Peter's Dragon: Designated for the third grade group ticket

Layne 2022-01-05 08:01:34

If "Fantasy Forest" weren't Jon Feiru at the helm, what would it be like?
It may well be another "Peter's Dragon".
The original "Miao Miao Long", born in 1977, is a music film that combines live action and animation. A large number of 2D animations and live action interactive scenes can be described as a precedent. The animation is combined with one of the movies, and the singing and dancing performances are catchy and pleasing to the eye, and are widely praised.
Unfortunately, these two important features are not even visible in the new version of "Peter's Dragon".
Animation/children’s film adaptations/remakes can go uphill like "Fantasy Forest", or have their own merits like "Cinderella", and of course, like "Peter's Dragon", from the classics of the era to the low-age area of ​​the home movie rental market The one hegemony. It is not a particularly surprising thing that a childlike Imaginary Friend makes up the bedtime story of life, how it turns into a Hillbilly routine that looks like Murray and New Zealand is solid. "Peter's Dragon" has an investment of only 65 million U.S. dollars, which is quite light in the eyes of the wealthy Disney. Investment is a fraction of "Fantasy Forest", and the return is naturally only a fraction of "Fantasy Forest".
The quality of the film is naturally only a fraction of "Fantasy Forest".
Elliott, the fat dragon with a major change in appearance, has changed from a red hair to a hairy monster in Pixar's "Monsters Electric Company". Although it has not become the highlight of the 16th version of the movie (in fact, there are no highlights in the whole movie), but it is the whole film. 4/5 In the time when it was not seen, a large number of boring and underdeveloped adult paper man characters made the whole movie seem dull and slow, and the existence of these human characters is far more than a speechless green hair dragon It's even more absurd.
If this movie completely abandons the real-life form and becomes a 3D or even 2D animation, I am afraid that it will be more tempting and convincing than the current appearance of the four differents.
The 2016 version of "Peter's Dragon" is not so much a children's movie, as it is an independent director's nomination on a major Disney label-Ryan Coogler has gone to film "Black Panther", let's also Want to make a big production.
The problem is that David Lowe is not Ryan Coogler.


(Fear) The dragon is Disney's fate. From 2000's "Dinosaurs" to "Dinosaurs" 15 years later, word-of-mouth box office is all miserable. "Peter's Dragon" may have the best destiny-after all, it cost 65 million US dollars to shoot under the age of 10 to enjoy the fun In pediatrics, who can have such courage and spare money.
After all, "Zoo City", "Fantasy Forest", "Captain America 3" have been given out in 8 months, and Disney has to take a breath, and come to a few "Alice in Wonderland 2", "Blowing Dream Giant" and "Peter's Dragon" "Burning some money is not.
In short, Scrooge Mack’s Duck’s family is rich, and Paramonso Dafa is too anxious to jump.
In the process of "Peter's Dragon" from Imaginary Friend to Imaginary Crap, independent screenwriter/director David Lowe contributed a lot. He succeeded in bringing the soothing rustic flavor of "They Are Not Saints" and the cynical and anti-intellectual tendencies that are common in independent films into children's stories-as if this shouldn't be a children's story at all, just a high-spirited story. The arrogant young director was forced by the big studios instigated to make a rigid children's story according to the stereotyped rules of children's movies-always revealing intentionally or unintentionally. Ambitious. The innocence of the film is sometimes insufficient and sometimes surplus. After the drastic transformation of the 77 version of the story, the ambition is very small, and the characterization and its partiality and failure.
One of the most typical problems exposed is that Peter's performance as the protagonist is inconsistent before and after. A child who survived a car accident that killed his parents, lived alone in the wild for 6 years, and no matter who went to trim his hair and nails to provide food and lodging (Elliott, of course), his relationship with the dragon is normal. , It did not affect his language ability. However, when he came into contact with people 10 minutes after the opening, he suddenly became Tarzan, his behavior became more like a savage, and his language ability also deteriorated.
Talking about this, some people will naturally feel that there is no dragon in the real world, so what sense of reality can be found.
So the question is: who told you to make a real person, not an animation.
Real people must pay more attention to reality and logic. From point A to point B, they must have the motivation and ability to match it. Moreover, for "Peter's Dragon", the sense of reality is not what the audience actively requests, but the form of expression chosen by the film itself and the inherent attributes of the narrative first:
two little protagonists chasing in the woods, one girl stumbles and falls down the tree , Panicked and screamed, all the adults at the forest construction site not far away looked in the direction of the sound; the
little protagonist was taken away by the adults to return to the town, and the dragon Elliott let out a sad roar, two Only one of the adults who walked back to the construction site heard the roar, and the second said that the first had heard it wrong.
These two passages not only exist in "Peter's Dragon" at the same time, but also have a smooth plot relationship. As for why one can hear the other, "just designed this way" is indeed an answer, but it is not a better answer than "design flaws".
Disney can do better, and the audience deserves better — in the final analysis, it's a matter of self-discipline.


The biggest failure of "Peter's Dragon" is its dullness and lack of surprises. In more than 100 minutes, most of the content is a child, sitting in someone else’s house, learning how to finish speaking at once.
"Peter's Dragon" relies too much on actor talent and performance experience in the thin human role, but the saved thoughts are not used on Eliot, the most special dragon. In terms of appearance and invisible personality, this is the dragonization of the hairy monster; and in terms of behavior, this is the most common and most helpless dogization in Hollywood movies. Through a pair of long eyes that are no longer reptiles, Elliott has escaped from the image of a dragon and completely becomes a big green dog, looking dull and lacking in life.
Canineization is indeed very flattering, but the resulting empathy effect will seriously hinder the display of imagination and surprise, thus missing its uniqueness. The chasing and fighting between Eliot and Peter in the opening is completely inherited from DreamWorks' "How to Train Your Dragon". After completing the function of introducing the characters, it is easy to fall into boring, leaving no value or memorable moments.
This state is a sad waste of talent before and after the stage, especially Robert Redford. Bryce Dallas Howard proved that it is not her presence that can control the Great (Dread) Dragon; Carl Urban and Wes Bentley, who has a three-meter evil spirit, have a low sense of existence— If you don't bring your own star halo, you can hardly notice their existence. In front of New Zealand's magnificent natural beauty, the few harmless highlights of humans and animals cannot retrieve the soul of the movie, and naturally cannot attract audiences with more mature speculative abilities.
Disney needs to rethink what is a better live-action movie, not just stay at the level of "children's first movie".

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Extended Reading
  • Deja 2022-04-23 07:03:11

    I feel like this movie is missing something important.

  • Dusty 2022-04-22 07:01:40

    Like King Kong, Edward Scissorhands and this one, people will eventually return to the human world, and only monsters will leave alone. I'm sorry for not being "warmed". If it were me, I wouldn't let go of my only support and partner for six years and live with a woman I've only met a few times.

Pete's Dragon quotes

  • Grace: I know those woods. I know those woods like the back of my hand. I couldn't have missed a dragon.

    Meacham: Well, you missed Pete.

  • Sheriff Gene Dentler: [from trailer] You can't say 'dragon' over the radio.