New Picture: White Apes of Barsoom!

Entertainment Weekly has a fresh interview with director Andrew Stanton and the latest photos from the John Carter of Mars flick. Then theres this little tidbit from the article [SPOILERS, if you've not read the books], in which Stanton explains that the Tharks chain down Carter to keep him from low-grav jumping his way to freedom in a gladitorial arena. Stanton explains Carter's dilemma, but he leaks a little info about the beast itself (emphasis mine):

AS: There’s a subtle sense of anticipation for what these things might be like. Then Michael Kutsche — who did a lot of the designs on [the Johnny Depp movie] Alice in Wonderland – came up with this design on his own, for just their scale. He made them nocturnal, almost like moles — they stopped using their eyes, and just had a heightened sense of smell. We just love that. We needed a scene where Carter was going have to get out of his execution sentence in order to move the story forward, and we thought what better than having to go up against this formidable creature?

...and later...

EW: I’m sure John Carter is thinking right now, “This is a really interesting problem.”
AS: [Chuckles.] Right. And you’ve got these apes that can’t see, but they can smell really well. So it gives you a slight chance to not be killed immediately.

It's been a while since I read the books, but I don't recall the apes being blind.

Am I wrong? What do you think about the way this is playing out?