Barsoomia.org forum

If you haven't yet, drop by barsoomia.org to check out the begining of Abrham Sherman's A Princess of Mars script - Jeff

He's done a good job. I like what I've read so far. Any possibility of posting the "rest of the story?" Inquiring minds want to know what happens next?!?

I think he just needs encouragment.....

Thank you for the compliments! I'm glad you've enjoyed it. I would love to share all of it, and perhaps will someday, but for now I'm still holding out the faintest of hopes that I can still contribute to the current production, in which case I don't want to publish ALL my ideas just yet.

Get the word out about it, and perhaps soon we can march on Pixar with "USE ABE'S SCRIPT!!" signs.

Bard, I didn't realize you were the author. Congrats! I liked how the story flowed.

I thought you gave Than Kosis a little more development to let us know he really is power hungry. He struck me as more venal in the book rather than overtly evil.

And Hagoja . . . I thought I could see a mercurial touch which goes with the green men's cultural predispositions. Always dangerous, ready to go for the rude and cruel as the first choice if there was a choice.

And Sola, well! Someone's making eyes at her! It's about time! The poor girl was always left out, living the poor pitiful Pearl act.

Oh, and speaking of longing glances! Woola! Thank you, Bard!

Other thoughts will probably come to mind after a take another look at it. Interesting take on Kantos Kan, but that's for another post.

Inquiring minds are still curious as to what will happen.

Well, now I've revealed my secret identity! Oh well!

There is much more to Than Kosis in the rest of the feature. I've spent quite a bit of work on him, with always more room for improvement, of course. I have tried to keep him very "Burroughs" even as I have made him more than what he is in the novel.

Hagoja has been fun to write, with four characters to draw from. She's a combo of Lorquas Ptomel, Sarkoja, Tal Hajus and Dak Kova from the novel. I like that she is the one who personally ruined Tars Tarkas' family, and now they are virtually co-leaders of the Tharks. Things get much more interesting in the feature with that subplot as well.

Someone suggested I add in a love interest for Sola and it has really helped to draw out the themes of her family's past and the Thark cultural/emotional struggles as well.

The Woola material is nearly untouched from what Burroughs wrote, and it works nicely to give John Carter some emotional connection with Barsoom from the start, even if it's just a guard dog. They look out for each other, essentially.

Yeah, I kinda gave Kantos Kan a huge promotion, from Dwar to Jedwar, but I wanted him to be an important character from early in the script and to be close to Dejah Thoris. It seemed like a good way to help show the Heliumites in their own environment before Dejah Thoris was captured and encountered the Earthman.

I'm glad you're enjoying the script! If the Pixar/Disney production succeeds, and it becomes obvious that there's nothing left for me to do with my adaptation, I'll post the whole thing. I'll try to do that before the movie is released, then us ERB fans can have some REALLY interesting discussions about the film! (And who knows if Andrew Stanton and co. might read my "Princess" script after the legal concerns have blown over and consider hiring me for "Gods"?!)

Let me know of any other questions or suggestions you might have about the script!

John Carter fought for the south and while on the red planet he had slaves. Do you think the script will be changed so John Carter would be fighting for the North? Do you think they may change the views on slavery for the people of Helium?

I would not mind at all if they changed the view of slavery on the part of the people of Helium. For some reason it would bother me if they moved John Carter’s origin to West Virginia and have him fight for the North.

After working on that issue for quite some time, I'm confident it's possible for John Carter to have fought for the South but NOT to have fought in support of the slavery of that era/region. In ERB's novel, John Carter had loyalty to a Virginian family, and fought to support them. ERB doesn't mention the defense of Southern slavery as one of John Carter's motivations. People anywhere on Earth can understand the desire to fight to defend those you love. That's why JC fought in the Civil War, as interpreted in my script. I imagine that was the driving motivation for most of the Confederate soldiers. They fought for their families, and one of the tragedies of the Civil War was that many of those families were economically entangled with the evil, greedy, racist practice of slavery. I hope to present JC's motivation as noble, and leave the discussion of the more controversial topics to historians. In my script, I touch on the slavery issue in sections after the initial 40 pages that were posted.

I haven't made an issue of Barsoomian slavery. All the races have servants, but we won't be seeing any whippings or rapes, etc. In my script, Barsoomian servants are more like servants in medieval films. The impression is of a rigid caste society, rather than subjugation of minorities.

That being said, the issue of slavery WILL certainly have to be dealt with in "Gods", since that story is about several races of people preying upon each other. My plan for "Gods" (if I ever have a good reason to write it) is to focus on the evil of Issus and Matai Shang. The injustices that occur will be due to their tyranny and lust for power. That interpretation is actually about 99% accurate to the book, so it should fly.

The only issue I have with the script is Dejah Thoris' use of the word "daddy" when taling to her father. Not because it's something that a Barsoomian wouldn't use, but because I hate it when grown girls (even young girls) call their fathers that.

My 11 year old daughter calls me that slyly when she wants something, and we both know it. I call her 'daughter' then. But a more sincere daddy slips out once in a while. It will melt me if she's doing it on occassion years from now.