lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
It’s amazing how much recent Disney work, movies or parks, is best described as “not the worst”. Truly high praise.
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Weirdest Thing About Zemeckis’s Pinocchio (Spoilers!!!)
- Thread starter Rich T
- Start date
Practical Pig
Well-Known Member
OK, I got around to watching it. Early on I was optimistic. I liked the motivation they gave to Geppetto for creating a compensatory wooden son. It had the (wasted) potential to set-up an emotional depth to the story surpassing the original. Pretty much everything through the outstanding Blue Fairy sequence was fine to great. It was smart to give When You Wish Upon a Star to the Blue Fairy, instead of allowing an inevitably negative comparison of the new Jiminy to the iconic vocal performance of Cliff Edwards. Cynthia Arivo was excellent, and her sequence was the best part of the movie.
Afterwards ... ech. The creativity ended with the exposition. I agree wholeheartedly with @Rich T about the wretched Geppetto's clocks treatment. Every meta reference to Disney IP popping out of those clocks yanked me out of the story, and was just a slap across the face of immersion. It was both arrogant (look how clever we are!) and incompetent (oops, dropped the ball) filmmaking. The Chris Pine joke accomplished the same and just reinforced the disconnect between the purity of the original and the cynicism of the remake. Followed significantly by Pinocchio's salvation from Stromboli by lying, lying, lying.
Basically, nothing past the Blue Fairy connected with me emotionally. The rest was an exercise in what's wrong with Art by Committee.
Afterwards ... ech. The creativity ended with the exposition. I agree wholeheartedly with @Rich T about the wretched Geppetto's clocks treatment. Every meta reference to Disney IP popping out of those clocks yanked me out of the story, and was just a slap across the face of immersion. It was both arrogant (look how clever we are!) and incompetent (oops, dropped the ball) filmmaking. The Chris Pine joke accomplished the same and just reinforced the disconnect between the purity of the original and the cynicism of the remake. Followed significantly by Pinocchio's salvation from Stromboli by lying, lying, lying.
Basically, nothing past the Blue Fairy connected with me emotionally. The rest was an exercise in what's wrong with Art by Committee.
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(Spoiler regarding ending)
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The remake’s stupid ending really irks me. This a prime example of sacrificing a story to make your own point in a clumsy manner.
The message about loving a person (or yourself) for what’s inside and not outside is a good one. The way they handled it was beyond stupid. The ending they chose is simply NOT THE WAY THE STORY OF PINOCCHIO ENDS. If they had made it clear from the get-go that they were going to change everything about the tale from the start, that would be one thing. But to copy nearly everything from the 1941 classic and then at the last moment completely change the ending and pompously preach a new message is just insulting. Again, nice message, but that’s not the story of Pinocchio.
And then trying to fudge it by having Jiminy say, “Some folks say Pinocchio DID eventually become a real boy. I dunno, I’m just a cricket.” Aaaaaargh… WEAK!!!!
The closest equivalent I can think of is: What if, in their live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, they’d changed the ending and had Beast survive but NOT transform into a human? Because it’s what’s inside that counts, right?
Personally, I think that would rock. Belle already loved Beast for what he is, and Beast gets to remain an awesome superhero, possibly protecting the entire kingdom from bandits and wolves as NIGHTBEAST or something. But it would be insulting to the audience to copy the entirety of the animated classic up to that point and THEN change the ending so completely.
Dear Disney: You can’t have it both ways, much as you would love to have your cake and eat it too. And eat it. And eat it. And eat it…
(Spoiler regarding ending)
********
The remake’s stupid ending really irks me. This a prime example of sacrificing a story to make your own point in a clumsy manner.
The message about loving a person (or yourself) for what’s inside and not outside is a good one. The way they handled it was beyond stupid. The ending they chose is simply NOT THE WAY THE STORY OF PINOCCHIO ENDS. If they had made it clear from the get-go that they were going to change everything about the tale from the start, that would be one thing. But to copy nearly everything from the 1941 classic and then at the last moment completely change the ending and pompously preach a new message is just insulting. Again, nice message, but that’s not the story of Pinocchio.
And then trying to fudge it by having Jiminy say, “Some folks say Pinocchio DID eventually become a real boy. I dunno, I’m just a cricket.” Aaaaaargh… WEAK!!!!
The closest equivalent I can think of is: What if, in their live action remake of Beauty and the Beast, they’d changed the ending and had Beast survive but NOT transform into a human? Because it’s what’s inside that counts, right?
Personally, I think that would rock. Belle already loved Beast for what he is, and Beast gets to remain an awesome superhero, possibly protecting the entire kingdom from bandits and wolves as NIGHTBEAST or something. But it would be insulting to the audience to copy the entirety of the animated classic up to that point and THEN change the ending so completely.
Dear Disney: You can’t have it both ways, much as you would love to have your cake and eat it too. And eat it. And eat it. And eat it…
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cookiee_munster
Well-Known Member
I watched it yesterday. Garbage. The ending just felt like they had ran out of film and had to wrap it up right there and then!
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Jiminy- "Some say there was another 5 minutes to this story bringing back the blue fairy and properly wrapping things up, but what do I know, I'm just a cricket"
I thought the musical moments were embarrassingly out of place. What a nice version of when you Wish Upon a Star... to be abridged and shoehorned in to a seemingly rushed scene with a character that should've been in more of the film.
I thought the musical moments were embarrassingly out of place. What a nice version of when you Wish Upon a Star... to be abridged and shoehorned in to a seemingly rushed scene with a character that should've been in more of the film.
D.Silentu
Well-Known Member
This amused me as well. Seemingly even the narrator is having trouble telling the story.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
The more important question is, DID JIMINY GET HIS GOLD BADGE?
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
I liked how they illuminated the inside of Monstro with bioluminescent algae...
FAIRIEDUST78
Member
It just feels flat to me. There’s no richness to it.