Mars Needs Sympathy

I've seen The Room three times. I just added Birdemic: Shock and Terror to my Netflix queue. I still watch at least one episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 every week even though the show was canceled more than 10 years ago. I'm a fan of the hilariously pitiless movie podcast How Did This Get Made? and I sometimes peruse Rotten Tomatoes looking for bad reviews of the newest Hollywood craptaculars. When I was a kid, I read The Golden Turkey Awards and The Hollywood Hall of Shame so many times they eventually fell apart in my hands.

I don't just enjoy bad movies. I revel in them. There's something I find profoundly funny about watching human endeavour go spectacularly awry. To me, Battlefield Earth isn't just a stupid sci-fi flick. It's a priceless lesson in the dangers of hubris, delusion and irrational (and side-splitting) WTF? insanity.

So you'd think I'd be gleeful about Hollywood's latest high-profile flameout, John Carter. But you'd think wrong. I actually feel badly for all involved. And not because the film's being underestimated or misjudged. I saw it. It ain't that good. But here's the thing.

They tried. And they didn't even miss the mark by that much. If a million decisions go into the making of a movie, I'd say that Andrew Stanton (who directed John Carter) and Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon (who helped him write the script) got at least 499,999 of them right. For instance:

There's a big, slobbery, super-fast, E.T. slug-dog that's pretty great.

The aerial battle sequences are spectacular.

The giant, green warrior dudes are cool.

Taylor Kitsch is a perfectly acceptable leading man.

If I'd seen the movie when I was 10, I would've loved it.

Oh, by the way, John Carter is based on a bunch of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs about an earthman (Kitsch) who finds himself plopped into the middle of a Martian civil war. I really should've worked a little plot synopsis in earlier. Sorry.

See? We all make mistakes. Alas, Stanton, Andrews and Chabon made 501,000 of them, more or less. They're not typical bad movie mistakes, though. John Carter doesn't misfire because of an overabundance of dumb-ass pandering or an underabundance of common sense. It's more like this.

This one thing doesn't quite work. Then this other thing doesn't quite work. Then there's this other thing -- and you can totally see what they were going for -- and it doesn't quite work either. And all the this things and the that things and the other things add up, one little miscalculation after another, like ice crystals growing, growing, growing until they're an iceberg. And here comes the S.S. High Hopes, full steam ahead.

Andrew Stanton directed Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Mark Andrews is a Pixar fixture who had a hand in The Incredibles and Ratatouille, among other fine films. Michael Chabon is f-ing Michael Chabon. I love that guy.

Point: These are smart, talented people. And in interview after interview, they've talked about their sincere fondness for Burroughs' John Carter tales. So it wasn't cynicism or lack of ability that doomed John Carter: The Motion Picture to failure. In fact, John Carter wasn't doomed to failure at all. It could've been great. It just...wasn't.

That's a scary fact for any creative person to face. You can be handed your dream project, with all the resources in the world to make it work, and you still might muck it up. Because guess what, buckaroos: Art is hard. Hitchcock made some bad movies, Hemingway wrote some bad books and not everything the Beatles put out was "Hey Jude." Heck, even I'm not perfect. [INSERT YOUR LEAST-FAVORITE STEVE HOCKENSMITH BOOK OR STORY] never gelled the way I wanted it to and I feel sick about it to this day.

But not so sick I'm going to quit. Are you kidding? I may have written [THE BOOK OR STORY YOU DIDN'T LIKE] but I wrote [YOUR FAVORITE STEVE HOCKENSMITH BOOK OR STORY], too! And [YOUR SECOND-FAVORITE STEVE HOCKENSMITH BOOK OR STORY] and [YOUR THIRD FAVORITE...YOU DO HAVE A THIRD FAVORITE, RIGHT?].

Another point: We all fail, one way or another. Some of us are just unluckier than others because our failures become punchlines. Or are unintentionally hilarious, but that's not the case here.

Stanton & Co. don't really need me to say that. I'm sure they wouldn't particularly want sympathy from a guy who has nice things to say about Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. They're already moving on to bigger (well, probably not) and better (indubitably) things. The dudes abide.

Final point: I hope we all do.

Comments

[David Kuskie]

I thought I loved bad movies until I volunteered to be a screener for a film festival. I get the opportunity to sort through the films that were submitted for consideration in playing at the festival, and yesterday I got to see the worst movie I have ever seen. It wasn't one of those it's so bad it's good movies like Troll 2 or Plan 9 from Outer Space. I don't think it's for lack of trying either, but it's just one of those times where it didn't work and it was hard to watch. The acting was not good. The story was decent, but certainly not strong enough to support a feature-length film. The pacing was off. I could go on, but you get the point.
All of that being said, I just made my first documentary film. The preproduction and the production went well, but when I got into postproduction I started to feel quite a bit of pressure to put together something enjoyable. All of the elements for success were there, but I still felt a great deal of pressure to find the proper way to execute them. Thankfully I had a very supportive crew who trusted me to make the right decisions, and I had an awesome editor who gave input and helped me sift through hours of footage to put together a good film. We just had a screening of it in front of my Documentary Filmmaking class, and it was very well received.
Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't, but if you're passionate about your art, you've gotta just keep on trucking.
Also, if you were unaware, Mars Needs Moms.

[Sally Carpenter]

Steve, you must be an Ed Wood fan! Seriously, I think often artists get so close to their own work they can't see the forest for the trees (or the errors). They can't step back and view their art with the objective/critical eye it needs. I've been part of community theater that was probably dreadful but for those of us involved, we thought it was great because it was our sweat and blood. That's why writers use critique groups and readers to show them where they got off track.
Sally Carpenter

[Steve]

Congrats on your documentary, David! I hope it'll be available for the rest of the world to see one of these days. What's it about?

Back when I was a journalist, I interviewed a lot of folks in the TV and film industry and visited a few sets. That gave me an insight into moviemaking I'll never forget: Those people work *hard*. So I try to remember that when writing about movies. And having weathered a few bad reviews in my time, I know first-hand the sting of snark. That's made me more cautious about criticizing the work of others, too. Which isn't to say I'll never splash around vitriol anymore. But when I do it'll be aimed at the likes of Michael Bay (i.e., someone so successful my little complaints would be like the metaphorical mosquito bites on an elephant's ass).

I do find Ed Wood fascinating, Sally, and Tim Burton's film about him is a fave of mine. There was someone who had no resources and no talent but a wholly original (and bizarre) vision that made him something truly special. Give the man a $250 million budget and I'm sure the result would've been awful, but it would've been mighty absolutely fascinating, too.

Come to think of it, we already got something like that: Anyone remember David Lynch's Dune? Lynch is obviously a much, much, much, MUCH better filmmaker than Wood, but he's a slave to his obsessions in the same way...and, boy, is that flick nuts!

[Ashley Miller]

Steve, I liked the movie a lot better than you did, but here's the thing... your email box is full! Blame Andrew Stanton for that, why don't you? :D

[Steve]

Thanks for the heads up on my in box, Ashley! I've fixed the problem (I think/hope). As for your opinion of John Carter, you're not alone: It seems like there are a lot of nerdly fellows out there who liked the film. (I speak as a nerdly fellow myself, of course.) Maybe I'll revisit J.C. when it's out on DVD. I didn't think it was *bad*. I just didn't think it was good. I'm wondering if a familiarity with the original books might have helped me. Stuff that seemed clunky and/or cheesy to me (the frames-within-frames opening; the nonsensical "ninth ray" pseudoscience; the Flash Gordony, Hercules-in-space vibe) might have been just what true fans were looking for.