Head to Mars with John Carter!

What is good in life, John Carter? Before you hear any lamentations of women, let it that the next big sci-fi/fantasy blockbuster on our radar is John Carter.

If you’re not sure what John Carter is about, let’s fall back on the original title: John Carter Of Mars. If that doesn’t ring a bell, maybe Conan does. Yep, John Carter is based on the series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but instead of our Cimmerian barbarian, John Carter is a Virginian from Earth that mysteriously gets transported to Barsoom, which we also know as Mars. He gets embroiled in a situation among the natives – and enter the chosen one John Carter to save the day.

You know, if I were ever like him and were transported to Mars mysteriously I think I’ll end up just dying as the ultra cold temperatures and extreme pressures take their toll – not to mention how the extreme levels of carbon dioxide. For extreme measure, maybe it’ll actually be like Arnie in Total Recall – getting my brains boiled out of my skull.

But if we were thinking Barsoom – then that’s a different thing. Obviously being a stranger in a strange land I would struggle at first, with language, food and company being a huge barrier. But being no mere mortal (a geek, really), things would be different. Thanks to my quirky charm and my nonchalant attitude towards danger I would be chosen as king at their semi-annual geek-a-thon, winning everybody in trivia time based on weak television signals they received from Earth and consume as entertainment. Yes, I won the quiz by correctly selecting the answer as “Inspector Spacetime” while the rest of them fell for the old Dr Who switcheroo! That, folks, is why you need to watch more TV. World domination would be close behind, but I would leave, mysteriously as when I came, when my fellow geeks start wondering why I was blogging less.

At any rate, if you’re thinking purely film wise, well, the film comes with amazing credentials. For starters, John Carter is acted by Taylor Kitsch, whom you might all know as Gambit (it might have been a rotten movie but hey it’s Gambit).

That’s not all: Bryan Craston (Breaking Bad), Mark Strong (Green Lantern), Ciarán Hinds (Rome), Lynn Collins (True Blood), Dominic West (300), Polly Walker (Caprica), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), James Purefoy (Rome), Thomas Haden Church (Spider-Man 3), Samantha Morton (Minority Report), Daryl Sabara (Spy Kids), Jonathan Hyde (The Mummy), Sean Carrigan (The Event, lol) and Don Stark (Star Trek: First Contact) make this a most GEEKTASTIC cast.

And the icing on the cake: writing and directing it is Oscar winner Andrew Stanton – yes, he who wrote and directed both Finding Nemo and Wall-E. If this show does not do well, somehow, man, it’ll be real sad. There’s some real pedigree in here.

So, what are you waiting for? Catch John Carter in cinemas this 8 March 2012 and like the Official Disney Studios Singapore Facebook Page and follow @DisneystudiosSG on Twitter!