I keep seeing TV ads for this really dumb-looking movie called John Carter. It really looks ridiculous: some puny little human is fighting these enormous monsters that are as big as a six-story building, and he’s beating them, and fighting whole massive armies all by himself, etc. Is he like Superman or something, or is it all just bullcrap? It looks like bullcrap. But the single dumbest thing about this whole thing is that the movie is called simply: John Carter. That doesn’t sound the least bit exciting: it’s just a boring guy’s name, without anything else. It sounds so generic, unless I saw the ads or the trailer, why would I want to see it? (Actually, um, why would I want to see it anyway? It’s so silly!)
If they were going to go with a Carter name, why not Jimmy Carter? The movie Jimmy Carter could have seen the same alien world of warring factions and monsters, and Jimmy Carter could have brokered a peace deal between all the different parties, with fierce, exciting negotiations nobody ever thought would work, finally seeing an end to all this turmoil, just like the real Jimmy Carter did with the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty; only in the movie, it would settle it all once and for all, without any assassinations, etc. And then, once all the fighting had ended, Jimmy Carter could start the group “Habitat for Aliens”, where he could help build homes for all the poor aliens. Or wouldn’t that be exciting and adventurous enough for a children’s adventure movie? Or, more to the point, would that not lend itself as readily to merchandising and video game tie-ins?
Wouldn’t you want a Jimmy Carter video game?
