Director/Writer Andrew Stanton Interview For ‘John Carter’

Bringing to life the eponymous hero of Edgar Rise Burroughs’ classic novels which provided much of the source material and are a big influence on films such as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Avatar,’ ‘John Carter’ is directed by Academy Award winner Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo). The film stars the likes of Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Dominic West, and Thomas Hayden Church.

‘John Carter’ arrives in cinemas March 9th, the film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands. Look out for a more in-depth interview with Andrew Stanton and the rest of the cast in March.

How did you approach adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic sci-fi novel with ‘John Carter’?

Andrew Stanton: I was such a fan of the books as a kid and as a young teen, then I sort of fell away from them and lived off the memories of what it was like to read them all through my 20s and 30s. Then I sort of rediscovered them in my late 30s, and read them again, now with the eyes of somebody who’s had to write their own stories and had to make films. It made me really, not only appreciate what was really great stuff in the books, but also how much needed to be altered or changed or edited in order to not just make a better movie, a better story, but to capture the feeling you get from reading the ‘John Carter’ books. I think that’s really more of the job of the filmmaker when they’re adapting a book. It isn’t so much about being incredibly faithful, it’s great if you can be, but what’s more important is have you made the audience or the film-goer feel like what it felt for the reader to read the book? To me that’s the sign of a good adaptation. One thing I learned a long time ago is that you can’t really translate a book literally to the screen. It doesn’t work because it’s a different medium, which I think the same can be said in reverse.

With ‘John Carter,’ is one of the main challenges making this fantastical and epic world seem authentic?

Andrew Stanton: Yeah. How can you sell a nine foot tall, four armed character with tusks? And get people to completely buy it, completely accept it. How can you give a multi-legged lizard like creature, that acts as if it’s your pet, and it can run faster than the roadrunner in a Warner Bros cartoon (laughs), and again accept it? Make you think that maybe that could exist. The way into the film was not so much to be fantastical, it was actually the other side of it. How can I make you believe that this is actually the laws of nature and the rules of reality on another planet? That was the approach of ‘John Carter.’ I think what fascinates me most about the story of ‘John Carter’ is that it’s a stranger in a strange land. It’s about a man, who against his choice, suddenly becomes extraordinary. It’s the analogy of somebody being given gifts, and are you going to use them for the betterment of others? Or are you going to keep them for yourself?

I think people will really enjoy Tars Tarkas and the Tharks….

Andrew Stanton: One of the most memorable characters throughout all the books, outside of John Carter, is Tars Tarkas, who is a leader of this green man tribe. These things are described from anywhere between nine to fifteen feet tall, with tusks – it’s pretty fantastical. So one of the first things we attacked on ’John Carter’ was how do you make them feel believable? Not fictitious, not just like some little boy fantasy realised. We had to make them feel indigenous to the desert field, a natural species from this planet. We actually went and designed and re-designed the physiology of these green men so that they felt similar and familiar to desert dwelling people of our world. I made the Tharks very thin, and ropey, because I looked at all the desert-dwelling tribes that we’re aware of, in the aboriginals, the Maasai warriors, the Bedouins – nobody’s thick. They’re all down to the sinewy muscles and just the essentials. They’re the definition of the word essential. That was the approach.

‘John Carter’ being your live-action movie debut after ‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘WALL-E,’ what was that like for you?

Andrew Stanton: The nice thing and the comforting thing is that, like I had assumed, making movies virtually isn’t as different as people think it is from making movies live. Certainly there’s a lot of obvious differences, but the fact that your both trying to make a great image on the screen at the end of the day, that captivates you, that moves the story forward, and everything has a reason narratively for being in there. They have no differences in that aspect.