• aeronmelon@lemmy.world
    39·
    11 months ago

    I’m not laughing.

    I’m taking this in complete seriousness.

    Charles Dickens wrote The Christmas Carol with Muppets in mind.

    You cannot persuade me to believe otherwise.

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
    35·
    11 months ago

    I mean, he might have liked it, it’s not a bad movie and it’s not a terrible adaptation of the story either. Probably would have to first explain the context of what the muppets are and a bit about the various characters to really get some of it though

    • fpslem@lemmy.world
      26·
      11 months ago

      Puppets have been used in comedy and cultural commentary since Punch & Judy and before. Dickens would have dug it.

    • palordrolap@kbin.social
      16·
      11 months ago

      J. Draper, London historian and, from what I gather, popular TikToker and YouTuber, has an interesting hour-long video comparing the Muppet version to the original as well as the various things that wouldn’t necessarily be covered in the original, like costumes and how London looked. It’s not quite a watch-along, but it does cover things in movie order.

      Watch here

      If you’re of short attention span (not judging, I’m in the same boat), put in on in the background while doing something else.

      • proudblond@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        11 months ago

        I just watched this last night! Her takeaway is that is pretty good overall. Most of the costuming is pretty spot-on, even the muppets’, and she makes concessions for some of the things that aren’t true to the book since it’s ostensibly a kids movie and there is stuff that just wouldn’t make sense. A lot of the script is pulled directly from the book. Her big critique is about Scrooge’s childhood but she even finds a possible reason they decided to change that too. It’s really quite interesting! Also, as an American, I find it absolutely hilarious that she can’t comprehend that Americans don’t know what a Christmas pudding is. To us, pudding means something completely different!

        • palordrolap@kbin.social
          5·
          11 months ago

          She doesn’t point out why the extra Marley might have been given the name Robert [1] (or maybe I missed a subtle raised eyebrow somewhere), nor did she show the shop front entitled Micklewhite’s [2], but I don’t suppose those fun facts are particularly relevant to a comparison / review.

          [1] Bob Marley. Geddit? Funny joke is funny.

          [2] Michael Caine’s birth name was Maurice Micklewhite. He only made the legal change to his stage name fairly recently, well after the Muppet Christmas Carol even, because he found that people were confused and made suspicious by his documents not having “his name” on them when he was travelling.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        “You’ve been to the theater, now you can have the theater in your living room.”

        Done.

        Shakespeare predates Dickens by a couple centuries, and the ancient Greeks predate him by a couple millenia.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 months ago

      It’s the only adaptation that has Dickens himself portrayed. Admittedly I don’t think Gonzo is an accurate depiction, other than the clothes, but it did allow them to put far more of the actual text of the book into the movie than any other adaptation, because they had a narrator.

  • Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca
    10·
    11 months ago

    But does he prefer the “original” or “extended” versions?

    (Yes, I know the extended was released before they cut The Sad Song out and pretended it never happened)