Goliath wrote:
2099net wrote:I personally don't see how making Pinocchio less naive spoil the film?
Because the whole film thrives on invoking sympathy from the audience for a little, cute naieve boy who is constantly tricked by the big bad world outside. It doesn't work if he is less naieve.
Burt he can't be constantly tricked. Think about it. That shows no development at all.
2099net wrote:He may only have been alive for two days - but its a logical flaw, as I pointed out before. [...] But how would it have spoilt the film to have Pinocchio have a few more "but?" moments? He may only have been alive for two days at his second meeting with Honest John, but he's had a heck of a lot of life experience in that one day! That's why you expect him to have learned from his mistake. [...] Even though Pinocchio keeps insisting he wants to go to school/home, it never really sounds like he means it. It sounds like he's doing it because it's what's expected of him by others, rather than because he wants to. In short, he doesn't appear to have made up his mind himself.
But how many people do you know who have changed overnight? People don't change that fast, especially not little children. So again, why would you expect someone who has only been alive for two days to change so radically? Even though he has experienced a lot in those two days, it would appear 'false' to have him change that quick. In more recent (Disney) films, you see this all the time: a rather quick change of mind in characters, supposedly to 'develop' the character, but often it doesn't ring true.
Pinocchio does not undertake the normal development of a child. He can immediately speak and immediately walk for example. He is not a normal little child. So yes, I do expect sombody who can basically understand the world around them enough to be able to communicate with the world, to change that much in two days. As I said before, by being tricked and kidnapped and threatened with death he's already had a stronger "life experience" and learned the consequence of how his actions can affect him than most three or four year olds will ever had.
As for character development not ringing true, what exactly is Pinocchio's character development? Is there any indication that, given the same circumstances regarding Gepetto were to occur towards the start of the film he wouldn't do the same anyway? The event that enables him to become a real-boy has nothing to do with his worldliness or his gullibility. It's basically about love. The only thing which Pinocchio does do to save Gepetto is come up with the idea of smoking themselves out of Monstro after smoking at Pleasure Island - but... but... that means, Pinocchio's trip to Pleasure Island was - in story terms - beneficial. Not only do you seem to have no problem with a two day old child learning how to smoke themselves out of a whale (where you seem to have problems with him potentially learning other stuff - or at least "cottoning on" a little more), but how does that square up to the "moral" of the story that he shouldn't have gone there in the first place. Without going, Pinocchio and company would just be left to rot in the whale. So even the moral message is unclear and muddled, because it's generally accepted inside the film itself, Pinocchio shouldn't be at Pleasure Island and shouldn't be smoking etc.
I know, you'll be saying part of the moral is that bad experiences can still be used positively, blah, blah, blah... but you show me one review, just one, which doesn't conclude that the moral of the story is "forgo temptation and listen to your conscience". A more complex moral doesn't fit with the simplistic storytelling.
2099net wrote:Well, in theory, you could have the most wonderful animation in the world, and it could be animating the script to "Date Movie". The animation could be the best ever seen, but it wouldn't make the resultant film be beyond criticism.
I'm not saying animation is the only thing that can be praised. I'm just saying story isn't everything. It's important, yes, but there are many other aspects that you don't seem to count. Then how do you judge a movie like
Fantasia, which has almost no story to it?
And I ask again, did you read my original post? Once again I'll point out it's in this thread twice.
2099net wrote:But what you're saying is other Disney films do it, fairy tales do it [...] so its OK for "A" film to do it.
I don't see how that conflicts with what I said about the differences in storytelling between different films. And I didn't say that, just because something happens in a certain Disney movie, it is oay to use it in another as well. I simply said the opposite: it's silly to criticize a certain device in, say,
Sleeping Beauty, when that same device is used in other Disney films. That doesn't mean that device is appropriate in *every* Disney film. Nor does it mean there should be no differences in storytelling between Disney films.
But going back to Sleeping Beauty, at the time, critics did criticise the shallow plot and characters. Why do you say that device was appropriate in that film? (I'm not sure which device you mean but I'm assuming its the rather weak motivation and logic of Maleficent?). Clearly some people at the time thought it was inappropriate.
2099net wrote:Fanatic, zealous ripping apart? Don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration? I'm simply pointing out, that while everyone else seems happy to praise it to the hilt (including our very own Luke in his review) it has problems [...]
I don't think it's an exaggeration, when you are making up reasons to discredit other people's favorable opinions of
Pinocchio (it's a classic, we're emotional, Walt D. worked on it) and when you compare it to "damn posts" about your own personal favorite
Treasure Planet. I understand what criticism is, and you don't have to pretend you have to teach me what it is. Criticism is good, but it has to be just.
So most of this comes down to me using a mild swear word?
First of all, I never said anyone was emotional over it - I said if you look at it objectively rather than emotionally the flaws are more apparent. Objective Criticisms is not new, and is a valid form of criticisim (
see. You'll also notice that when using objective criticism, historical context is ignored. So yes, I'll back up my claim that objectively, Pinocchio is a film that wouldn't be as highly regarded were it made the same today, because the audience has changed - they expect more to put it bluntly.
For somebody who is always crying foul that other people put words into your mouth, it seems you too do the same.
As for the Treasure Island issue, it was illustrating a point. People complain in Treasure Island about the fact a person can breath in space (even though in a round about way the film references this at least twice) while illogicalities in films like Pinocchio are dismissed without thought because its "a fairytale". To which I once again repeat my assertion that generally speaking, fairytales aren't as "random" as some people think that they are - in fact, I'd go further and say that most people's views of fairytales are too far influenced by the Disney films and this is why people seem to think that fairytales have illogical storytelling.
I'm not familiar with the original Pinocchio (but given the date it was written, is it a fairytale? or a fable? or a parable? or none of these?) but take Sleeping Beauty for example and "Maleficent".
In almost all tellings I'm familiar with, the "Maleficent" character is not some feared witch, but an old, ugly fairy who lives alone and is mistakenly overlooked when all the other fairies are invited to the princesses' christening to be god-mothers. She curses the Princess because she feels she was purposely overlooked because she was old and ugly. In some versions, she is killed as soon as she has delivered her curse. In a lot of tellings, the princess is kept locked inside the castle walls and its only inside the castle and its hamlet that all the spinning wheels are banned and destroyed. I think its about 50/50, but a lot of versions don't have an age limit on the curse. When the princess is pricked and she and the rest of the castle fall into their slumber, it's literally hundreds of years before she is revived - so the whole castle/kingdom is forgotten.
OK, it still has magical events, but generally, the story itself makes more sense, and people's motivations are clearer.
In Disney's Sleeping Beauty, there's lots of logic flaws.
Maleficent is known and feared by the population when she first appears (so we assume she has done terrible things to the kingdom in the past) and yet her curse is rather weak. Most illogically, when the Princess is removed from the castle, she spends 16 years looking for her (well, sends her goons looking for her). Why is Maleficent even bothered? Does she have no trust in her own curse? Are we to assume if Maleficent found the Princess, she would just be slain by Maleficent? Recursed? What?
And what does Maleficent do in those 16 years? We're talking about a person who (we assume) once terrorised a whole kingdom, and she just sits at her castle for 16 years drumming her fingers. She can turn into a dragon! If she was "at war" with the Kingdom before, or even just plundering it's wealth, surely she could do more if she really wanted to find the Princess? Wouldn't somebody so full of spite just cause more mischief if her original mischief failed?
And then there's the fact that when the Princess falls asleep in the film, its for less than a day (probably). It's certainly not even a week. So where's the drama, the actual consequence of the curse? It's just not there. The curse ends up as being nothing worse than the equivalent of the Princess getting a mild case of the flu. In short, its an anti-climax, as is Maleficent as a dragon to put it bluntly, she's despatched so quickly and easily.
I know you'll say it had to be that way, because they wanted Aurora and Prince Philip to be in love before he woke her, but the romance in Sleeping Beauty never comes off, because both Aurora and Philip are non-characters. Most of the characters are non-characters. They're just objects to be moved around as the story needs them to fit, not the other way round.
The main flaw I can see with most tellings of Sleeping Beauty is that a prince just happens to be hunting hundreds of years later, finds the overgrown castle, enquires about it and yes, kisses the princess. Princes don't just grow on trees, and at least in the Disney version there's a reason the prince is available for rescuing duty.
Sure, none of the original versions of the story are totally logic free, but none of them have as many logical flaws or co-incidences as the Disney version, and most original fairytales have more character motivation and development.
OK, that was a lot more than I intended to type, but my point remains - I think people are more "forgiving" of weak storytelling in fairytales and dismiss them as "just fairytales" more because of the Disney influence than the traditional fairytales themselves.
Treasure Planet had poor storytelling? Not only was it one of Disney's most literate scripts, its also based on a novel which has stood the test of time) while at the same time praises films like Sleeping Beauty which has virtually NO story.
