Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Peter Pan is a dead horse that really needs to be laid to rest

This wonderful painting of Peter Pan is done by creator, illustrator, and designer
Nicholas Jackson. You can find his website HERE to see more of his work. I
love Nicholas' art, but I'm getting tired of this story.
First off, I apologize to all the Peter Pan lovers out there. But this "little" rant of mine has to do with the fact that I'm actually sick of all things Peter Pan. I'm sick of Neverland. I'm sick of the Lost Boys. I'm sick of Captain Hook. The story has just been beaten to death.

We've had the original story by J.M. Barrie of course. And we've had a plethora of Peter Pan-ish adaptations and reboots. There was the awful Robin Williams/Dustin Hoffman matchup called Hook. And then there's the fact that Once Upon A Time is now doing an entire season on Peter Pan with Once Upon A Time in Neverland. This season is a real draaaagg, and it may just be the season that convinces me to stop watching Once Upon A Time completely. Oh and Peter Pan in the Once Upon A Time version is a real jerkface not to mention that the show completely rips off every bit of fiction there is. Nothing is sacred. This week's show had a whole bunch of the shadows flying around, and I swear that they looked just like the Dementors did in Harry Potter.

Yawn. Anyway, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I hear Hollywood is doing three Peter Pan movies. Seriously? I'm afraid so.

1) Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice) is making a Peter Pan origins movie.

2) Columbia is developing a Peter Pan movie.

3) And Disney (not to be outdone) is adapting Peter and the Starcatchers.

I really don't care for any of these. Can we just vote in a Peter Pan moratorium for the next four decades? Are there really that many people out there that, upon finishing one Peter Pan tale, turn around and go "Oh I wish we could see this again with different actors and maybe an origin or what happens after story!?"

Peter Pan is a dead horse that really needs to be laid to rest. And that, my friends, is something you can take to the bank.

23 comments:

  1. Thankfully I'm not subjected to anything Peter Pan. I like how the invention of the name Wendy came from that story, but that's about it really. I'll never watch anything Peter Pan again.

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  2. Never been a Peter Pan fan. Considering his popularity with Disney and kids, he won't go away though. At least you don't have kids who annoy you with wanting to watch Peter Pan shows and movies all the time.

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  3. I don't mind, the last movie I saw with Pan was Hook

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  4. I do love the original Peter Pan. It's a great story. I even get a little nostalgic thrill over the ride at Disney World (shut up). And I adored the Johnny Depp movie Finding Neverland about Barrie's life. But I don't usually care for a lot of the modern interpretations anymore. The creative world seems to have gone dark in most of it's adaptations of children's classics, making the bad guys badder and the good guys ambiguous heroes at best. Just sort of takes the shine off it for me.

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  5. Peter Pan has never been among my favorites. But I did think the first twenty minutes of the Robin Williams movie were brilliant. But only the first twenty minutes.

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  6. Rant away. I love the original story, and I even love some of the adaptations (I saw Hook when I was a young, stupid, impressionable kid. Don't hate me. I can redeem myself by saying that if I saw it now, I'd most likely hate it.) However, I'm with you - this horse is so long past dead, it's not recognizable as a horse anymore. Let's bury the poor thing.

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  7. Yeah Peter Pan sucks. I prefer Jif myself.

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  8. Blaming Once Upon a Time for being derivative is a bit like blaming chocolate for being a bit sugary. Kind of the point of the show.

    mood

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  9. I never liked Peter Pan even as a kid so I'm on board with your moratorium.
    I did love Finding Neverland with Johnny Depp but hate the Peter Pan story itself.

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  10. I get what you're saying, and I agree that you can overdo something to death. At the same time, the economy is bad and filmmakers are more likely to run with something familiar than aim for something new. Having said that, if there's another Snow White or Cinderella movie any time soon ... :)

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  11. eh, i don't mind Peter Pan. I'm actually quite a big fan of a lot of the themes in the story.
    And also, i like Hook. Just throwing that out there. I mean, Rufio was awesome.
    But, also, i'm not watching Once, so it's not as in my face as it is for you

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  12. Before you toss dirt on Peter Pan, you should check out the comic Peter Panzerfaust. The stakes are a bit higher when Hook is a Nazi and the Lost Boys are French resistance fighters. This is probably my favorite Image book right now.

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  13. @Brad: Hmm. I'll consider it. BTW, you should send me a pm on twitter with your phone number so I can better keep in touch with you. Or maybe I'll do that.

    @Sarah: Well darlin', you just need to fix that so we can both be on board with my moratorium :O

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  14. I always thought Peter Pan was creepy so I like how OUAT is presenting him. I won't be watching any new Pan movies but I hope he gets his comeuppance on OUAT.

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  15. The original Peter Pan was cool, but I agree with you that we don't need three more versions this year! Why not create some very new fairy tales instead?

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  16. Yaaaawn. <----Totally agree. And they're doing a Once Upon a Time in Neverland??? Ugh! I stopped watching that show first season. Couldn't handle it, LOL. :)

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  17. What about Wendy? I always liked her and the dog Nana.

    I'd be on board with a permanent exorcism of Tinkerbell from our culture. The rest of the characters (aside from the obvious) are so boring that I can't even remember their names.

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  18. I wouldn't be surprised if there was fourth or fifth PAN project in the making.... The same goes for OZ, which has close to ten projects inspired by it in the making.
    And I myself never overly liked either of the stories in the first place :)

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  19. I'm kind of enjoying how OUAT has turned Pan into the villain. But I'm not worn out on Pan as I haven't really seen the other movie versions. I won't be going to see them when and if they do come out (not that I'm going out to see any movies, anyway, mind).

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  20. My first reaction to that picture you used was warm nostalgia, and that's because I saw the original Disney Peter Pan movie as a little kid and fell absolutely in love with it, especially that flying scene. But then I also fell in love with Disney's Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty because hey, I was a LITTLE kid. But now I'm an adult so I've put away most (but not all) of my childish things.

    The fact that Hollywood is overdoing PP right now is only because the industry is so hung up on redoing whatever is safe and formulaic. It's a shame, because there are so many great original novels and stories around they could be adapting, but they won't.

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  21. Looks like I missed some posts this week, so that makes me thing that Peter Pan just entered the public domain maybe? Sherlock Holmes did and there was a free for all of shows and movies based on him. I could just look something like that up, but I'm not going to, I'm with you, I've been tired of Peter Pan for a very long time.

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