Disney Guy Review - Peter Pan

hey there everybody I'm just visiting I and you know what I never want to grow up that means at Disney's 14th Animated Feature is perfect for me that's right it's time to take a look at Peter Pan back in 1904 Scottish playwright James M Barrie when a play entitled Peter Pan story a boy who never wanted to grow up and his adventures in a place called Neverland the player was extremely popular in its day in by 1924 Paramount Pictures adapted to play to film for the first time in the form of a silent movie the play also affected a young Walt Disney who saw the production when he was a boy in 1913 he also watched paramount adaptation when was released in theaters it's interesting to see how many stories affecting Walt so much as a child that in later years he would make those stories into future films really we're pretty lucky that Walt mostly read and saw fairy tales and was you know some strange Disney movies molted always thought that the story of Peter Pan would be best told through animation mainly because animation didn't end the restrictions that live-action did as opposed to people in animal costumes and characters flying on strings as was done in a stage production in the animated world anything was possible so it was no surprise that in 1935 between the stories popularity and the possibilities Walt decided that Peter Pan would be a studio second feature-length film there was one catch however you see obviously the story was written for children and in 1929 Jana berry actually gave the copyright to Peter Pan to the Great Ormond Street Hospital right now Children's Hospital in order to entitle them to any of the royalties made of the story instead of Barry himself a fantastic gesture no doubt but in terms of Disney it did make things a little more complicated in acquiring permission to make the film finally after four years of negotiations Disney in the Great Ormond Street Hospital agreed on arrangements and Disney was given permission to go ahead with their production of Peter Pan one of the biggest challenges Disney faced when writing the story for Peter Pan was how to adapt the story as popular as Peter Pan for the screen while still retaining the feel and elements from the original stage production for example one of the biggest discussions early on was whether or not to include Tinker Bell's most iconic and the plays most famous scene in the movie just to get everyone in speed is never seen Peter Pan on the stage in the play there's a part where Tinker Bell actually drinks a poison medicine in order to save Peter Pan and then presumably dies Peter then turns of the audience and asks for everybody who believes in fairies to clap their hands the audience of course explodes and applause and Tinker Bell is brought back to life because as we all know clapping hands is basically the same as a defibrillator Walt eventually decided not to include this scene reasoning that the idea of breaking the fourth wall and having the audience applaud just wasn't as feasible to do in film the film was also much darker in tone in its original storyboards originally Peter was to kidnap we need to bring her to be a mother to the Lost Boys as opposed to her going willingly Tinkerbell intentionally told Captain Hook about Peters hideout in a jealous rage and there was even a version where Jon darling was left in the nursery for being too serious all the story elders would eventually be scrapped however for being too dark we're beginning to see a recurring theme here or Disney's writers would start with these horrific lead arc versions of their classic films but to be fair that's because most of the source material that Disney used was also pretty dark as well really you're starting to see why the process known as dignifying films would come about because let's be honest do you think people would have like Peter Pan as much of it started with a kidnapping and one of his first scenes much debate took place over how to start the story as well it was originally going to be much more backstory on Peter and Neverland but in May of 1940 Walt decided that the story should start in the nursery with darlings because to Walt the story of how Peter Pan came to be was another story from the one they were trying to tell even elements of Neverland itself were changed and omitted with many scenes involving the Pirates and mermaids being left out and an entire story element the dog Nana fly Neverland and the story being told through her eyes was scrapped as well by 1941 the story of Peter Pan was finalized just in time for World War two to hit the studio causing them to put all of their current productions on hold one of the things I've always kind of wondered about is how are these films have turned out differently if it wasn't for Disney being shut down for World War two I mean Peter pale is basically unscheduled to be released about ten years earlier than actually was but when you factor in the animators would have had ten years less experience and let's be honest she probably would have also had different voice actors would Peter have actually turned out how it did despite the war ending in 1945 the studio was in far too much financial trouble to restart a project as big as Peter Pan and even in 1947 when the film was taken off the shelf it was deemed that Cinderella was more important for the company's immediate future and Roy Disney was also very skeptical the Peter Pan could even do well at the box office holding the film to be pushed off to the side it wasn't until 1950 with a company far more stable financially and they decided to go back to work on Peter Pan and Ernest Disney decided to stick with some of the more established child stars voiced main roles with Kathryn Beaumont fresh off Aurora's Alice and Alice in Wonderland cast as Wendy and Bobby Driscoll who achieved fame in Disney song in the South and Treasure Island as the voice of Peter Pan the casting of Bobby Driscoll was a really big deal not so much because he was famous but because he was a guy see at the time and even today the role of Peter Pan both on the stage and on the screen had been traditionally played by a woman partially to make sure the character was young partially to make sure he had something to lighten up to the wirework and partially so that the success of your production didn't hinge on the town of a child actor but the beauty of animation is you get multiple takes there's no wires involved and you can make the character look however you want which we had Bobby Driscoll the first ever male cast to play Peter Pan Disney did however stick to a state tradition with a casting Hans Kahn read to play both the father George darling and Captain Hook Walt also made sure to bring the voice town into storyboard meetings with the writers to give the actors a better understanding of their characters and their character arc before they recorded their lines the next major step was of course animating the film the look of the world will it get achieved thanks the concept art from David Hall and refined and finalized by Mary Blair Disney also again had the voice actors double was live-action references for the animators and shot essentially the entire film in live-action before beginning animation just look like a side-on these line because we keep on seeing them come up but I feel like I should explain why does Nia do them yes they gave the animator some reference footage mainly for human motion but they also allowed the writers actually see the story play out in front of them this was important especially at this time because it was very expensive to animate an entire scene just I have to scrap it later for pacing reasons so the scene wasn't working the writers could just cut it out before it ever actually got the animation so does it seem like a lot of unnecessary and extra work could actually see the studio a lot of money to outside actors who were included in the live-action recordings where dancer and choreographer roll into prey to act out Peters flying in sword fighting scenes in order to make him look more polished and Margaret carries Tinker Bell it was decided early on that Tinker Bell should be depicted as a girl as opposed to a beam of light like in the play so the studio brought in carried a shelf out Tinkerbell would look they had her act out tanks initial scene on the mirror and leg carries performing so much and they brought her back to be Tinker Bell's official live-action reference and even cast her as the voice of one of the mermaids so yes the look of Tinker Bell was actually based off marker carry and not Marilyn Monroe like some modern sources have said but hey I don't think market is complaining too much that people were mistaken her from Marilyn Monroe the character animation on Peter Pan did pose some interesting challenges for the nine old men who were again tasked with bringing the story to life Frank Thomas was assigned to Captain Hook it was caught between two conflicting styles for how to draw the main villain the story people envision hook as a foppish overly proper and goofy character while the director saw hook as a cruel and mean pirate worthy of being a dangerous adversary to peter thomas eventually took these two ideas and combined them to give Hook his final appearance milk call was tasked with animating Peter Pan and worked tirelessly on finding a way to accurately draw weightlessness Paul claimed that the toughest seems the inmate weren't the ones where Peter was flying but the one thought he was just hovering in midair it seems sort of silly to say that it's tough to draw someone who's not moving but it's called pointed out the business of animation is basically motion so it did take somebody with immense skill to make sure that Peter moved or in this case didn't move realistically the music was again handled primarily by Oliver Wallis and 9 saw written for the film with seven making it into the final cut the most interesting of these songs was the film's opening number the second start of the write the song was originally written for Alice in Wonderland entitled beyond the Laughing sky but when he was determined that the song didn't fit the film the music was recycled and the lyrics were written for Peter Pan see kids it just goes to show you you should never throw anything out ever and finally on February 5th 1953 Peter Pan made its debut in theaters so even in 1953 Peter Pan was a very well known and beloved story so how does did these adaptation hold up well first things first we have to look at the animation which honestly is darn near immaculate we talked about the difficulties with actually animating a lot of these scenes and the fact I'd never noticed or even thought twice about how natural the characters looked throughout no matter what they're doing is really a testament to just how good the Disney animators are at their craft and I thought the scenery was beautiful throughout as well the contrast between London and Neverland and the use of vibrant colors really helps set the scene in the mood for the film house was thought that the story was well done the tale of Peter Pan really has everything you could want there's action an adventure soft and emotional moments and also plenty of magical Disney moments as well it's not easy adapting a well known work to film but I thought just about every decision Disney maybe the story was the right one even the fact that they don't dive into piers backstory I almost like better because it gives Peter this sort of legendary aura around him before he even appears animals are one of those people who has seen the stage fight before and I thought it didn't did a very good job keeping to the spirit of the play will also twiggy enough things to make their version original I thought the music was also handled very well the songs especially you can fly are memorable and iconic but actually thought it was Oliver Wallace's incidental score that stood out to me the most the score reminded me of Snow White and how the musical cues accentuated the action on the screen and this was most evident in the scenes where George loses his temper in the nursery it really is a subtle thing but it helps enhance the emotion the characters greatly but where I think Peter Pan really shines is with its characters they are so vivid and unique but what I like about the most is that at least at this point Disney history they're as complex as any characters that we had seen through this point you have a character like Captain Hook who can be both sinister and mean but also a comic relief and even the heroes are shown to have flaws Tinker Bell is an incredibly jealous character and Peter shows that he can be selfish and immature the thing about getting your characters and even your hero's flaws is that it just makes for more interesting characters and storytelling pure good versus pure evil is fine and there's plenty of that in this film there's no denying who the good guy is and who the bad guy is but those little added dimensions of the characters just helps make them more unique of course there are some less than ideal elements in this film as well I thought there was a bit too much focus on female jealousy as a character trait especially because it seemed like almost every female character had it but that's not the biggest faux pas the film makes if you guys have watched my channel long enough you probably know what's about to happen so it has been a few races alert raises alert raises alert oh there it is well no sense avoiding it let's dive into some racial insensitivity so there's really no other way to put it the film's characterization of Native Americans is pretty offensive throughout the film Native Americans are related to animals and called names and Captain Hook even drops a slur that's causing an awful lot of controversy these days with a certain Washington based football team but of course the biggest and most egregious of these offenses has to be the musical number what makes the red man red which essentially hits on just about every major element of racial characterization of Native Americans there's really no way around this one the depictions of Native Americans in this film is very offensive and it is kind of hard to defend Disney on it as I said in the past that wasn't right these sorts of things world and more generally accepted back in the nineteen Deas in you know fairness most of the racial elements were seen in Berry's original play so it's not like Disney just pulled them out of left field of course all this being said even a door in Frank Thomas has admitted that if Disney were to do Peter Pan today they don't have to rethink the Native American scenes and I think that goes without saying of course as it stands today these scenes are in the film and that's why I think it's important to acknowledge and talk about these scenes that we can learn from them as opposed to just ignoring them and sweeping under the rug but racial awkwardness aside Peter Pan is still great in iconic movie at the end of the day it's a story about growing up and I actually thought this team was handled incredibly well just inhaled the different characters approach the topic you have Peter who never wants to grow up but eventually accepts that it's okay others want to theirs Wendy who's sad about the prospect of growing up before deciding that she's ready and even George who thinks it's high time for his children to grow up before realizing that maybe having some of that inner child in you isn't such a bad thing after all honestly I think this is one of the more in-depth looks at a theme that Disney has ever done I mean how often can you say in a Disney movie that they looked at a specific topic from multiple different angles all drawing multiple conclusions and yet all eating too rounded character arcs in happy endings it's pretty advanced stuff there's a reason why the story and characters Peter Pan were so beloved then and still are today and in my opinion I think that Disney's adaptation of this classic story still holds up is one of the best Roy Disney's concerns over Peter Pan success run founded as the film's a major critical and financial triumph critics praised the film although some of them did lament leaving out some play elements particularly the omission of the audience applause scene personally I think would have been a little bit odd of a scene like that in the film it's one thing in a movie theater setting but in today's age of home media I would have felt a little bit strange clapping - a children's movie by myself in my apartment audiences however didn't seem to care as much about the deviations from the play as a film which cost four million dollars to make made seven million dollars bringing it the highest grossing film of 1953 the film was so popular that it even had its own board game released the same year so that's basically the 1950s version of a movie based video game right only I'm sure people watching joy playing this board game as opposed to most of movie based video games Peter Pan received five full ree releases in 1958 1969 1976 1982 and 1989 him was given a limited release at the Philadelphia Film Festival in 2003 and a limited release in theaters in 2013 through all these releases Peter Pan has made a lifetime gross eighty-seven point four million dollars in 2002 Disney released a direct-to-dvd sequel to Peter Pan entitled return to Neverland direct the DVD sequels that's a rant for another day Peter Pan has also had a huge influence in pop culture the film was known to be a favorite of pop music icon Michael Jackson so wanting his famous Neverland Ranch and a line from the film all this has happened before and it will all happen again actually helped inspire the theme for the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica and of course Peter Pan is still highly prevalent in Disney culture with Peter being a popular meet and greet character in the parks Peter Pan's flight being a dark ride at the Disney park since Disneyland's opening in 1955 and the story still has popularity today thanks in part to the any award-winning TV series jake and neverland pirates but possibly the most lasting element from Peter Pan wasn't Peter at all but rather his sidekick Tinker Bell tinker's gone on to become an unofficial man got a source from Disney Company and a symbol for Disney Magic becoming a hostess of Disneyland TV series and even becoming an integral part of the Disney logo yeah you ain't not think about it but that aren't going over the castle in the Disney logo is Tinkerbell spreading pixie dust so yeah she's kind of a big deal and starting in 2005 ticking Bell headed the new Disney Fairies franchise which is that they are starring in six movies and tink even has her own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame geez how did Peter become such a second fiddle to his own sidekick so although it took nearly 15 years to come to life it's clear that Peter Pan is still one of the films that best embodies the magic and wonder of Disney well guys if I wrap something me this week I hope y'all enjoyed it how many oh what'd you think about Peter Pan also make sure to subscribe to my channel if you're still in a Halloween mood make sure you check out last week's video make sure you tune in next week for a special video and as always make sure you check out the Disney guy review playlist and I'll see you all next week

Channel: Joe The Disney Guy

Views: 29,641

Rating: 4.8746438 out of 5

Keywords: Peter Pan (Film Character), Animation (TV Genre), Review (Media Genre), Film (Media Genre), Family, Disney, The Walt Disney Company (Production Company), Walt Disney (Author), Peter Pan (Film), Return To Never Land (Film), Mickey

Id: woskBmT_HZE

Length: 16min 55sec (1015 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 01 2014