Customer Reviews

Princess of Mars

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

I cannot accept the fact that I waited over 50 years to see a film adaptation of my favorite childhood book and this came out first. Save yourself the agony and ignore this ridiculous piece of drek. It bears so little resemblance to the written story that it could be called by another title and no one would suspect that it had its origins in an ERB novel. I shouldn't even mention the acting. I'm sure they were doing their best and it would be cruel to discuss in any more detail. If this thing wasn't so pitiful I would be angry. The up side is that it will most certainly disappear quickly.

I was hoping for something more closely faithful to the book. Antonio Sabato, could probably have pulled off John Carter, but Traci Lords as the Princess of Mars? Please? The princess of mars was young, deeply tanned and petite, but voluptuous. The creatures of mars were larger and six legged. The non-human species were green, much taller and had four arms.

If you like B-Class sci/fi fantasies with bad special effects, which normally I do find amusing, you might like it. Me, I am an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan and would love to see movies that followed the books in their truest form.

We have the technology. James Cameron?

If you are looking for a great adaptation of "Princess of Mars," you're going to have to wait a while longer because it is NOT here. That doesn't mean this DVD should be immediately discounted, though.

This film is pretty incompetently made. The shots are weak, the editing is poor, and the acting is very stiff. It does, however, provide an interesting adaptation of "Princess of Mars," considering that a 200+ page novel with a lighting quick pace was slimmed down to 90 minutes with a shoestring budget. They did a good job picking a choosing which story elements to focus on and which to cut out. The also did a decent job stringing all of these together in the plot (I hesitate to call it a "story"). It does not feel as if scenes are missing from the flim, like in some of the "Harry Potter" films where scenes from the novels are kept to appease the fans, but crucial setup FOR that scene is omitted. The addition of spiders is somewhat confounding, though...

What works particularly well is the integration of the air pumping station, which I feel is weak and disjointed in the novel. In the book, John Carter stumbles upon it when he escapes from the Green Martians, and later it also serves as a strange, second climax at the end of the book. The scene is totally disjointed and literally takes place 10 years after the rest of the central conflict. In this adaptation, the station serves a more central role in the plot and the central conflict is resolved here. I think the best touch in this adaptation is the distrust the Tharks have of the station. The Tharks think it is a lie when the Red Martians say all life Barsoom depends on this air pumping station; a lie told only to hold power over the Tharks. I like that spin on the source material.

The reason to own this DVD is the great "Making of" featurette that runs about 10 minutes. It shows the shortcuts they used to get this film completed with twelve, yes, TWELVE days of shooting. "Little Miss Sunshine" shot for a month and that was considered an insanely short shooting schedule. Watching the film with the context given in the featurette serves as a very interesting learning tool for aspiring filmmakers such as myself, showing what can be done with a shoestring budget and how to do it.

So overall, the film gets a nice 2/5, saved only by its good story-editing choices.
The DVD features get a 4/5 for the featurette.

Average, 3/5.

...this movie would have killed him.

I rented this 'film' from Netflix, and didn't bother to check out who produced it beforehand. When the DVD arrived and I took it out of the sleeve and saw "The Asylum" on the disc, I knew I was in for a crapfest. I would wager every penny I own and ever will own that those guys just are simply not capable of making a real movie. You know, with a coherent plot, decent acting, and at least semi-convincing special effects. Nope, instead, The Asylum specializes in rip-offs of better-known box-office hits, such schlock-fests as 'I Am Omega' and 'Transmorphers'. So yeah, as soon as I saw who made the film, my expectations were already non-existent.

After actually watching the movie (against my better judgement, but hey, I'm a glutton for punishment), my opinion hasn't changed one bit. In the 'making of' featurette, the director makes a big deal of how they did this film in only TWELVE DAYS!!!!1!! Uh, hate to break it to you dude, but maybe that's not something you should be proud of. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's the best thing to do. I mean, I could run out into traffic instead of taking a couple of minutes more to cross at a crosswalk and maybe save myself a minute or two, but I could also get hit by a car.

And this movie IS a car-wreck. The story is a barely-coherent 'adaption' of the source material. It was a nice idea to update John Carter's back-story to the present day and make it more relevant to today's viewers, but the way it was done was laughably stupid. Without giving away anything (for those masochistic enough to subject themselves to watching it), the method by which Carter was sent to 'Mars' was never explained with any degree of sense. Once on 'Mars', many of the 'Martians' called their planet Mars, while some stuck with Barsoom. In the original book, it made a certain amount of sense that maybe, just maybe, some of the natives would call their planet by the Earth-name, since Earth and Mars are neighbors after all, but here? This 'Mars' isn't even in the same freaking solar system! Why would the inhabitants even know what that word means? I just can't go on pointing out plot holes, but that should give you some idea.

As for the casting and acting... bleh. Antonio Sabato made a passable John Carter, but with that type of character one expects a bit of stoic woodenness, so it made sense to cast him or someone like him. But Traci Lords as Deja Thoris? Come on now - what's that all about? She's a pretty lady, but she's not the Princess of Mars. Not to mention she can't act her way out of a paper bag.

The special effects are the usual Asylum hurry-up-and-get-it-done garbage. The fight with the spiders early in the film was fairly well-done as long as you don't look too closely, but as for the rest of it... bleh again.

I just don't understand production companies like The Asylum. Did they all actually come from an asylum? Don't they have any pride in their work, any interest in making a halfway decent movie? I don't get it. At any rate, it reinforced my decision never to watch another one of their movies, and taught me to do some research on IMDB before adding something to my Netflix queue. :D

Avoid this turkey. I love dumb B-movies, but this one isn't even 'funny' bad. It's just bad. The Martians look like brussel sprouts with tusks, and Tracy Lords looks like a greasy corpse. The climax appears to have been filmed in a high school's furnace room. Save your money and 90 minutes of your life.

This work was a slap in the face to true Edger Rice Boughs admires everywhere. I have been waiting from my childhood that some day this novel could be done. Now that the CG world is here I had hope, but this so called work of ERB is a joke. I am surprised that the Boughs Association permitted this farce. They did not stay with the story. The green men (some times brown) of barsoon were bi-peds in the film. The thoats were bi-ped instead of ten legged mounts. No great white apes. There were two earth men here. No true hero in John Carter. Child like sword play. As the movie itself; I would save your money. Do not buy it.

I am rating this movie with 3 stars out of five. My scale for this isn't really comparing it with other movies, rather just those fantastic "mock-busters" that are the stock-in-trade of The Asylum. Having seen more of their productions than I would care to admit, I am giving Princess of Mars a healthy three star rating as it felt like an actual story was being told. It may be only loosely based on Burroughs' classic pulp series, but I felt that the movie was moving ahead and had an actual script and plot. The special effects are of course on the cheap side, but not as bad as they could be. The masks the Barsoomians wear aren't really any worse than you would see on any Star Trek TV episode. The acting? Well, it's not great but serviceable. With their efforts on Sherlock Holmes, the Asylum has put together a couple features in a row that rival the SyFy channel's home-brew movies of the week. That may not sound like much of a compliment but if you have ever seen their efforts on Universal Soldiers or Alien Vs Hunter you know what I am talking about. Perhaps the Asylum should stick with adapting these pulp classics that present them with the bones for a decent tale.

To start with, Tars Tarkas has two arms and Dejah Thoris is a blonde. It's sort of all downhill from there.

If you ignore its supposed origin, it's a fair swashbuckling adventure - as long as you can tolerate the 1950s-style masks on the Tharks, subpar acting, and ineffective effects. Fans of ERB might give this one a miss, though. I haven't read the original Princess of Mars recently enough to remember the details, but I might have to, just to brighten the memories of Barsoom that this has tarnished.

-- wiredweird

I read the other critics and 1 did say the movie was "okay". Mostly, what I heard was that the movie did not "go with the book" or it was too hokey. Personally, I was impressed with what they were able to do with the budget and acting they had. Traci Lords is a fair actress and she did a job worth watching and listening to. She cannot help what the lines are. Yes, they were hokey. Our male star had the same problems. However, when I look at the movie overall and just look at a very basic outline of the plot of the book, they match up fairly well. A guy at war gets transported to "Mars", fights the bad guys, and wins the girl. Hey! That's the basics. Quit getting all worked up about how close it is to the book and just enjoy the "B" movie for what it is: "B". I don't feel I wasted my time. I even had to snicker a couple of times; some when I was supposed to and some where I wasn't. :-)

In the 60's I read all of Edgar Rice Burrough's books. I always hoped someone would bring John Carter to film. This film (and I use the term film loosely) is beyond bad. This movie makes the worst Tarzan film look like Gone With The Wind in comparison.

The novel's story is gone, the characters are all wrong and the tharks only have two arms and obvious rubber tusks. Save your money, save your time and wait for the big budget film version that should be out within a couple of years.

I gave it one star because zero stars was not an option.