I was tooling around twitter hitting up people for post ideas and M. B. Weston gave me a great one. The question? Whether Tim Burton is the right man for the job considering Disney’s audience or too dark a director. I think he’ll do just fine, because Disney has already tempted tougher subject matter with earlier movies.
When you think Disney, you think animated movies like the original ‘Alice in Wonderland’ or ‘Bambi’. Maybe you think of classic live-action like ‘The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes’ with a young Kurt Russell or ‘Herbie’. Those are nice feel-good movies with action and heart and a moral to tell the kids at the end. But, you can go all the way back to 1954 and ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ to find an adventure movie with enough dramatic scenes to keep up many a kid. Then, in 1958 the animated ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ poses some pretty scary stuff for little children to contend with after the lights dim for the night. It may not seem that spooktacular to us adults, but to a little kid, just because it was animated didn’t make it any less frightening.
Now jump ahead to to 2002 and you get ‘The Hot Chick’ with Rob Schneider. I did not know this was a Disney film at the time or I might have gotten a little squeamish. It was the next year that ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ hit theaters and set up the franchise for a long run. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’ is slated for a May 20, 2011 release date. This run of movies in itself has flaunted with subject matter that clearly made it a movie for older kids and adults. I’m not saying it was the first, but, to me, it started the trend of movies to come from Disney. From barnacle-crusted sailors, tentacle-faced pirate captains, to that nasty little skeleton monkey and even I wanted to put my hands over my face at times.
The list continued with ‘National Treasure’ (2004), ‘Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’ (2005), and now ‘Alice in Wonderland’. I think that Mr. Burton will fit in just fine with those that have paved the road before him. And we can now look forward to more great movies such as ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’, ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, plus their adaptation of the Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’ and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ ‘John Carter of Mars’ both due out in 2012.
I give them credit. All of these movies have provided quality entertainment as proven by their box office scores. So, I really have no doubt that they will continue to score big in the future.
Agree? Why not? And what upcoming Disney film are you the most excited about?
Thanks to
M. B. Weston for the suggestion.
by Dexter Palmer
by Allen Steele
