Peter Pan Research Paper

In 1953, the studio was nervous about releasing their adaptation Peter Pan two years after their adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland had been met with great criticism from British film and literary critics who accused Disney of “Americanizing” the story and less than stellar box-office results. However, Peter Pan became an immediate success, combining the vivid world of Technicolor Neverland with a fantastical story of swash-buckling pirates and flying children to create a film that post-war audiences loved and characters that could be used off-screen to create and sell merchandise like never before. (Picture 1) Walt Disney knew he wanted to adapt J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan into an animated film after seeing a production of the play in 1913 . He intended for it to be his second film, after Snow White,

However when Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 and Disney joined the war effort by producing propaganda films their current projects, including Peter Pan had to be put on hold. When the war ended in 1945, Disney began to rerelease their old films in order to make enough money to begin work on new features again. Finally in 1947 real work began on Peter Pan. When Disney made their film adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan they had to make some serious decisions about the story itself, even rewriting portions of it to appeal to post-war audiences. Set in London in the early 20th century, Peter Pan tells the story of Wendy Darling, a girl on the verge of adulthood, literalized by her father’s decree that this night will be her “last night in the nursery”, and her brothers John and Michael as they are visited by Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up, and his pixie friend, Tinker Bell. With a little help from faith, trust, and pixie dust, the children, eager to escape the world of growing up, follow the mysterious Peter Pan through the skies above London and to the second star on the right, Never Land. There they meet