Daily Archives: July 10, 2012

John Carter of Mars – Review

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I was surprised yesterday when my good lady presented me with a copy of John Carter which has just been released on DVD.  I had said I wanted to see the film but as normal did not make it to the cinema and then forgot about it until this month when the release was made.  It was like she read my mind!  So we sat down last night to watch it and while I normally have to be prodded to stay awake by ten in the evening this was not the case with this film.

John Carter is based on the book Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs which I read many years ago and had mostly forgotten but some details did come back to me in the watching.  Carter is a cavalry officer after the American Civil War who loses his wife and daughter and takes to seeking out gold in the caves of Arizona.  Gold he finds and also the means to travel in an instant to ‘Barsoom’ or Mars to us Terrans.    As normal I do not want to spoil the plot so I will stick to the main areas of the film.  Firstly it is brilliantly rendered and shot with top notch special effects and traditional film making combined, much as you would expect from Disney Studios, and the actors are all well suited to their roles.  The historical scenes on Earth are accurate and skill full holding the plot well.  The scenes on Mars are astonishing in places with vast moving cities and creatures as well as airships and a ‘death ray’ too.  The film is fast paced and held my attention from the first to the last moment with good use of action, tension and drama as well as a love story and woven strands of a father daughter narrative too.

This film has lost Disney a lot of money on this movie and it has had some really bad reviews but ignore that.  I loved this film and as society keeps pointing out to me the kind of turgid crud that ‘people’ like and give good reviews to bores the hell out of me and things I like get slated and bomb at the box office.  Draw what you want from that statement but if you are a fan of science fiction and of strong alpha male leads in movies (remember those?) combined with beautiful and independent female leads then you will love this.  Some say the plot is a mess…I saw no evidence of this; it made perfect sense to me. John Carter is an excellent family adventure movie that really did remind me of the thrill of the original Star Wars movies.  A film with a fixed point of vision and not made on a ‘tick the boxes plot’ hollywood normally churns out since the early 1990’s.  Perhaps that is why it failed…

As for wargaming potential this film is stuffed with it; a gamers dream really.  Many set pieces, lots of aliens and monsters as well as historical weapons and troops.  Might well become my Mars project at this rate since learning of the new Total Recall.

Watch This Movie!

GBS

New Blister Backer

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A ‘rough’ of the new Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk blister backer card

Some of you might have noticed I have been in a ‘hobbit hole’ for the last two days and have not answered my usual three dozen or more personal mails a day. Well I had been handed a new and urgent task; to replace the current now almost extinct blister backer used by Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk.  I had expected to be doing this but due to the placing of a large trade order into the USA last week it was moved up the job list to ‘do it right now!’ status.

Those who purchase their miniatures from stores or at conventions will know what a blister backer is.  A piece of card with all the needed information about the company and about the product which goes inside a blister of miniatures allowing the customer to know what he is looking it along with how much it costs.  These used to form the back of a blister but those were ‘heat sealed’ use once blisters which we have not used for a decade or more.  We use a ‘clam shell’ plastic blister which is more secure but also is reusable and many wargamers use them to transport finished figures too!  So they full fill the same purpose but are no longer the ‘back’ but the name remains much like ‘watching a video’ does despite it being a DVD!

If you click on the image above you can see a low rez rough of the new design. Size wise it is 105mm by 75mm in dimension. It is simple and effective and tells you all you need to know over an attractive mottled blue with the famous Alternative Armies ‘arrowhead’ embedded in it.  The blue is used as it is the best colour behind white metal miniatures to be able to see them properly and the blank white area on the front is for the placement of the ‘product label’ which tells the customer what code he is holding.  This is different for each pack of course.

I will be catching up with the backlog of email soon as I can but this is turning into one hectic week!

GBS