The actual Saint-Exupery parts look good, but they had to jam in a ridiculous framing device that looks like typical contemporary Disney product with all of its drawbacks (silly action, a different and distracting alternate protagonist, jokes for the adults). Why? (It reminds me of how they've been gumming up perfectly good Dr. Seuss material in the same way recently.)
What a disappointment and missed opportunity.
I would have to agree. Maybe a little of the outside material would be okay just as a way to tell the story but I'm sure they will go way too far. Its been a long time since I've read the book. Oh don't even start me on the Dr. Seuss stuff. I thought Horton Hears a Who was descent but the Lorax? What a piece of 💩.
shareYeah, just some minor framing would have been fine, but the trailer makes it look like at least 50% is new material.
And yeah, the 1972 version of The Lorax was good, but I didn't even bother with the recent one. I don't understand the compulsion to ruin a good thing. How arrogant for them to think they need to "improve" it!
I don't remember exactly how the story was told in the book, but (like in the trailer) an old man telling a little girl the story would have been fine, but (as you said) looks like they way overdid it.
1972 Lorax was awesome it was the only reason I watched the new one, and it turned out to be far worse than I even imagined. Don't waste your time it was so awful. But what do you expect when you change a perfectly good story and throw people like Zac Efron and Taylor Swift into the mix.
The framing story looks like a typical dumb life lessons CGi toon with the usual derivative one-size-fits-all computer animation, and from the marketing it looks like that's going to be in the foreground with just occasional bits of the book, which is a shame because they look stunning and genuinely true to the illustrations. This just looks like it's going to be such a frustrating experience I wouldn't be surprised if it's another animated feature where they junked the original approach halfway through shooting and completely reworked it (something PIXAR and Disney have been doing for decades). Here's hoping for a version on the DVD that allows you to just play the scenes from the book...
"Security - release the badgers."
It's good that you analyzed the framing device to show how weird it was that it would probably be a subplot. Almost like we should call this "The Little Girl". So disappointing... I really wanted to see the little prince animated in a stop-motion hit.
10-12 year old girl flying airplanes?
Is she going to be the protagonist?
Talking to old men?
Life lessons about how just because she wants to grow up doesn't mean that she has to leave her childlike qualities behind?
Typical CGI Animation from Pixar?
How forgettable! Even the mother seems to have no likeable qualities to her.
Hollywood ruining good and great books by inserting it's own clichés is nothing new.
Back in the 1930's David Selznick was considered to be daring because he filmed classic books ("Little Women""David Copperfield" "Tale Of Two Cities") without dumbing them down for contemporary audiences.
Once Selznick, with the Ronald Colman "Prisoner Of Zenda" filmed a framing sequence set in modern times (1937 when the movie was made) but dropped it when he saw it did not work and was not necessary.
The Worst example of this in Recent Years is the infamous 1995 Demi Moore version of "Scarlet Letter",which had a Happy Ending (Hester runs off with Dimmesmoore to live happily ever after. Happily, this backfired and earned the film justified comtempt.
The live action Lerner and Loewe musical version of "The Little Prince" has serious flaws, but I have no doubt it will be better then this.
Hollywood had nothing to do with this. it's a foreign film.
Joseph Chastainme
www.twitter.com/sinnersbible
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