Wow. That's awful.

After watching John Carter along with DIF yesterday, I made the most of my rental fee and watched it properly. I found that I liked it okay, for the most part.

Certainly, everything that the panel said was accurate. There is a hell of a lot of pipe being laid in the opening half hour, much of which is totally unnecessary. While the stuff with Bryan Cranston was funny, it's not a part of THIS story. And while the opening action on Mars sets up the stuff that we find later, it's confusing and largely unnecessary.

Instead, imagine opening with John Carter searching for his gold and getting chased by Indians into a cave. You could even involve Bryan Cranston if you like, just put it in open country. There's your opening action.

The death of the thern in the cave not only transports Carter to Mars but also causes the other therns to change their plans and give their spider-technology weapon to Sab Than. This might happen in part because of what Carter does when he initially arrives on Mars if he, say, attacks Sab Than and rescues Dejah Thoris but ends up getting thrown off the ship and lands near the thark hatchery.

Now the film proceeds as Stanton presented it but we now know the good guy, the bad guy, the princess, and the sky wizards cleanly and naturally before spending time with the tharks for a while. Carter now has a purpose: he wants to get back to help the princess but has to heal and gain allies among the tharks first.

Stanton's ending is clever, but the whole frame story is unnecessary. It's not in the book and doesn't help our understanding of the main story, altho it DOES make it more romantic. You could still use it—just cut the opening prolog to a few minutes.

Instead, the film spends several minutes with the baffling opening action, then several minutes with Carter in the city, then several minutes with Burroughs, then several minutes with the cavalry before getting Carter to the cave.

I thought I'd hate Rose at first, but I absolutely loved her. And her admiration for the Doctor made me like Eccleston. I actually think he was almost perfect as the Eighth Doctor because he was no good with the humor, which made him seem all the more haunted by the Time War.

Tennant was just great, and the second series is my favorite overall. I thought I'd love Marta but her mooning over the Doctor was annoying, and the third series finale was awful. Donna was okay. I don't see what some people see in her, but she didn't really annoy me much.

Smith is just terrific, and altho I didn't like the arc in series 6, series 5 and the development of Amy and Rory has been fun. I've never really liked Rory, but the producers heaped such endless misery on him that he grew on me just for his dogged persistence and humility. I liked River a lot at first, but as they tried to untangle her story, it just fell apart, and she became more and more annoying in her smugness and selfishness.

Cool! The low-budget roots certainly show, but I like the acting, and some of the visual effects are terrific. I was a little confused by the audio, tho.

Scarecrow's voice in particular seems disconnected from the character because, I think, the actor was recorded in a studio like a podcast but Dorothy was recorded on set with a boom. That tonal difference was quite noticeable. I thought it was some kind of voiceover at first before I realized it was supposed to be coming form Scarecrow.

High Flight of Barbarella
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. and Zarban

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — rocketed high and fast among
The eerie, tinny silence. Orbiting there,
I’ve sought Durand Durand, and flung
My eager craft through high halls without air....

Up there, beyond the burning blue
I’ve searched Tau Ceti's heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or ever angel flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Unzipped my spacesuit and showed my boobs to God.