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THE LAST DAY TO GET YOUR FREE BOOK!!
http://www.amazon.com/LET-WIND-BLOW-THROUGH-ebook/dp/B004ZZT0XE Before STAR WARS, before STAR TREK, before FLASH GORDON,
before SUPERMAN
there was
JOHN CARTER OF MARS
written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
100 years ago, science fiction was still in its infancy, and a hero named John Carter enjoyed the sort of popularity that characters like Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk do today.
Love knows no bounds for science fiction heroes, even across the cold depths of space. A major focus of the first Barsoom novel, A Princess of Mars (and the upcoming movie adaptation), is the growing bond between Earthman John Carter and Martian princess Dejah Thoris.
John Carter/Dejah Thoris relationship most reminds me of the romance in James Cameron's Avatar. As in Avatar, it's a relationship that builds from two strangers
(one of them a soldier from another world)
attempting to understand one another, and it grows during the looming threat of war. Various physical and existential divides threaten to keep the two apart, but in the end, love prevails.
Decades earlier, Burroughs wrote of an Earthling who found himself an alien on another world, gaining strength from the lower gravity.
Even as Burroughs was doing his part to build the science fiction genre, he was also becoming the first author to merge science fiction and Western elements.
John Carter is a hero who wouldn't be out of place in a Wild West movie. He's an ex-Confederate soldier who headed west after the Civil War to seek his fortune as a gold prospector. He even battles a tribe of Apache warriors before his fateful journey to Barsoom.
A number of popular films and TV series have sought to blend science fiction with Westerns. Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly features a crew of space-faring heroes who live in a very grungy, lawless galaxy. The popular anime series Cowboy Bebop follows a similar crew of rugged bounty hunters who seek fortune and adventure as humanity slowly begins expanding throughout the solar system. They'd have found a kindred spirit in the rough and tumble John Carter.
It wasn't long before John Carter began to inspire similar sci-fi adventures.
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were two heroes who debuted in the pulp era and who were direct results of Carter's popularity. Both men hailed from Earth, with Buck even being a war veteran like Carter.
In the case of Buck Rogers, exposure to a gas caused him to fall into suspended animation for almost 500 years and awaken to a very different sort of civilization. Flash Gordon, meanwhile, travels by rocket ship to the planet Mongo and battles the evil emperor Ming the Merciless.
So keep all this in mind when you go to see John Carter on March 9th the debt we owe Burroughs' creation for the sci-fi we all enjoy today.
For more see :
http://movies.ign.com/articles/121/1219006p1.html
If Neil Gaiman ever wrote this about me or about you, we could die happy writers :
http://www.jonathancarroll.com/about/introduction.html
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Squid Eats: Santiago's Cuban Cuisine
1 day ago
My friends, I've created an animation to make you SMILE :) and i need your feedback about it please. I'll take just a minute! http://kamranisonline.blogspot.com/2012/02/dont-mess-with-old-john-animation.html
ReplyDelete...I do believe I spotted "Let the Wind Blow Through" on my wife's Kindle last night.
ReplyDeleteShe has good taste in the finer things in life ;)
As for John Carter...we're counting down the days, my friend.
El
Ashamed to say I didn't know about John Carter, but then again, I grew up where television was a rarity, with only 2 channels which most of the time were gray flickering. I enjoyed this post very much:)
ReplyDeleteKamran :
ReplyDeleteHeaded there.
Elliot :
I hope your wife enjoys LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU : the story of a self-possessed Lakota man in the middle of a crime war for control.
I cannot wait for JOHN CARTER. It looks to be awesome. But it will need our support if the proposed sequel is to be made! Because it inspired so many icons, many viewers falsely believe JOHN CARTER copied them -- not the other way around!
Marta :
I was much like you -- which was why the books of greats like Edgar Rice Burroughs (creator of JOHN CARTER and TARZAN) were so important to my imagination and dreams!! Thanks for visiting and caring enough to chat awhile, Roland
Thank you for your comment :) I think it's going to be really fun! Are you going to have a theme for yours? :)
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that the genre John Carter belonged to - the 'barbarian in space' - died out during the 60's and 70's. Wonder if we'll see a resurgence if the movie is successful?
ReplyDeleteI have several John Carter books on my iPad, but I doubt I'll have time to get to them before the movie comes out.
InspireNordic :
ReplyDeleteMy theme will most likely be characters and places in my novels. Looking forward to your entries.
Alex :
I read JOHN CARTER in the 80's and 90's. Frank Frazetta did some fine illustrations for those books in those same years.
John Carter was more like a fighting man in space which makes him quite a bit like Sully in AVATAR. He piloted air ships, mastered the oxygen machine on Mars, and conducted diplomacy between warring factions across Mars. He always struck me as civilized for his era. In the movie, he is also an artist and writer.
Since PIXAR is doing it, I have high hopes for the movie! They seldom produce a dog, Roland
Are you fucking serious? And without jesus their is no religion. And witout the mayans there is no calander. Its bullshit to give credit to john carter for everything that came after. That is just the dumbest assumption that could ever be made. Without watching someone eat you would die because you didn't know how? This is like saying no one had an imigination after this book was written. Like the thoughts in john carter inspired all other sci fi having anything to do with aliens or spacecraft? Fucking insane. This theory is just ridiculiois.
ReplyDeleteAre you fucking serious? And without jesus their is no religion. And witout the mayans there is no calander. Its bullshit to give credit to john carter for everything that came after. That is just the dumbest assumption that could ever be made. Without watching someone eat you would die because you didn't know how? This is like saying no one had an imigination after this book was written. Like the thoughts in john carter inspired all other sci fi having anything to do with aliens or spacecraft? Fucking insane. This theory is just ridiculiois.
ReplyDeleteAre you fucking serious? And without jesus their is no religion. And witout the mayans there is no calander. Its bullshit to give credit to john carter for everything that came after. That is just the dumbest assumption that could ever be made. Without watching someone eat you would die because you didn't know how? This is like saying no one had an imigination after this book was written. Like the thoughts in john carter inspired all other sci fi having anything to do with aliens or spacecraft? Fucking insane. This theory is just ridiculiois.
ReplyDeleteAre you fucking serious? And without jesus their is no religion. And witout the mayans there is no calander. Its bullshit to give credit to john carter for everything that came after. That is just the dumbest assumption that could ever be made. Without watching someone eat you would die because you didn't know how? This is like saying no one had an imigination after this book was written. Like the thoughts in john carter inspired all other sci fi having anything to do with aliens or spacecraft? Fucking insane. This theory is just ridiculiois.
ReplyDelete