Posted on 11/26/2013 4:56:23 PM PST by WilliamIII
No wonder Mary Poppins needed a spoonful of sugar. The forthcoming Saving Mr. Banks is a dark film that tells the heart-breaking true story behind one of the great characters in childrens movie history.
P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson), the nannys formidable creator, is pitted against Walt Disney (Tom Hanks), who promised his daughters that hed bring Poppins to the big screen. The thing is, that pledge goes against the authors wishes.
Saving Mr. Banks goes behind the scenes of the ferocious battle to make what was to become the famous 1964 musical adaptation. For 20 years, Travers refused to grant the rights to Disney. Eventually she said she would relent, but only if the movie was made to her specifications, which ranged from choosing the precise tape measure used in one scene to the exclusion of the color red from the entire movie.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
No, go on- guess!
For one thing, Disney dumbed the story down considerably. For example, he left out the argument between the fox and the dog over the relationship between man and nature. Disney's only reference to the discussion on the purpose of life between the two leaves that were about to fall from a tree during the fall season was merely a depiction of the two leaves falling. Disney also added characters and subplots that were not in the original novel.
However, I must say that I enjoyed the movie when I saw it at the Sundown Drive-in Theater in Whittier, Calif. in the late summer of 1957.
The translation of the book that I am familiar with is by Whittaker Chambers. My teacher read it to us when I was an elementary school student, and I read it again a few years ago. Yes, that's the same Whittaker Chambers whose testimony before Congress sent Soviet spy Alger Hiss to the slammer and launched Richard Nixon's career on the national stage.
A decent article comparing the book and the movie can be found here.
Interesting. Very.
Yes, sadly it was dumbed down, I suppose partly because he chose to make if for children, however he did not have to make it for that audience.
I can’t help but wonder if Disney felt the audience would be lost on an otherwise styled movie. Maybe Disney himself missed the point.
However, to this day I marvel at the backgrounds in that movie, they are just wonderful. The painters did not dumb down the visual effects of that forest.
The only comparison I would make is to Forbidden Planet’s backgrounds.
I hear you. Have you ever read the original "Little Mermaid" story? Disney took more than a little artistic license with that ending, too. Had to, can you imagine the uproar from all the parents who took their precious little princesses to see it and ended up traumatized, had they done an accurate rendition of the ending?
I hope yours is blessed and happy as well
She couldn't live happily ever after...there are limits even for Disney when it comes to changing the source material, after all!
Here's one:
An another, showing how it's used in the film:
Have you ever read the original “Little Mermaid” story? Disney took more than a little artistic license with that ending, too. Had to, can you imagine the uproar from all the parents who took their precious little princesses to see it and ended up traumatized, had they done an accurate rendition of the ending?”
I never read Little Mermaid. What happens to her at the end of the story? Please don’t tell me it involves mayo;)
Gorgeous stuff.
SPOILERS!!
Prince falls in love with pretty human princess who can actually talk and marries her instead of the little mermaid. Little mermaid's sisters cut off all their hair and give it to the witch. Witch, in return gives sisters an enchanted knife.
All the little mermaid has to do is slaughter the prince and princess with said enchanted knife and bathe her legs in the blood and *poof* she will become a mermaid again. Sisters beg little mermaid to commit aforementioned slaughter. Little mermaid refuses and is abandoned on shore by her family.
Left desolate, she begins to dissolve into seafoam as the witch's spell breaks. Passing angels take pity on her and give her a soul so that she may at least have an afterlife.
And the prince and princess lived happily ever after!
Wow!
Is that written by the Brothers Grimm? Sounds like those old not so sweet fairytales.
Egad.
Hans Christian Andersen. If you think that one is messed up, well, there’s a reason Disney hasn’t adapted “The Red Shoes”. Poor old Hans had ishoos....
I never read Little Mermaid. What happens to her at the end of the story? Please dont tell me it involves mayo;)
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Broiled with lemon sauce.
She dies and becomes sea foam.
Sometimes with families who have been traumatized I recommend that they read fairy tales from Anderson and Grimm to help them strengthen their core.
“Broiled with lemon sauce.”
Lol!
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