Disney’s Pixar has just recently debuted the first trailer for the upcoming, new film titled John Carter. This movie is based on the series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first is titled: Princess of Mars, which was published in the year 1917. Although books almost always seem to be better then the movies, this one appears promising enough to give a healthy shot.

Have you ever looked to the night sky for the glowing, red mass and stared at it for hours in awe? Well, maybe not, unless that sort of thing truly intrigues you. However, I bet that you have at least noted the red mass in the sky known as Mars. This planet has drawn the attention of many for quite a while. We’ve seen it since the beginning of time; theorized of what could be there for centuries; collected rocks, dust and bacteria from it within the past few decades; and have just recently made plans to actually send man there. These facts are all rather amazing, and when out together, mind blowing when you find that creatures have lived there for longer than us humans on Earth…

…at least in the movie John Carter (played by Taylor Kitsch). This film takes place on the ever-amazing planet of Mars. The man who created the oh-so-famous story of Tarzan shall have another epic series for history, it seems, for he wrote that John Carter awoke on Mars. John was a Confederate Civil Was soldier at a time, years before the Mars incident. John was looking for work in Arizona while he was attacked by a Native American tribe. He was knocked out, and woke up on the Red Planet. To his surprise, there was life all around him. To an even larger surprise, there were 12 feet tall giants all around him.

John’s nightmares come true as he’s forced into another whirlwind of a Civil War, this time a VERY foreign one. He soon finds that the planet has been titled Barsoom by those who really matter, the native people of the planet. Martians truly do exist there… But not for long. The planet is doomed and struck to soon die. The martians are quite primitive, and lives revolve around the seemingly endless war. He’s mainly with the Tharks who look down upon him for not having their four green arms/hide, and being short to their (12 foot) standards. Soon they find him to be like a god, due to the fact that Barsoom’s lack of gravity gives him amazing abilities of speed and strength.

After attempting to use John Carter to their advantage, the Tharks lose him to the humanoids of Mars. John learns of the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris (played by Lynn Collins), who needs a savior, and rather soon. John quickly steps up to the plate as the role of the hero, and embarks on a quest to save all of Barsoom.

Pixar Studios was only known for it’s animated films such as Cars and all three Toy Story’s. This movie marks the historical point of it transitioning into also making live-action movies, for this is Pixar’s first. The movie’s pre-production started in 2007. Two years later, in November 2009, Pixar began filming John Carter. All photography ended July of 2010. Since July 2010 they have focussed solely on post-production, and will until it’s release on March 9, 2012.

Surprisingly, this movie was set to be filmed by Disney in the 80′s, with Tom Cruise as the main actor, and John McTiernan as the director. McTiernan then made the smart move of canceling the production, due to the lack of available effects. Disney wanted to use the film to rival Star Wars, and eventually realized that such a task was just not possible to fulfill, even for them. The rights were then given to Burroughs estate.

Again, the movie had it’s rights boughten, this time by Paramount Pictures with Robert Rodriguez set as the leading director. Rodriguez wished to use the technology originally used by him self in Sin City for the effects. There was a huge issue with the Directors Guild of America, and Rodriguez was not allowed to use such technology. Due to this, he dropped the project. Paramount Pictures then picked up Kerry Conran in his place, only to have to quit. They finally gave up once their third director, Jon Favreau quit in 2005 due to effects issues. Disney bought the rights after that, for the third time.

2007 marks the year that Disney chose Pixar as the company to Produce the John Carter series. They wanted to do the first three books, all staring John Carter as the protagonist, and create a total of three movies, if popularity of the first turned out to be enough. The SyFy Channel recently aired their version of the book in movie form, but the production was much smaller than Pixar’s (which was to be expected).

After reading about this, and spending an hour writing on just the effects issues in this movie, I’m expecting that they’ll be spectacular and not disappoint. The fact that so many directors felt that this movie deserved such amazing and time consuming effects only shows the promise in the plot.

The final director of the movie, and finished product is Andrew Stanton. He’s best known for his directing of WALL-E and Finding Nemo, also with Pixar Entertainment. Stanton holds many talents, for he also worked with Pixar as a voice actor and executive producer.

If John Carter manages to live up to it’s promising outlooks, Pixar is more than willing to work on many more live-action movies. This means multiple more movies proceeding John Carter in the series. The original book series written by Burroughs has 11 books in it that are all take place on Barsoom/Mars. Sadly, John Carter isn’t the main character in each book. If the character is well likes enough, perhaps the writers will change this in later movies. Whatever it takes to make them sell, no?

Remember:

John Carter will come to theaters on March 9th, 2012.

The main star (John Carter) is Taylor Kitsch, who is also plays in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and the TV series: Friday Night Lights.

The movie also includes: Bryan Cranston, Thomas Haden Church, Mark Strong, Ciran Hinds, Dryl Sabara, William Dafoe, James Purefoy, Dominic Wes and Lynn Collins.

Here is the first preview let out by Disney and Pixar just a few days ago:

Helium:

Movie Poster:

I’m assuming this is a space ship:

The book that has made this movie (and article) possible:

One man against hundreds…:

Mmmmm. Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) as Gambit X-Men:

I will go see this just for the fact that this guy will have an olden accent and be shirtless for a few hours.

Holy- …this boy ceases to amaze me.

Imagine just looking over and seeing…..this……….

The oh so beautiful Lynn Collins, aka Dejah Thpris, princess of Helium:

Who wouldn’t want her fabulous looks?

I believe she also showed in True Blood and X-Men.

As Princes Dejah Thoris:

Another screen cap:

And one last time…

Remember to watch it =D

–Karen