Movie Log: Peter Pan (2003)

This week, for "Boys' Movie Saturday" (in which my two sons and I try to avoid having a completely aimless day -- while my wife is at work -- by at least watching a movie we haven't seen before, or at least not seen at home), I finally got the boys to watch the recent live-action Peter Pan, which Thing 1 had seen with the wife and I in the theater when it came out. (I think it was a bit much for him at the time, since he was mildly against seeing it again, up until the point I turned it on this afternoon.)

I don't have much to say about it; I think this is one of the most nearly perfect translations of a work from another form into film. (And, yes, the filmmakers did make some large changes, such as eliminating the Never Bird and giving Hook an unexpectedly more active role in the big end fight scene. But all of those changes work exceptionally well; they make this Peter Pan both a movie rather than a filmed version of a stage play and a modern version of the story rather than a deliberately retro one.) Just casting Peter as a boy -- as he always should be -- is a major step.

But, sometime before I die, I hope cloning or other bio-technology has reached such a state that Peter can finally be done correctly. Peter Pan should be a much younger boy than he appears in this movie (where he's on the edge of puberty -- presumably frozen there); he's described in the novel as still having all of his milk teeth and as being smaller than the other Lost Boys. But, obviously, there's no chance of getting the right performance out of a boy that young. So, what I hope to see in about 2050 is a good adult actor in the body of about a five-year-old as Pan -- it would also be particularly interesting if the same actor (in another body) doubled Hook as well...