The second trailer for John Carter

So take a look at this: http://disney.go.com/johncarter/.

A few months ago in this very blog (http://perrynomasia.blogspot.com/2011/08/ignominious-and-perhaps-constructive.html), I expressed some concerns about the first trailer. It seemed to me that the trailer was playing up the romance aspect of the Barsoom books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, but I did express hope that it was a marketing ploy, that perhaps the trailer was playing up the romance to attract an audience it might not find otherwise. But there were enough other stylistic choices that gave me pause about the whole thing, fearing another crushing cinematic retelling of a story that I love, like The Spirit or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

This new trailer on the other hand makes me very excited.

First, this trailer plays up the adventure aspects of the original novel, Princess of Mars. I've never had a conversation about the Barsoom books in which people talk about the romance aspects—what they remember is the battles and the unadulterated joy of being able to leap yards without trying, of fighting great white apes in a gladiator pit. And this trailer seems to indicate that these moments will be in the movie. We even get a quick glimpse of Woola, John Carter's faithful calot, which just made my fanboy hackles stand on end.

Second, there is more color and pomp in this trailer, a counterindication to the dolorous feel of the first trailer. No doubt this is due in part to the inspired music choice, again. The first movie centers on Peter Gabriel's remake of "My Body is a Cage", but this one has chosen a choral reinterpretation of Led Zeppelin's classic "Kashmir." Perhaps there is no more stately and moving rock anthem than U2's intro to "Where the Streets Have No Name" but the rhythm that drives "Kashmir" would have to be a close second. And then when the choir opens up, again the music selection just gave me goosebumps. It fits the images in the trailer extremely well.

I still have nits about some of the stylistic choices—the youth of the protagonists, Carter's long hair, the reluctance to give the native humanoid Martians copper skin—but I'm much more willing to accept them when this trailer shows how much more deeply the creators have embraced the story than I had originally believed. The two trailers in combination give me a great deal of hope for the movie, such that now I have to worry that my expectations are getting too high. Nonetheless, 9 March 2012 is circled in bright red in my mental calendar. Heck, I might even splurge and go IMAX on this one.