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maderrI was so annoyed with work I failed to rant at length about the movie I went to see. Overall I was rather disappointed, b/c from the previews it had looked like it would be a cool version of Peter Pan.
I've never read the book (though I would like to now), so everything I'm saying is based on this latest movie.
I thought the whole point of Pan was childhood vs. adulthood (or growing up), and that's certainly in this movie but I don't know...it's too much of why the former is good and too much of why the later is bad. I mean I know that's the whole point, but I think it's overkill. My big thing is that no one every really tries to explore it. They all use the exact same thing: the whole pan/wendy thing, Hook is evil, lessons learned and everyone goes home.
My favorite damned part was when Wendy first saw Hook and was entranced rather than scared. That was cool, b/c for once it seemed like they were going to explore the relationship my sister & I always perceived b/t Pan, Wendy, and Hook. I got my hopes up for nothing of course, but for a moment it was there.
Hook was always my fav char, and not just b/c he was a villian (as always seems to be my pref). Going with the child vs. adult thing, it's always been the eternal child Pan vs. the adult Hook. But in every version it's just good boy vs. bad man, which I always thought was lame. Like I said, I've never read the book. Maybe Hook really is just evil, but I always wondered what he'd be like if we didn't see him through the eyes of bratty Pan. I mean the two are a great deal alike. Still going by the movie, they're both lonely and seem to want some sort of companionship, they both cling stubbornly to what they think/believe, the live (are trapped?) in Neverland, and going back to the lonely thing neither seems to have an actual peer/friend - just subordinates. Pan at some point latched onto Wendy, and there's that whole thing. But later Hook seems genuinely disappointed (maybe I misread this whole scene) that Pan found a lady. It was like he knew he lost something when Pan found someone else. He kidnaps Wendy, but he was only interested in her to get to Pan, even though she seemed briefly taken with him (that would be her interested in a "man" rather than a "boy" which was cool but they didn't play with, that's what disappointed me).
So you have these two guys, who's only regular sort of relationship is their rivalry, with Pan trying to beat back Hook, in whom he sees the evil grown up he never wants to be, and Hook trying to destroy a reminder of the childhood he lost years ago (?). I mean, Wendy does leave and despite Hooks rather insanely stupid "death" I don't think he's gone quite yet. So everything goes back to normal, where Pan & Hook literally thrive on trying to destroy each other. Of course now this all seems slashy to me but that wasn't my original intent.
Mostly I just hate how Hook is treated. There's this whole triangle with him, Pan, and Wendy and instead it's always just "Pan & Wendy beat down the evil pirate." They need to anime this - the Japs are good for taking a seemingly simple story and turning it into a royal mindfuck. Which is what I always thought Peter Pan was meant to be.
Leaving all of that behind, I still dislike Wendy's character though I didn't mind the actress herself too much. The boy that played Peter can't act, and I think everyone must have known that because he had maybe ten lines the whole movie. Hook was awesome, didn't know that he could be a hot character, but he def was in this movie. Jason Isaacs = Yum.
I've never read the book (though I would like to now), so everything I'm saying is based on this latest movie.
I thought the whole point of Pan was childhood vs. adulthood (or growing up), and that's certainly in this movie but I don't know...it's too much of why the former is good and too much of why the later is bad. I mean I know that's the whole point, but I think it's overkill. My big thing is that no one every really tries to explore it. They all use the exact same thing: the whole pan/wendy thing, Hook is evil, lessons learned and everyone goes home.
My favorite damned part was when Wendy first saw Hook and was entranced rather than scared. That was cool, b/c for once it seemed like they were going to explore the relationship my sister & I always perceived b/t Pan, Wendy, and Hook. I got my hopes up for nothing of course, but for a moment it was there.
Hook was always my fav char, and not just b/c he was a villian (as always seems to be my pref). Going with the child vs. adult thing, it's always been the eternal child Pan vs. the adult Hook. But in every version it's just good boy vs. bad man, which I always thought was lame. Like I said, I've never read the book. Maybe Hook really is just evil, but I always wondered what he'd be like if we didn't see him through the eyes of bratty Pan. I mean the two are a great deal alike. Still going by the movie, they're both lonely and seem to want some sort of companionship, they both cling stubbornly to what they think/believe, the live (are trapped?) in Neverland, and going back to the lonely thing neither seems to have an actual peer/friend - just subordinates. Pan at some point latched onto Wendy, and there's that whole thing. But later Hook seems genuinely disappointed (maybe I misread this whole scene) that Pan found a lady. It was like he knew he lost something when Pan found someone else. He kidnaps Wendy, but he was only interested in her to get to Pan, even though she seemed briefly taken with him (that would be her interested in a "man" rather than a "boy" which was cool but they didn't play with, that's what disappointed me).
So you have these two guys, who's only regular sort of relationship is their rivalry, with Pan trying to beat back Hook, in whom he sees the evil grown up he never wants to be, and Hook trying to destroy a reminder of the childhood he lost years ago (?). I mean, Wendy does leave and despite Hooks rather insanely stupid "death" I don't think he's gone quite yet. So everything goes back to normal, where Pan & Hook literally thrive on trying to destroy each other. Of course now this all seems slashy to me but that wasn't my original intent.
Mostly I just hate how Hook is treated. There's this whole triangle with him, Pan, and Wendy and instead it's always just "Pan & Wendy beat down the evil pirate." They need to anime this - the Japs are good for taking a seemingly simple story and turning it into a royal mindfuck. Which is what I always thought Peter Pan was meant to be.
Leaving all of that behind, I still dislike Wendy's character though I didn't mind the actress herself too much. The boy that played Peter can't act, and I think everyone must have known that because he had maybe ten lines the whole movie. Hook was awesome, didn't know that he could be a hot character, but he def was in this movie. Jason Isaacs = Yum.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-02 07:04 pm (UTC)