**UPDATE** – Added the latest trailer.
A bunch of new photos and a theatrical poster were released by Disney for their new John Carter movie, with one even showcasing the White Ape and giving a little insight on the behemoth’s transition from the book into the film.
Source: The Film Stage
The white apes in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel aren’t a main narrative force, although that has changed in Andrew Stanton’s adaptation. Here’s what the director had to say.
“No, they’re sort of an oversized gorilla in the books, and they’re kind of ubiquitous. They’re littered everywhere through at least the first several novels. They were always cool, just from a visceral standpoint, [but] they don’t really have a narrative function in the first book. So what we did is we made the White Apes a formidable creature that you kind of hear about throughout the movie, but you never really witness. There’s a subtle sense of anticipation for what these things might be like. Then Michael Kutsche – who did a lot of the designs on [the Johnny Depp movie] Alice in Wonderland – came up with this design on his own, for just their scale. He made them nocturnal, almost like moles – they stopped using their eyes, and just had a heightened sense of smell. We just love that. We needed a scene where Carter was going have to get out of his execution sentence in order to move the story forward, and we thought what better than having to go up against this formidable creature?”
Not bad! Not what I expected but I am kinda digging the look of that ape. It doesn’t look drastically different than some of the more recent creature designs we’ve seen in movies with the white ape in particular seeming that he’d walked right off the set of Middle-Earth. The other creatures look like something out of Star Wars but they certainly give us an idea of the art direction they chose with this movie.
The trailer gave me a better idea of this effects heavy movie, but did little to re-assure me that they’re also providing us with great storytelling. I’ve been fooled before by movies with fancy special effects, gladiator arena’s, sand, and spaceships (this means you Star Wars Prequels) and I know that looks can be deceiving. This movie is still fairly high on my radar as director John Stanton also directed a couple of my favorite Pixar movies, so I’ll be anxious to review the movie either way.
