Behind the scenes
The originator of sci-fi movies
2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the character "John Carter" created by Burroughs, this extraordinary cosmic hero, with his magical adventures, gave a generation Generations of readers have brought new and exciting unforgettable experiences. When the character "John Carter" came out, it caused a social sensation, not only changed the pattern and development of American science fiction, but also influenced countless subsequent Hollywood science fiction blockbusters. These include "Star Wars" directed by George Lucas and "Avatar" directed by James Cameron. The former said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine in 1977: "I built a fantasy world inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs novels," and this world was "Star Wars"; the latter In an interview with The New Yorker magazine in 2009, he revealed: "I want to create "Avatar" based on "John Carter on Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs."
Time flies, and now John Carter has become a heroic example across pop culture platforms. From novels to comics, paintings to animation, television to today's movies, this character has deeply influenced the 20th century, and those of the most imaginative and creative minds.
A fan of the "Mars Legends" novels since childhood, Oscar-winning director/writer Andrew Stanton explains how he brought John Carter to the big screen: "I read these books by accident when I was 10, and immediately I just fell in love with the concept of the story - a human coming to Mars and encountering all kinds of magical creatures in a strange new world. Strangers in strange places, that's the romance of adventure and sci-fi. I've always felt It would be amazing to see this story on the big screen."
"Battlefield is an epic mix of romance, action, spectacle and political intrigue," Stanton continued. "Because the original was so long ago, it also became the origin of a lot of stories -- a comic book before comics, an adventure before 'adventure' became a story genre."
Andrew Stanton has directed and co-wrote Disney Pixar's animated masterpiece Robot Story, which won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature (2008). Stanton was also nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay. His first film was Disney Pixar's Finding Nemo, which was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and eventually won for Best Animated Feature Film (2003). Stanton has also served as a writer and/or executive producer on Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Food Story and Uptown.
Willem Dafoe, who plays Tass Takas in the film, said of working with Stanton: "I worked with Andrew on Finding Nemo before, and even though it was just dubbing, he did every shot. Scheduling and progressing work - he's an amazing multitasker. So when he talked to me about the project, and how it's going to be, I was excited to hear it. Because I knew he could do what he said. He cares about movies He loves this project, this story." The
magical production process
"John Carter", the originator of countless sci-fi movies, has actually been filmmakers since the 1930s who wanted to put it on the big screen, but they were all due to or Copyright or technical or financial reasons languished; now the film has finally been produced by Disney Pictures and is about to hit theaters around the world. And when it was released this year, it also happened to be the 100th anniversary of the publication of the original novel.
Filming on "Battlefield" began in the UK on January 4, 2010, with a surge of public interest and fan sites following the crew's every move. All filming in the UK took place at Pinewood Studios.
In late April, the production team moved to Utah, the United States to continue filming for 12 weeks. The fascinating natural scenery and magical landforms there are captured in the film. Although there are a lot of computer effects in "Alien Battlefield", the film crew still wanted to make use of real locations and scenery when shooting. Producer Jim Morris explained why: "We wanted to shoot as much as possible on the real landscape and minimize the construction of the digital set so that the audience would feel like the characters were in a real place. The authenticity of the story goes a step further, enhancing the film’s credibility and sense of reality.”
On the set, traditional film shooting combined with the magic of computer stunts allowed Andrew and his production team to breathe life into the story. For art director Nathan Crowley, the challenge at the start of the film was to create three distinct cultures for the three races on Mars. "We're going to start with the three main groups on Mars: Zodanger, Shirem and Sark. Since there are three cultures, we also need three different buildings. For example, I created the self-proclaimed' "Ancient Modernism" and scaled it up for the three-meter-tall Sak. I took the modernist buildings of the 1960s as inspiration, transformed them into enlarged versions of Mars, and then destroyed those buildings and just Creating broken Martian cities. And when we found real locations, the idea took off because I wanted the natural landscape to be part of the architecture.”
Costume designer Mayes C. Roubaix O's biggest inspiration when designing the costumes for "Alien" was director Andrew Stanton. She explained, "Andrew's imagination came from Mars! It was like he had been to Mars and we had to try to record all the details in his mind. He was very visionary, a great collaborator and knew what I was doing. The importance of everything.”
And working on a fantasy genre film also gave Mayes a great deal of creative freedom. "I wanted to have a sense of antiquity in sci-fi, it had to be a whimsical imagination full of creativity and color. The way the Martians wore their accessories, headgear, and even the elements of their clothing had an important influence on the film, reflecting both How people are different in each city. I did a lot of research work, and in the end we designed the main characters for the different ethnic groups that were both practical and compelling.”
With costumes, it falls to the director and the actors to make the characters come to life Of course, it also needs the help of visual effects masters and makeup magicians to inject personality and characteristics into the characters. For the hero and heroine Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins, they appear in human form on the screen, so they can perform directly; but it involves a lot of labor. "It's the most physically demanding role I've ever played," said Kitsch, whose John Carter escaped the constraints of Earth's gravity when he arrived on Mars. "Bouncing, fighting, fencing... I mean, almost every scene on Mars, I hang Wia."
"They hang us up in a different way," says Lynn Collins, who plays the princess of Mars as both majestic and fearless. "After making this film, I feel like my fear of heights has been completely overcome."
For the actors who played the Martian Sarks, the filming process was much more complicated. For example, Tas Takas played by Willem Dafoe is a Martian who is more than three meters tall and has four hands on the screen, which greatly exceeds the height of John Carter. On the set, Dafoe stepped on stilts to simulate the height of the character. He wears a grey custom jumpsuit with black dots through which the animators capture the motion and then recreate his physical movement in post-production. Likewise, his face is covered with black spots, and there are cameras on the left and right to capture his facial expressions.
"They really wanted to be on the cast," says producer Colin Wilson. "We told the Sack characters at the beginning what they were going to do. But when they came out of a meeting with Andrew , would ask: 'Where is the contract signed?' I think it's all because the characters are so captivating and well drawn. It's a unique experience for an actor... a unique opportunity to play a character from A story that hasn't been brought to the screen; let's create a world we've never seen before."
And director Andrew Stanton expressed his interest in bringing such a whole new world to the big screen and bringing joy and excitement to the audience -- just The same excitement he had when he first read the story as a child—very happy. "My goal is to convince the audience of the world," he said, "that it's real, that's how the best fantasy novels you'll ever read...that world, what it would be like... ...?"
Tidbits
: This film is the first live-action film by Andrew Stanton, who once directed Pixar's classic animated films "Finding Nemo" and "Finding Robot".
·The film is adapted from the novel created by the famous science fiction writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. The original novel was published in 1912. There are a total of 11 original novels, and this film is adapted from the first novel in the series.
This is the first time the character of John Carter has appeared on the big screen in a live-action movie. And the year he hit the big screen also happens to be the 100th anniversary of this novel.
Actor Tyler Kitsch suffered a painful liver problem during filming because of strict adherence to the producer's recipes and physical training. By the end of filming, he had lost 30 pounds.
The original title of the film was "John Carter of Mars", but Andrew Stanton changed it to "John Carter".
This is the third live-action film produced by Disney to be rated PG-13, following Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and Prince of Persia.
Jon Hamm and Josh Duhamel were both cast as John Carter.
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