Stage version of Disney's "Peter Pan"- Page 3

[Unknown User]

Posted: 7/22/11 at 3:51am

Romgitsean, I share your love for Return to Oz (though maybe not quite to your extent) and your aise good points. But I really have to disagree with it capturing the spirit of the Baum books. Yes they become arguably more and more fantasy adventure stories, but I don't think the dark tone of Return reflects the books *whatsoever*. Yes the concept of Princess Langidwire IS creepy, but the way she's described, and Dorothy's reaction isn't remotely on the level it's shown in the movie with Mombi. Baum would have NEVER gone into the whole Kansas insane asylum stuff. The Nome King is completely different in the movie. The Wheelies are much more terrifying, etc. I guess others might agree with you, but...

On the other hand, it's true Wonderful Wizard is a lot more scary than the MGM musical, but even there it doesn't go to Return to Oz levels.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/22/11 at 6:55am

^ I agree.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 7/22/11 at 11:07pm

I think this would be a horrible mistake. For one, as it exists now, there really isn't much of a score to it. All the songs are quite dumb.

[mikey2573]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 10:07am

Nice concise history of James Barrie. One small thing, his wife Mary Ansell had nothing to do with his leaving the rights to Peter Pan to GOSH. They divorced in 1909 and GOSH was awarded the rights to PETER PAN in 1929.
For those who are interested, there is a virtual James Barrie/Peter Pan museum at this website:

http://www.jmbarrie.co.uk/

It is VERY comprehensive and includes Barrie's first draft of PETER PAN (called ANON: A PLAY) where Tinker Bell was called Tippy I think. It also included tons of photos and scans of letters that Barrie wrote (though his handwriting was pretty much illegible).
Also, Yale University has a great deal of Barrie stuff that you can look at --including the only surviving copy of THE BOY CASTAWAYS, the photo book that Barrie made of his adventures with the Llewelyn Davies boys while vacationing at Black Lake Cottage. When I was there they would not let me see the book as the entire thing was scanned and is available at their website. Oddly they DID let me look at several boxes that held tiny notebooks in which Barrie wrote down notes and ideas for stories. His notoriously bad handwriting made these very hard to read. Still holding those tiny notebooks filled with his notes was quite exciting. Knowing that Barrie had held and written in them as he walked around London....

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 10:43am

I seem to remember Tinker Bell was first called Tippytoe.