By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Coca-Cola said:

You may be right.  i haven't read the book in a long long time.  i need to go back to the book and read it.  The movie seemed very similar to what I remembered from the book.  Only main difference is the princess.  For some reason, I pictured her with less clothes.

I don't think this movie was dumbed down.  for an action film, it did have character development, it had humor, romance, action, I enjoyed willem Dafoe's character, and his daughter.  The dog was funny. and the twist at the end was very Sherlock Holmes like.  


The people of Mars was  wore next to nothing in the books, that's why you pictured her with less clothes.

As for the biggest differences from the book -

There were NO therns. And even in later books when there were therns, they weren't technomages. Everything related to them and the explanation of John Carter's teleporting was completely invented for the movie.

All the characters were completely changed, to the point of being different people. In the movie, John Carter was a rebel without a cause. In the book, he attached himself to any cause he felt was worthy. Also, he wasn't the kind of person to randomly attack people that are just trying to talk calmly. Not to mention they added a random backstory where he once had a wife and kid, whereas that was simply not the case. Also, they made Tardos Mors (the Jeddak of Jelium) decide to give his daughter to Sab Than, and Deja didn't want to. Which was the exact opposite of what characters were like in the book. Tardos Mors and in fact ANY heliumite would sooner die than hand over their princess, but  Deja Thoris, who out of loyalty to her people would do it willingly. Also, she was randomly a top scientist developing the planet's most advanced technology. Apparently being a princess and master sword fighter leave you plenty of time to dabble in ultra-advanced technology. The movie Deja Thoris's abilities read like a 6 year old girl's response to what she wants to be when she grows up. "I wanna be a princess/super model-sword fighting inventor". Well, that's nice honey, you shoot for the stars.

In the book John Carter could jump high and far, and was strong, because of the relatively low gravity of Mars.  In the movie however, they increased it by an order of magnitude. His abilities put spiderman to shame. Being strong doesn't mean you can whirl around a rock that's 25x your mass while remaining stationary.  They somehow knew less about physics than an author in 1917.

Worst of all, they just made the therns a plot mover. Why did anything major in the movie happen? Because therns wanted it to. Helium losing the war? Therns. Sab Than wanting to marry Deja? Therns. Random Warhoon attack? Therns. John Carter teleporting to Mars? Teleporting home to tell his story(instead of being killed?) Teleporting back to mars again? Therns. Wow, it would almost make you think that the book the movie was based on had therns in it. Which it did not.

 

/rant