Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/57248
Visual Effects ■ ■ ■ ■ Life on London's Soho studios help director Andrew Stanton fill a planet with green-skinned, warring Martians By Barbara Robertson Th ey aren't little green men, but the large, strange-looking Martians in the science-fi ction romance fi lm John Carter are defi nitely green. And alien. Th e Martian barbarians, called Th arks, have four arms, no nose, and head fl aps, and they're violent. And, they aren't the only inhabitants of the red planet. Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs story "A Princess of Mars," published in 1912, the action-adventure fi lm follows John Carter, an American Civil War veteran, who fi nds him- self teleported to Mars, where he becomes extraordinary. Th ere, a stranger in a strange land, he battles the barbarians, rescues a princess, fi ghts evil, and fi nds himself a hero. Credited as the fi rst planetary romance, the 100-year-old novel and Burroughs' subse- quent "Barsoom/John Carter" series have inspired scientists, science-fi ction writers, game developers, fi lmmakers, and one 10-year-old boy named Andrew Stanton. Stanton would grow up to write and direct two Oscar-winning animated features, Wall-E and Finding Nemo, receive Oscar nominations as one of the writers for Toy Story and Toy Story 3, and, most recently, direct his fi rst live-action fi lm, this year's John Carter. "About the same time I read these stories, I saw Star Wars with imagery I didn't think was possible," Stanton says. "So ever since 1976–1977, I wanted to see these stories on screen by somebody. I had never thought it would be me." Th e Walt Disney Pictures production stars Taylor Kitsch as John Carter; Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, an unusual Th ark whom Carter befriends; and Lynn Collins as Dejah Th oris, the Princess of Helium. Filmed in Utah and on soundstages in the UK, the production fea- tures CG characters and creatures acting alongside live-action actors. Carter is always Kitsch, the Heliumite princess Dejah Th oris is always Lynn Collins, but the Th ark Tars Tarkas is a CG character voiced by Dafoe, who performed the character on set. When Stanton took a detour from Pixar to direct the fi lm for Disney, he brought along as a writer Mark Andrews, head of story on Ratatouille