I woke up to very sad news - Ray Stevenson has died, at only 58 years of age, after a sudden illness mid shooting, according to the articles. He's never disappointed in anything I've seen him in (my Blackbeard in Black Sails problem is a me problem, not a Stevenson problem), but the role which immediately still comes to mind when I think of the name "Ray Stevenson" is Titus Pullo in the tv series Rome, where he could exude terrifiying brutality and incredible human warmth, and you believed both that this is a man ( who'd do some spoilerly for Rome The Series stuff ). So ave atque vale, Ray Stevenson. Thirteen!


Away from rl and into fantasy: I watched Peter Pan & Wendy, the latest effort by the Mouse on the tale. Oh dear. ( Spoilers think Disney should just stay away from anything Pan for the next half century. )

Last week in the cinema I also watched a couple of trailers, including one for the impending Peter Pan prequel, Pan. Which doesn't look promising. Orphan boy? Hook as the Artful Dodger? This isn''t Oliver Twist, Hollywood! It's not Star Wars, either, so what's that about Peter having "a destiny"? Him being destiny free is part of being Peter Pan and not growing, is that so hard to grasp? (Probably. It reminds me how horrible the "sequel" Hook was. A case of "I like everyone involved, and so much dislike what they were doing". Grown-up Peter Pan needing to rediscover his inner child is both against the core of the character and removes all and any Barrie darkness in favour of Spielberg at his most mawkish, of all the manchildren Robin Williams played this is the least convincing and most embarassing, for all that he's the title character, Dustin Hoffmann's Hook isn't compelling at all, and worst of all, it's the most clichéd version of a father-son story imaginable. Bah.

Otoh it inspired me to rewatch the 2003 Peter Pan, which is my favourite screen version so far. (Not counting the clever darkside twist Once upon a Time did in its third season.) Here's why, in utterly random order:

* Making it a coming-of-age story for Wendy was inspired. There's potential for this interpretation in the Barrie books and play, but here it's really the focus without being sledgehammery about it. Wendy's decision at the end to return and grow up isn't just because she misses her parents (though that plays a part), but because she wants more from life than Peter's eternal childhood could provide.

* While we're talking Wendy, the film plays up her role as storyteller in an active way - the first time we see her, she's telling a pirate story to her brothers via acting the part of the pirate - and follows that up in Neverland (Wendy can fence as well) without losing Wendy-as-pretend-mother, or Wendy having feelings for Peter; being a girl in the traditional white dress and wanting a kiss and wanting adventure isn't treated as mutually exclusive anymore (no juxtaposition between tomboy and romance-loving girl here!)

* Peter Pan the novel (though not the stage play) heavily hints that Neverland as the Darlings experience it is formed by the wishes of the Darling children; this movie version makes that "formed by Wendy's wishes", with Hook embodying both the dread and the allure of adult sexuality, and yet avoids being inappropriate; Wendy herself is never fetishized, it's Hook who gets introduced bare chested before getting into costume, and since he's played by Jason Isaacs, he can bring the required mixture of menace and charm (Isaacs also has a ball as the hapless George Darling, since the film follows the tradition of the double casting of Hook/Mr. Darling.)

* This gives Hook temporarily the emotional upper hand in his final duel with Peter; the ability to taunt Peter that Wendy WILL grow up, there will be a husband in her future (read: sex, but this is still a children-aimed movie, so "husband" is as explicit as even the villain can get), and it's something Peter by his choice of eternal childhood won't ever be a part of; making Peter thus vulnerable in the final duel heightens the suspense instead of treating Hook's defeat as a given from the get go

* Which brings me to Peter: played by Jeremy Sumpter (whatever happened to him?), and really good in the part. This Peter has the cheerful heartlessness (except re: Wendy and Tinkerbell in the later's most famous scene), the joy and the casual bravery; the movie also gives him the costume not of the Disney cartoon but of the book illustrations and of Michael Lwellelyn Davies in the photo Barrie took of him that he wanted to be used as the model for the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (it wasn't), and he's compelling enough that you understand why Wendy (in addition to wanting to stay a child for a while longer at the start of the movie) runs away with him and Hook is obsessed with him, not to mention that movie trickery, actor and stunt people (I assume) really sell you on the idea that this boy can fly (and there's a difference between the way Peter does it and the way the first time trieers, the Darlings, later do)

* not kidding about the "heartless" part (which was important to Barrie): Peter's inability to recall the names of Wendy's brothers and indifference to their fates being a case in point

* "To die would ben an awfully big adventure": young Sumpter sells the iconic line, and it's fitting that the one thing Peter fears isn't death, it's adulthood, but only in this movie is this both the reason why Wendy eventually leaves and why Hook temporarily is able to bring him down (literally, which makes sense, since flying is connected to happy thoughts)

* Which provides the movie with a pay off for Wendy's previous longing to give and receive a kiss which book and stage play don't have beyond the "thimble" gag; it's the fairy tale motive of a kiss giving/returning life used in a way that also connects with Wendy's transition-from-child-to-adolescent arc

* The mermaids are suitably dangerous and eerie

* While Tigerlilly and her tribe still are fantasy Indians, the film tries its best to avoid the Edwardian racism by letting them speak solely in a Native American language (John translates) instead of Pigdin English, and nobody calls Peter "Great White Father"

* speaking of John, while Wendy's brothers play a more minor role here than in other adaptions, he gets one of the best lines, to Peter, after Wendy has woken her brothers up: "You offend gravity, sir - I should like to offend it with you!"

* one of the most famous moments of the original stage play, the "I do believe in fairies" scene, requires the participation of a live audience, so both Barrie when writing the novel later and any film version has a problem there, but what this film offers instead has its own magic

* it's also prepared not just by Peter's explanation to Wendy earlier but by a black humor gag involving Hook which it would spoil for new viewers to explain, since it's unique to this film

* Edwardian rl background gags: Aunt Millicent, a character not in the novel or the play, reads H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" at one point and talks about novelists as bad husband material (certainly true for both Barrie and Wells, though for different reasons); Mrs. Darling is
made to look very much like Sylvia Llewellyn Davies does in the photographs

* The twist of connecting Neverland weather with Peter's moods and state of being makes me suspect someone's read Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and Morpheus certainly shares a few similarities, though certainly not the brooding, which is given to Hook instead.