THE ART OF ADAPTATION

John Carter

Point of View
For absolute escapism and mind blowing entertainment, take a trip to the ingenious and amazing world of John Carter, clearly proving that 'real men are indeed from Mars!'
With hunky Taylor Kitsch in the title role, fans definitely have a lot of eye candy to deal with; fortunately Kitsch' notable acting skills and daredevil action-hero stunts proves that he is much more than just a pretty face.  Kitsch, who was last seen in The Bang Bang Club and  X-Men Origins: Wolverine, delivers a heartfelt performance of John Carter of Earth; a troubled man who finds himself transported to Mars where he meets his soul mate, the stunning Princess Dejah Thoris (a charming performance from Lynn Collins and more eye candy for the guys)
Carter is a war-weary, American Civil War veteran who is unexpectedly transported from a remote cave in Arizona to the wild and mysterious planet of Barsoom (Mars) with its unfamiliar inhabitants. The change in gravity gives Carter extraordinary abilities. His apparent "super powers" flummox the warring tribes and make him a powerful asset to any who can capture him.
John Carter is what entertainment is all about, and with an international release date of March 3, the whole world is bound to rush to see what Disney's biggest release of the year is all about.
It's entertainment with a capital E!, an enjoyable and fun rollercoaster ride filled with daredevil action, full blooded romance, sexy stars, and breathtaking spectacle that is guaranteed to set imagination on fire!
Celebrating the ultimate in the fantasy/adventure and sci-fi genres (not forgetting a touch of the Western as well as the American Civil War),  it is indeed an epic tale of heroic proportions that serves as a welcome relief to those looking for good old fashioned storytelling and visual splendor.
In the tradition of Avatar, Johan Carter is a story about discovering New Worlds, and takes you to unthinkable realms where the impossible is becomes true.
The meticulous and detailed craftsman ship of the film astounds, with mind blowing special and visual effects, and incredible production and visual design complementing the skilful and thoughtful direction by Andrew Stanton, who previously directed the Oscar winning animated films Finding Nemo and Wall-E; Stanton also co-wrote the crackling script with Mark Andrews - who also serves as Second Unit Director and worked as a storyboard artist on Cars - and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
You will hopelessly fall in love with the alien creatures in Johan Carter.
It would not be surprising if ever pet lover in the world would want a Woola.  If you don't know what it is wait until you meet this adorable large, lizard-like dog is incredibly fast with 10 legs and a mouth full of sharp teeth. It takes John Carter as his master; and he is fiercely protective of Carter for he is the first person to ever come to the creature's rescue.
Just as Carter, or who is lovingly called 'Virginia' by the Tharks who mistakes his state for his name, is plunged into the realm of strange worlds and weird wonders, so will you be bowled over by its immense power.
John Carter is one of those films that you will never forget, and only demands that you surrender yourself utterly and completely to its glorious magic and awesome wonder.  Reviewed by Daniel Dercksen. Sating 5/5

The story
John Carter" is an action adventure set on the wild and mysterious planet of Barsoom (Mars) with its unfamiliar inhabitants: the warring Red Men of Zodanga and Helium, the savage Tharks and the manipulative and all-powerful Therns. Once a world rich with life and civilization, Barsoom is now a dying planet, devastated by conflicts that have raged for over ten thousand years. The Zodangans, lead by Sab Than, battle with the Heliumites, whose beautiful Princess Dejah Thoris strives to find a solution that will end the fighting and save her beloved planet. When war-weary, American Civil War veteran John Carter is unexpectedly transported from a remote cave in Arizona to the red planet, the balance of power is tipped.  The change in gravity gives Carter extraordinary abilities. His apparent "super powers" flummox the warring tribes and make him a powerful asset to any who can capture him.

Writer-director
Andrew Stanton made his directorial debut with Finding Nemo, an original story that he also co-wrote.  The film garnered him two Academy Award nominations (Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Film), winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of 2003--the first such honor ever received by Pixar Animation Studios for a full-length feature.
In 2009, Stanton was honored with the Academy Award for Best Animated Film for WALLE, and was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay for the film.  WALLE became the most critically acclaimed motion picture of the year, sweeping all the major film awards.
In addition to his work as a writer/director, Stanton has been a major creative force at Pixar Animation Studios since 1990, when he became the second animator and ninth employee to join the company's elite group of filmmaking pioneers.  As Vice President, Creative, he currently oversees all feature and shorts development for the studio.
Stanton was one of the four screenwriters to receive an Oscar nomination in 1996 for his contribution to Toy Story and went on to receive credit as a screenwriter on numerous subsequent Pixar films: A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. Additionally, he served as co-director on A Bug's Life, and was the executive producer of Up, Monsters, Inc. and the 2006 Academy Award-winning, "Ratatouille.
A native of Rockport, Massachusetts, Stanton earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Character Animation from California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). In the 1980s, he launched his professional career in Los Angeles animating for Bill Kroyer's Kroyer Films studio, and writing for Ralph Bakshi's production of Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures (1987).

Screenwriter
Mark Andrews (also Second Unit Director) is currently directing DisneyPixar's animated feature film, Brave, set for release on June 22, 2012.
Andrews joined Pixar Animation Studios in December 2000 and in his time at the studio he has worked on four of the studio's feature films.
He served as story supervisor on the Academy Award-winning feature films The Incredibles and Ratatouille and as a storyboard artist for the Golden Globe-winning Cars. Andrews also contributed to the story of the critically acclaimed, award-winning, Toy Story 3. In addition to his work on Pixar's feature films, Andrews co-wrote and co-directed the Academy Award-nominated short film, One Man Band.
Prior to coming to Pixar, Andrews lived in Los Angeles and was a storyboard artist on several animated films.  For his work on The Iron Giant, he received an Annie Award from ASIFA-Hollywood for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production. He was also a storyboard artist on several animated television shows such as The New Adventures of Jonny Quest and Star Wars: The Clone Wars, for which he was awarded an Emmy, and the award-winning Samurai Jack. Besides his work in the animation world, Andrews was a storyboard artist on Sony's blockbuster live-action feature film, Spider-Man.
Andrews earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1993. He currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife and their children.

Screenwriter
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon has been writing what the Los Angeles Times calls pitch-perfect fiction for the past 20 years. Chabon's first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), was originally written for his master's thesis at U.C. Irvine and became a New York Times best-seller. Wonder Boys (1995) followed and was made into the critically acclaimed film.
Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; it also gained him the American Library Association's honor as one of the Notable Books of 2000, the New York Society Library Prize for Fiction, the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, and the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal.
In 2004, Chabon wrote The Final Solution, winning him the 2005 National Jewish Book Award and the 2003 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction by The Paris Review.
In 2008, his New York Times best-seller The Yiddish Policemen's Union won the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award for Best Novel. Most recently, he released a collection of essays titled Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, which the New York Times deemed "wondrous, wise, and beautiful."

The experience "John Carter" is an epic, action adventure that has at its core a character-driven story that promises to deliver a thilling ride for the audience, along with doses of humor and emotion.
As Taylor Kitsch says, "This is an epic adventure. It takes us from the 1800s on the wet streets of New York, to Virginia, to Arizona, to Mars, then back to Earth again, all in one movie. The grandeur of what we are doing, how it works and how it is intertwined is great--it is going to be incredible on the big screen." Read more

Building the cast Director Andrew Stanton: "When I see a movie like this, with such big, iconic leading roles, I don't want to already associate the actor with somebody else," he says. "I want to believe the character 100%. Read more

The making of John Carter
The bulk of the movie's stage work (along with exterior sequences set on Earth) were filmed at Shepperton Studios, London and Longcross Studios in Chelburn, over a four-month period.  Read more

Building the cultures from the ground up One of the greates challenges for Andrew Stanton on "John Carter" was to create a realistic population on the planet Mars.  Read more

Inventing Thark language The actors playing Tharks also had to learn the Tharkian language and accent, which was developed for them Read more

The epic, action-adventure film "John Carter," based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic, "A Princess of Mars," the first novel in Burroughs' Barsoom series.
This year, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of Burroughs' character John Carter, the original hero featured in the series, who has thrilled generations with his adventures on Mars.
Over generations, John Carter has become a heroic paradigm across all forms of pop culture. From novels to comic books, artwork to animation, TV and now cinema, the character has inspired some of the most creative minds of the last century.

Costume DesignThe approximate number of costumes designed by Mayes C. Rubeo for the film was 1,800.  Over 120,000 Swarovski crystals were used in Dejah Thoris' Zodangan wedding outfit, including her dress, the train, crown and cuffs, and each stone was applied by hand one by one. Read more

A fan of the Barsoom series of books since childhood, Academy Award-winning director/writer Andrew Stanton explains what inspired him to bring "John Carter" to the big screen: "I stumbled across these books at the perfect age. I was about ten and I just fell in love with the concept of a human finding himself on Mars, among amazing creatures in a strange new world. A stranger in a strange land. It was a very romantic aspect of adventure and science fiction. I always thought it would be cool to see this realized on the big screen."
The stellar ensemble cast is led by Taylor Kitsch (NBC'S Friday Night Lights, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) in the title role; Lynn Collins (True Blood, 50 First Dates, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) as the warrior princess Dejah Thoris; and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Shadow of the Vampire) as Martian inhabitant Tars Tarkas.

The legacy
Considered by many to be the first space hero, John Carter was first introduced to the world in American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs' story "Under the Moons of Mars," which was published serially in All-Story magazine before being renamed and published as the novel "A Princess of Mars" in 1917. Burroughs would go on to write ten more books in what came to be known as the "Barsoom" series--Barsoom being Burroughs' name for the planet Mars. Since the book's publication, some of the 20th century's greatest minds in art, literature and science have credited it with inspiring and motivating their work.
Burroughs started writing the story when he was 35 years old. He was working for his brother at a stationery company at the time and used scratch pads manufactured by the company to create elaborate worksheets that helped him keep track of his plots, characters and timelines. Before he was finished, Burroughs realized that he had no idea how to get a novel published and submitted 43,000 words of the story to the editor of All-Story magazine under the title "Dejah Thoris, Martian Princess." Managing Editor Thomas Newell Metcalf offered $400 for the serialization rights and promptly changed the title.
Science fiction writers Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury have all credited John Carter as inspiration for their own work. James Cameron has cited the John Carter books as an influence on his epic science-fiction film "Avatar," George Lucas credits Carter with inspiring the "Star Wars" movies and writer Michael Crichton named one of his characters after John Carter. Scientist Carl Sagan read the books as a young boy and for two decades a map of the planet Barsoom, as imagined by Burroughs, hung in the hallway outside of Sagan's office at Cornell University.
Today, one can still visit the site of Burroughs' home, which he named Tarzana Ranch, in the city of Tarzana, California.

The director and his vision
For acclaimed director Andrew Stanton, it wasn't as simple as just getting the chance to bring Burroughs' book to the screen. He wanted to distinguish his first live-action film from all of the other sci-fi movies out there too. "'John Carter' is a big, epic, sci-fi action-adventure with romance and action and political intrigue," he says. "Because the subject matter was written so long ago, it became an origin of those kinds of stories in the last century. It was sort of a comic book before there were comic books; an adventure story before it became a whole genre of its own. It was difficult to go back into this book and not look like you were being derivative of everything else because it's been an inspiration for things for 100 years."
One of the unique things about the John Carter story that appealed to Stanton is that it takes place just after the Civil War on both Earth and the planet Mars. Stanton explains,  "The view of science and of future technology and fantasy is very reflective of how people understood the world at that time [1912]. I think that part of the appeal and charm of these books and of these characters is that they are not of our time; they're of the post-Civil War era. I wanted not only Earth but also Mars to have a bit of that flavor, to place it in its own category and not make it possible to even accidentally compare it to other more current science fiction films or fantasy films.
"Because it's science fiction seen through the eyes of somebody at the turn-of-the-century, there's a cool, old-fashioned feel that you can play off of. I wanted to be in real locations and make it feel like I was really in that time, on both planets," he concludes.
As Stanton points out, however, at the heart of "John Carter" is the very human story of a man caught up in circumstances that will force him to choose what is right and what is wrong. "The thing that fascinates me the most about the story is that it's about a stranger in a strange land and a man who suddenly becomes, against his choice, extraordinary," Stanton says. "It's the analogy of somebody who is given gifts and has to decide whether to use them for the betterment of others or keep them to himself. John Carter is a man who's at a crossroads with that choice. He comes across a world in the middle of a crisis where the scales are going to get tipped in a direction that's not good for the planet and he realizes he can play a key role to bring the scales the other way. The question is will he or will he not."

"I like the idea of a damaged character, who has morals and values, but because life's dealt him a bad hand, does not want to go back into the world again as the person he was before. What it takes for John Carter to engage again is to leave Earth and find his humanity among the Martians."--Andrew Stanton, director
"John Carter" is Stanton's first foray into the world of directing live action, but he quickly found out that directing live action and directing animation features are not polar opposites. Comparing the challenges of each discipline, he says, "The nice thing is that making movies virtually isn't as different as people think it is from making movies live. Certainly there are a lot of obvious differences, but the fact that you are trying to make a great image on the screen that captures you, that moves the story forward and supports the narrative is exactly the same goal for both. I don't mean to sound like I'm saying it's easy, it's not. But the two disciplines are much closer siblings as opposed to distant cousins. I was very happy to discover that. The only major difference for me is that what I would have to decide in a week for animation, I'd have to decide in a day or an hour on a film set. Luckily, I knew that was coming."
Soon after, the production hired cinematographer, Dan Mindel. "What is really nice about his scope of work is that it shows you how adaptable and eclectic he can be," says Stanton. "He is a cinematographer who really understands that principal photography isn't the be-all-and-end-all for a film like this; it is only half of the equation. Visual effects is the other half, and it is the combination of the two that gives you the final image."
Peter Chiang, who runs Double Negative, a big effects house in London, became the film's VFX supervisor. "We met Peter and his team and it felt like they were running an operation that seemed very similar to Pixar in its early days, so we felt very comfortable bringing his team on board," recalls Stanton.
Director Stanton sums up his approach to "John Carter," saying, "The answer always seems to come to me if I look at it as a fan of going to the movies as opposed to being a filmmaker. What would make this feel fresh for me and not derivative of other things? I want the 'Martian history' on this film to be done so well that it feels like some sort of remote place that you just didn't know about."
Stanton began the "John Carter" project with the team he affectionately refers to as his "comfort zone": Jim Morris (producer), Mark Andrews (co-writer and 2^nd unit director) and Lindsey Collins (producer)--all long-standing colleagues from Pixar.
Expounding on the other members of his core filmmaking team, he says, "First we brought Colin Wilson on board, who has tons of experience producing live-action moves as well as big effects movies--he was the perfect complement to the other strengths that Jim [Morris] and Lindsey [Collins] brought to the table.
"Once that was decided, we had to get a production designer onboard as soon as possible and we chose Nathan Crowley," Stanton continues. "He and I came together right at the height of the awards season that was honoring 'WALLE' and 'The Dark Knight,' so it was really exciting to be working with each other based on all the hype surrounding our films. Nathan brings a really fresh eye and original perspective. Besides Nathan's sensibilities, he has an astonishing aesthetic sense. He totally rethought the architecture and the functionality for a world that isn't coming from our own. He started thinking about why people would decide to open windows on Mars and contemplating if they would need doors and the like. It is actually an exciting challenge to rethink a world from scratch--you are literally reinventing the wheel on a lot of levels. I thought it was great."

Adapting the story
Director Andrew Stanton approached adapting the original source material both with excitement and respect for its origins.  "I was a huge a fan of the book as a kid but when I rediscovered it in my late 30s and read it again, it was with the eyes of somebody who has had to write their own stories and had to make films," he comments. "It made me not only appreciate what was still really great stuff in the book, but also how much needed to be altered or edited in order to make it work as a movie and capture the feeling you get from reading the book. 
"I think that is really the job of the filmmaker when you are adapting a book; it isn't so much about being literally faithful, although it is great if you can be, what is more important is that you make the audience feel what it felt like to read the book. To me, that is the sign of a good adaptation and that is what I have tried to do," says Stanton.
He adds, "I've also looked at the other books in the Barsoom series and sometimes found a character or situation that I felt might be better served to work in the first story and embellished anything that I felt we might want to explore more. [Screenwriters] Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon and I worked very hard at balancing these elements so you get a better rhythm and arc of what you expect in a movie, while keeping all the best bits of what it was like to read the first book."
Widely recognized as one of the best storytellers of his generation, Stanton is no stranger to fantasy. Explaining his approach to making the unbelievable believable, he says, "When you describe the ideas behind a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books, it seems like crazy fantasy. To me, that was something I really wanted to overcome. How can you sell a nine-foot tall, four-armed, tusked character and get the audience to completely accept it? How can you have a multi-legged, lizard-like creature that acts like your pet but can run faster than any other creature on the planet and believe it might actually exist? I thought that was the way into the film; not so much trying to be fantastical, it was actually the opposite."
"I want you to believe that these really are the laws of nature and the rules of reality on another planet. I want the audience to accept Barsoom in the same way you might visit a foreign land in our world and not know anything about its cultures or its flora and fauna and yet, for as fantastical as it can be, you accept it because you know the place really exists somewhere. That's really the way we approached this film." --Andrew Stanton, director
Producer Colin Wilson further elaborates on adapting the Burroughs' material, which he calls "essentially a gold mine." "We have tried very hard to avoid the clichés to ensure we are not derivative and there is no association to other science fiction projects," he says. "What has been really exciting is exploring all avenues and aspects of the design, from creatures, characters, airships, the set design and the environment. In each of these integral elements we must create something fresh, new and inspiring." 
Elaborating on the differences between Burroughs' book and the screenplay, Wilson continues, "The main structural addition to the screenplay is the principal antagonist, Matai Shang. He is the leader of the Therns who creates conflict between Carter and the indigenous groups that live on the planet. The idea is that the Therns are controlling the planet and its natural resources and slowly letting it destroy itself by depriving the inhabitants of the things they need to survive. The Matai Shang character enables us to thread the needle and create natural conflict to the story."
"John Carter" screenwriters Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon discovered they had something in common when they met: they all still possessed the John Carter drawings and artwork that they had done when they were boys.
Mark Andrews who wrote the screenplay for "John Carter" with director Andrew Stanton and Michael Chabon, explains how the film relates to the original source material:  "Edgar Rice Burroughs was a very good plot writer. He wrote his Barsoom series for a magazine that would come out every month, so he basically wrote 12 chapters that would each end with a cliffhanger," he says. "That format doesn't work in a two-hour story for a motion picture--Carter needs to have more of a goal than just moving from episode to episode, entertaining as it is. What we have done is simplify a lot of the ideas, so that we really get the cream of Burroughs' imagination."
The screenwriters agreed the the major theme of the movie is one of division. Carter is a divided soul--he is divided between giving up and doing what he was born to do. Dejah Thoris is divided between her passion of saving Helium and her feelings for John Carter. Tars Tarkas is divided between following the old Thark ways so the race can survive and changing their ways to retrieve some of the ancient, more civilized values they once had. Barsoom itself is divided--it is at war within itself.
Andrews sums up, "You get all the themes that come with an epic: good vs. evil, loyalty vs. selfishness, cruelty vs. compassion. However, the spine of the story is the division within each of the characters and the division of the world they are in."
One of the most important elements that the writers wanted to convey in their screen adaptation of the source material was authenticity--authenticity of who the characters are, authenticity of the production design and authenticity of the world. "We are taking the audience to another planet, an unfamiliar place with creatures that we are creating--it has to be real," emphasizes Andrews. "We don't want it pretty and slick, we want it gritty and dirty. That is why we went to Utah to get the dust and the haze, so we can really get a sense of how harsh the environment is for these characters."
Producer Jim Morris comments on the adaptation, "What I'm really excited about is that Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon have written a script that is wholly character-based, but set against this really expansive and epic background. As written, it is more an adventure than alien period piece, so it is a very different type of film from a lot of the science fiction that we have seen in recent years."

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