So, The Girlfriend went to her hair stylist last night for the usual maintenance work, and she later told me that while she was in the chair, the smalltalk turned, as I imagine it often does, to recent movies. Anne mentioned to her stylist that she and I quite liked John Carter, only to have the stylist remark that she wasn’t interested in that one because she couldn’t really tell what it was about from the TV ads. So Anne — who I think is on the verge of becoming a genuine Edgar Rice Burroughs fan, thanks to our nightly readings from the Barsoom series (we’re about two-thirds of the way through book two, The Gods of Mars, right now) — proceeded to explain what the movie’s marketing did not: that it was a swashbuckling adventure based on a seminal century-old sci-fi/fantasy pulp novel by the same author who created Tarzan… at which point, her stylist said something to the effect of, “Really? It’s based on a book? By the guy behind Tarzan? I totally would’ve seen it if I had known that!”

You see how easy it would’ve been, Disney marketing people? Bunch of schmucks…