What the John Carter of Mars Movies Mean to SF Fans
You have to have been hiding under a rock not to have heard about the collaboration deal between Disney and Pixar to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars books to the cinema. The first three movies are scheduled to start showing in 2012 (probably 2012, 2013, and 2014). Taylor Kitsch will play John Carter and Lynn Collins will play Dejah Thoris. These two young actors have already appeared together in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” but now they will be paired as pulp fandom’s favorite swashbuckling couple.
Speaking of fandom, there are plenty of Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter of Mars fan sites but finding them is no longer very easy. All the news and blog sites that have been competing to cover the developments in the movies have squeezed the legitimate fan sites out of the search results for “John Carter of Mars”. That’s a problem the fan sites will have to contend with on their own terms, but ordinary people may not catch on for a while.
There are of course some great fan forums that provide John Carter of Mars movie discussion where fans can browse the latest news and share their thoughts on the characters, books, and the idea of a movie. And some fan sites also offer John Carter of Mars product stores where people can browse books and other items. It’s too soon for the official movie franchise products to have been designed and brought to market, but rest assured they are on the way.
What should be really cool will be the eventual sneak peaks, fan reports, and interviews with cast and crew. Hard coe fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs and John Carter will no doubt be joined by a new generation of excited young readers and film-goers who will imagine themselves fighting green men and white apes on the ochre fields of Mars or on great battleships cruising through the Red Planet’s skies. Exciting days lie ahead, make no bones about that!
