Best/Worst Scene from John Carter

My last post, my John Carter Review was bothering me, it felt like I left something out, something I wanted to talk about. It was one particular scene, that started out as one of my favorites of the movie then fell flat. If you haven't seen the movie yet there are some spoilers below but it is just one scene, of course it is one of the cooler scenes.

 

Best Scene/ Worst Scene From John Carter (Spoiler):

Dejah Thoris (the strange martian princess) , Sola (the odd alien lady), Woola (the weird space dog)  and John Carter are running from a horde of aliens, that is growing closer and closer. Behind them, all they can see for miles is the blood thirsty mob of aliens numbering in the thousands (not sure why they brought their thousands to kill three people and a dog but then I have no idea what their cultural traditions are concerning hunting down small groups of people and a dog. I mean maybe they really hate dogs, like their culture was almost destroyed by a sniff in the wrong crotch or something.)

Anyway they are being chased by all these thousands of aliens. John Carter jumps off his weird giant lizard/horse thing and shouts for everybody to run and says "I was late once I won't be again", which kinda doesn't make much sense in the situation they are in. The princess and alien lady make a few half hearted attempts to convince him not to fight the horde, but then ride off. I have a feeling that if it went on much longer the princess would have knocked him off his horse. So it was kind of like when you’re being chased by zombies and you think to yourself, crap I am going to have to trip this guy next to me so I can get away, and then the guy spins around and says “I’ll hold them off” and you say “no, don’t” and sprint like hell.

John faces the horde

Well John pulls out his swords (he has two), and stands there with a determined look in his eye and the wind blowing through his hair, looking like half of a cover of a bad romance novel. I say half because there is no girl hanging on his leg. Then Woola, the alien space dog walks up next to John and growls at the horde. John tells the space dog to follow the girls, but for the first time space dog disobeys and won’t leave its master's side.

Loyal space dog, refuses to leave his master's side

Then John and Woola…well I guess the best term would be open a can of “whoop-ass” as they say on those fake wrestling shows. John looks like a guy in the coolest Ginsu Knife commercial ever. He chops the aliens, he dices, heck I am pretty sure he juliennes one poor alien guy. Weird blue blood sprays all over the place. Woola uses his super speed, (did I mention the space dog was faster than the Flash?) and giant mouth that fits most of a human torso to chew his way through a bunch of the aliens.

They use this fight scene to reveal some of John's backstory. As the fight goes on we get flashes of memory: him coming home from war to find his home in ashes, him finding his wife in the ruins, him burying his wife and child, him holding the two wedding bands he always wears. Each scoop of the shovel is mirrored by a slash of his sword. This is very well done, and enhances the scene. 

Soon John can no longer use his super jumping ability, the weight of the bodies piled against his legs is too much. I start to feel that little rush you get when you see something super heroic in a movie. The overwhelming numbers rush forward, piling on top of John.

The bodies are starting to pile up

At this point I am thinking two things either A: I will see an Incredible Hulk moment straight from the comics and John will shrug his shoulders and toss off two dozen aliens or B: The writers are giant dick holes and I am about to see the death of Woola so that John can live.

BAM!

My senses are slammed by complete and utter deus ex machina. The princess’ father’s space ship shows up and begins an artillery barrage that reminded me of my own grandfather using a gallon of gasoline and a match to take care of the ant hill in his garden. And one of the best scenes of the movie becomes a bit cheesy and lame, as the hero does nothing and is saved by outside forces. At least they could have shown that her father was looking for her.

When they finally land, John Carter is underneath a pile of bodies unconscious. I am bit worried for quite awhile but then I see Woola, who doesn’t even have a scratch on him, thus adding more fuel to my theory that while John Carter is pretty cool, the writers chose the wrong view point character.