Post
by EricJ » May 13th, 2021, 12:12 pm
Wouldn't say "bland":
In Barrie's play, Peter is...well, "jerk" might be too strong a term, but, being a 10-11-yo. boy, he's not particularly mindful of other people's needs and feelings, especially Wendy's, Tink's or Tiger Lily's. That's supposed to be intentional, since Barrie was sentimentally suggesting "boyhood", and emphasizing how mature Wendy was for her age, as the Den Mother.
Disney's Pan was older, about Bobby Driscoll's 13-14, but they still managed to capture the boyish Egotistic-Jerk angle of Barrie's character, and make him a rollicking boys'-hero pirate-fighter. That's not easy to do, especially after just aceing the equally hard-to-correctly-interpret Alice in Wonderland.