not a Masters of the Universe fan, apparently) and the "academia" put-on can come off condescending, but his reviews are an interesting read and he makes good points.

James Southall's still the best film music reviewer out there. I love his style!

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This site loves to hate on Clemmenson, but I've never really understood it. Sure, he rates some things differently than I would (not a Masters of the Universe fan, apparently) and the "academia" put-on can come off condescending, but his reviews are an interesting read and he makes good points.

James Southall's still the best film music reviewer out there. I love his style!

Clemmenson has some strong biases - he doesn't like RCP, or Thomas Newman's experimental side. His review of Clash of the Titans is, while somewhat amusing, show the contempt he has for Zimmer and clones. A reviewer needs to have a more open attitude than that and take each score as its own thing.

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This site loves to hate on Clemmenson, but I've never really understood it. Sure, he rates some things differently than I would (not a Masters of the Universe fan, apparently) and the "academia" put-on can come off condescending, but his reviews are an interesting read and he makes good points.

At least he's sometimes entertaining in his desire to veil narrow-minded opinions about music as all-encompassing facts. For a time, any clunker like DEEP IMPACT would rate high compliments while some accomplished Takemitsu would get 2 stars because he just wasn't able to grasp the music. While this is no problem as such, i'm always weary of people who lack the humbleness of acknowleding 'i just don't get that.'

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lol

Do I smell desperation on Disney's part? They try to get rid of the tickets. :lol:
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James Southall's still the best film music reviewer out there. I love his style!

Who is James Southall and where can I find his reviews?

*edit* Is this his website? http://www.movie-wave.net/

Yeap. That's him.
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This site loves to hate on Clemmenson, but I've never really understood it. Sure, he rates some things differently than I would (not a Masters of the Universe fan, apparently) and the "academia" put-on can come off condescending, but his reviews are an interesting read and he makes good points.

James Southall's still the best film music reviewer out there. I love his style!

Southall? I find his reviews so... cursory, like he listened to it in the background while doing some important work and hastily typed something up. He doesn't seem to engage with the scores he is revieiwng, they almost seem like fan reviews in a third grade school mag.

Say what about Clemmenson but he atleast seems very knowledgable and his reviews demonstrate considerable insight and seem like an informed eclectic opinion. He can be a bit pedantic but that is hardly to be avoided when you have reviewed film scores for so long. He acknowledges his biases and a bias only lends you more personality rather than coming across as a colorless android.

I find his reviews very good. Just wished he reviewed older titles as well.

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I fail to understand why people here enjoy bashing Clemmenson and Filmtracks. I think he's a fantastic reviewer and one of the best out there. His reviews are well thought out, often quite detailed in analysis and most often makes very entertaining reads.

Wow...talk about desperate...

i dont understand. this film is like tintin, its enternatining, yet it does not appeal to people, somehow.

Not a terrible film, but certainly not as entertaining as Tintin. Both films can't be compared, Tintin is a far better film. The thing is, John Carter really has nothing interesting to offer, thus making it a boring film to watch actually. Everything's been done to death and they've been done far better. The CGI was adequate, nothing that good. A lot of it was really cheesy, and the film was horribly promoted...I can totally understand why this film bombed.

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