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From: dp@astrovax.UUCP (Deborah L. Padgett)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: roll your own sf films
Message-ID: <338@astrovax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-May-84 20:28:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: astrovax.338
Posted: Sun May 13 20:28:41 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 14-May-84 01:25:53 EDT
References: <616@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics
Lines: 37

I agree absolutely that "A Princess of Mars" should be made in the near
future. Personally, I think that Spielberg would be the best choice as director,
but his talents should be enhanced by the presence of Lucas in a creative
and organizational role (producer perhaps). The "Star Wars" trilogy has
already demonstrated Lucas' ability to create and accurately follow the
history of an entirely imaginary civilization without allowing these details
to swallow up the swashbuckling flavor of his stories. The "Star Wars"
movies have more in common with Burroughs' Barsoom stories than any other
work of fiction (in any medium) that I am familiar with. Lucas alone has
demonstrated the capacity to generate the atmosphere of adventure amidst
totally alien settings (albeit at the expense of depth of character) which
was Burroughs' specialty (no one ever accused Burroughs of overcharacterization,
either). In addition, someone like Lucas should be looking over Spielberg's
shoulder to make certain the movie maintains the breakneck pace of the Barsoom
books; try comparing the pace of "Raiders..." (joint Lucas/Spielberg effort)
with that of CE3K, E.T., or even "Jaws". I agree that John Carter would be
difficult to cast. He is the element I like the least about the Barsoomian
novels, since he is too close to the stuff of mythology to be at all 
unpredictable; in this sense, some of the later books ("Chessmen of Mars")
would somewhat avoid the problem of a "Superman" on Barsoom by deflecting
attention from him to a less imposing figure. Whoever plays John Carter
must be impressive physically (in appearence and agility), but also
not take the character too seriously. I have often thought that Chris
Reeve might make a decent John Carter because of his well-played (at least
in the first film) role as Superman (an even more awful part to play),
but I believe that the setting and atmosphere of a Barsoomian adaptation
would be much more important to its success. For this reason, I would
also hope that John Williams, whose music captures the spirit of adventure
better than that of any other modern composer, would write the score (an
immensely important part of the atmosphere in this sort of film). In any
case, all of the preceding is simply my personal speculation; I hope that
American International Pictures (the people who brought us "At the Earth's
Core" from the Pellucidar series and "The Land that Time Forgot" from
the Caspak series : yuck [ed. comment]) does not still own the rights to
Barsoom as they did during the 1970's, or someday soon we may see Doug
McClure as John Carter... I welcome any discussion about the Barsoomian
series which anyone might like to start.