I'm treating these three films as an unofficial trilogy, as they all revolve around a male protagonist of a prepubescent age as he searches for his place in a world that wants to eat him. As all three of them were made directly under Walt Disney's supervision, it's probably fair to suggest they contain within a sense of how Walt viewed his own childhood.
Pinochle (1940)
Man, that's got to suck being brought halfway to life and getting sent to school the next day. It's no wonder Pinocchio wasn't ready for the real world, which in this case involves a single pair of anthropomorphic animals who may be stuck in hybrid form from dipping into the Pleasure Island formula.
Okay, so straight up. There are two movies I generally accept as Walt Disney's masterpiece, Pinocchio being the animated one and Mary Poppins being the predominantly live action one. Compared to Snow White, Pinocchio simply has a lot more going for it. The source material is a novel as opposed to a short story, so there's really no padding out of the plot. The animators have gotten even better with some of the most effective ocean waves ever hand drawn.
Let's talk characters, since that's what ultimately counts for me. Pinocchio is on the nose (and my personal Jiminy Cricket is cussing me out for that one). He's purely naïve and optimistically trusting of a world which proves not to deserve it. Perhaps he's inherited it from Geppetto, who seems to have been so distant from the outside world for so long that he forgets to prepare the puppet for predators.
And boy are there predators. Honest John Worthington Foulfellow and sidekick Gideon are on hand twice to lead Pinocchio into a profitable demise. Stromboli is an absolute tyrant. And of course there's Monstro the whale who is more a force of nature than an actual villain, but he certainly seems to express a conviction about what he does.
And then there's the epitome of evil himself, the unnamed coachman. None of the villains in the film receive any kind of comeuppance, but this is the guy whose continued existence out there in the world really bugs the hell out of me. Selfish motivations in the short run can certainly cause harm, but they're rarely sinister. This guy has a whole system designed to turn boys into donkeys. It's a true psychological horror, and there's no happy ending for them or the off-screen families who never know what happened to their children. Disney.
Really the only weak point is the Blue Fairy, who is nearly as boring as Snow White was; although the way she feigns gullibility to Pinocchio's lying is a bit indicative of a deeper character under the surface. But overall the movie is flat out amazing.
And yet, I have no interest in ever owning it or even rewatching it. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Perhaps Pinocchio is meant to be a one-time experience that you just kind of get and are comfortable moving on from. During my time at Walt Disney World, I got to experience life inside the heads of three characters from the film (Geppetto, Foulfellow, and Stromboli) and I never really looked forward to any of them. So to summarize, I don't particularly love Pinocchio but I respect the hell out of it.
It's a curiosity that both Jiminy Cricket and Figaro the cat found life outside their film in Disney's VIP lineup.
Pester Pain (1953)
Out of all of the classic Disney stories (and I'm referring to the ones made directly under Walt's influence) this is probably my least favorite. It's probably because I've never found the character of Peter Pan to be all that engaging. I mean, yeah, he does stuff that we all fantasize about doing but who is he?
What's interesting about children? (Here's a hint: a lot less than grandparents think.) But usually the stories about children that have any entertainment value are about the way they try to connect with the world around them, and often fail embarrassingly. So then you have Peter Pan, who clearly has the ability to connect with the world 'out there' but is making a conscious choice and expending every effort to avoid doing so. So what's left in the character to explore if he already has what he wants?
This is actually a running problem with the different versions of Peter Pan that I've seen. Robin Williams's Peter Banning was way cooler than his reversion to Pan. In fact, the one portrayal of Pan that I've really been blown away by was Robbie Kay on Once Upon a Time and that had to do with him playing Pan as a villain. Really, it's up to the characters around Pan to connect with him in order to tell the story, and in the case of the Disney film I found the Darlings to be one note personalities.
Which means that the real show belongs to the charismatic Captain Hook and the emotions-on-her-sleeveless-dress Tinkerbell. Disney probably could have relegated the Darlings into supporting roles to focus more on these two characters. They have a lot more in common than either one realizes. Each has an unhealthy obsession with Pan and tends to make decisions based on feelings. You'd think if she'd go with Hook they'd both be happier. I've long held the theory that Hook used to be Peter Pan before the punk kid usurped him.
So is the movie worth seeing? Yeah, sure, whatever. I mean, the flying scenes are spectacular. But the bits that work really don't add up to much. When you consider how laced with metaphor the source material is, you'd think the Disney film would actually feel like it's about something.
The Juggled Book (1967)
It could make for a fun debate as to which Disney adaptation is least like its source material (my money is on Pocahontas), but The Jungle Book clearly took some creative liberties. On the one hand it's a pity, because the well-timed encounter with the vultures could have made for a really great death allegory. But on the other hand, there's some truly great things happening in this movie.
I'll work backwards. There's the bittersweet ending, which is kind of a rarity for Disney. Shere Khan (the primary threat and plot instigator) has been overcome and Mowgli has his wish to stay in the jungle fulfilled, but then puberty hits. The girl is cute and all but the jungle has better songs. Really, the ending is the inevitability of growing up, which only sucks a little less than not growing up.
Then there's Shere Khan, who has been name dropped for two thirds of the film before making an appearance and he still owns the screen. The tiger could have been a threat on brute strength alone, but when you factor in the arrogance and noble idioms, this is a beast destined to utter the line "Good-bye Mr. Bond."
The casting of Sterling Holloway as Kaa was a stroke of genius. You'd never have imagined the voice of Winnie the Pooh as seductive, but Kaa's "Trust in Me" number is worth the movie ticket alone. There is also the legendary battle of wits between Shere Khan and Kaa, where neither villain backs down and it still ends in a draw. The stuff of legend.
But the real brilliance of Disney's version comes from the moment Baloo has to go back on his promise to Mowgli in letting him stay in the jungle. To a child, there's no difference between speaking too soon and lying, and the blow-up which follows is felt for the remainder of the film. Prior to Baloo's arrival, the kids in the audience automatically attach to Mowgli while the adults relate to the underestimated Bagheera. Baloo represents that convergence somewhere between the two that everyone can empathize with. In other words, he steals the POV right out from under both of them.
Out of the three films on this blog, The Jungle Book is the one I recommend the most. It was the last animated film that Walt himself really had his hands on, and you can spot his fingerprints. Some of my close friends just don't care for The Jungle Book and that's honestly fine. The film has a pretty strong flavor. But if you haven't seen it in a while and can really only remember it for "The Bare Necessities" you might want to give it another shot.
I'll work backwards. There's the bittersweet ending, which is kind of a rarity for Disney. Shere Khan (the primary threat and plot instigator) has been overcome and Mowgli has his wish to stay in the jungle fulfilled, but then puberty hits. The girl is cute and all but the jungle has better songs. Really, the ending is the inevitability of growing up, which only sucks a little less than not growing up.
Then there's Shere Khan, who has been name dropped for two thirds of the film before making an appearance and he still owns the screen. The tiger could have been a threat on brute strength alone, but when you factor in the arrogance and noble idioms, this is a beast destined to utter the line "Good-bye Mr. Bond."
The casting of Sterling Holloway as Kaa was a stroke of genius. You'd never have imagined the voice of Winnie the Pooh as seductive, but Kaa's "Trust in Me" number is worth the movie ticket alone. There is also the legendary battle of wits between Shere Khan and Kaa, where neither villain backs down and it still ends in a draw. The stuff of legend.
But the real brilliance of Disney's version comes from the moment Baloo has to go back on his promise to Mowgli in letting him stay in the jungle. To a child, there's no difference between speaking too soon and lying, and the blow-up which follows is felt for the remainder of the film. Prior to Baloo's arrival, the kids in the audience automatically attach to Mowgli while the adults relate to the underestimated Bagheera. Baloo represents that convergence somewhere between the two that everyone can empathize with. In other words, he steals the POV right out from under both of them.
Out of the three films on this blog, The Jungle Book is the one I recommend the most. It was the last animated film that Walt himself really had his hands on, and you can spot his fingerprints. Some of my close friends just don't care for The Jungle Book and that's honestly fine. The film has a pretty strong flavor. But if you haven't seen it in a while and can really only remember it for "The Bare Necessities" you might want to give it another shot.
Conclusion (2015)
Peter Pan and The Jungle Book both received theatrically released sequels during Disney Co.'s direct-to-video epidemic. Word has it that both of the sequels were meant for a purely video release, but the high ups decided that they were both good enough to go to the cinema. They weren't.
It's not that continuing either character's story was inherently a bad idea, but Disney simply doesn't have the brass to push the boundaries on their franchises. Both sequels accomplished literally nothing. Thank God John Lasseter cancelled Pinocchio II.
If you line these three films up in chronological order there's a distinctive rite of passage at work. Pinocchio is practically a horror film with its happy ending the result of a lucky divine intervention, much the way young children feel about the slobbering razor-clawed terrors that nest under their very beds at night. Peter Pan is a bit more akin to an eight-year-old's mentality, where you're taking a certain delight in asking questions which challenge previously held notions about the nature of the world. Here is the smug superiority in knowing that the guy at the mall isn't the real Santa Claus (or perhaps you've cracked the code entirely, but you've realized that your gift intake remains intact through feigning gullibility).
Peter Pan as a character is most likely older than Mowgli, but his refusal to accept his age places The Jungle Book squarely on the cusp of that unwanted disease called adolescence. But change is inevitable, and that final film reflects the acceptance of things beyond your control. In fact each film in the trilogy could just as easily represent the time capsule for Walt's artistic journey in the company. Pinocchio came very near the beginning, Peter Pan during the company's recovery period from World War II, and The Jungle Book came right during Walt Disney's own death.
The Jungle Book may have been his final gift to his audience.
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