Althouse: Tim Burton's live-action "Dumbo."

June 14, 2018

Tim Burton's live-action "Dumbo."

Too "uncanny valley" or nicely magical?

29 comments:

mccullough said...: I give the trailer a thumbs up. Whoever cut it did a fine job. I’d take my kids to see it based on the trailer; 6/14/18, 9:57 AM
Stephen Taylor said...: No. What was wrong with the original Dumbo? I watched it again several years ago, along with my wife, for whom it was the first time. It was as good as ever. Why can't Hollywood come up with some original ideas, instead of endless remakes? What can Tim Burton, admittedly a very talented director, bring to Dumbo that Walt Disney didn't?; 6/14/18, 9:59 AM
FleetUSA said...: His last circus movie was great, so we'll go see this one too.; 6/14/18, 10:04 AM
rhhardin said...: It will never replace Andy's Gang. It had an elephant in some never-explained cutaway film. Nothing about the show made sense, in fact.; 6/14/18, 10:04 AM
rhhardin said...: "I was at this freak show one time and I saw these Siamese elephants. They was joined at the end of their trunks like that..."; 6/14/18, 10:15 AM
Wince said...: If it's any consolation, Rosanne's comment was probably in reference to Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes.

Burton cast his then wife, Helena Bonham Carter, in a flattering role as a very anthropomorphic, feminine and attractive character with a bob hairdo similar to Valerie Jarrett's.; 6/14/18, 10:16 AM
rhhardin said...: Warburon said that the elephant is the only animal with nothing ridiculous about it.; 6/14/18, 10:18 AM
tim in vermont said...: Wow has the Disney brand acquired a political stink. It's right up there with Miramax as a logo I can no longer keep watching after seeing it. Might be good, who knows, but I would bet good money that its going to be larded with lefty propaganda.; 6/14/18, 10:19 AM
tcrosse said...: They probably left out the crows.; 6/14/18, 10:32 AM
rehajm said...: Wow has the Disney brand acquired a political stink

I’m compelled not to watch either for the same reason. I used to trust and cherish the brand. Now for me it’s a mix of betrayl and sadness for what no longer exists.; 6/14/18, 10:50 AM
Rick.T. said...: tcrosse said...

"They probably left out the crows."

And the pink elephants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wR8FL_2gwI; 6/14/18, 10:50 AM
michaele said...: I am a sucker for all things Dumbo and will probably have welled up eyes during the whole movie. Some years back in my late 40's, I undertook getting started in a physically scary (for me and my middle aged bones) sport. It was riding and showing high spirited Arabian horses. I had an extra strap across the front of my saddle that I could loop a finger through to keep my hands steadier and help my balance. I called it my "Dumbo feather" and it meant the world to my feeling of confidence.; 6/14/18, 11:02 AM
George Grady said...: "They probably left out the crows."

And the pink elephants

And, seemingly, Timothy the mouse.; 6/14/18, 11:03 AM
Dave D said...: Remakes, attenuated by technology, have risen to ridiculous levels precisely because of Hollywood's lack of creativity, IMO. I went to see Solo last weekend and saw a preview for another Jungle Book live action remake. We JUST saw the last one barely a year ago. This one will be called "Mowgli" and looks much more violent with a story twist, but still the same rehashed story. Yawn.....; 6/14/18, 11:04 AM
RigelDog said...: Nicely magical. But I don't want to subject myself to Dumbo because it just punches me in the gut ever since I had children of my own.; 6/14/18, 11:37 AM
Kathryn51 said...: My childhood memory of Dumbo was very positive, but when we bought the VHS tape for our children, I wasn't prepared for "punch in the gut" as RigelDog describes it. Separated from Momma Elephant - just couldn't handle it and walked out of the room.

The trailer looked "magical" but assuming they remove the talking animals (Timothy the Mouse and others), I don't think it can maintain the magic of the original.

Flying Dumbo was one of our favorite rides at Disneyland - it had LONG lines because of the load/unload time. Wonder if it still exists.; 6/14/18, 12:06 PM
readering said...: I'm not a huge TB fan but since I am a huge Dumbo fan I'll bite. Trailer seems magical to me.; 6/14/18, 12:28 PM
Rusty said...: TB has a reputation of making even the most innocent thing slightly sinister. This will be great.
I am a huge Tim Burton fan.; 6/14/18, 1:21 PM
Quaestor said...: I have grave doubts about this remake. Firstly, remakes are rarely as good as the original film.¹ Secondly, this is a (mostly) live-action remake of an animated oeuvre. The original had dozens of speaking roles for animals which necessarily must be re-assigned to human actors or dropped entirely from the story. However, animation did much more for the animal characters than simply allow them to speak, animated animals can emote. Ten thousand feelings and fears, thoughts and trepidations, moods and motivations can be expressed by the bodies of animated animals in ways that no plausibly genuine denizen of the natural world² is able — including Man himself. Without animation, the emotional depth of the original Dumbo cannot be plumbed. I invite the reader to visit This Google image search page and consider the emotions evident on the face and postures of Dumbo and his co-stars.; 6/14/18, 1:34 PM
Quaestor said...: (continued)

I haven't much faith in Tim Burton, though he did a remarkable job with Edward Scissorhands and Batman, his work since Batman Returns had steadily declined in subtlety and imagination. Batman was simultaneously innovative and conventional — innovative in casting Michael Keaton in the lead role, who of all Hollywood personalities was among the least probable choices to don the cape and cowl. However, he brought to the character an element of frenetic madness that Keaton perfected in his career as a comedic actor. After all, who but a madman would be a Batman? Burton expertly used conventionality as well. The production design adroitly appropriated the "look and feel" of the Golden Age of DC. Gotham City exists in a world of no exact timeframe. The technology, costumes, architecture, and color palette suggest America of the Thirties and Forties, however, the gadgets and gewgaws of the Batcave, the Batmobile, and especially the Batplane speak eloquently of the dawning Information Age. In short, Burton's Gotham City was the comic book metropolis realized in three dimensions. Burton's ultimate obeisance to convention was Jack Nicholson as The Joker. The archetypical madman of film as the archetypical psychopath of comicdom — a stroke of genius. Unfortunately for Burton and the whole Batman film franchise, he abandoned the realized comic book idiom for something much more beholden to German Expressionism — a totally inappropriate starting point that yielded a financial and artistic disappointment, Michele Pfeiffer notwithstanding. From that point on Burton has directed one turkey after another, several of them being remakes, (Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) or adaptions (Mars Attacks!, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows) the cumulative craptasticness isn't entirely the doing of Johnny Depp. I fear for Dumbo, but the Disney management is in a kamikaze mood lately. They don't give a shit about Walt's legacy. Evidently, Bob Iger is somehow, somewhere shorting Disney stock.

¹The rule that the remake pales beside the original isn't hard and fast. Everyone agrees that The Maltese Falcon of 1941 is a masterpiece, but few realize it was a remake.

²Dumbo was playing in theaters across America when Japan attacked the fleet anchorage of Pearl Harbor. Consequently, the film became a cultural touchstone to millions of young men and women who dedicated their lives to total war against America's enemies. The image of the ungainly flying elephant appeared on thousands of posters, tanks, ships, and warplanes. Dumbo became a symbol of the American fighting man, a peaceable civilian transformed into a relentless weapon. The name "Dumbo" itself became a synonym for something familiar and stereotyped transformed into something remarkable and unexpected. One example was an air-sea rescue system which involved a using a modified four-engine bomber to airdrop a motorized lifeboat equipped with survival gear to castaway aircrew and sailors.; 6/14/18, 1:34 PM
Bilwick said...: I suppose that instead of the happy, minstrel-show black crows of the original, they'll have angry, gangsta-rap crows. "Sheet, Dumbo, if some white mofo killed my mama, I'd bust a cap in his ass!"; 6/14/18, 2:21 PM
Bilwick said...: Quaestor wrote: "Dumbo was playing in theaters across America when Japan attacked the fleet anchorage of Pearl Harbor." I believe that in Spielberg's "1941" there's a scene in which General Stilwell takes a break from getting the West Coast ready for war by going to a movie theater and watching DUMBO.

By the way, Q., how do you get italics into your comment? I'm never able to do that here. I like italics for book and movie titles better than block letters, and think italics are more proper for book and movie titles.; 6/14/18, 2:25 PM
Quaestor said...: This is very difficult to explain here because Blogger can't accept certain character strings outside their HTML context (those who fear AI should take note of this inherent stupidity of computers and IT) Prefix the string you want to be italicised with < i > and then add < /i > as a suffix to turn off the effect. You can also use < b > and < /b > to bold the font. u and /u should be avail to underline, but Blogger enabled only a minuscule subset of the available HTLM tags.

NB In both examples I've added spaces after the "is less than" symbol and the letter character (i and b) and before the "is greater than" symbol.; 6/14/18, 2:49 PM
Bilwick said...: Thanks, Q.; 6/14/18, 3:17 PM
RigelDog said...: "when we bought the VHS tape for our children, I wasn't prepared for "punch in the gut" as RigelDog describes it. Separated from Momma Elephant - just couldn't handle it and walked out of the room." Glad to hear I'm not the only mom who is undone by Dumbo. In my case, it happened to be a Disney story/movie that I had never really known before showing it to my kids. I watched this trailer and, yep---still really hurts.; 6/14/18, 3:56 PM
MartyB said...: "They probably left out...the pink elephants"

There is a millisecond of a surreal "pink elephant" at 1:07 of the trailer.

Wondering what and how they'll have the character partake of for this scene.; 6/14/18, 4:06 PM
Josephbleau said...: The crows, “Why he fly jes like a eagle!” A true moment of American culture.; 6/14/18, 5:39 PM
Be said...: The original movie was Difficult. How did your nascent sociopathic mind interpret it.; 6/14/18, 7:30 PM
Inga...Allie Oop said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/15/18, 5:50 PM