John Carter: Alternate Opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyzXyo5EMhQ&feature=player_embedded

When director Andrew Stanton presented a 170 minute rough cut of John Carter to a Disney and Pixar “brains trust” last year, they had a few issues, one of which was the film’s original opening. That opening, which featured Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) delivering a lecture about the state of the Barsoomian wars, was criticised because the trust fund Thoris “arch and stony”.

So the opening was rescripted and reshot, and the lecture was reshot and moved to later in the film, but considering the ultimate fate of the film – to be pilloried as one of the biggest flops of all time – the phrase “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic” comes to mind.

But now the original opening will be available as an extra on the Blu-ray release. A lot of the FX aren’t complete (for example, the shots of rock faces in the Arizona and Utah desert, for example, were meant to be digitally remade into the crumbling edifices of once-great Barsoomian buildings) but you get the general idea.

The Blu-ray of John Carter is on sale in the UK from 2 July.