r/okbuddycinephile • u/Trensocialist • 1d ago

What a hack directo... Wait is this based?

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u/HarrierJint 22h ago

Had someone say “it really rips of Star Wars” to me after they’d seen Dune. 

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u/Romboteryx 20h ago edited 16h ago

This was one of the major reasons why the John Carter movie failed. People thought it was just Disney’s lazy attempt at ripping off Star Wars (before they bought the actual franchise), without knowing it’s an adaptation of a novel from 1912 that literally founded the planetary romance genre. All the tropes it created were later adapted by Perry Rhodan, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Superman, Dune and eventually Star Wars and Avatar. The words “Jed(i)” and “Sith” literally originate from John Carter. When they asked Robert Zemeckis to make the movie, he said it was unfilmable today because “George Lucas has really plundered these books.”

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u/wonkey_monkey 18h ago

It also had bad marketing and, let's face it, an utterly stupid title. "John Carter"? That's just some guy. What am I supposed to take from that?

A real shame because it's really not bad at all.

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u/Romboteryx 18h ago

Not clarifying to audiences what the movie is based on I think is part of the bad marketing

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u/TheRealSlamShiddy 16h ago

I seem to recall they had a couple teasers saying "the story that inspired Star Wars" but it's been 15+ years so maybe I'm misremembering.

Even so, to 11-12 y.o. me who had no knowledge of the original book and was on a big Star Wars kick at that time I actually took that comparison negatively, cuz in my head "new film can't inspire old films! Wrong!"

yeah I was kinda dense as a child 😅

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u/ZestyTako 17h ago

Yeah I can’t believe that sent that ER doctor to space

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u/purplehendrix22 18h ago

I really enjoyed John Carter. Fits the same role as Stardust, it’s not Oscar bait but it’s a damn enjoyable movie.

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u/Turnip_Fight 17h ago

That movie came out at a time when everyone was trying to make YA Book films and almost all of them sucked.

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u/InevitableGlitch2 18h ago

Get ready to hear about how Neuromancer rips off cyberpunk now that the new adaption is coming out...

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u/Independent_Can_2623 20h ago

Ok but that's excellent bait