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Okay, so, Peter & Wendy was… bad.
First let’s enumerate its mere cinematic failings.
- Cinematography was dark and sludgy and colorless
- Shot composition was serviceable at best
- Soundtrack un-memorable outside of sea shanties
- Story and pacing extremely rushed
- Felt like you were expected to already know the story
- Lame corporate fake girlboss energy, like a lisa simpson punchline
- Characters were underdeveloped
- No time to breath between scenes
- Sets were uninspired and uninteresting, same for costumes
- Typical live-action disney remake self-aware irony
Things from the Peter Pan story the movie leaves out or changes
(mostly going to list things from the beginning since it swiftly goes off the rails)
- Mother and Father Darling aren’t going to a party and don’t even leave the house
- Nana is not the children’s nursemaid
- Michael plays Hook and John plays Peter despite a point in the earlier story being “they make the baby play Hook’.
- Tinkerbell and Wendy never quarrel
- Tinkerbell is never allowed to display a negative emotion
- Tinkerbell never gets shut in a drawer or jug.
- Peter has come to take Wendy away instead of to get his shadow.
- Wendy does not wake up to find Peter crying to ask “boy why are you crying”. This line never happens but is ironically referenced several times later on.
- Peter was apparently ‘waiting for Wendy to say she didn’t want to grow up’.
- Wendy’s mother is the one who Peter listens to telling stories, not Wendy.
- The Lost Boys don’t shoot Wendy out of the sky.
- Wendy is never referred to as the Wendy-Bird.
- Wendy never becomes the Lost Boys’ mother.
- Peter and Tiger Lily are never at war and never make peace.
- Hook never poisons Peter.
- Tinkerbell never sacrifices herself for Peter.
- Fairies coming from children’s laughter never comes up at all.
- “I don’t believe in fairies” never comes up.
- We never see any fairies besides Tinkerbell.
- The sirens/mermaids appear visually for a few seconds but never play a role.
- The Darlings spend maybe a day in Neverland not weeks or months.
And of course the entire crux of the plot now revolves around Peter and Hook having been friends and Peter having betrayed Hook, and they make up and become friends again at the end.
So basically it was a very rushed, unpleasant film that had very few elements from the original story.
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