John Carter Trailer

Here is the trailer for John Carter, one of Disney's big tentpole films readying for release in summer 2012. The film is based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels of a Civil War soldier who finds himself leading a rebellion on Mars. I'm not familiar with the source material, but I will say that the story premise sounds... odd. The character persisted across almost a dozen science fiction novels and a bunch of serialized stories from 1912 to 1964, so there must have been something about him and the martian world of Barsoom that kept people excited.

This looks... familiar. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of this visual styling in Star Wars, Prince of Persia, and Avatar. Nothing in that trailer got my juices flowing. I'd like to know a bit more about the story so I can start getting excited. There's no indication of John's Civil War background, how he got to Mars, how he became the leader of the martians, or what sort of rebellion/war he's leading.

Disney sunk $200+ million into this film, so they obviously think the property could be big. Judging from this trailer though, it's all stuff we've seen before. Something tells me Disney will be marketing this movie like mad in the coming months.