If you watch the trailer or any one of three commercials for the forthcoming Disneyfication of A Christmas Carol, you’ll notice that the name Dickens is neither seen nor heard. The story is now “Disney’s A Christmas Carol.”
This sort of appropriation is offensive, especially when the appropriator is the very corporation that lobbied for the Copyright Term Extension Act (the piece of legislation that now frustrates American readers in search of the final volumes of In Search of Lost Time).
It might be possible to argue that “everyone” already knows of course that this story is Dickens’s, but that seems to me a stretch. What I see here is crass rebranding, with merchandise and promotional tie-ins to follow.
Note to Disney: don’t ever try it with Homer.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Disney’s Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
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comments: 10
The good news is, discerning adults will know to avoid Disney's A Christmas Carol. And truly discerning peeps like me know that Alastair Sim rules.
Yes, he does. I’d take Mr. Magoo over Disney too.
Mr. Magoo forever! There's a nice book out on the making of the show, written by a well-regarded animator -- http://www.mrmagooschristmascarol.com.
I have managed to keep my eyes shut twice through the preview for the Disney version. And I also find the action-packed Robert-Downey-Sherlock-Holmes preview pretty revolting.
I've always been a fan of the Magoo version. So much so that I wrote a book about the making of it. If you're so inclined, check it out at mrmagooschristmascarol.com.
Thanks for the tip, Daughter Number Three. The Mr. Magoo version is one of my strongest childhood television memories.
Darrell, I saw your comment after posting mine. It’s nice to see the Magoo version getting such attention.
Is that really so different than "John Huston's The Dead"? I daresay that Huston's version was closer to Joyce than Disney's version with its hideous CGI animation will be to Dickens. Should Dickens get the blame for what they do to the story?
I’m guessing that the trailer for The Dead must have mentioned James Joyce — to me, that would make for a significant difference from the Disney trailer and commercials. I have no problem thinking of a director’s name attached to what was someone else’s story; it’s the disappearance of “Dickens” that bugs me. But given what this film looks like, maybe it’s better that his name is missing after all.
I never saw a trailer for the film, but the opening credits (and poster--a google image search for John Huston the Dead will turn up a few copies) feature "John Huston's The Dead in with "James Joyce's Great Story" in smaller type. Certainly somewhere in the credits Walt Disney Inc. admits from whom they stole the story. Is that a diffence in degree or type? I don't know, but I suppose Disney does have a much larger history of such appropriation: Disney's Winnie the Pooh, Disney's Pinocchio . . .
Disney has already outraged Homer and all his bardic cousins in ancient Greece by its monstrosity called Hercules, the movie. I had heard somewhere that modern Greeks hated the film, but now I can't find any testimonials about that.
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