This adaptation portrays John Carter as a modern day army sniper serving in an Arabian country. Wounded in the line of duty, Carter is used in a teleportation experiment by the government in an attempt to heal his wounds, but ends up on an alien world the natives call Barsoom. On this world, Carter exhibits the ability to leap amazing distances. Initially a slave to a tribe of green men called the Tharks, he earns his place among them and helps save a rival group's princess, Dejah Thoris, from death.