Can’t
wait for Princess of Mars, the upcoming live action Disney / Pixar movie
based on the iconic Edgar Rice Burroughs novels? How about checking out
this made-for-DVD title in the meantime? Or rather don’t . . .
Sometimes not even lawyers can save you. Ask Wesley
Snipes. Ask Edgar Rice Burroughs who is no doubt spinning in his grave
right now . . .
Back in 1912 Burroughs published a science fiction story
about a heroic ex-Confederate soldier named John Carter who, trapped by
marauding Indians (back then they weren’t “Native Americans” yet) in a
cave, is overcome by noxious fumes. Somehow his soul is transported to the
distant planet of Mars where he becomes involved in all kinds of
adventures involving a war between rival alien races and of course a sexy
princess.
The Barsoom series of books as they were called were
pretty popular, but Burroughs didn’t hit the proverbial jackpot until he
invented a character named Tarzan (you might have heard of him).
John Carter may not be as well known as a certain Lord
Greystoke, but the Barsoom novels – pulpy as they were – went on inspire
the likes of Ray Bradbury, John Norman and Arthur C. Clarke. (Scientist
Carl Sagan also accredited the novel for having sparked his life-long
fascination with space exploration after having read it as a child.)
But that was almost a century ago. Since then the novel
has lapsed into the public domain, which means that the copyright has
expired and basically anyone can publish the novel or make a movie or TV
show out of it. Sneaky lawyers however found a loophole: they trade-marked
the characters from the novels.
So, sure, you can go right ahead and publish Princess
of Mars on the Internet in PDF file; you can make a movie titled
Princess of Mars and feature the same series of events as in the novel
- but you can’t use any of the character names! (The same legal process is
used to keep age-old characters such as Superman and Batman out of the
public domain. The same trick was also recently used to keep the rights of
the Peter Pan character under the control of the Great Ormond Street
Hospital, the institution for which author J.M. Barrie left the
copyright.)
This however still didn’t stop movie production outfit
The Asylum from making the very first movie version of the Barsoom novels,
namely this 2009 made-for-DVD effort. The Asylum specializes in so-called
“mockbusters” – incredibly cheap movies intended to rip off current
Hollywood blockbusters. If you bring out a
Transformers movie
then they will bring out Transmorphers. If you have a movie called
The Day the Earth Stood Still,
they will bring out a movie titled The Day the Earth Stopped. All
of the movies are crap and The Asylum has cottoned onto the fact and now
their current slew of giant fish stories (Mega-Piranha,
Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus,
etc.) are being marketed as being “so bad, they’re actually good.”
|
"At 42 Lords is way past her sell-by date as a believable Martian
princess . . ." |
So who did The Asylum rip off with Princess of Mars?
As you probably know, Andrew Stanton (WALL-E,
Finding Nemo) is currently working a big budget movie version of
Princess of Mars titled
John Carter of Mars
for Disney / Pixar. (Hollywood has toyed with a proper John Carter movie
for ages previously. At one point Robert Rodriguez was supposed to have
directed it.) But The Asylum seemed to have jumped the gun on this one:
Stanton’s movie isn’t due until 2012, by which time their movie would have
gathered loads of dust on the video shelves. (If we even have video shops
left by then!)
The DVD cover of Princess of Mars supplies a
clue: it is apparently the “classic story that inspired James Cameron’s
Avatar.” A bit of a stretch really, so
expect this title to pull its own Cameron in two years’ time and gets
re-released as “special edition” with some extra footage to cash in on the
Disney / Pixar flick.
Anyway, as we said, sometimes not even clever lawyers
can save you. They certainly couldn’t prevent Princess of Mars from
being made into a shitty movie by The Asylum.
Despite updating the material (the hero is now a Special
Ops dude fighting in Afghanistan instead of an ex-Confederate soldier
prospecting for gold in Arizona) the movie remarkably goes to the trouble
of actually keeping some plot elements from Burroughs’ source novel such
as the fight for the oxygen factory and Carter being able to leap
effortlessly through the air because of the lower gravity on Mars.
The Asylum not only kept some of the novel’s plot
elements, but even kept the name “John Carter” despite it being
trademarked, figuring that it is probably such a common name that they
will get away with it. (The Asylum are a fearless bunch. 20th Century Fox
threatened them with legal action if they released The Day the Earth
Stopped. They ignored it and still went ahead. Fox never followed up
with their threats.)
It is kind of sad though that the first movie version of
such a beloved novel such as Burroughs’ got such shoddy treatment. (But
then again the Tarzan character has been the subject of so many crappy
cartoons and TV shows throughout the years that one wonders whether public
domain status is really the death knell for quality control when it comes
to certain intellectual properties.)
Filmed over 12 days (!) the movie stars ex-porn star
Traci Lords as the titular princess of Mars and Antonio Sabato, Jr. as
John Carter. The acting is rotten and at 42 Lords is way past her sell-by
date as a believable Martian princess in need of rescue. (She instead
reminds one of an embarrassing aunt who still wears the same trashy
outfits she did as a teen.) The special effects and makeup are rubbish
(no-one even bothered hiding the fact that the actors are wearing cheap
rubber masks) and the film’s designs are cribbed from
Return of the Jedi (which, to be fair,
probably stole from Burroughs / Frank Frazetta imagery in the first
place).
Better to save your money and wait for the 2012 movie.
Or read the book. After all, you can download it
here
for free – and it’s all legal too.
