But for now, these are the five I have decided upon, and where better to start than the most nostalgic two of the bunch? Sure, for most of what I will be analyzing this month, there will definitely be some people who have nostalgic ties, but the TV movie with Mary Martin seems to remain fairly nostalgic for the baby boomer generation, and Disney's film has become, to many, the definitive Peter Pan entity, because it's Disney, parental guardian via film of every generation since the 1930s, so their well liked films immortalize and are watched for decades to come. And as both these films come from the same era, an era before there became a demand for more emotionally substantive children's films, they both have the same fully clean, innocent way of telling the story and portraying Peter.
The clean storytelling shouldn't be a problem within itself, until you look at the original play/novel that J.M. Barrie wrote: Peter and Wendy (or some variation on that title). In it, Peter is a very dark protagonist. He isn't just "the boy who refused to grow up" because of the joys and innocence of childhood, it's moreover because he's afraid of the responsibilities that come with growing up. He kills his followers/"friends" the lost boys when they show signs of growing up, in fights against pirates, he only saves people from dying because of how great it will make him look and not for the sake of saving a life, and at the end, Peter tries to bar the window to Wendy and her brother's room, forcing them to not return home and stay with Peter. It all frames Peter as being not a hero, but an immature child with no empathy or respect for human life, and one genuinely scared of maturing.
Do we get any of this realistic representation of a kid who ran away to never grow up in either the Disney film or musical? Nope, instead we get Peter's that are perfect infallible heroes with all of the psychological complexity cut out. They're both, very simply, representations of solely the innocence of childhood. The two stories handle the character slightly different though.
The Disney film is a bit confused about it's portrayal of Peter, and the surrounding characters. Not enough to be jarring, but clearly Disney had a hard time taking the dark, emotionless anti-hero of Peter and turning it into the fun, lighthearted Peter that they wanted, while still keeping the same basic plot as Barrie's story intact. Sure, it's easy to cut out Peter killing lost boys and forgetting who people are, a lot of the dark side of the character, but there's this one weird scene that's based on a scene from the original Peter and Wendy that reveals some darkness of Peter. In the Disney movie, the scene that really starts off the 3rd act is where Wendy, as well as her brothers Michael and John, decide to return home and be with their family again. The lost boys, hearing the wonders of mothers from Wendy, decide they want to go to England and grow up with them. Peter becomes angry at this and says they can go but if they do grow up, they can never come back to Neverland. He storms off but cockily says that they'll be back as they leave, Wendy seeming sad for Peter...or at least I think she seems sad for Peter, it's pretty skimmed over. It's only one scene, but I bring it up because it's the only peek into the darker, imperfect side of Peter, the only scene where he's framed semi-negatively. This setup for a potential character arc, wether for Peter, Wendy, or both, is completely dropped after this. We go right back to Peter being the perfect hero and Wendy (pretty blindly) believing he's perfect, as in literally the next scene the Darlings and lost boys are captured by the pirates and Wendy insists that Peter will come to save them.
In the time following this scene we get nothing of Wendy realizing that Peter isn't the perfect hero and she needs to grow up, so when Wendy tells her parents that she's ready to grow up at the end of the film, the moment that's supposed to be the end of her character arc, it comes off as phoned in and random. That's why most fans of the movie, at least as it seems, take away the terrible moral of "never grow up" or some variation on that. Sure, Wendy decides to grow up at the end, but the character arc is disconnected, we barely see what should be the beginning of the arc, then we get the end of it, without seeing the arc actually occur. However Peter is the star of the show: he is the absolute hero that will always save the day and do nothing wrong, so naturally the audience remembers him more. The movie tries to bring in a solid moral, but sacrifices actual development of that so we can focus on the world and Peter's funny cocky self. So why would they even bother? Clearly the creators didn't really care about the moral, so they might as well skip any pretense they want to be like the original or include a moral at all, make it a full on childlike adventure escapism. Just take out the one bit of dimensionality of Peter you put in and Wendy's choppy character arc, if they're not willing to develop it. Then, when fans interpret the moral as being "never grow up", it's just a bad fan interpretation when there's no moral there, instead of the film just not knowing how to handle it's moral.
However the Broadway musical is definitely not confused about the moral it's presenting, and works it in well. Too bad it's kind of a terrible moral. That's not to say it's a terrible movie, it has it's charm, if it's a bit overlong and awkward due to having to transfer from Broadway to television. And props to the musical for keeping it entirely a light hearted adventure with Peter being the perfect hero. It may completely desecrate the original, but at least it's consistent, and more so than the Disney film. The only problem is the ending. Set years after the events of the story, Wendy is grown up with her own child, Jane. Peter Pan, having no concept of time, shows up to take Wendy back to Neverland, unaware she has grown up. It's not a bad scene, until we get to the moral that drops in like a nuke. Peter is about to take Jane to Neverland with him, when Wendy stops them to say if only she could go with them to protect her daughter. And Peter responds by saying "You can't, you see Wendy, you're too grown up." I take umbrage with this line. It is a line taken directly from Barrie's book, with the same amount of moralistic weight behind it, so it seems like it would work. But within the context of the musical, the moral turns from the really solid, unique one from the original story to awful, abjectly awful. Like I've said, in Barrie's original story, the darker side of the character is accented just as much as the light, fun side. So at the very end, when Wendy is told she's too grown up to go to Neverland, the major theme comes off as "childhood is a special time, but we all have to grow up and mature eventually" because the whole story building up to that moment has shown the negativity of a child who is scared of growing up. In the musical, the whole story building up to the moment shows Peter as a completely innocent, perfect hero who wants to simply live the wonders of childhood because it's fun. When the same line comes up at the end of the musical, it feels more like Peter is taunting Wendy, and the moral that comes across is more along the lines of "never grow up cause grown ups don't have fun". The musical wants to fool you into thinking there's something deep in it by using Barrie's words, but it comes in a completely different context, and if you give it an ounce of thought, you find the morality displayed is terrible.
So which is better, to be confused about the moral and display that throughout or to just present a terrible one and only have that at the end? Out of the 5 films I'm reviewing, these are the two where the morality tale is most detached from the actual story. And outside of moralistic issues, these two films are fine. The Disney film is a fun little adventure with memorable songs, interesting characters, a quiet and leisurely atmosphere, and Peter is really fun to follow when he is just being a one dimensional hero. And the TV special is a mixed bag. The actors clearly struggle in transitioning from large Broadway stage to close up filming, and the songs are less memorable than Disney's, however there's still some innocent charm. And maybe these are considered definitive classics because of that detachment. Disney's Peter Pan has definitely become ingrained in american culture, and the musical has been revived 3 times on broadway. With that, the "cute" idea of never growing up so we can all be like Peter Pan forever has also become ingrained in culture. It might seem harmless at first, after all, it's just a kid's film, right? But the negative effects definitely exist all because these stories don't know how to handle the morals they try and fail to bring up. It's there through Peter Pan syndrome existing, through just the public obsession with quotes that make it seem like it's ok to not grow up and mature spreading across the internet, and clearly some famous pop stars' life was destroyed mostly because of his want to stay childlike forever because he never got an actual childhood himself and became influenced by Disney's Peter Pan...but I'm sure none of that really matters.
The clean storytelling shouldn't be a problem within itself, until you look at the original play/novel that J.M. Barrie wrote: Peter and Wendy (or some variation on that title). In it, Peter is a very dark protagonist. He isn't just "the boy who refused to grow up" because of the joys and innocence of childhood, it's moreover because he's afraid of the responsibilities that come with growing up. He kills his followers/"friends" the lost boys when they show signs of growing up, in fights against pirates, he only saves people from dying because of how great it will make him look and not for the sake of saving a life, and at the end, Peter tries to bar the window to Wendy and her brother's room, forcing them to not return home and stay with Peter. It all frames Peter as being not a hero, but an immature child with no empathy or respect for human life, and one genuinely scared of maturing.Do we get any of this realistic representation of a kid who ran away to never grow up in either the Disney film or musical? Nope, instead we get Peter's that are perfect infallible heroes with all of the psychological complexity cut out. They're both, very simply, representations of solely the innocence of childhood. The two stories handle the character slightly different though.
The Disney film is a bit confused about it's portrayal of Peter, and the surrounding characters. Not enough to be jarring, but clearly Disney had a hard time taking the dark, emotionless anti-hero of Peter and turning it into the fun, lighthearted Peter that they wanted, while still keeping the same basic plot as Barrie's story intact. Sure, it's easy to cut out Peter killing lost boys and forgetting who people are, a lot of the dark side of the character, but there's this one weird scene that's based on a scene from the original Peter and Wendy that reveals some darkness of Peter. In the Disney movie, the scene that really starts off the 3rd act is where Wendy, as well as her brothers Michael and John, decide to return home and be with their family again. The lost boys, hearing the wonders of mothers from Wendy, decide they want to go to England and grow up with them. Peter becomes angry at this and says they can go but if they do grow up, they can never come back to Neverland. He storms off but cockily says that they'll be back as they leave, Wendy seeming sad for Peter...or at least I think she seems sad for Peter, it's pretty skimmed over. It's only one scene, but I bring it up because it's the only peek into the darker, imperfect side of Peter, the only scene where he's framed semi-negatively. This setup for a potential character arc, wether for Peter, Wendy, or both, is completely dropped after this. We go right back to Peter being the perfect hero and Wendy (pretty blindly) believing he's perfect, as in literally the next scene the Darlings and lost boys are captured by the pirates and Wendy insists that Peter will come to save them. In the time following this scene we get nothing of Wendy realizing that Peter isn't the perfect hero and she needs to grow up, so when Wendy tells her parents that she's ready to grow up at the end of the film, the moment that's supposed to be the end of her character arc, it comes off as phoned in and random. That's why most fans of the movie, at least as it seems, take away the terrible moral of "never grow up" or some variation on that. Sure, Wendy decides to grow up at the end, but the character arc is disconnected, we barely see what should be the beginning of the arc, then we get the end of it, without seeing the arc actually occur. However Peter is the star of the show: he is the absolute hero that will always save the day and do nothing wrong, so naturally the audience remembers him more. The movie tries to bring in a solid moral, but sacrifices actual development of that so we can focus on the world and Peter's funny cocky self. So why would they even bother? Clearly the creators didn't really care about the moral, so they might as well skip any pretense they want to be like the original or include a moral at all, make it a full on childlike adventure escapism. Just take out the one bit of dimensionality of Peter you put in and Wendy's choppy character arc, if they're not willing to develop it. Then, when fans interpret the moral as being "never grow up", it's just a bad fan interpretation when there's no moral there, instead of the film just not knowing how to handle it's moral. However the Broadway musical is definitely not confused about the moral it's presenting, and works it in well. Too bad it's kind of a terrible moral. That's not to say it's a terrible movie, it has it's charm, if it's a bit overlong and awkward due to having to transfer from Broadway to television. And props to the musical for keeping it entirely a light hearted adventure with Peter being the perfect hero. It may completely desecrate the original, but at least it's consistent, and more so than the Disney film. The only problem is the ending. Set years after the events of the story, Wendy is grown up with her own child, Jane. Peter Pan, having no concept of time, shows up to take Wendy back to Neverland, unaware she has grown up. It's not a bad scene, until we get to the moral that drops in like a nuke. Peter is about to take Jane to Neverland with him, when Wendy stops them to say if only she could go with them to protect her daughter. And Peter responds by saying "You can't, you see Wendy, you're too grown up." I take umbrage with this line. It is a line taken directly from Barrie's book, with the same amount of moralistic weight behind it, so it seems like it would work. But within the context of the musical, the moral turns from the really solid, unique one from the original story to awful, abjectly awful. Like I've said, in Barrie's original story, the darker side of the character is accented just as much as the light, fun side. So at the very end, when Wendy is told she's too grown up to go to Neverland, the major theme comes off as "childhood is a special time, but we all have to grow up and mature eventually" because the whole story building up to that moment has shown the negativity of a child who is scared of growing up. In the musical, the whole story building up to the moment shows Peter as a completely innocent, perfect hero who wants to simply live the wonders of childhood because it's fun. When the same line comes up at the end of the musical, it feels more like Peter is taunting Wendy, and the moral that comes across is more along the lines of "never grow up cause grown ups don't have fun". The musical wants to fool you into thinking there's something deep in it by using Barrie's words, but it comes in a completely different context, and if you give it an ounce of thought, you find the morality displayed is terrible.So which is better, to be confused about the moral and display that throughout or to just present a terrible one and only have that at the end? Out of the 5 films I'm reviewing, these are the two where the morality tale is most detached from the actual story. And outside of moralistic issues, these two films are fine. The Disney film is a fun little adventure with memorable songs, interesting characters, a quiet and leisurely atmosphere, and Peter is really fun to follow when he is just being a one dimensional hero. And the TV special is a mixed bag. The actors clearly struggle in transitioning from large Broadway stage to close up filming, and the songs are less memorable than Disney's, however there's still some innocent charm. And maybe these are considered definitive classics because of that detachment. Disney's Peter Pan has definitely become ingrained in american culture, and the musical has been revived 3 times on broadway. With that, the "cute" idea of never growing up so we can all be like Peter Pan forever has also become ingrained in culture. It might seem harmless at first, after all, it's just a kid's film, right? But the negative effects definitely exist all because these stories don't know how to handle the morals they try and fail to bring up. It's there through Peter Pan syndrome existing, through just the public obsession with quotes that make it seem like it's ok to not grow up and mature spreading across the internet, and clearly some famous pop stars' life was destroyed mostly because of his want to stay childlike forever because he never got an actual childhood himself and became influenced by Disney's Peter Pan...but I'm sure none of that really matters.
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