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The Curious Case Of John Carter: Secrets And Synchronicities
It’s generally a tradition here on The Secret Sun to look at movies long after they’ve been in the theaters, usually because I like to take the time to analyze them on my computer screen. I also like to be able to post screenshots with captions, since what’s being said is often as important as what’s being shown.
The takeaway with John Carter was what a bust it was for Disney, who took a 200 million dollar writeoff on the film. But the film grossed almost $300 million worldwide, hardly a flop, especially for a March release. The problem was the budget, but the real problem was the promotion.
The film’s writer/director Andrew Stanton is responsible for some of the biggest box office hits of our time, including the Toy Storyfilms, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, and A Bug’s Life. But as Richard C. Hoagland pointed out, his name was nowhere to be seen in the promotion or advertising of the film. Very strange.
The title said nothing about the film, with wags citing a so-called “Mars curse” for dropping the “…Of Mars” from the marquee. The “Mars Curse” didn’t do the original Total Recall any harm, and the problem with movies like Mission to Mars and Red Planet was their scripts. For starters.
Having seen John Carter, I can say the film was a bit overlong, but was otherwise a very entertaining piece of work. Like a lot of people I was mystified by the campaign against the film being waged by the critics. I saw the same thing happen back in 2008 with the second X-Files movie, but that was a combination of hypnotized Dark Knight fanatics and very possibly some interested parties in Hollywood that didn’t appreciate seeing pedophilia being portrayed in a negative light.
Hoagland theorized that John Carter might have been sabotaged by outside forces (such as NASA and the White House) for having revealed certain secrets about Mars, but I wasn’t quite sure what he is referring to, not being as in the loop on Mars as he is. But we cover different bases and I got quite a bit out of this film, largely because of his prodding.
Of course, as I write there’s a new Mars probe in the news, revealing a planet all too familiar to our own.
There’s also new mysteries to puzzle over, as there after every mission. This one here is the latest. I’m sure it will all be explained away once everyone’s moved on, but for those still paying attention the enigmas continue to pile up.
Hoagland is best known for his work on Cydonia and the so-called Face and pyramids of Mars, and the links between the Red Planet and Ancient Egypt continue to gnaw at the back of our collective unconscious. There’s plenty of that in John Carter, and plenty of high weirdness that wasn’t in the original books. It’s worth noting that Andrew Stanton is from Lovecraft Country….
Stanton centers John Carter around the worship of the goddess Issus (who references both Isis and Ieusus/Jesus), without the ambivalence and complexity of the books. The battle of Zodanga and Helium in giant galleys reminds the viewer quite a bit of Rome’s conquest of Egypt, with Dejah Thoris (read: “Dje is Hathor”, dje meaning “holy” or “ascending one”) seeming to resonate Cleopatra more strongly than her literary counterpart. As we’ll see shortly, that era is referenced in the casting, albeit in reverse.
It should also be noted that Carter’s relationship as “right arm” to the green skinned Tars Tarkas is highly reminiscent of Horus’ role as same to the green-skinned Osiris. Note Carter is “crowned with the Sun” in the theatrical poster.
But there’s also the weirdness, with the Therns bearing little resemblance to their own literary counterparts and playing the part of interplanetary Archons, pulling all the strings from the shadows while the world thinks they no longer exist. They intervene in the world war and throw the balance to Zodanga, giving their leader a devastating weapon that Helium can’t resist. The aim of the Therns is to create a new world order on Mars, ending the war and ruling by proxy.
The fact that we first see a Thern materialize out of thin air in the dark and next see them in a formation of three- as well as their appearance– reminded me of nothing less than the Men in Black, who most people today also think are a myth. We later see that the Therns have shapeshifting technology, and are also well-established on our planet as well. They have the same paralyzing technology they use to abduct Carter that we saw the Elven folk use.
The film is also highly reminiscent of all of the AAT epics we’ve been seeing lately, such as Crystal Skull, Transformers 2and Prometheus. We learn about Mars’ mythic past and the role of the Therns, who serve the goddess.
You can’t help but wonder whose planet we’re actually learning about here.
A question I was asking myself when Carter and Dejah reach the Thern temple and discover all of the secret Thern writing, spelling out the teleportation technology and all of the rest of it…
…which is written in Sumerian cuneiform.
Richard said there was a clue that this film was actually about Earth’s part- was this it? But I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about where exactly Edgar Rice Burroughs came up with all of this stuff. It certainly wasn’t out of the thin air. Indeed, the true source of the Barsoom mythology might be another reason someone was out to “get” John Carter.
