To a certain ten-year-old boy living in Dixon, Illinois, in 1921, the town’s modest public library was a revelation, a “house of magic,” as he would later put it. At least once a week, young Ronald “Dutch” Reagan would take the long walk from his family’s home to the Dixon library, returning the two or more books he had devoured that week and eagerly speculating about what new discoveries or adventures he might find next.
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The Reagans had only recently moved back to Dixon after short stays in several other Illinois cities and towns. For the future president, reading was not only a lifelong passion but also, during his unsettled early childhood, a means of escape and exploration. According to Reagan’s biographers and letters, few American authors made a greater impression on young Dutch than Edgar Rice Burroughs. Best known as the creator of Tarzan, one of the most successful characters in popular fiction and entertainment, Burroughs wrote dozens of other works spanning such genres as adventure, mystery, horror, westerns, humor, and a type of science fiction known as “planetary romance” or “sword and planet” stories.
Through print, comic strips, radio, television, and motion pictures, Burroughs’s characters such as Tarzan and John Carter, Warlord of Mars, entertained millions and inspired countless young readers to pursue such varied vocations as astronomy (Carl Sagan), space exploration (NASA astronaut Terry Wilcutt), zoology and conservation (Jane Goodall), and fiction (Michael Crichton and Arthur C. Clarke). “I’ve talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic,” wrote Martian Chronicles author Ray Bradbury, another fan. “Burroughs put us on the moon.”
Count Ronald Reagan among the inspired. In a letter he wrote in 1981 to a resident of Dixon, President Reagan went out of his way to mention a favorite character: “I am amazed at how few people I meet today know that Burroughs also provided an introduction to science fiction with John Carter of Mars and the other books he wrote about John Carter and his frequent trips to the strange kingdoms to be found on the planet Mars.”
If such a gap in public knowledge persists today, the creators of Disney’s upcoming John Carter film are hoping to close it with a blockbuster along the lines of Avatar, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings. They are placing a big bet — a $250 million bet, according to some reports — on the ability of modern filmmaking technology and Pixar expertise to convert one of the classics of science fiction into a 21st-century film franchise.
Few projects have spent so much time in Hollywood’s development hell. The first John Carter tale, entitled “Under the Moons of Mars,” was serialized in All-Story magazine from February to July of 1912. Two sequels followed in the same magazine in 1913 and 1914. Each was later published as a freestanding novel. By the time young Dutch Reagan began his regular visits to the Dixon library in 1921, there were four novels of adventure on Barsoom, the native word for Mars. Seven more would follow by the early 1940s.
Nice to see acknowledgement of the Burroughs' Martian books as a reference for Star Wars. Best of all were the covers of the paperback series printed in the early sixties, when I went through them like a freshman on a keg at a frat house. There's a Jabba-like creature described in either A Princess of Mars or the second of the series, also.
I never see references to these books, and often wondered if those younger than myself were never acquainted with them? Here's hoping the film is well-done and sparks interest in the series of books. It'll be interesting to hear the reactions of folks as they discover that Star Wars was, in some ways, invented in the '20s by the guy who created Tarzan.
I was wondering when Hollywood would finally get around to making this series. Growing up in the sixties and seventies, every boy like me who was a reader of pulp fiction knew about John Carter of Mars. The books I bought had cover illustrations by Frank Frazetta. I think Frazetta's illustrations of Dejah Thoris had more to do with George Lucas' slave costume selection for Carrie Fisher as anything written in the texts.
Not to be too much the geek here but much of LOTR and The Hobbit took place underground, which is what the Dungeons in Dungeons and Dragons signified. It did not specifically refer to actually dungeons but what was called 'underground' adventures.
Excellent piece. Unfortunately the more I see of the adaptation, the more I fear this won't be John Carter, Warlord of Mars, but Metrosexual of Mars.
I was lucky enough to grow up reading classic pulp, Doc Savage, Tarzan, John Carter. And now thanks to Planet Stories I've been introduced to writers like Leigh Brackett, Manley Wade Wellman, C.L. Moore
I don't suppose the Nkima piece is online somewhere?
There was a cable version on Sci Fi I believe. A "B" type movie but fun for those of us that watched all the 50's monster flicks on Saturday afternoons or on late night TV.
In that made for TV movie, John Carter didn't even go to Mars, but to some other planet (name unremembered). Bad movie but the fact that the producers felt the need to eliminate Mars altogether may bode ill for this film. It's original title was John Carter of Mars, and it was shortened to John Carter because, I suspect, they thought Mars was too corny and that modern movie audiences just were not willing to suspend their disbelief. We know too much about the real Mars now days.
As a film, no matter how good it might be, it might be difficult to get audiences into seats with such a concept. Reading the Mars books as a teenager, I'm more than willing to suspend my disbelief, but if the film is limited to merely fans of the ERB books, this film could be the biggest flop in film history.
I read all the John Carter Martian novels as a teenager in the 1960s along with all of Burroughs's Carson Napier of Venus and David Innes of Pellucidar series of books. Considering it's taken over 90 years to get the better known John Carter series to the big movie screen, I'm not holding my breath waiting for Napier and Innes to get their day in the movies.
I haven't been following the publicity about the upcoming John Carter movie from Disney but I was wondering how the Disney folks were going to handle the fact that John Carter was a native of Virginia and fought as a cavalry officer in the Confederate army. Disney is a notoriously politically correct corporation. Disney refuses to release on DVD the excellent 1940s movie "Song Of The South" based on the Uncle Remus fairy tales in the United States because they don't want to offend American Negroes. Disney did release that film in Japan and other overseas markets where the Negro population is rather limited. I was wondering if Disney would have to the courage to show John Carter in his Confederate uniform or even note his connection to the Confederacy. I suspect Disney will ignore or downplay John Carter's connection to the Confederacy as best it can.
I really started reading ERB's books when Ace Books started reprinting them, in 1962. The variety of the adventures and the new covers by those great fantasy and science fiction illustrators were a revelation to me, and the 40 cent cover price was something a 15 year-old could afford! The Mars books were reprinted by Ballantine and Dover in paperback and Canaveral in hardback. I still have all of them. I share your misgivings about the upcoming "Disney Version," as Walt Disney died in 1966, and much of his genius went with him. He had much in common with ERB.
Thanks for the background information on the attempts at film development. I've been waiting 40 years, since I was twelve, wondering why there were all these lousy Tarzan movies and nothing about John Carter (who I thought was much more cool). Hope Disney doesn't ruin it (I also wondered about the Confederate connection).
The Frazetta illustrations were an influence as well; as soon as I saw the new version of Carter, I thought, "That's not John Carter." For one thing, he is described as having "close-cropped" hair by Burroughs, who for a "pulp" writer is remarkably good even today.
In 1963 Life magazine reported that one of every thirty paperbacks sold in the USA was by Burroughs. ERB was a massive bestseller throughout the sixties and early seventies, with John Carter a favorite of the soldiers in Vietnam.
Warlord of Mars features a giant magnetic pillar that the Okarians use to draw in and destroy enemy airships. If ERB inspired SDI, this would be the link.
Superman gained superpowers because earth has a yellow sun, not because it is a lower-gravity planet. Not that I'm interested in this stuff. I'm not. I'm normal. Really..
Obviously I have given up trying to deny my geekiness, so here goes: the yellow-sun business was a much later invention to explain Superman's ever-proliferating, increasingly ridiculous collection of superpowers. The original character was strong, fast, and could leap tall buildings in a single bound, powers that were supposedly the result of Krypton being a higher-gravity planet than Earth.
As a lifelong science fiction fan, I'm eager to see how Burroughs' vision works as a movie. The John Carter stories weren't hard sci-fi as Heinlein, Clarke and others would later write, but they have that Hugo Gernsback "sense of wonder" that makes up for any scientific inadequacies. I doubt Disney will allow Carter to remain a Confederate. He'll probably be scrubbed up a bit--a metrosexual as someone has already said--but as long as he's got a princess to rescue and enemies to kill, he'll do just fine. I remember being disappointed that the various Mars rovers haven't spotted any thoats, and no ships riding beams of eighth ray soar over the Martian deserts.
Reagan's "long walk" to the library was a whopping three to four blocks. No more than a quarter mile.... I like how your description mirrors the science fiction topic.
Reagan's "long walk" to the library was a whopping three to four blocks. No more than a quarter mile.... I like how your description mirrors the science fiction topic.
