…and this is a 
Is it possible to take out a hit on a channel? Last night I skipped through a few television channels and was briefly intrigued to see A Princess of Mars on SyFy! I had to watch a few minutes to discover that it was a heretical abomination which must be burned and its television creators hunted down and punished. I saw enough to notice that:
- The green Martians were made up with some cheesy lumpy appliance over their heads; their tusks wobbled like rubber every time they talked.
- The green Martians had only two arms. Two! They were also runts, far short of 12 feet tall. I tuned out before I could see how amputated the banths or calots were.
- Dejah Thoris was not naked. Nor red. And she was played by Traci Lords, who looked exhausted beyond her years.
- The dialogue was hokey beyond belief…aw, OK. They get a pass on that. That was true to the book.
The horror. My father was a major fan of Burroughs' works, and I grew up on Tarzan and John Carter. I cannot believe the botch SyFy made of the story, ripping all the romance and exotic weirdness out of it.
It's also sad because there are rumors of a big budget version in the works; let's hope this quickie lump of SyFy emesis does not chill the market for it.
Just to add to the sadness, while looking for a few of the classic images of Burroughs' Barsoom, I learned that Frank Frazetta died just last month. Noooo!
Comments
Posted by: Classical Cipher
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June 6, 2010 4:15 PM
Every time I see the name of that channel, I experience an instinctive and overwhelming revulsion. I'm not surprised that they produce bastardized abominations - the channel is itself a bastardized abomination!
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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June 6, 2010 4:19 PM
You're the right age to have seen Traci Lords naked in movies. And the poor woman's been working since she was 15, often strenuously. It's not surprising she's exhausted.
Posted by: Nerdette
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June 6, 2010 4:20 PM
The golden age of the SciFi channel died long ago, and even then, it was only holding on by a show or two. Do they even have MST3K reruns any more? I'll have to check their listings.
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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June 6, 2010 4:21 PM
Actually this is one of those horrific Direct-to-DVD movies that SyFy picks up and tries to pass off as one of their "Originals." So this pile of crap has been out for a while.
As for the promised big budget version... Well, it's going to be a Pixar film, so I expect that it will be bowdlerized into "family-friendly" pablum for the hypocritical American masses who freak out at Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" but will jerk off enthusiastically to Internet porn in private.
Posted by: SteveM
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June 6, 2010 4:23 PM
SyFy aired it, but they did not produce it. I did not watch but I expected this to be a step up from the usual saturday night monster flick.
Posted by: Bill from Fallbrook
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June 6, 2010 4:25 PM
I saw this on Netflix and couldn't resist. Alas, it was as bad as you describe. I did manage to watch the whole thing as I so wanted it to be good. Amazing what low budget and bad acting will do for a story.
Posted by: Eamon Knight
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June 6, 2010 4:26 PM
Well, this is the same bunch that raped Wizard of Earthsea -- one of the few videos I gave up on halfway through, and returned to the rental store not fully watched. I just couldn't stand it any more.
Posted by: Aratina Cage
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June 6, 2010 4:26 PM
Nooooo! I finally got to watch it a bit last week. How could you wish death on a channel that has Stephen King Thursdays?
Posted by: Zeno
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June 6, 2010 4:29 PM
The Frazetta cover art was fabulous. I still have my Ace editions of the Burroughs Barsoom novels, but apparently Ace couldn't get publication rights for A Princess of Mars. In fact, Ace published only those Barsoom novels in which John Carter did not appear, if I recall correctly (Thuvia, Chessmen, Master Mind, and Fighting Man, I think). Then I discovered that Ballantine Books had the whole series, which I quickly acquired. No Frazetta covers, though. Damn.
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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June 6, 2010 4:30 PM
Anyway, SciFi Channel died when Bonnie Hammer took the helm and decided that John Edward, plumbers looking for ghosts, and professional wrestling was "science fiction."
And NO, was not a fan of the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica." If I wanted to watch something with a confusing and pretentious plot that went nowhere, then I would have wasted my time watching "Lost."
Posted by: marteani
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June 6, 2010 4:34 PM
You lasted longer than I did. I relished bad sci-fi movies. It's practically a staple of the genre (thank you MST3K).
I abandoned the channel once it was decided "pro-wrestling" was somehow part of science fiction. The name change cemented my feelings.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 4:36 PM
I know who Traci Lords is but I don't know anything about this Princess thing. So, I googled both Traci Lords (to see how she's looking nowadays) and Dejah Thoris. Amusing twitter feed about the movie, and some creepy followers.
Posted by: KT_Josh
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June 6, 2010 4:41 PM
I need SyFy to last long enough to actually make the A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer miniseries they had been talking about. It can die after that.
Posted by: Andyo
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June 6, 2010 4:46 PM
dang, amusing twitter feed, I meant.
Posted by: vbalbert
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June 6, 2010 4:47 PM
@nerdette:
Unfortunately, MST3K cannot be shown on TV due to all the copyright deals that have to be made. However, boxed sets are coming out on a semi-regular basis from Shout! video. They also include some interesting interviews on many of the discs. Heartily recommend it. (If you want to talk MST3K stuff, check out the MST3K group on Yahoo groups.)
The only thing I didn't like about the John Carter books was the cheesy way how Carter got to Mars. But one must consider the time that it was written. And you have to admit, that's a pretty small nit in the overall series. I loved the books.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 6, 2010 4:49 PM
Oh, no. They would make such an awful botch of that book.
Posted by: Kieranfoy, Faerie Godfather of Death, GMKSC, OED
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June 6, 2010 4:51 PM
Meh, leave Syfy alone. It's one of the few channels to routinely air Sg-1, Atlantis and Universe.
It also has a lot of good movies. Just because it NEVER makes them...
Also, speaking of Mars and Syfy, a few years ago I saw a movie on their with Martians who were bald and had clowy-blue eyes, and we were supposed to be half-Martian and half Neanderthal. Sort of felt like a low-budget Stargate. Anyone know the name of that one?
Posted by: Will E.
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June 6, 2010 4:54 PM
SyFy also showed a new adaptation of Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror," and it was truly, truly terrible. I don't know if they produced it or not, but it sure looked bad enough. Dean Stockwell turned up for no other reason than he was in the 1970 version; at least that one had a Les Baxter score, cool opening credits, and one or two moments of Lovecraftian awe. This 2009 one was execrable. Fuck SyFy.
Posted by: ephemeriis
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June 6, 2010 4:55 PM
I saw this movie in BlockBuster about a week back and through it looked too bad to actually pay money to rent it. But I was more than willing to sit through it last night.
What a mess.
I was horribly disappointed. Especially since I've been ranting to my wife about how good the books are... I kind of hoped this movie might encourage her to read them. Now I'll never convince her to.
Posted by: KT_Josh
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June 6, 2010 4:59 PM
I guess you are right. Upon further thought, it's hard to imagine how a basic cable channel would handle the data transfer orgy. It would be cool to see a cookie cutter execution or mite war done with decent effects though.
Posted by: Weed Monkey
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June 6, 2010 5:01 PM
It seems to be a product of The Asylum, the crap-and-ripoff factory that has given us immortal titles like Transmorphers, The Terminators and AVH: Alien vs Hunter. If that isn't adorable, I don't know what is!
At the moment I'm downloading their Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus... With a name and screenshot like this, how could I resist?
Posted by: PZ Myers
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June 6, 2010 5:03 PM
Right. The Asylum is kind of like Troma Films, only without the class and good taste.
Posted by: Isis-sama
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June 6, 2010 5:04 PM
I agree that the way John Carter got to Mars in the books was cheesy, but the way he got to Mars* (Actually a completely unrelated planet because of all the things we've found out about the actual Mars since the books were written, like it matters) ended up being much worse - especially since from what I can tell the movie is set in the present day, or near to it (I tuned in a few minutes after it started and missed any mention of a date, if there was one) and like in the first book, John Carter ended up going back to Earth at the end (which there was no real explantion for in the book, either). I mean really, he really thinks his superiors are going to send him back to Barsoom after everything? And while I'm at it, what was the point of them sending him in the first place if he couldn't report back? At least with the cheesy way all the transporting happened in the books, there wasn't really any explanation as to why it all happened necessary, since no one really expected more than a token scientific explanation with those kind of books, if that. (No offense intended to Edgar Rice Burrough's work, I'm a fan, but they are what they are.)
Posted by: Kieranfoy, Faerie Godfather of Death, GMKSC, OED
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June 6, 2010 5:04 PM
Ah, hell. Why not? I've got the Dunwhich Horror up on Megavideo, and in an hour or two I'll give it a review.
Frankly, I expect it to be lackluster but watchable, as allmost every Lovecraft adaptation is.
Only really good one was In The Mouth of Madness, and THAT was merely inspired by Lovecraft.
Of course, Dagon (which air occasionally on Scifi) had the wonderous evil priestess who pulled off the "Half cuddly woobie, half psycho fanatic) very well indeed...
Posted by: Falyne, FCD
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June 6, 2010 5:20 PM
I
On the other hand, I found "Warehouse 13", a Syfy original series, to be genuinely entertaining. It's bunkum-glorifying, like any 'X-Files meets Indiana Jones' show would be, but the acting, writing, and special effects were all pretty darn good in an absolute sense, let alone relative to the movies... maybe it's a totally different production group? *shrug*
Posted by: Dr. I. Needtob Athe
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June 6, 2010 5:29 PM
The 2009 movie shown on the SyFy Channel is actually titled Princess of Mars without the "A".
The upcoming 2012 movie is titled John Carter of Mars.
Posted by: Kieranfoy, Faerie Godfather of Death, GMKSC, OED
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June 6, 2010 5:37 PM
Shee-it...
Twenty minutes in, no Lovecraft, but an Excorcist rip-off with a Sith holocron and some crappy acting. Worse than I thought...
But at least Old Whately had a badass robe.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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June 6, 2010 5:48 PM
Not everything SyFy touches turns to shit. They did give us Tin Man a couple of years ago.
Posted by: Kliwon
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June 6, 2010 5:50 PM
I don't think that "Princess of Mars" has been on in Australia, but I will take you're advice and give it a miss. How could you have Deja Thoris not naked? Tars Tarkis with only two arms? Kwoosify them!
Is it anywhere near as bad as the Gorean movie they made with Oliver Reed?
Posted by: catsmate
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June 6, 2010 5:52 PM
After their "adaption" of Riverworld I'm doubtful if they could sink any deeper.
Posted by: Thomas Holtz
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June 6, 2010 6:00 PM
I gave it until the first commercial break, but couldn't go beyond it. The "acting" was horrendous. And a clue to movie-makers: if making a giant green four-armed warrior is outside your level of expertise, don't do John Carter movies. It's like trying to do Lovecraft, and not knowing how to do a tentacle...
And on top of it all, would it have been that hard to make the green martians GREEN?!?
Posted by: Shplane, some shit in french
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June 6, 2010 6:01 PM
I decided that SyFy had to die the minute they changed their name from Sci-Fi.
Posted by: Thomas Holtz
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June 6, 2010 6:03 PM
However, from the (admittedly limited) contact I have with the production team for the big budget movie, the word is that the Barsoomian critters will look MUCH better!
Posted by: BruceJ
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June 6, 2010 6:04 PM
SyFy has several shows going for it:
Warehouse 13
Eureka!
The stargate franchises
I do wish they'd bring back the Dresden Files, and Sanctuary is fun, if only because Amanda Tapping is on it, whom I would watch reading out the digits of Pi.
Their saturday night monster movies? Well, SOMEONE's got to make films for the eventual reboot of MST3K, don't they??
We watched the one last night, and it was this horrible thing about ginat andworms in Afghanistan, filmed int that same gravel quarry they film ALL these horribly bad flicks. But we enjoyed it, because we could make all sorts of 'Tremors' jokes about it.
Posted by: BruceJ
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June 6, 2010 6:06 PM
Also, you'll notice that Deja Thoris is neither red, or naked in that classic Frazetta painting....
Although I'll admit you need to peer very closely to see her clothing :-)
Posted by: RamblinDude
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June 6, 2010 6:06 PM
Tarzan was my all time hero growing up. There has never been a good Tarzan characterization in a movie. Ever.
I literally shudder to think what SyFy would do to him. Literally.
Posted by: SaintStephen
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June 6, 2010 6:08 PM
Ahh... the childhood memories.
You were weaned on Tarzan and John Carter also, Professor Myers? There's something we seriously have in common then. And look how similar we turned out... erm... well, great minds decay alike, maybe?
I distinctly remember the first Tarzan book I ever read by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The moment is so vivid I can even remember which couch I was sitting upon at the time. Up until that point, I had only seen those campy Hollywood Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller (and other versions with different actors) when Ma sent us kids to the matinees to get rid of us for a while. Those movies, with all the hundreds of silly war-painted gibbering Christians... erm, sorry, "natives", made me dismiss Tarzan as a hero--he seemed pretty goofy compared to Thor, Iron Man, and my other Marvel Comic heroes, and especially when pitted against Conan the Barbarian--in Robert E. Howard's mold. (You see, in my skinny-weakling-neurotic-nerdy childhood it was all about finding out who the biggest and baddest was, and how they rolled.)
But Burrough's book changed all that. Within two chapters I found that Burrough's literary voice was even more powerful than Howard's, and upon reading about how "the ape man" carried other apes in one arm easily, as he moved gracefully through the trees, and how he broke necks like dry kindling with his gorilla-like strength, and especially how English women virtually swooned over him--I gained a vast new (and lifelong) new respect for the real Tarzan. In fact I still prefer him over John Carter, although I enjoyed all of the Barsoom books, too.
Frank Frazetta did the Conan paperback covers better than anyone else. He was one of my favorite artists back then alongside Richard Corben. I don't think Conan's deity, the mighty yet dour Crom, will have a place for Frazetta in the afterlife, unfortunately. How about Rest In Peace, instead.
Posted by: Falyne, FCD
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June 6, 2010 6:10 PM
....damn it. The heart symbol turned into html.
I heart Syfy movies. They're so epically bad, they swing back into just plain epic. I don't remember if I last saw "Gryphon" or "Mongolian Death Worms", but either way, they both fall into So Bad It's Good territory. And how!
On the other hand, I found "Warehouse 13", a Syfy original series, to be genuinely entertaining. It's bunkum-glorifying, like any 'X-Files meets Indiana Jones' show would be, but the acting, writing, and special effects were all pretty darn good in an absolute sense, let alone relative to the movies... maybe it's a totally different production group? *shrug*
Posted by: Weed Monkey
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June 6, 2010 6:22 PM
My somewhat bolognese-like pasta sauce for a late night (or early morning) dinner is slowly simmering on the stove top now, so I'm ready for some Shark vs. Squid action. I'll report in later, if there's anything at all to say about it.
Posted by: Weed Monkey
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June 6, 2010 6:24 PM
Dang, I meant octopus! Octopus! OCTOPUS! Please have mercy on my poor soul, o' tentacled overlord!
Posted by: jody001
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June 6, 2010 6:32 PM
Having pitched to SyFy (i.e., met with development executives, did the dog-and-pony show about a series idea we'd come up with, showed what people we had involved and where we expected to go with it), I will say that many of their development people are lovers of the genre.
The tough part is that SyFy is a business, designed to earn ratings and make profits. Doing "good science fiction" is secondary to those other goals. What gets picked to air are (mostly) mind candy that will appeal to the largest audience and get them the best PR.
Those Saturday night movies, many bought from The Asylum, not only generate good profits vs. costs for a low viewership night, but also earn the network boatloads of free publicity. We're doing it here, now, and it was done before with Giant Shark vs. Mega Octopus.
SyFy's name change was driven to better identify them as the home of stuff like what we're complaining about.. They could broaden what they aired away from traditional alien fare to now include plumbers finding ghosts. It's also allowed them to have a day-in-the-life of a psychic mom show, which will be airing later this summer.
They also have a cooking show and a fung-schway (no, I'm not going to bother to find the proper spelling for that crap) show set to air later this year.
More people will watch those series than The Dresden Files -- which means more money for the network and more validation for the name change and altering of the philosophy behind the network.
As their audience grows (as it has since the name change), expect more Asylum movies, psychic shows and, yes, even wrestling.
Posted by: Galactus35
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June 6, 2010 6:36 PM
I would've preferred seeing some knockers.
Posted by: Robin (not Robyn)
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June 6, 2010 6:39 PM
That Frazetta cover PZ reproduced was from the Science Fiction Book Club edition of THE GODS OF MARS/THUVIA, MAID OF MARS. I bought the SFBC's series of "Barsoom" novels, and all of them had Frazetta covers except the final two-fer, which had a cover by Richard Corben.
(The SFBC used to be terrific, and you could depend on pretty much every SF hardcover published to have an equivalent edition through them. Alas, those days are gone, and they're publishing mainly lame, overlong and boring fantasy novels that I could care less about...I'm still a member, but I think the last time I actually bought something from them was about 10 years ago.)
Edgar Rice Burroughs and the "Barsoom" novels almost singlehandendly turned me into the geek that I am today. I still crack open my SFBC hardcovers every few years and delve back into that wonderful world.
It's too bad that ERB, Inc. is so idiotic about the Estate. They allowed half of Burroughs' work to enter the public domain (which is why there are so goddamned many paperback and e-book versions of his early works), they don't allow new editions of his later works, and they won't allow other writers to take up the reigns of his creations. (There have been a few, but they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, I think.)
I saw about ten minutes of the middle of PRINCESS OF MARS. Then, I realized that I would never get those ten minutes--not to mention the next hour or so, if I had continued to watch--back. So I sat down and started reading a Robert Charles Wilson book instead...ahhh...there's the stuff....
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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June 6, 2010 6:40 PM
Never thought I'd hear "Troma" in the same sentence as "class" without "Nukem High".
Posted by: dcobranchi
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June 6, 2010 6:59 PM
It's available from Netflix as a "Watch Instantly" film. So you don't even need to waste a slot in your queue.
Posted by: Captain Kendrick
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June 6, 2010 7:07 PM
The SyFy channel is dead.
What you were watching was it's rotting stinking corpse.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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June 6, 2010 7:23 PM
After their "adaption" of Riverworld I'm doubtful if they could sink any deeper.
That was the version with Michael Flatley??
(just kidding)
Posted by: JackC
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June 6, 2010 7:32 PM
To hell with [A]* Princess of Mars. I just found out that The Colour of Magic was made into a movie - and I didn't even notice! 2008 no less.
JC
* No reference. regex geeks will understand.
Posted by: JackC
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June 6, 2010 7:35 PM
Yeah, yeah - I know my regex is wrong. Two Old Fashioneds (with Weller 107) and a glass or two of wine. I am amazed I can even spell.
Optional A zero or more times indeed. Nevermind the space.
JC
Posted by: YetAnotherAtheist
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June 6, 2010 7:49 PM
I was a pro wrestling fan AND (currently still) a science fiction fan, and even I was confused as to why they'd put WWE on Sci-Fi. It made no sense whatsoever.
The name change to SyFy to include the fantasy genre as well was ridiculous.
Posted by: Thomas Holtz
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June 6, 2010 8:02 PM
Jack C @#48: Haven't seen the Colour of Magic adaptation, but I found the Hogfather one by the same team quite good. And I believe Going Postal is the next on deck by that team.
Posted by: GMoney
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June 6, 2010 8:14 PM
I came across this travesty on Netflix recently. I was so excited until it actually started, then I turned it off just like PZ. The only good news was that it made me read the book again, which was great! Then I dug out some old Franzetta lithos my dad gave me long ago - gotta find room on the wall for those.
Posted by: dsmccoy
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June 6, 2010 8:15 PM
@ Akira MacKenzie: As for the promised big budget version... Well, it's going to be a Pixar film, so I expect that it will be bowdlerized into "family-friendly" pablum ...
I'll let that "bowlderized" comment slide and just point out that Andrew Stanton's "John Carter of Mars" will most assuredly NOT be a Pixar film.
While Pixar has provided some support to Stanton and his team during the development phase, this will be a live action feature with lots of special effects by some top-notch special effects houses.
Stanton has been quoted in the press thusly:
Stanton assured us that he's not worried about any of the violence in the books. "We'll find the proper venue to put the movie out." Additionally, he adds that decisions surrounding ratings, distribution, and visuals "should all be decided based on the story."
It won't be rated until it's finished, but I seriously doubt that it would be aimed at anything lower than the PG-13 that the Pirates of the Caribbean films were rated.
Posted by: Nerdette
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June 6, 2010 8:19 PM
@ vbalbert
Curses! I have fond memories of my early teenage years of waking up to watch the two-hour bloc of MST3K on weekday summer mornings. There was even an old flash (?) game on scifi.com where you could caption stills from all the movies. Tons of good times with that.
Posted by: natural cynic
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June 6, 2010 8:20 PM
Glad I missed it.
Barsoom was the bathroom I shared with my brothers, late at night, with an inability to put the books down until I had read one more chapter. Dozing off in class was OK, far less important than the next chapter.
Posted by: skepticmatt
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June 6, 2010 8:28 PM
SyFy has indeed devolved into garbage. But how can you not like Traci Lords.
And the new stargate isn't bad.
Posted by: Krystalline Apostate
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June 6, 2010 8:34 PM
ERB was never my choice as a writer. & I didn't realize till years later, that Burroughs wrote some extremely racist books titled "Tarzan And The..."
I mean, really, all those millennia that black folk lived in Africa, & not 1 of them ever became the 'Noble Uber-Savage' - but a white boy comes along, gets abducted by apes, & gets super powers? Sheesh.
Posted by: tuckerch
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June 6, 2010 9:12 PM
You can't blame SciFi for the wrestling.
SciFi is owned by NBC. NBC has a contract with WWE to show its products on the NBC owned cable channels.
WWE bought the ECW trademark and wanted to have a program under the ECW trademark. NBC said "sure". And as SciFi had an hour open in the weekly schedule, that's where it went. SciFi had no say in that matter whatsoever.
Now, you CAN blame SciFi for canceling MST3K in order to show Lexx and Black Scorpion.
If anything they did deserves to have their offices plowed under and sown with salt...
Posted by: ckitching
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June 6, 2010 9:31 PM
JackC, is there a movie named, "AAAAAAAAAA Princess of Mars" or something. Or did you intend to use a '?' instead of a '*'?
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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June 6, 2010 9:47 PM
@dsmccoy Re #53
Thanks for the clarification; however, knowing Hollywood, I reserve the right to be skeptical (and cynical).
Posted by: Randy White
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June 6, 2010 10:11 PM
I make a point to never watch a movie made by "Syfy" (may they rot in hell for the name change). I only go there now for things Stargate. However, I do understand how Traci Lord could look exhausted. But she does still have a nice body, and if the makers of the major production have any smarts (again, a dubious expectation), they will cast her in the female lead again, "dressed" appropriately. We know she already has the experience.
Posted by: cmankey999
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June 6, 2010 10:44 PM
"And NO, was not a fan of the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica." If I wanted to watch something with a confusing and pretentious plot that went nowhere"
I thought the plot of Bsg was pretty straight forward. Not very much like Lost. Whatever.
Posted by: ausador
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June 6, 2010 10:48 PM
Don't feel bad PZ, I couldn't take it either, after the first half hour I turned the idiot tube off and went to bed.
That was most definatly not representitive of the "John Carter of Mars" book series. (yeah what is up with Dejah Thoris wearing clothes? At the most she should have had a few Thoat leather straps to hang her dagger and "radium" pistol from...hah!)
Posted by: tacitus
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June 6, 2010 11:18 PM
"Mansquito" is my nomination for the "With a Title Like That, It's Got To Be Crap" Award for SyFy produced TV movies.
However, I will be eternally grateful for SciFi/SyFy for bringing us the following scifi classics:
- Farscape (but boo for canceling early, yay for at least funding a finale)
- Battlestar Galactica
- Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis (though not so much for SGU).
Other shows that have already been mentioned are also passable---Eureka, Warehouse 13, and Sanctuary---and there has been the odd miniseries that has been watchable, but overall, these are the occasional oases in the vast wasteland of television that is SyFy.
Posted by: Upstate freethinker
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June 6, 2010 11:27 PM
Wow, PZ - your post threw me back vividly...
I grew up loving the Mars books. I also loved Conan (the Robert Howard novels particularly) and of course Frazetta was a hero too.
Oh, how I dreamed of the day when I could have my own custom van with shag carpeting, small diamond windows in the back and a big airbrushed Frazetta mural on the sides...
Well, I had a minivan for a while there - but no Frazetta mural or diamond windows, just kids' DVDs and empty juice boxes on the fast food stained, non-shag carpeted floor :(
Posted by: Notkieran
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June 7, 2010 12:13 AM
I felt the same way after watching three episodes of The Dresden Files.
Book: Harry Dresden deflects about twenty magazines' worth of automatic fire with a shield bracelet in one scene.
TV Series: Paul Blackthorne cosplaying Harry Dresden deflects ONE bullet with a shield bracelet. And faints.
Book: Harry Dresden's advisor on things magical is Bob, a sex-obsessed air spirit which animates a skull.
TV Series: Bob manifests as a very camp man.
But that might not be the channel's fault. Whenever something is brought to visual media, the producers always nerf it.
(although the tv series appears mostly to have suffered from a very low budget.)
Posted by: Ian
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June 7, 2010 12:21 AM
PZ, you may or may not be interested, but I heartily recommend the first issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 2.
John Carter and Gullivar Jones team up with their respective Martian races to combat the aliens from War of the Worlds. It's not as cheesy as it sounds.
Yes, those Martians are drawn olive-green, twelve feet tall, four arms, yellow eyes, massive tusks, the whole thing. It's beautiful.
Posted by: Lyr
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June 7, 2010 12:33 AM
The Sci Fi Channel: Good at TV series, horrible at TV movies.
Posted by: Cactus Wren
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June 7, 2010 12:36 AM
Sigh. Fie.
Posted by: CherryBombSim
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June 7, 2010 12:44 AM
I looked up Traci Lords and I could not help it, but the phrase "ridden hard and put up wet", leapt into my brain.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/K2PNji0at.txAjzTShOlxwLuFcVVFwbnng--#bd813
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June 7, 2010 1:25 AM
At our UU church's 'Joys and sorrows,' I mentioned seeing 'Princess of Mars,' as a serious sorrow.
Gaypaganunitarianagnostis
Posted by: GMpilot
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June 7, 2010 3:20 AM
I pretty much gave up on SciFi when they changed their spelling. Alternative spellings of common words pollute our discourse on the web every day now, but I will not tolerate it on my television!
Posted by: Nomad
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June 7, 2010 4:13 AM
I was already pretty down on sci-fi when they changed their name. I saw the new name and thought that it would have been just as effective to name themselves the utter crap channel. It'd be a unique brand and they wouldn't have had to bother with cutesy/freaking annoying spellings to do it.
I liked Stargate SG1 for.. a while. But eventually I felt they were keeping it going for too long, when you have to keep changing actors around and introducing new characters I start thinking it's time to end it.
Atlantis failed to captivate me, I couldn't get it out of my head that it was the Stargate version of Deep Space Nine (actually more like a cross between DSN and Voyager, what with the "stranded far away" theme), and SGU looked like a Stargate franchise done by the people that brought us BSG, complete with the camerawork of BSG that was so bad that I watched less than five minutes and never tuned in again.
Note to directors everywhere: Making EVERY god damned scene in the "shaky cam" style doesn't make you look edgy. It just makes you look like a hack. It's a cheap effect to accentuate action scenes, but when you're trying to have a dramatic moment with actual acting you need to put the gimmick away and break out the steadycam.
Posted by: William R. Dickson
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June 7, 2010 7:43 AM
I don't expect anything more from the big-budget version. Apparently, John Carter is a war-weary veteran who "rediscovers his humanity" on Barsoom. That ain't the John Carter I know.
Posted by: ambulocetacean
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June 7, 2010 8:23 AM
If you're gonna take out a hit on a cable channel, make it Discovery, for peddling everything from chupacabras and demon possession as probable-to-actual fact, for flogging The Lost Tomb of Jesus and for referring to any and every piece of human or animal anatomy as being "perfectly designed".
The Syfy series are all pretty second-rate compared with things like The X-Files and Buffy. I watched some of that one with Begbie from Trainspotting in it but he didn't even headbutt or glass anybody :(
Looking forward to Roger Corman's Dinoshark and Sharktopus, tho.
Posted by: Victor
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June 7, 2010 9:20 AM
Finding out that this movie had been made over a year ago and that I was not even aware of it's existence gave me a pretty good clue how bad it must be. Though, now it sounds so bad that I'm starting to want to see it.
I believe Disney is still working on their version of John Carter, thought it's not likely to feature a naked Dejah Thoris, either.
Posted by: JackC
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June 7, 2010 11:28 AM
@ckitching
You are absolutely right, and I realised that the instant after I hit the Submit button while waiting for the page to refresh. I just hate that feeling.
I really do blame it on the alcohol. That and getting old.
Oh well. "A? Princess ..." would have just looked odd.
It was amusing though. While waiting for that refresh, I looked at what I had written and just did a headdesk thinking "Dammit!! That's not at all right. shit. I am going to get climbed all over... again."
JC - more sober now.
Posted by: Kausik Datta
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June 7, 2010 1:28 PM
Jack C @#48: I have recently seen both Color of Magic and Going Postal. Highly recommended. Vetinari of Going Postal (Charles Dance) is just as I always imagined him... Suave, sardonic, unflappable. My biggest disappointment of the otherwise-great Color of Magic was the character of TwoFlower. Sean Austin wasn't it. It had to be an Asian, more precisely Japanese perhaps.
PZ's post reminded me of the days of my childhood, when my grandfather had introduced me to the Martian series by Burroughs. I have in time collected all of them. A few years back, there was a short story in the Nature Magazine's science fiction section, Futures. When it mentioned John Carter towards the end, it was like I found a long lost friend!
Posted by: JackC
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June 7, 2010 3:10 PM
How have I managed to miss not one, not even two, but THREE movies made from Pratchett books? I already know I am clueless, but this is verging on the hopeless. I may have to get NetFlix just for these.
And the WORST part is - I introduce my older son to Pratchett only to have HIM point me to the movies. Sigh. (Some will say that worst part is that I don't have NetFlix at all - but I blame that on the wife.)
Don't get old.
JC
Posted by: Herk
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June 7, 2010 6:16 PM
I managed to watch this . . . thing . . . all the way through while playing solitaire to distract myself. Toward the end, there was a scene in what was supposed to be an air plant. In a factory with earth-type valves everywhere, Traci waves her hands over a flaming hole in the floor to restart the air machine. Ugh.
I used to read the entire Martian series once a year though I no longer have the time for it, with all the books and all. And I've been looking forward, with all the new technology, to someone actually doing a 'realistic' version of this. Disney has had a version started and shelved for at least a decade, I think. And now they're trotting it out and dusting it off and they're going to try again? Hmmph. Probably just more of the same dreck.
Posted by: irate-scot
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June 7, 2010 6:41 PM
Ahhh. Frazetta covers. Got me in trouble with my third grade teacher. I was reading "At the Earth's Core" by Burroughs with the famed BBV (Bubble-Butted Vixen) cover by Frazetta. The third grade teacher took the book away. So, after school I told my mother who went to talk with the teacher. She returned with the book and gave it back to me. When I asked what happened, my mother said the following:
(The teacher) said to me that "Do you know what filth your son is reading?" and showed me your book. I took the book and replied "Yes, I do. I bought him this book. You should know never to judge the content of the book by the cover. I expect that you will never take another book from him, ever."
The teacher then commented that I gave her a "Go to Hell" look all the time. When my mother asked if I ever said that, the teacher replied that no, I was always respectful to her. My mother then said she replied "So long as he doesn't say it, we don't have a problem."
My mother did advise me to keep the book out of the teacher's sight. The upshot is that the next week she went and bought me the other books in the series - all with the Frazetta BBV covers.