John Carter & David Lynch’s DUNE

Dejah Thoris, and Lynn Collins are the top search terms to this blog. Go figure?

What I am about to say, is meant as a compliment, Andrew Stanton‘s John Carter, is this generations David Lynch‘s DUNE. An imperfect adaption of a classic science fiction book finally realized for the cinema.

Like David Lynch’s DUNE, John Carter in its process began with another intended opening scene, as opposed to what we ended seeing on the big screen. Check this out, its good!

Now, in DUNE‘s case, the alternate opening was a long storyboard sequence which had been meant to help none Frank Herbert readers get to know the DUNE ‘Verse, that opening was replaced by the Princess Irulan filmbook narration, that many of us are familiar with. In the case of John Carter, the above opening with Princess Dejah Thoris simply got cut down,  reshot, and I think reordered in the final film. It looks to me, this call was made so as to jump right into an action sequence…

I would have kept this as the opening, it provides a more solid sense of Barsoom. I think. I’d love for it to be completed, or perhaps sliced down a bit and restored to a new cut of the film. Will that take place? Not bloody likely, because Disney screwed up.  I happen to think that John Carter has an honored place among such films as David Lynch’s DUNE, and Mike Hodge’s Flash Gordon – that is, not nearly as bad as their reputations claim, nor as deserving of the scorn some heap upon them.

John Carter is highly re-watchable! Certainly more so for me, than any of the Star Wars movies (old, or new…) or AVATAR – which has many, many story problems, yet it made tones of money, and will get sequels.

Related articles

• Putting the Kitsch in John Carter (lilywight.com)
• Sean Young’s video diaries take you behind-the-scenes on David Lynch’s Dune [Video] (io9.com)
• John Carter: An Epic Blast from the Past (bookblob.wordpress.com)
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Three Books That Left An Impression

Dune, by Frank Herbert (Photo credit: elycefeliz)

Or, three of my favorite books. Whatever title serves you best.

1. DUNE by Frank Herbert. This novel, more than any other has had a direct influence upon my writing style. It’s a book which I find myself going back and rereading over, and over. I find it poetic, and the world Frank Herbert created engaging. Not only Arrakis but the whole of the Imperium.

2. Shogun by James Clavell. I like thick books! A sweeping romance which also helped me become interested in Japanese culture. Also its one of those books which I internalized and am pretty sure you can see fingerprints of it on my own writing style. I do know at least one of my characters owes their existence to this book.

3. Stranger In a  Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. A book which made me go, “Wait! You can do that?”. Whenever I am considering pulling back a bit on some of my metaphysics, I flip to this books ending, and remind myself its A-OK to include  the stuff I do.

Honorable mentions. The three books above I read when I was young, around 9-12ish. This book I’ve read recently within the last few years, and its style also did have some impact on my own, as well as it helped me realize that my own writing sort of fits into this series category, that of Scifi-Romance.

Skyfall by Catherine Asaro. I picked this up in a dollar bin, found it an easy read and completely fell in love with Roca Skolia who reminded me in some ways of Frederika/Arshira from my Falcanian Legacy Series.

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