John Carter of Mars

I watched this movie cold - never having seen it before. However, I read the entire Mars series as a kid, so I thought it would be fun to see what Hollywood did with it. By the time John Carter met Dejah Thoris, I could tell why the movie never received much acclaim. Poor acting, cheesy dialogue, Tharks that remind me of Jar Jar Binks, and too much effort to be cute. A particularly bad movie, that I believe no edit could fix, at least for what I would look for in a tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs. My nine year old son enjoyed it though, so there is a audience. Visually entertaining for sure.

Technically a sound edit. I was not able to tell when and what might have been cut. It seemed disjointed at times (like the jump to the first flier battle and the red man getting the power weapon), but I I'm guessing that is unavoidable. I would have preferred a slower intro to Mars, leave the flier scene until later if possible.

John Carter is one of my favorite movies, so I went into this edit with a lot of excitement. I was rewarded with a somehow even better, leaner version of a movie I already loved. Starting the movie off in black and white, with only a few splashes of color reserved for *important details* was such an inspired touch! It definitely enhances the contrast between Earth and Barsoom once John gets there, which is helped by the higher saturation those scenes are given. The addition of Dejah's narration also helps explain the world with the new focus on Carter in the first act, and virtually nothing important feels missing. Putting the scene where John gets sent back as the post credits scene certainly feels like an appropriate cliffhanger to end things on, perfectly setting up the sequel. While I miss the prologue and epilogue scenes with Edgar, I can't deny that this experience is in many ways tighter than the original. The comics ending credits is so very welcome.

However, I feel some of the additions were a touch clunky. Interrupting John's first leaps across Barsoom with Shang handing over the weapon to Sab was pace breaker, and seems unnecessary. It undermines Sab early on, and reveals the Therns' hand far too quickly. The music cues in that scene and the epic soaring score added to the wedding ending could have been integrated better. As this is an older edit, the visual quality isn't quite on the definition as, say, BionicBob's Justice League Unity edit, but I don't hold that against it. It is quite a great effort.

The original was a disappointing failure, not least of which were inept marketing and odd narrative.

If you liked the original, or simply wanted to like the original, then check this out.
BBob has shredded a chunk of dead weight. The story now moves!
He trimmed much of Carter's Earth exploits, most of which were unnecessary to begin with.
Enough remains that viewers get an idea of Carter's backstory, and the pain he carries.

Video - Others have made comment regarding the black and white scenes. They looked fine. Sepia would have looked just as nice, as would have washed out colour.
The editing was rock solid. Even during scenes I knew were missing, I never missed them.

Audio - Bit weird here. I listened to this using headphones and several passages struck me as over boomy or too echoey. That would be Chapter 03, Chapter 05 (@ 47"), and Chapter 06 (@ 1:00"). These were all interiors, and all featured the Princess.
When I listened to this using exterior speakers, everything was decipherable again.
I listened to the original using headphones, and the reverb did not seem to be as bad.
BBob prefers 2.0 sound mixes, and I wondered if somehow the rear channels found their way into the 2.0.
This is a quibble. As mentioned, it was not noticeable on main speakers.

Narrative - Terrific job. This is now my go-to John Carter. His ending sets the stage for the sequel, Gods Of Mars, which down the line, might confound the unwary.
A fun summer film. Vast improvement on the studio release and absolutely recommended.

John Carter wasn't a terrible movie, in fact it was almost a great one. I saw it on a massive IMAX screen where it looked and sounded fantastic and I had fun while it was on. It was clearly flawed and a bit forgettable but hardly deserving of the critical mauling and hyrdogen-bomb sized box-office failure. In other words, the perfect fanedit opportunity...

After having viewed Bob's heroic rescue of 'Kick Ass 2', I was looking forward to him pulling off the same trick here and he almost does. This is a much, much better version of the movie than the official cut but still not quite a complete fix of the problems. Maybe many of them just can't be fully fixed.

Audio/Video Quality 8/10

Generally I liked the new colouring as it made Barsoom look more alien, made Carter less pasty and made the red men/women appear more Martian and less like they'd got a joblot on fake tan. However occasionally things just looked way too pink IMO. I also feel an epic Sci-Fi fantasy romance of this nature deserves higher than Standard Definition (My John Carter Blu-Ray looks lovely and I missed that same presentation here).

Visual Editing 8/10

For the most part I couldn't see any evidence of cutting, nice work. But in a few places there were some mis-matched cuts that looked odd. e.g. Carter's reaction shot in the "time of oceans" dialogue and the excising of the old ladies speech on the walk through the city. Loved the '2001'-ish "Gods of Mars" title at the end plus the post credits scene worked to perfection! I now want that sequel more than life itself ;-)

Audio Editing 8/10

Again mostly excellent with only one or two cuts being noticable. However the way the music was mixed in during the wedding finale sounded too sudden and off. Emotionally it was absolutely the right choice of music though, so I can happily live with it on that basis.

Narrative 9/10

This is where this edit really shines.

I really felt that Carter was more heroic, more of a superhero and much more of a game changer. Here the impression that Carter was a stone being dropped into the pond of Barsoom, rippling out and changing everything was so much stronger. I'm not sure this was down to anything Bob added, it was more down to other things being trimmed away to bring focus elsewhere and the placement of scenes. So the Tharks and Dejah instantly recognising how Carter could be used to make their position stronger was clearer. They could instantly see his value even though he could not. Great job editing this.

Also I liked the quick way we got into the plot Oz style and the new emotional ending. I'm not sure it's quite the way I would have rearranged things but it was no doubt better than the original. With the 21 minutes cut some of the films hidden strengths shined out better. For example, I hadn't noticed how great James Purefoy's character was. I'd have loved if his character had been used more. If the filmmakers hadn't made Dejah such a superhero (Beautiful Princess AND genius-level scientist AND unstoppable warrior) it would have allowed him to be her right-hand-man/sword/bodyguard type guy. It would have made her appear more cerebral, commanding and more regal to have a loyal bodyguard ready to die for her IMO. Because of this trimming I was also much more engaged by the central romance, which you need to be for this film to work.

Enjoyment 8/10

This still isn't a masterpiece but it's a lot of fun and a good piece of simple escapism. From now on, Bob's cut is going to be my go-to version, when I fancy a trip to Barsoom.