"Hey what are the minimum requirements for Peter Pan as a hero for our Peter Pan movie?"
"Brave, a skilled swordsman, he flies-"
"Oops, we already fucked it up"
Pan is the prequel that nobody asked for, telling the story of how Peter Pan learned to be Peter Pan, with the help of his bestest bro and father figure Captain James Hook. The movie opens by saying that the best of friends start out as enemies and the worst of enemies start as friends, and other such platitudes to justify the fact that they forgot to give Hook a sudden but inevitable betrayal because they were banking on a making another prequel. Plans that were waylaid by this movie making somewhere between "dick" and "Fuck all" at the box office and so we get Bestest Bro Hook with no payoff as to the fact that he's Hook.
The movie opens with Peter Pan being abandoned by his mom at an orphanage where several years later, during WW2, wacky hijinks occur for way too god damn long before the nuns have him and the other children abducted by Pirates from Neverland. Finally, the movie can actually begin after deliberately wasting our time for 15 minutes. Peter is abducted and his friend Nibs is left behind, where he will be absolutely forgotten about until the end of the film. Sorry Nibs, there's only room for one kid that can't fucking fly and that's going to be Peter Pan.
It's at this point that the RAF engages the pirate ship while reporting that they've spotted Luftwaffe fighters and fucking what?! I had to rewatch the scene several times because they announce that the Luftwaffe is inbound but then you realize that the fighters are all British and so they're mistaking this giant age of sail pirate ship for ze Germans and nobody goes "Look at that giant fucking ship, that's kind of fucking weird". Nope, its just mistaken for a Messerschmidt, they have sails and a foredeck right?
A possible explanation.
They escape the RAF by hitting the SPACE button and launching the ship vertically into outer space, where Peter briefly floats off into space and tosses the basketball sized planet Saturn out of orbit and wow that's a sentence I just wrote. The movie confuses "weird" with "wondrous" and you better get used to it, because we're heading into Neverland where the rest of the movie takes place and its supposed to be very wondrous indeed.
For Example: As they show up in Neverland and are greeted by Blackbeard, everyone begins singing Smells Like Teen Spirit. I don't mind the anachronism, a lot of people did because of its pure randomness, but like, ok? Are we doing a jukebox musical now? No, it's only going to be the two songs? Alright, do the two times they do this at least have well chosen songs? No? Alright, just checking because this is the high point of the movie.
So Neverland is ruled by Blackbeard who as far as he's aware has killed all the pixies and fairies and magical whatnots and is having his army of child laborers dig for Pixum, a sort of concentrated form of Pixie dust, which he requires to stay young because ehhhhh. Peter gets in a fight after he finds some Pixum and gets thrown off the pirate ship to Blitzkrieg Bop, but luckily he can fly! Getting him to do that again will be the plot of the entire god damn movie.
Seriously, he doesn't fly again until the ending. You had one job in your Peter Pan movie and that was a Peter Pan that can fly.
After his gear collapses on the landing, he gets told there's a prophecy that he'll kill Blackbeard but luckily he's a bit too much of a puss to be seen as a threat and gets locked up, where he's rescued by Hook and Smee. Hook isn't a pirate currently, he's just a weird Han Solo like Cowboy who dispenses references to Peter Pan so heavily the movie basically elbows you in the ribs. This is the prequel equivalent of dad jokes.
They break him out and seek to escape Neverland but the movie begins to skip like a broken record:
10: They bumble into a plot thread
20: Danger or Blackbeard finds them
30: Peter needs to fly
40: Peter doesn't fly because he's fucking Shinji apparently
50: Peter finds some alternative to just fucking flying already
60: A dad joke about Peter Pan is made.
70: GO TO 10
"Just fuck my shit up" - Leia
Oh yeah, they pick up Tiger Lily for the purposes of being the only trained fighter on the team and expositing about shit but she's a flat, oddly white character with no arc and could easily be replaced with stock footage of Princess Leia. Peter Pan's arc is that he needs to fly, because he is The Pan but instead whines and navel gazes about how he's not all that brave and he can't fly as you check your watch and wish Peter Pan wasn't in this Peter Pan movie.
Hook is interesting but he isn't Hook, he's just the writers putting Han Solo in the movie, right down to him returning with the Millenium Falcon cum Pirate Ship. He's the comic relief of the movie and only character with a wide range of emotions and characterization but he's more of a friendly rogue than the Hook we know. This isn't helped by the movie chickening out and ending with him still the Hero and dating Princess Tiger Leia. In fact, Blackbeard is just straight up the traditional Hook, right down to having his own Smee, only slightly more Metal than the original incarnation. It feels like they wrote the movie straight up at first and then edited some side character into being Hook instead. If Hook isn't going to be Hook, then what is the point of him even being Hook when we have another that we prepared earlier right here?
The movie has a lot going for it but its repetitive nature, lame main character (JUST FLY ALREADY) and scattershot implementation ruins it. Blackbeard flying through clouds of Pixies with flamethrowers torching everything is fucking metal as fuck and the background stuff is better than the actual foreground elements that are given focus. I mean, holy shit, Blackbeard fought the Elves to an apocalyptic end. You had Elves vs Sailpunk Pirates and you focus on a flightless Peter Pan?! There was a salvageable movie in this, just take Peter Pan out of it! Or perhaps go full Jukebox Musical while telling a straight up Peter Pan story or forget the Pan, I'll make my own Jukebox Musical Sky Pirates movie with Hookers and Blackjack.
[Evil Laugh Intensifies]
You know what this movie is, when I sit down and think about it? It's just Hook, only a prequel instead of a sequel and without anything that made Hook work. Peter Pan having grown up and being forced to retake the banner of Pan in order to save his kids is a way better basis for a non traditional Peter Pan movie than "Its a Prequel and he's friends with Hook!". That movie has spirit and heart and understood the source material while putting their own twist on things. Peter had become a pirate, Hook is a broken shell because his battles with Peter defined him, Rufio is a scared kid living in the shadow of The Pan, and the movie balances never growing up and becoming an adult with responsibilities.
It's been a quarter of a century and I still love Hook so I was kind of interested in seeing this movie but its got nothing going for it and what a shame that is.
They introduce him using one to sharpen a mattock before they give us his name and then its generally forgotten about as far as I can remember?
We're supposed to be like "OH MAN, ITS HOOK" but you're like "Ugh, we get it" instead.
He could have used the hook more but the movie is so forgettable I'm just like "Maybe?!" but I'm willing to say he doesn't use it again and its just a stupid little thing he has for no reason.
They introduce him using one to sharpen a mattock before they give us his name and then its generally forgotten about as far as I can remember?
We're supposed to be like "OH MAN, ITS HOOK" but you're like "Ugh, we get it" instead.
He could have used the hook more but the movie is so forgettable I'm just like "Maybe?!" but I'm willing to say he doesn't use it again and its just a stupid little thing he has for no reason.
There's no pay off to him being Hook at all, I was waiting for it to drop but no, they really don't do anything except make references to Peter Pan with it.
I went into this movie well aware that it had been near universally panned (haha see what I did there?) but nevertheless hoping that it would be a fun movie at least. I was disappointed. This movie has all kinds of elements that should make a Pan prequel fun. It's got Peter, it's got Hook, it has flying ships, swashbuckling, sky pirates, fantastic creatures, flamethrowers, and fairies. It draws you in with the idea of a friendship which will inevitably end in antipathy and antagonism, the idea of a fallen hero who will end up trying to destroy what he once loved. It squanders all of these things.
Peter spends the overwhelming majority of the movie walking not flying, though you'll wonder how he pulls that off given that his spine is missing. The child warrior of the book is nowhere to be seen. His bravery and boldness are entirely absent, and not once does he ever put to use the fighting skills he would later use to kill pirates. He lets his allies do all the fighting for him, and not in a 'physically unintimidating but formidable strategist' sort of way either. No, he's just a regular kid, and other than finally figuring out how to fly at the end (about five forevers too late for me to give half of a fuck), he never displays anything exceptional, there is no sign that he will ever become the pirate killing badass that Peter Pan is supposed to be.
Hook is, as Athene mentioned already, basically just Han Solo. And honestly I feel like that could have worked. He was a fun character, but every scene he's in is constantly prodding you, reminding you that James Hook will become Captain James Hook, and will be Peter's nemesis. That would have been alright, only there was never any payoff. You're left waiting as the movie ends, never seeing that sudden yet inevitable betrayal that you know must happen. He's shown as a lovable rogue who might be a little selfish, but at the end of the day will do the right thing. Why is he going to become the pirate terror of Neverland? It's never addressed, the reasons are never even hinted at, all we're left with is the bait for an inevitable sequel that as it turns out wasn't so inevitable.
I was going to say the biggest problem with this movie was its inevitable-sequelitis, but the mischaracterization and the incredible mind crushing dullness of the movie might well be just as bad. But the the sequel hooks that will never pay off might be what irritates me most. Hook never goes evil or becomes a pirate, Peter never becomes a warrior, never even starts down the path of becoming a warrior, Tinkerbell apparently makes a brief appearance but to be honest I was so bored I didn't even notice, Tiger Lily is romancing Hook instead of his sworn enemy. The Lost Boys appear at the end of the film, but they're just a bunch of runaways, not the army of child warriors Peter leads in the book. Presumably all of this was going to be resolved in a sequel and the pay offs would come at a later date, but as it is, just looking at the story I feel like I watched half a movie. I don't have a problem with sequel hooks on principle, if the movie is good, leaving a single loose thread at the end can be a nice little touch, at the very least even if no sequel gets made it gives you the feeling that the adventure isn't over. But this movie doesn't have an ending, it just has point where it unceremoniously stops. The only issues that are resolved are Blackbeard and Peter's mother. Everything else is a loose end, or rather, a massive handful of loose threads leading into a poorly constructed rapidly unraveling waste of time someone felt overconfident enough to call a movie.
Pan has a whole bunch of elements that in the hands of a good director and good screenwriter could have made for an incredible movie, and quite honestly whatever else it is, it's very pretty. As it is, the elements of this movie that should be good just leave you feeling confused, unsatisfied, and maybe a little pained. Watching Pan is like ordering a chocolate cake, biting into it, and realizing that under that pretty layer of icing is just dense charcoal. Don't watch Pan, it's not entertainingly bad, it's just bad.
For Example: As they show up in Neverland and are greeted by Blackbeard, everyone begins singing Smells Like Teen Spirit. I don't mind the anachronism, a lot of people did because of its pure randomness, but like, ok? Are we doing a jukebox musical now? No, it's only going to be the two songs? Alright, do the two times they do this at least have well chosen songs? No? Alright, just checking because this is the high point of the movie.
Just so everyone can see the glory that is this scene for themselves:
I don't know what it is about this scene that makes it... not really bad, but flat when it's clearly supposed to be awesome, which makes it even sadder. Athene's comment about substituting wonderous for weird really crystallized what's wrong in this scene for me, because it's exactly what's going on. You're supposed to be impressed by the big flying ship and the visuals and goddamn that's The Big Bad but instead I'm like
why is smells like teen spirit in here
i mean i like a good jukebox musical like the rest of people but it seems really random for a Peter Pan movie and also like, smells like teen spirit? why that song
okay so if this is implying pirate guy [whom I thought was Cpt. Hook until I read Moira's review ] has gone to the 90's why doesn't he have like, any other indication of that? im not asking for a plasma rifle here just some cues
I don't know how you fix this scene. The best I can think of is you introduce the ship and Blackbeard more conventionally, maybe he's muttering the lyrics to Teen Spirit under his breath. THEN he leaps onto the metal railing and belts it out and everyone joins in, so we can get the majesty followed by the weird. Also, maybe not choose Smells Like Teen Spirit.
As it is, it feels really fanfiction-ty. Like the parts out of My Immortal where the main characters sing along with Gerard Way. Seriously:
PETER MAN: A FANFIC said:
The pirate captain hooked his black sword into the black scabbard on his black armor. His beard and hair were black. Everything about him was black except his skin, which was white, and his eyes, which were blue. Which was fitting, because his name was Blackbeard, Pirate King. He heard the children below singing his favorite song, which he'd heard once on a trip through time and realized after a single listen was the greatest thing ever. The artist had been taken too soon. "Hello, hello, how low," he growled, as he strode out onto the ship. Everyone cowered in fear and awe as he continued to stride across, still muttering, "and we're stupid, and contagious." He almost wanted to break out into air guitar. But he was too cool for that.
I liked the singing scene. It was appropriately eerie. It worked well with the flamethrowers vs pixies as well. The problem was that the rest of the film has a completely different tone.
That scene on it's own is pretty great.
It's not wondrous, but I'm fine with Neverland being inherently weird, too. Wondrous and Weird aren't opposites, after all.
But if it clashes with the rest of the movie (I haven't actually seen it), then yeah, that's totally not good.
Part of the film wanted to be this weird anachronistic 2000AD by way of Del Toro piece. The rest wanted to be a generic coming of age story for the boy with no spine.
I actually think that if they made the former the focus of the film it would have worked. It would have been weird as all get out, but you have to double down on the weird to make it function.
So awkward question time: Does anyone thing that this whole thing is something supportable.
Like say "I enjoy your work and would like to support further endeavors". Not like, say "PAY ME OR NO MORE SCRUBS" but like, capable of attaching a tip jar to. >.>
So awkward question time: Does anyone thing that this whole thing is something supportable.
Like say "I enjoy your work and would like to support further endeavors". Not like, say "PAY ME OR NO MORE SCRUBS" but like, capable of attaching a tip jar to. >.>
Things like this is exactly what Patreon and other such services are for (or just a PayPal tip jar).
So sure, go ahead, make one such thing, don't you dare be ashamed for it, you're providing an entertainment service here.
So awkward question time: Does anyone thing that this whole thing is something supportable.
Like say "I enjoy your work and would like to support further endeavors". Not like, say "PAY ME OR NO MORE SCRUBS" but like, capable of attaching a tip jar to. >.>
Alright so until I get something more dedicated for this whole thing going, I'll just use my dead name PayPal (Since I haven't had the money to get it officially changed ) account if anyone would like to support the Project.
Support not required to keep this going but would be appreciated since we're between jobs and the wolves are always at the door but if you wish to donate anything, please just contribute what you think the work is worth.
Definitely going to donate when I get my first paycheck in a few days and I'd totally be down for some kind of monthly contribution via Patreon or something!