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Peter Pan is a film released on December 25, 2003, by Universal Pictures. P. J. Hogan directed a screenplay he had co-written with Michael Goldenberg which was based on the classic children's play and novel by J. M. Barrie. Jason Isaacs played the role of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling, while Jeremy Sumpter played the title role, Rachel Hurd-Wood portrayed Wendy Darling, and Ludivine Sagnier played Tinkerbell. Noted actress Lynn Redgrave played a supporting role as Aunt Millicent, a new character specifically created for the film.
Storyline
"All children grow up... except one."
Those words from the novelization of Barrie's play (though differently ordered) begin the 2003 film adaptation of Peter Pan.
Peter Pan returns several times to his birthplace, London, before returning to Neverland. Eventually he will bring several children, who become known as the Lost Boys, back to Neverland with him. These boys consider Peter a close friend and regard him as a foster father.
During one of his trips, Peter loses his shadow in Wendy's house, and when he comes back to retrieve it he brings Tinkerbell, a fairy, with him. What Peter doesn't realize is that he has inadvertently sparked a love triangle involving himself, Wendy, and Tinkerbell: Although Tinkerbell's romantic feelings for him is only a childish crush., but he remains completely oblivious.
This romantic aspect of the story was adapted from the original play. J. M. Barrie may have intended the same in the original novel, though the tone here is more mature.
Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy was the original title of the novelization of Barrie's play. The movie begins in the same manner as this short 200-page novel, explaining that Peter was the only child who would never grow up.
The original play partially explains the background circumstances of Mr. and Mrs. Darling, Wendy's parents, and how they first met. It also depicts the family having such financial difficulties that they worry about keeping Wendy because "she was another mouth to feed." Mr. Darling was more concerned than his wife; while he counted every penny and searched for a way out of their economic woes, Mrs. Darling just wanted to resolve the situation. These background details are absent from the movie.
In both the original play and the novel, Peter Pan invites Wendy Darling to Neverland so she can act as a surrogate mother to his gang of Lost Boys. When Wendy asks Peter to bring her brothers John and Michael, who are asleep, he agrees and takes all three of them. It is implied in the play that Wendy is attempting to escape the financial tension of her household. The movie omits this and instead focuses more attention on Wendy's developing crush on Peter, also found in Barrie's original play. In Neverland, the characters have several different adventures. At one point the fairy Tinkerbell nearly dies, and Peter finally has a climactic confrontation with his nemesis, Captain Hook of the pirate ship The Jolly Roger, in which Smee jumps off the ship. In the end, Wendy decides that she belongs back in her London home and returns along with all the Lost Boys.
Wendy grows older in London while Peter remains ageless in Neverland. Though he promised to visit her again before they made their last farewells, in the 2003 film he never returns to London. In the novelization of the play, however, he returns once or twice for Wendy to do his spring cleaning. He then returns one more time when Wendy has become a mother, and takes her daughter Jane back to Neverland as his new mother for the time being. Eventually Peter also takes Jane's daughter Margaret (when Jane becomes a mother) to be his mother for the time. J.M Barrie finishes his novel by saying that every new daughter of the last mother will be Peter's new mother in turn, saying the cycle will go on as long as children are happy, innocent and heartless.
Reaction
The movie was relatively popular with critics, but earned only $48.4 million at the box office in the United States and another $73 million outside of the U.S., compared with the film's $100-million budget. It faced competition from the highly-anticipated The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, released the week before. On his website, critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4.
Audiences familiar with only the 1953 Disney animated film, and no other version, may have been disarmed to find the romantic angle of the story so pronounced in this latest film incarnation; although its amorous content consists of little more than a chaste kiss, reviewers at the time made wide mention of the film's romantic tone. The film also contains a scene not in the play in which Peter, still not having formally met Wendy, flies into her house and hovers in flight over her bed, curiously gazing at her; Wendy awakens, and the startled Peter flies away quickly through the open window. Wendy is left believing that she dreamed the incident. The next day, she makes a drawing in school of Peter hovering over her, and the horrified schoolteacher mistakenly assumes it to have a darker Freudian meaning. The incident is played in the film as innocent comedy whose supposed double-entendre goes right over the heads of younger viewers, but apparently some audiences were offended by its inclusion. Another scene not present in the book — and the biggest change from the novel to the screen — was the slightly modified ending involving the legendary duel between Hook and Pan on the pirate ship, whose alteration may have found disappointment among purists. The scene has Hook grab Tinkerbell to thereafter be made able to fly, eventually fighting Peter with his newfound ability. Another minor surprise was that despite the film's mature and bittersweet tone, they did not keep the book's ending where Peter forgets about Wendy only to return years later, when she is a grown-up woman. This ending was filmed and is alluded to during the final battle between Hook and Peter, but was not included in the final cut. The deleted ending is featured as an extra in most releases on the DVD.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan_%282003_film%29
