Commentary &Daily post 09 Mar 2007 09:19 am
Peter Pan?
- Before I get into anything else, something has been buzzzing on the top of my head these past few weeks. Disney has released another dvd version of Peter Pan. This one comes with even more extras and special games for kids to play and dvd coloring books etc.
First there was the Limited Issue Peter Pan; then there was the Special Edition Peter Pan, and now there’s the two-disc Platinum Edition version. And they’re all still available.
What’s up? Where’s Pinocchio? Where’s 101 Dalmatians? Forget about Song of the South. (If any movie wanted a rerelease with extras, that’s it!)
Peter Pan is good, but it’s no Pinocchio.
Did I say Pinocchio?
- Mark Mayerson, on his site, has an excellent column about the opening of Pinocchio. This is his commentary after producing the excellent Mosaic of the first few sequences in the film. The internet seems to have been designed specifically for posts such as Mark writes. There’s little likelihood a book would have been published detailing a film as elaborately as has been done here. It’s done specifically for animation enthusiasts, and there wouldn’t be a market. Mark’s comments are the gold here; this is real analysis on the go. It’s hard to believe the amount of work Mark has undertaken in choosing to break down this entire feature. I’m immensely grateful. On top of that his analysis points to what we should have noticed for ourselves – from that Mosaic and from Hans Perk ‘s publishing the drafts to this film.
- Cartoon Brew, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, has undergone some severe changes. This is obviously all to the better. They’ve had quite a few more posts (which will probably reduce in number as time moves on), but there have also been more links to art from the libraries of Jerry Beck & Amid Amidi. There’s gold in them thar hills.
Cartoon Brew Films is now up and running, and there’s no doubt that this will develop into an important site. Already they have some substantial films to view; the potential is enormous. It’s fun watching an enormous megalith of a site develop before our eyes.
- Speaking of Peter Pan, there’s a good article detailing the history of the next bad movie off-shoot, the Tinkerbell epic. You can get all the history of this extravaganza detailed on Chuck Oberleitner‘s site, O-Meon. Information you don’t really need about a movie you don’t need to see (unless you have a 14 year old girl in the house.)
- There are some nice MGM drawings posted at the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive. I’m a sucker for Srewy Squirrel. I like seeing any art from those films.
- My last Peter Pan reference will be to the amazing story meeting notes you can read on Devyn Marseilles‘ site: The Sacred Tree of the Aracuan Bird. Pt 1 & Pt 2. She has also given an amazing storyboard to Didier Ghez available on his site: Disney History.
By the way, the drawing at the top comes from
Saul Steinberg’s book All In Line (1945).
I just put it there because I like it.
on 09 Mar 2007 at 10:32 am 1.Oscar Grillo said …
I had some VERY interesting conversations with Marc Davis about the sequence of Captain Hook trying to convince Tinkerbell to tell him about Peter’s hideout and the strong possibility that Hook is as jealous of Wendy as Tinkerbell and the likelihood that Hook and Smee are a couple. Watch the sequence under this light and you’ll find it very amusing. Marc said :”We were not innocents, Oscar”
on 09 Mar 2007 at 11:00 am 2.Michael said …
Thanks, Oscar, for sharing.
Certainly this appears evident in the storyboard Devyn Marseilles shares with the Disney History site. There always was some dark material floating under the Barrie story, and I think by having a female play Peter in most productions they’re escaping that dark side of the story.