Barsoom or Bust: Bow down and be humbled, fools!
So, I have a ton of links to post about Andrew Stanton's collaboration with Disney for the upcoming John Carter of Mars films, particularly about the fact that there's some rather horrific whitewashing going on in the casting of the Red Martians in the same way that the cast of the live-action Avatar film is being whitewashed.
(HEY, HERE'S A HINT: the planet Barsoom -- aka Mars, for those tragically ignorant of Edgar Rice Burroughs -- is populated by ethnically diverse groups who differ very much in appearance. There are Green Martians, White Martians, Black Martians, Red Martians, etc. Guess what? The Red Martians ARE NOT WHITE PEOPLE. The role of white people in the Barsoom universe are played by 1) John Carter and 2) the White Martians.
Red Martians are literally described in canon as being a reddish coppery brown in color. So why Lynn Collins has been cast as the very much Red Martian Dejah Thoris is kind of ridiculous. Uh, at least Collins claims to be part Native American? So what are they going to do, put her in redface to play Dejah? They can't find a more appropriate actress for the role? How much do you want to bet that all the Red Martians wind up lily white in this film and the Black Martians get a dose of whitewashing to boot?)
When Pixar's involvement with development of a film version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs was announced, one of the cool things that happened was that some of the artists that had been involved in the ill-fated attempt to adapt the source material to film back in 2005 started to come out of the woodwork and post their concept art online.
One such artist is Rafael Kayanan. Kayanan did some absolutely breathtaking concept art for said 2005 film-that-tragically-never-made-it-to-the-screen.
When I type out "John Carter of Mars" and then post the below image by Kayanan, you know who this is, right?
What's that, you say? You don't know who that is?
Bitches, that is Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of Thark, and he will mow you down like a GIGAFUCKTON OF AWESOME and you will LIKE IT. Why? Because he's TARS TARKAS, THE GODDAMN JEDDAK OF THARK, that's why, and you best get schooled posthaste* before you profess more ignorance, because he will fly his ass all the way from Barsoom to Earth and cut your ass into ribbons just to make a point and then, because he also literally comes equipped with his own literal Army of Awesome in the form of the Tharks, he will raid your base, raze your cities, and then salt the earth with your tears. Seasoned and fearless combatant, master strategist, statesman, diplomat, and the JEDDAK OF THARK. Think T'Challa but thirteen feet tall, greener, meaner, faster, better, stronger, and utterly uninterested in your bullshit or the bullshit of your brethren. You can take your Batmans and your Green Lanterns and your Hulks because Tars Tarkas will fuck them all up in under thirty seconds, either via breathtakingly epic combat or by liberal applications of tactical know how, and then he'll wipe off his sword and radium pistol, mount his thoat, and ride off into the sunset with nary a tusk out of place.
He (along with his daughter Sola) is quite deservedly one of my favorite fictional characters of all time and a central character in the John Carter of Mars universe. His friendship with John Carter foreshadows that of Spock and Kirk by almost six decades - the ruthlessly practical and pragmatic (and green!) alien befriends the titular human hero after the inevitable introduction where Tars Tarkas pretty much hands John Carter his ass on a plate.
But let's get back to the concept art. If you read the blog post by Kayanan that I linked to above, you'll understand why this concept art is creative GENIUS personified.
Here's another piece of Tars Tarkas by Kayanon:
Note the holistic consistency of Tars Tarkas' armour and weaponry. The reason why this is awesome is because the Green Martians are essentially, by the time of the start of the Barsoom books, a scavenger culture. But that doesn't mean that they can't scavenge well and integrate found technology into something that is uniquely theirs, and that is exactly how Kayanan depicts them here. I love how Kayanan talks about how he studied samurai knotting techniques and various types of weaving and beading because he wanted to impart a sense of visual integration to the Green Martians. In other words, they take stuff, but they turn it into something Green Martian.
An earlier concept piece of Tars by Kayanan:
That's also beautiful, but I like the later versions better - the decision to give more expression to his face simply works better. Although he's fully clothed here, and if you've read the Barsoom books, you know that Martians, pretty much regardless of color or species, don't bother with clothes. Armour and armaments? Yes. They run around armed to the teeth and tusks and fangs. Clothes? Oh, HELL NO. They are collectively a culture that totally lacks body shame (which is one of the many reasons that Barsoom is so interesting).
Sadly, none of this will be used in Andrew Stanton's film.
Neither will this old school homage to Frank Frazetta's Barsoom work. This piece was done by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell back in late 2008:
If you'd like to see the OTHER piece that Vallejo and Bell did recently of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, where they are dressed (or, actually, undressed) the way people REALLY are on Barsoom, look here. Warning: NSFW.
Okay, mercuryeric, are you happy?
BARSOOM OR BUST.
In other news, in light of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Cracked.com had a Photoshop contest: What is everyday life was directed by Michael Bay?
BAHAHAHAHAHA!
Choice Selections:
* Say, for example, by reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. Trust me, it's worth it.
Edit of Random Trivia: For you Jon Favreau fans out there, please know that for years, Favreau very passionately tried to bring a version of John Carter of Mars to the big screen, and from what I've read? It would have been a very faithful adaptation (read: probably rated as a hard R), the Green Martians would have been fifteen feet tall, and the film would probably have been face-wreckingly awesome with a planet full of no clothes, furious battles, airships, thoats, technicolor flora and fauna, and no Pixar or Disney Sugar Apocalypses in sight.
(HEY, HERE'S A HINT: the planet Barsoom -- aka Mars, for those tragically ignorant of Edgar Rice Burroughs -- is populated by ethnically diverse groups who differ very much in appearance. There are Green Martians, White Martians, Black Martians, Red Martians, etc. Guess what? The Red Martians ARE NOT WHITE PEOPLE. The role of white people in the Barsoom universe are played by 1) John Carter and 2) the White Martians.
Red Martians are literally described in canon as being a reddish coppery brown in color. So why Lynn Collins has been cast as the very much Red Martian Dejah Thoris is kind of ridiculous. Uh, at least Collins claims to be part Native American? So what are they going to do, put her in redface to play Dejah? They can't find a more appropriate actress for the role? How much do you want to bet that all the Red Martians wind up lily white in this film and the Black Martians get a dose of whitewashing to boot?)
When Pixar's involvement with development of a film version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs was announced, one of the cool things that happened was that some of the artists that had been involved in the ill-fated attempt to adapt the source material to film back in 2005 started to come out of the woodwork and post their concept art online.
One such artist is Rafael Kayanan. Kayanan did some absolutely breathtaking concept art for said 2005 film-that-tragically-never-made-it-to-the-screen.
When I type out "John Carter of Mars" and then post the below image by Kayanan, you know who this is, right?
What's that, you say? You don't know who that is?
Bitches, that is Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of Thark, and he will mow you down like a GIGAFUCKTON OF AWESOME and you will LIKE IT. Why? Because he's TARS TARKAS, THE GODDAMN JEDDAK OF THARK, that's why, and you best get schooled posthaste* before you profess more ignorance, because he will fly his ass all the way from Barsoom to Earth and cut your ass into ribbons just to make a point and then, because he also literally comes equipped with his own literal Army of Awesome in the form of the Tharks, he will raid your base, raze your cities, and then salt the earth with your tears. Seasoned and fearless combatant, master strategist, statesman, diplomat, and the JEDDAK OF THARK. Think T'Challa but thirteen feet tall, greener, meaner, faster, better, stronger, and utterly uninterested in your bullshit or the bullshit of your brethren. You can take your Batmans and your Green Lanterns and your Hulks because Tars Tarkas will fuck them all up in under thirty seconds, either via breathtakingly epic combat or by liberal applications of tactical know how, and then he'll wipe off his sword and radium pistol, mount his thoat, and ride off into the sunset with nary a tusk out of place.
He (along with his daughter Sola) is quite deservedly one of my favorite fictional characters of all time and a central character in the John Carter of Mars universe. His friendship with John Carter foreshadows that of Spock and Kirk by almost six decades - the ruthlessly practical and pragmatic (and green!) alien befriends the titular human hero after the inevitable introduction where Tars Tarkas pretty much hands John Carter his ass on a plate.
But let's get back to the concept art. If you read the blog post by Kayanan that I linked to above, you'll understand why this concept art is creative GENIUS personified.
Here's another piece of Tars Tarkas by Kayanon:
Note the holistic consistency of Tars Tarkas' armour and weaponry. The reason why this is awesome is because the Green Martians are essentially, by the time of the start of the Barsoom books, a scavenger culture. But that doesn't mean that they can't scavenge well and integrate found technology into something that is uniquely theirs, and that is exactly how Kayanan depicts them here. I love how Kayanan talks about how he studied samurai knotting techniques and various types of weaving and beading because he wanted to impart a sense of visual integration to the Green Martians. In other words, they take stuff, but they turn it into something Green Martian.
An earlier concept piece of Tars by Kayanan:
That's also beautiful, but I like the later versions better - the decision to give more expression to his face simply works better. Although he's fully clothed here, and if you've read the Barsoom books, you know that Martians, pretty much regardless of color or species, don't bother with clothes. Armour and armaments? Yes. They run around armed to the teeth and tusks and fangs. Clothes? Oh, HELL NO. They are collectively a culture that totally lacks body shame (which is one of the many reasons that Barsoom is so interesting).
Sadly, none of this will be used in Andrew Stanton's film.
Neither will this old school homage to Frank Frazetta's Barsoom work. This piece was done by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell back in late 2008:
If you'd like to see the OTHER piece that Vallejo and Bell did recently of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, where they are dressed (or, actually, undressed) the way people REALLY are on Barsoom, look here. Warning: NSFW.
Okay, mercuryeric, are you happy?
BARSOOM OR BUST.
In other news, in light of Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Cracked.com had a Photoshop contest: What is everyday life was directed by Michael Bay?
BAHAHAHAHAHA!
Choice Selections:
* Say, for example, by reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series. Trust me, it's worth it.
Edit of Random Trivia: For you Jon Favreau fans out there, please know that for years, Favreau very passionately tried to bring a version of John Carter of Mars to the big screen, and from what I've read? It would have been a very faithful adaptation (read: probably rated as a hard R), the Green Martians would have been fifteen feet tall, and the film would probably have been face-wreckingly awesome with a planet full of no clothes, furious battles, airships, thoats, technicolor flora and fauna, and no Pixar or Disney Sugar Apocalypses in sight.