The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

World Wanderer said:
Hmmm, well maybe they were trying to make John Carter a little more relatable for people.
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That, indeed, is _always_ the excuse we hear, _exactly_ as when Peter Pevensie was belittled in "Prince NON-Caspian." But _even_ among ordinary, "relatable" people in _real_ life, it is possible to find men who get down to business and _don't_ whine. So John Carter could have been made at _least_ as manly as thousands of ordinary men living ordinary lives _actually_ are.


World Wanderer said:
We also don't know how the battle between Tars Tarkas and Tal Hajus went. For all we know Tal could've cheated by doing something like throwing sand into Tars eyes.
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Tal Hajus was evil enough to try that-- IF he could get away with it. But the _books_ make it very clear that fair play in duels was _relentlessly_ enforced on Barsoom.


World Wanderer said:
I do have another question about Edgar Rice Burroughs works: did he like to portray people as returning to a more primitive lifestyle? That's how it seems to me based on what I've read.
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Absolutely yes! In books _other_ than his tales of Mars and Venus, notably the "prehistoric" settings, Burroughs enthusiastically celebrated the primitive -- or rather, what he _thought_ the primitive was like. I have mentioned that Tarzan and Jane were married by a clergyman; but more than one of the _other_ hero-heroine couples in Burroughs' novels _didn't_ observe chastity quite so scrupulously. Burroughs had some of his narrating heroes declare outright that they saw no necessity for marriage. To them, the erotic desire itself, provided it was accompanied by qualities like loyalty and kindness, was all you needed.
 
Oh dear. I was afraid of that. Unchaste behavior is something I try to avoid in the worlds of fiction. In At the Earth's Core I thought that all David Innes did was kiss Dian a lot.

I was also referring to The Lost Continent, which is also known as Beyond Thirty. It's the book which takes place in the future where the people of Europe, as a result of some great war, have reverted back to a primitive lifestyle.

Oh, there's a new Tarzan movie coming out that looks pretty interesting. There are some differences, like it takes place a little closer to the modern day and Tarzan's parents were in charge of a big company. Here's a trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzhDgbURwUU
 
It was only _some_ of Burroughs' heroes who disregarded chastity. Besides Tarzan and Jane, John Carter and Dejah Thoris also saved themselves for marriage, as did John and Dejah's son Carthoris with his love interest Thuvia, and John Bradley with the cavegirl Co-Tan in the Caspak series.

(Burroughs appears to have liked the name John. Tarzan's own Christian name was John Clayton, and _his_ son Korak went by "John Clayton Junior" when he served in the British army in World War One.)
 
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Admittedly when I started reading Burroughs novels I was afraid the people weren't going to be chaste. What I found were people who seemed to be very chaste and who had 100% devotion and loyalty to their spouses. It was that loyalty and fidelity that drew me further in to Burroughs universe.

That's interesting. I wonder why Burroughs was fascinated with the name John because that would mean that at least two of his heroes share the same first name: John Carter and Tarzan. I didn't know Korack served in the military.

I did find out some time ago that another author wrote some books that took place during the golden days of Opar. I forgot the titles and the authors name though.
 
Now that you mention his name, I remember further: Mr. Farmer produced a whole series of novels which were almost a sort of fan fiction. He imagined that popular (or formerly popular) adventure-fiction characters like Tarzan were supposedly fictionalized versions of "real" heroes -- who were all related. Besides "discovering the ACTUAL jungle hero behind the Tarzan stories," Farmer did the same with pulp-novel hero Doc Savage, "revealing" that the "real" hero was called Doc Caliban. There were others treated this way, but I forget which. Maybe Zorro? Sherlock Holmes?
 
The cinema generated all sorts of takeoffs on the Tarzan concept -- which was only fair, since Tarzan himself was arguably a copycat of the jungle boy Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books. In a sort of "coming full circle," there was a movie series about another jungle BOY, named Bomba. Bomba would help out various people in trouble; then, as the Lone Ranger sometimes did, he would slip away without saying goodbye.

And, of course, there was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.
 
So I watched the John Carter Movie and I did like it! I never read the books so I don't know if the movie was faithful. I don't understand why the movie bombed. I probably didn't have much, or any gratuitous violence for the mindless masses.
 
BarbarianKing said:
So I watched the John Carter Movie and I did like it! I never read the books so I don't know if the movie was faithful. I don't understand why the movie bombed. It probably didn't have much, or any gratuitous violence for the mindless masses.
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The John Carter movie has this in common with "Prince NON-Caspian": if you know nothing at all about the book the movie claims to be based on, you can enjoy the movie as a thing in its own right. Those who _have_ read Prince Caspian will understand that Andrew Adamson purposely denied and contradicted Mister Lewis' whole intent; and those who _have_ read A Princess of Mars will understand that the makers of the John Carter movie purposely denied and contradicted Mister Burroughs' whole intent.

The John Carter movie featured super-duper magical villains who, like the super-duper aliens in "The X-Files," could do anything they wanted to, no matter what, no matter what, nyaah nyaah nyaaaaah. The only way John Carter _could_ kill one of these ultra-wizards at the end was to sneak up and shoot him in the back. Even without any _other_ changes, this is already a _universe_ removed from what Burroughs wrote. There was _never_ a Burroughs novel in which the bad guys could sail along in virtual omnipotence; there was _always_ a way for the hero to take them on in a real fight.

And the heroes of all Burroughs novels were _prepared_ for that real fight. The _movie_ version of the character of John Carter, like the _movie_ version of Peter Pevensie in "Prince NON-Caspian," was infected and ruined with a totally out-of-place 21st-century attitude of whining self-pity. But the _real_ John Carter, like Tarzan and other Burroughs heroes, was ready to fight anyone, anytime, for a good cause.

It was adding insult to injury when, having redefined John Carter as _unwilling_ to get into the action, the movie insisted on remaking the _female_ lead into the millionth clone of Xena, Warrior Princess. Although Burroughs did portray _some_ female characters as combat-trained, Princess Dejah Thoris was _never_ a warrior. She was much more interested in science. When you _combine_ the now-so-predictable invincible Amazon character with a deliberate _weakening_ of the male heroes (Tars Tarkas as well as John Carter), it just gets to be too much.
 
Oh, well. I understand now why the movie bombed. It was not violent enough for most and it was way too far from the book for those fans.
 
It would not have needed to be more violent to be more faithful to the book. In fact, not every fight John Carter in the books ever fought was to the death.
 
Another movie blunder: in the movie, the Zodangans are depicted as evil, nature-hating, environment-ruining industrialists. WRONG! The Zodangans in the BOOK, though they were evil to the extent that they followed a bad ruler, were no more anti-nature than the good guys.
 
Not sure if you guys are aware, but Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. is putting out new canon novels set in the ERB Universe.

There is currently a new Carson of Venus novel out, and a new Tarzan one is out soon. Check them out on the official Edgar Rice Burroughs website. They're listed under the Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe section.

Oh there are new canon comics that tie into the books as well. They're by American Mythology.
 
Sounds great! I'm especially pleased that Carson Napier, explorer of an inhabitable Venus, will be included! Carson's adventures were as close as Mister Burroughs came to being overtly political; he created spot-on mockeries of both communism and fascism.
 
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