Roving Mars with ‘John Carter’

How do you sell audiences on a 100-year-old story about the exotic allure of Mars when probes and rovers have long since landed on the Red Planet and crushed all the mystery like so much red rock? “John Carter,’’ which opens Friday, is directed and co-written by Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, the story is adapted from a pulp novel written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Taylor Kitsch stars.