There is a lot of good stuff in this film and if it's been a while that's what I remember. Then I rewatch it and get annoyed. All that rubbish at the start and then mixing in elements of the second book and adding immortal planet destroying baddies. If they'd just stuck to the basic story we'd have got a better film and even possibly sequels - there are a lot of books after all.
shareThe book is really about International Judaism from Burroughs basically atheist perspective.
That is the idea that judaism is a business cult that pulls the string on social issues, banking, and war. In the book, all the people on Mars believe in this BS religion and then basically ruin their lives thinking they're going to heaven. When they try to, they just find death and misery there. The people constantly causing wars to happen is the religion behind the lies.
John Carter (JC), meaning Jesus Christ, shows up to unite all the races of people, based on their good qualities, against the "little people fakes" who run the sinister religion. So, Jesus shows up to get rid of this religion.
John Carter doesn't remember being a child or anything. He is an immortal person who just appeared into being.
Tarzan also has the initials JC because he is a Jesus figure too. He grew up with innocent animals and when exposed to people, he finds he hates most people because they are greedy and selfish for no reason.
Anyway, Burroughs wrote Carter decades before Nazis and he wasn't pleased with the work after WWII happened.
However, I thought since this movie was coming out right around the whole mulsim thing in the mideast, it would keep the content of the book to show that religion manipulates people. However, they were real cowards and maintained none of it. It could have been a HUGE controversial movie if they kept the content of the book.
Did you actually read "A Princess of Mars"? I'm not surprised it was Burrough's first novel. He got better, but I'm sorry, John Carter and Dejah Thoris are, to put it bluntly, appallingly one-dimensional characters. They have NO flaws whatever. John Carter in particular, is what people call, in modern parlance, a "Mary Sue" character -- an overly idealized character, lacking any significant flaws or weaknesses, and constituting a pretty obvious a wish-fulfilment fantasy for the author.
In "A Princess of Mars," John Carter lands amongst the savages, but immediately impresses them with his prowess at absolutely everything. In no time at all -- mere days -- he's learned their language, defeated several of their best warriors, taught them new and better ways to control their domestic animals, and won the status of a high mucky muck among them. His origin on Earth, with three times the gravity of Mars, makes him superhumanly strong, he's immune to the natives' telepathy (but can read their minds at will), and is literally (according to a passage in chapter one) incapable of feeling the emotion of fear. He never does anything that even sails withing shouting distance of being selfish, self-serving, or dishonorable in any way whatever. And since the story is told from the first person perspective, it makes him sound like a truly insufferable braggart. He never makes a serious mistake through the entire series (his worst one, unintentionally offending Dejah Thoris, out of ignorance of Martian customs, is soon put right), Before the end of the third chapter, it has been fully conveyed to the reader that, no matter what, Carter is not at risk of serious injury, failure or death. This makes it really hard to care about the character; after all, it's not like Carter is going to ever have to overcome a failing or character flaw -- he doesn't have any.