Disney's Peter Pan and Wendy (Live-Action)

[Daniel]

It was probably taken early on. Here's another one I found:

[Ben]

Still not the masses that they usually get in Leicester Square, but then the Curzon is on the corner of two busy roads (as seen with the Thunderball hoarding in Last Night In Soho). Nice for an independent cinema to host a big screening like this (I’m assuming that since it’s not a theatrical that the usual big screeners didn’t want to indulge, so this would have basically been a private hire), but it’s not quite got the space or the atmosphere for it, really.

[Daniel]

That aside, seems to be getting more positive reaction compared to Pinocchio. Not exactly a high bar, but still.

[Farerb]

Is anyone excited for this film?

[Daniel]

More curious, but I always am with remakes. How will they flesh out the rivalry, Tiger Lilly, and most importantly will the ending be different. I know there's already a pic floating around that gives an idea but I'm hoping there's more to it.

[Ben]

Haven’t seen or heard about that pic — ERIC! — so no spoilers please. Can’t say I’m excited, but I’m more enthused than for Pinoque. We're due to run it the Wednesday after it comes out, so we'll see what it’s like then…

[Randall]

I am always curious with these, but am totally underwhelmed and skeptical so far.

[Daniel]

I'm also wondering about the songs. No way "What Made the Red Man Red?" is included and I sadly find it hard imagining them keeping "Your Mother and Mine". Hopefully "The Second Star to the Right" and "You Can Fly!" make the cut.

[EricJ]

I'm assuming those, and one of the pirate songs, are the only three that DO. Remember, it's about selling the IP.

And too bad, as "Your Mother and Mine" is on the sacred list of Guys' I'm-not-tearing-up-you-are Disney moments:

[Ben]

Are songs confirmed? If anything the Pirate's Life is a given, even if they change some lyrics, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Second Star and You Can Fly are just big score moments. I’m not sure, pirates aside, that anyone will be actually singing onscreen…

[Daniel]

Yah:

There are few filmmakers with CVs as eclectic as David Lowery. Alongside a gritty Arthurian fantasy (The Green Knight), a septuagenarian crime caper (The Old Man & the Gun) and a supernatural study in grief (A Ghost Story), the 42-year-old writer/director has carved out a counter-intuitive niche adapting Disney classics, including the Bryce Dallas Howard-starring Pete’s Dragon in 2016 and, now, a House of Mouse crown jewel in Peter Pan. ‘To me, it makes total sense,’ Lowery tells Teasers of his two outwardly distinct filmmaking lanes. ‘The line between Peter Pan and The Green Knight is minimal. I’m like, “They’re both adventure movies. They’re basically the same film, aren’t they?”’

In at least one respect that statement is very true. Like The Green Knight’s ancient lands, Peter Pan & Wendy’s Neverland is a tangible, earthy creation worlds away from the tropics of the animated movie, and shot entirely on location in Newfoundland and the Faroe Islands. ‘We weren’t going to build Neverland on a soundstage,’ Lowery nods. ‘We really wanted this to feel like you could stumble out of your door, into the backyard, and get lost in a forest and have an adventure similar to this.’

Despite being backed by Disney, Lowery came to the project as a fan of J.M. Barrie’s original Peter Pan stories, released at one point under the name Peter Pan and Wendy – inspiring the title of this latest live-action adaptation. Announced in April 2016, before Pete’s Dragon had even hit cinemas, Peter Pan & Wendy was significantly more challenging to adapt than Lowery anticipated. Setting aside the fact that he shot and released three features in the interim, Lowery claims to have ‘never spent this much time on a movie’, with the screenplay going through numerous page-one rewrites.

Early versions stuck closely to Barrie’s book, but bumped up against P.J. Hogan’s 2003 Peter Pan as a result (‘He adapted the book perfectly – there was no way that we could best that.’) Instead, Lowery found himself turning to the 1953 animated film for answers. ‘We realised that Walt Disney and the team had solved a number of problems that we were already having with how to get into the story,’ says Lowery, who co-wrote the screenplay with Toby Halbrooks. ‘So we started to lean a little more heavily on the animated film, but, at the same time, always trying to keep the book’s almost anarchic, adult spirit.’

The result is a film that’s far more faithful to its source material than Lowery’s ground-up reinvention of Pete’s Dragon. ‘I would often say: if it’s in the ride at Disneyland, it needs to be in the movie,’ Lowery chuckles, ‘because those are the things people remember. So we really tried to treat this as if it was the very first Peter Pan movie, while also keeping in mind the legacy.’

That legacy includes indelible songs – several of which feature in Lowery’s film – and, more problematically, the unacceptable depiction of indigenous characters. Watch the animated film on Disney+ and the first thing you’ll be greeted by is a screen warning of ‘stereotypes that were wrong then, and are wrong now’. Tiger Lily will still feature in Peter Pan & Wendy, played by indigenous actor Alyssa Wapanatâhk, but will be handled more respectfully.

‘The challenge for us was: how do we take this character who, going back to the original text, was problematic, and give her a role that is not only supporting, but integral to the entire movie?’ Lowery says, pointing out that the history of the character was completely rewritten to incorporate elements of Wapanatâhk’s own culture. ‘There was nothing from the past that we needed to hang on to when it came to Tiger Lily. The version of the character in the movie, who is so strong and vibrant, it’s incredible. There should be a Tiger Lily movie!’

Casting relative newcomers Ever Anderson (daughter of director Paul W.S. and actor Milla Jovovich) as Wendy, and Alexander Molony as Peter Pan, Lowery points out that ‘the story ultimately is, and always has been, Wendy’s’, even calling Pan ‘incidental’ to Wendy’s journey. ‘I really wanted to do something different with Peter,’ he says. ‘Peter, in the animated movie, tricks us into thinking that we like him. But he’s an incredibly unlikeable character! In our film, he is very serious, to a fault, about what he thinks is the most important thing in the world, which is not growing up. It becomes a sticking point between him and Wendy.’

Lowery’s film also has an ace up the sleeve of its billowing pirate coat in the form of Jude Law, who plays crocodile-fearing sea dog Captain Hook. In sync from their very first Zoom meeting, the pair had to fully flesh out a two-dimensional character for live action. ‘We really wanted to understand why Hook hates Peter Pan so much,’ Lowery explains. ‘Where does that anger come from? We did our best to build out a story for the two characters, and a sense of history, and a sense of mythology.’ But why Law? ‘You want someone who can lean into the moustache-twirling when it’s appropriate but then also break your heart when you need that to happen as well,’ Lowery smiles. ‘I can’t think of anyone better to straddle those two things in the same way that he straddles the crocodile’s jaw.’ Oh, snap!

[Farerb]

Peter Pan and Wendy Director Explains the Film's Major Tinkerbell Update
https://www.cbr.com/peter-pan-and-wendy ... l-no-glow/

[Farerb]

It's so fitting that a Peter Pan director would lack any imagination.

[Ben]

Okay, well, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks "Tinkerbell update" (I guess Tink has gone back to being one word again then) in regards to this version.

He obviously doesn’t remember that Tink was originally a ball of freakin' light on the stage, and is traditionally portrayed as a luminescent being on screen. But then again, I’ll bet they couldn’t do it here as it would have taken away from the choice of casting and there could have been equally silly criticisms of trying to artificially lighten skin tone. What a world, what a world.

[Ben]

Sorry, Dan! Nailed it on the use of songs…

Disney’s Pan Remake Misses The Point, And The Magic
mini review (no hard spoilers):

From the opening moments, something feels off with Peter Pan And Wendy, and it never gets on track. It’s nice that the main title recalls the original 1953 film's treatment but the ramping up of competing music that never stops and is at odds with what’s happening on screen doesn’t help the sinking feeling that this isn’t going to be a particularly polished or engaging ride…

Changes to Barrie's original and Walt's film come early: it’s clear from a certain studio favorite's casting that Jude Law isn’t playing the children's father, traditionally a part that has gone to the actor portraying Captain Hook, and also working as one of the story points between the Oz-like doppelgängers between the London and Neverland settings. There’s is a reason for not having Law appear as the father, but it’s not a good enough one to forgo one of the very essences of the play and film.

The plot beats match the animated film but don’t have its magic; here Pan is also more arrogant than overly confident, and his selfish nature is more exposed. He’s not actually very likeable, which makes it even easier for the Girl Power aspects in this version, in which Wendy certainly earns her name in the title, with she and Tiger Lily usually saving the day over Pan himself, and even the kids' mother has more to do (and a new song) over the usually dominant father.

Speaking of, there are a handful of other new songs, but as predicted, the classic film tunes are relegated to score moments here: You Can Fly and the trip to Neverland is a squandered sequence, again lacking any real magic. The fly-through in Return To Never-Land (Disney has never-never been very consistent on one or two words there) was more magical than this, and the inevitable soaring flight over a surprisingly boring Neverland isn’t as exhilarating as even when Robin Williams learned to fly again in Hook.

At just over 90 minutes of actual screen time, everything powers through quite fast and hyperkineticly, and yet it all feels very pedestrian. Adding to the odd tone are the weird choices of lenses, which gives it a touch of Prince Of Thieves campery, but the flying wire work is often shockingly bad, particularly on the landings, often recalling b-grade chop-sockey epics where the "flying" is often intentionally showcased, but here it just looks another take was needed (or they ran out of time, or just gave up).

Structurally, it’s all over the place, rushing from moment to moment, but then slowing down, start-stop once getting there. There *is* an interesting choice to use Tiger Lily as basically one of the Lost Boys (which aren’t all boys, "not that it matters", so that explains that), and again in a sign of the times she’s even essentially a de facto leader when Pan isn’t around. On the flipside, Pan's nominal pal Tink (the one bit of casting that otherwise does work well enough here) bizarrely isn’t a ball of light…and yet still emanates light, in another element that doesn’t feel particularly well mapped out.

As the big bad, Jude Law doesn’t really get a big, strong introduction, so never commands the film as the villain he’s supposed to be. Dustin Hoffman had it much better back in the day. Smee and the rest of the pirates are more successful, but that’s because they’re basic comedy pirates, so we're prone to like 'em. Whereas he is the big bad, Hook just comes off as just another of the pirates, and the lack of elaborate black locks doesn’t give him much of a screen presence. Those questionable lenses again work against the film: Hook always seems fairly small in frame, and the lack of him being the same father actor means the fear (and subsequent triumph and understanding of that fear) isn’t carried over from and back to the real world. Hook is never scary.

The boring new pirates song also doesn’t help, missing the jolly chanty of A Pirate's Life sorely, and though the rest of Daniel Hart's music score tries its best to make you think this is all exciting/funny/you’re having a good time, really it just swamps most scenes and gets tiring for almost never shutting up. As slow as much of this feels, there’s no time it ever stops for any real breath. In the editing, there’s no punctuation, the music sounding like it has been cut down from what feels like were once longer scenes.

The revelation that "Hook wasn’t always Hook" sets up an "oh no!" alteration that would have *really* missed the point, but thankfully they don’t make him Pan's father. Changing him here still feels a slight attempt to be different, but at least doesn’t introduce the very troubling line of questioning in terms of Pan's attempts to basically finish off the job he started by cutting off Hook's hand, had they made him Peter's father…phew! Unfortunately, this option might have been better after all: the Lost Boy who's really lost his way angle isn’t played out with any real sense of loss, even after a supposed tragic moment that is undone almost as soon as it happens, and although this does explain why Law is not playing the kids' father, it’s still a swap that takes away from the "redemption" that the play/Walt's film/subsequent adaptations have shared and offers the Hook/father character.

As such, the emotion here isn’t sincere, the characters don’t resonate, and so any suspense isn’t earned, it being replaced with a feeling that’s often quite unfortunately nasty feeling and depressing. There are parts in the second half that, despite the colour of Neverland, feel awfully drained of brightness and fun, and pulls things down to a drab, almost black and white, washed out contrasty look that only further has the impression of dragging this out longer, with the cracks in whatever small amount of magic this might have had growing ever deeper and wider.

If anything, this proves once again just how perfect Walt had Pan down first time in terms of tone and structure from Barrie's original, and towards the fantastical ending we are again reminded with memories of the early Pirates Of The Caribbean films, and what this endeavour really needed was an over the top Hook, a la Hoffman or even a Jack Sparrow — Johnny Depp would have actually made this *fun*, as opposed to the bitter and sometimes unpleasant tone here.

And then it just…ends, like the rest of this movie, quite weirdly, wrapping up while things are still kind of happening and questions unanswered. The actual final moments *are* quite nice, in their way, because they exactly *do* calm down and take their time to resolve things (or at least indicate an end is coming), and even the tragic, Sunset Boulevard-sounding score somewhat tonally fits, for once. Not just because it’s the end of the film, but these last few shots really are the best parts of the entire film, even if they can’t match Walt's film and its father's closing realisation that ends that version with such warmth.

I did have hope in David Lowery, but he definitely had more success with another Disney Peter in his last remake for the studio. This one sadly just misses so many marks that you would actually be forgiven for thinking it might have been made…shh…by a grown up! Not the worst by any means, but another Disney dud in the D+ line that can’t help but being…panned. Sorry!