Peter Pan (1953)

This week, we’ve got another Disney classic. Peter Pan continues the trend of Disney adapting successful British children’s books. We follow another story about a young girl being whisked off to an alternate world where things don’t make sense. Though the two stories and movies share a lot of similarities, they both bring something different to the table and mark their own place in the history of animation.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: Peter Pan is an adaptation of the play and book by Sir J. M. Barrie. We open up to Wendy Darling and her two brothers, John and Michael. The boys are play acting stories that Wendy has told them about Peter Pan, a fairy boy who never grows up. Their play ends up angering Mr. Darling, who decrees that Wendy will have to move into her own room and “grow up.” Later that night, Pan visits them and whisks them all away to Never Land. There they meet the Lost Boys, Peter’s gang of kids who never want to grow up. After some adventures rescuing the Indian princess, Tiger Lily, from Captain Hook and his gang of pirates, Wendy realizes that living in perpetual childlike bliss is not all it is cracked up to be and decides to leave. Before she can, Captain Hook kidnaps her and all the Lost Boys. Pan comes to the rescue, saves the day and Wendy and her brothers return home, realizing that growing up isn’t as scary as they would imagine.

This film is a little difficult for me to categorize. Again, this was not a film I watched much as a child, as I was a child of the 90’s Disney renaissance, but Peter Pan as a concept and a story was referenced to by the movie Hook which was popular in that time. As such, while I didn’t watch Peter Pan much as a child, the concepts and story were present and memorable.

While I do like this movie and I think it is good, Peter Pan isn’t really my favorite Disney movie, even from the time frame it was released. While there’s Disney movies that are definitely worse than it, many of which we’ve already review, I can’t help to find this a little weak. For the era of Disney it’s from (after the package films but before change in animation styles starting with 101 Dalmatians), I would say that this is the worst, but I’ll admit that I haven’t seen Lady and the Tramp in a long time, so this may all change next week. The art and animation is this film is great and the music is fantastic, nearly matching the quality of the music in Alice in Wonderland.

The story, and the plot, however, just isn’t really compelling for me. It’s a decent and fun story, but trying to recall it is a bit of a mess. There’s a lot of information that’s picked up in context and it left me with a bunch of questions. How and why are the pirates in Never Land? Why are they fighting the Lost Boys? What is Peter Pan? Are the Lost Boys other children he’s kidnapped? Most people, including children, probably won’t worry about those things, but I had trouble moving past that.

Where this movie excels is its theming and deeper level meaning, so much so that, like Alice in Wonderland, that seems to be the primary point of the story. Everyone pretty much knows that this story has to do with a fear of growing up, with Pan representing eternal childlike youth and Captain Hook being the ultimate adult. Everyone also knows that Captain Hook is played by the same actor that plays Mr. Darling, a holdover from the play. This plays into that theme, with Mr. Darling being the antagonist of the real world, telling Wendy that she’ll need to grow up, he is represented in the fantasy world as the ultimate embodiment of the banality of adulthood. Captain Hook reminds eternally afraid of Tick-Tock the Croc. The Crocodile is a representation of time and old age. Much like Tick-Tock cripples Hook and continues the pursue him forever, so too can old age reduce our own abilities. Hooks difficulties with Tick-Tock represent the eternal awareness of our own mortality and knowledge of the fact that we will never escape it.

Pan is also not the correct path. We find out throughout the film that Peter has little respect for other people, taking everything is a goofy manner, even when people’s lives are on the line. This leads to a lot of unresolved tension and causes him to be betrayed, damaging everyone around him. He plays the women in his life against each other and he keeps a contingent of children who wish they had a mother. The concept seems foreign to him, as he fails to properly describe the role of a mother partway through the film. He also seems to expect Wendy to just take up the role for his gaggle of child soldiers, without any thought to her wishes and desires. Even though he’s the hero of his movie, he’s not necessarily the person you’d want to emulate.

Near the end of the movie, Wendy is captured by Captain Hook. She believes Peter is dead and is given an offer she can’t refuse: to join Hook’s pirate crew. Instead of giving up on her youth and resigning herself to absolute adulthood, she holds out. I feel this is the central message to this movie. Growing older is scary and, ultimately, you have no choice regarding it. You can’t desperately hold on to your childhood, but you also can’t resign yourself to a life a banality. In the end, like most things, you have to keep yourself balances and go into adulthood willingly and at your own pace.

Overall, Peter Pan is a great movie. Though I mentioned some of my problems with it prior, this is just an excellent watch in comparison to a lot of other films. The central message of the movie is clearer than the actual story, but in a sense, that message is the primary goal of the film. All in all, a good watch; well worth your time. Join us next week for Lady and the Tramp.

-CJ

This week we took a look at one of my all time favorite Disney movies Peter Pan. I actually remember watching a play of Peter Pan as a kid, before I ever saw the movie, and I remember being pretty surprised when my aunt and uncle lent me a copy of the film. As a kid this was my number one favorite Disney movie, even over the Lion King. The story, songs, and characters always stuck with me. This weeks viewing made me re-think some of my views on how perfect this movie was. With that being said, lets take a look into Peter Pan.

Let’s look into the history of Peter Pan first. Back in the 1930’s Walt stated that he wanted to make Peter Pan as his second animated film, and debut it right after Snow White, however that couldn’t be done as Paramount held the rights to Peter Pan. Walt did eventually obtain the rights, when they won out against both Fleischer Studios, and Paramount for the rights in 1939. Work had already been started on Peter Pan, but after the bombing on Pearl Harbor in 1940, the film was shut down. Work started back up in 1947, once Disney had regained some of their finances back. Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan we’re all produced about the same time, but Walt put Cinderella first and foremost as it felt like an updated Snow White.

I can’t begin to say how relieved I am that Peter Pan was shelved. I don’t think this film would’ve done well at all if it had been done in the 1930’s. The main reason I say this, is that Disney was still trying to find it’s way out of the uncanny valley as far as humanized features went. I really feel that a full done film with a large human cast would’ve been incredibly detrimental to this film. Not only that, but Disney was still figuring out how to realistically make characters integrate with their backgrounds. Peter Pan has a ton of flying scenes, and I doubt that animators could’ve pulled this off successfully when the only thing they had under their belt was Snow White. Along with the animation, I feel that this film really needs the music from the 1950’s. With how forgettable the music was in Snow White, I think it would’ve been damaging to a film like Peter Pan, where all the music is essential in setting the mood. That all being said, lets look at how similar both Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan look and feel.

Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland feel like brother and sister films. The voice actors, animation and styles mimic each other in every way, shape, and form. We have some returning voice actors with the talents of Kathryn Beaumont as Wendy, Bill Thompson as Smee, and Heather Angel as Mrs. Darling. The main reason this movie feels so similar is that Wendy’s design really feels like it’s just been copy and pasted into a new film with some small changes. Kathryn Beaumont’s voice is incredibly recognizable, and her voice acting is pretty much the same. Along with the voice acting, the animation and background art share a lot of similarities too. While in the real world things are very detailed, but in the alternate world our colors are very bright, and very noticeable. Unlike Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan actually keeps it’s backgrounds semi realistic. There’s no funky patterns on leaves, or alternating color schemes when we change scenes. It leaves the film feeling a bit more whole in the grand scheme of things.

I will say, Peter Pan is the most action packed Disney film we’ve seen to date, and the key to this is the action and illusion of flight. To make it feel natural, Pans power of flight/levitation has to be integrated into everything he does. This includes traveling, fighting, dancing and sitting. The animators do a really good job here, if Pan is in the air and coming down to the ground, he slows down, and floats to the ground instead of just slamming down into the earth. There’s also areas where Peter will drop something like his dagger mid flight, and he has to flip the correct way to get to it in the right amount of time. There’s a lot of subtle areas like this that work to the films benefit. With this, it doesn’t feel unnatural for Pan or Wendy to fly all over Never Land.

Along with Pans ability to fly, the action scenes are very well done. It feels like this is the most ambitions film that Disney produced simply in the sword fighting scenes. There’s a lot of action in these scenes, and they're spread out all across the film. The only scene that feels like it’s lacking action is when the Lost Boys, along with John and Michael are ambushed by the Indians. There’s a lot happening here, but most of it is bits of trees, tomahawks, and hands flying in and out of frame that it’s just off setting. In a way it makes sense as this is supposed to be an ambush, but I do feel that it could've been spaced out a little better.

Another major detail I liked about Peter Pan is the shadow work. We’re introduced to vivid detailed shadows on the background starting with Pans own shadow. After Wendy sews his shadow back on, Pan flips it onto a wall, and from there we can see it mimicking his movements. We also see this as Hook climbs up the wall in the skull cavern when he goes after Pan. There’s a lot of nice work here, and it’s much more noticeable than other Disney films. I actually wish Alice in Wonderland had taken a page out of Peter Pan when it came to shadowing on the face during close ups. When Captain Hook is talking with Tinkerbell, he brings his face up close to her, in these shots, we can see shadowing on the lines of his face, and highlights and shadows on his lips. This really brings in a great sense of how old and wrinkled Captain Hook is, and it also works in the way that Tinkerbell is acting as a light source, and throwing those shadows back at Captain Hook.

As much as I hate to say it, looking back at this movie, the plot doesn’t work out to well. There’s so much happening, and unlike Alice in Wonderland where the movie was just one long journey. There’s a whole major underlying plot with the kidnapping of Princess Tiger Lily. The plan to kidnap her is briefly mentioned at the start of the film, but it’s interrupted when Captain Hook spots Pan and the Darling Children coming into Never Land. With all the action that happens after, it’s easy to forget the plot, and just go with the flow of things. We’re dealing with Pan and the Mermaids when we’re interrupted yet again when Hook and Smee cross with a captive Tiger Lily in their boat. The pacing around this area faces some major issues. IT seems like Wendy and her brother just got to Never Land and we’re already just leaving them behind. I wish there had been some more development between Wendy and Pan, because it more or less just feels like he forgot all about her.

After Tiger Lilly is rescued, we go back to focusing on Captain Hook and the crew. I do think it’s necessary for Hook to have some screen time to explain his next plan, but I think this could’ve been cut down just a bit, so that we could have more time to focus on the relationships with our protagonists. As it stands at this point, there’s not much of a relationship built with any of them. I feel like I know more about Captain Hook and his crew than I do the Lost Boys. I would say the main focus of growth in this film is on Tinkerbell, and she’s missing for most of the movie.

Overall the plot and character development seem as if they got the short end of the stick here. I think this is mostly due to Disney having multiple adaptations worked out for this film. There were original talks that Peter Pan was going to kidnap the Children, and there was even a suggestion of Nana the dog accompanying the Darling Children, and the entire film would’ve been through her eyes. There seems to have been a plague of issues going on with development, and I think that in the end that’s what harmed the movie the most.

I think that over the years my nostalgia glasses have blinded me to most of the errors with this movie. Reviewing it now, and really critically analyzing it I do see that there could be some definite improvements with this film. That being said, even with it’s flaws this is still one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. The music animation, and action are all really top notch, and even with the character flaws, I think Pans cheeky and charismatic nature, do help to draw connections here.

-AJ