StandingWater Creations

Re-imagining stories is something that happens all of the time. You know, re-imagine the story. Take Alice in Wonderland. People have been retelling that story for more years than you can count. Well, more years since it was published, than you can count. And that is the purpose behind a good story. It didn't originate with the author that made it famous and it won't die once that author, and his memory, disappear. The story will continue to live in some other form and through some other author.

Neil Gaimon is someone who has taken the "Alice in Wonderland" mythos as adapted into various books and stories he's written. He's done a wonderful job. In most cases you would look at the main character and recognize him or her as Alice but realize that the entire mythos you may remember from Lewis Carol's work is not present in Neil Gaimon's. The reason is that he has taken Alice, adapter her and the situation, created a nonsensical world where you can visit someone like the Mad Hatter or the Doormouse, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. That's the point in reimagining something. Taking what was and making it your own. If all you are ever going to do is take an old story and replace one character, change ethnicity or gender, and try to repackage it as new you, as a person or corporation, are doing a large disservice to the purchasing public and packing yourself for failure.

Several years ago I read "The Writers Journey," by Christopher Vogler. He'd taken a lot of the principles that were introduced by Joseph Campbell through his books on mythology and adapted it to modern storytelling. The Writers Journey further mainstreams Campbell's ideas and gives an outline for classic stories. What makes this a part of what I am talking about, today, is that he wrote the initial drafts of this book for the Disney corporation who had discovered a whole series of movie flops and wanted to find a way to turn their misfortune around. They contracted Vogler to come in, look at classic storytelling and then to tell the corporation how to write stories. The outcome is a whole series of cookie-cutter stories that are produced by Disney and do not have the financial success the company is hoping for or wants.

In essence, Disney is losing its place within the movie and storytelling market because they are following a cookie cutter pattern and expecting that every cookie will turn out as successful as "Beauty and the Beast", "The Little Mermaid", "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", and "The Lion King". In truth, Disney's greatest achievements aren't even Disney's achievements, these days. They belong to a business partner that was founded by a person who thinks out of the box - Steve Jobs, Pixar. Pixar has not fallen so far as to forget that, when telling stories, it is important to tell a story; not apply a bunch of pieces together for a classical story and hope that it works.

But the biggest kid on the block is the one who runs the block and Disney is still the biggest kid on the block. Other companies have tried to topple a piece of their animation markets, and there are companies whose sole purpose it is to create family friendly movies. Therefore, it becomes easier and easier to create a movie that is dynamically better than what Disney is producing, and more acceptable to the public at large, because, as a corporation, you allow your writers to writer, your directors to direct, and your actors to act. There are other levels associated with this, but the real outcome is that everyone out there seems to realize that the art of storytelling isn't in rewriting classic tales by changing one or two characters or their identities or by writing to a specific model or pattern.

Granted, there are people who make lots of money from writing the same story over and over and over again. Look at many children's books, sub 12 years old, and you will see the same story told again and again. You can make money by changing characters but keeping settings; however, I'd imagine that, like many authors, you make enough to live on and very little more. In other words, it's not profitable to write the same story over and over again, to use the exact same idea and change one or two characters, or to 'adapt' an old story that has a very recognizable cast and call it updated.

Admittedly, I can see why a lot of people are beginning to move away from Disney. Many of their new productions are offensive in the sense that the company is trying to make everything multicultural and non-offensive. Make it safe. That's Disney's motto. Forget the Magic Kingdom, forget real cinematic classics, today, here, now, make it safe. Make it appeal to the widest margin of people and those with money will come. If you are consistent enough the money will grow, right? Because people want a consistent product - not necessarily an artistic or good product.

I wonder if Disney is watching the Harry Potter franchise and wondering what they could do to change something they currently own to reflect J.K. Rowling's and Warner Brother's success? They purchased the rights to "The Chronicles of Narnia," from the C.S. Lewis estate and have the first book, "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," as a movie. Their intention is to cut into the Harry Potter franchise. It's an obvious attempt. Seven books to Potter, seven books to Narnia. The success should come.

There are fundamental differences between Potter and Narnia though. Potter is fantasy; Narnia is religious. You can't get around the religious undertones of the Narnia books regardless of the classics status. Whereas Potter is a fantasy story about a boy growing up. We aren't looking for a Christ character, you're not trying to identify yourself with God, you don't root for the ultimate destruction of all evil. In truth, the purity of Potter is that you want Harry, Ron, Hermione and all of the other children to grow up. Sure, destroy Voldemort, but first grow up. Fall in love. Go to school. Make mistakes. But grow up.

Good storytelling transcends a lot of things. A story about a blind black boy that is told well will be recognizable to everyone as an excellent story. Race and gender don't matter. That's why Calpurnia will forever be a great literary character. People will want to read about it. There's a transcendence of culture and gender when you create something new that speaks to someone because they can relate to it. You can relate to a lot of aspects of Harry Potter. Disney hasn't figured that out. Just because you change the gender or change the ethnicity of a character does not make the show more recognizable or identifiable to the ethnicities or genders you are trying to appeal to.

If you are going to rewrite Winnie the Pooh, rewrite Winnie the Pooh. Don't try to take away Christopher and replace him with Christina or Betty or Mandy, that doesn't work and it stops the authors intent. In the case of A.A. Milne his intent was to memorialize his son Christopher. You know, the little boy in Winnie the Pooh. A lot of what A.A. Milne did was centered on Christopher Robin Milne. His poetry was written about a lot of the things Christopher Robin did, his toys, his stuffed bear Winnie the Pooh. Pooh because Christopher couldn't say Winnie. Yeah, I know something about A.A. Milne and his son.

Rewrite the story. There are ways to adapt Winnie the Pooh to bring in a girl, change the animal. Do a Calvin and Hobbes thing. Bill Watterson may have come to his idea as a result of university studies in philosophy and a spark of inspiration, but I find it hard to believe that Winnie the Pooh didn't play a small role in that. Non Sequitur has Danae and Lucy. Children play with animals and a lot of children imagine that those animals are real, they can respond and play with them. It's not hard to re-imagine a little girl and another little stuffed animal - and it's group of friends, interacting in a magical forest. You don't have to use a bear. What about a stuffed moose? Or some other forest animal. The possibilities are endless but I'd expect that this isn't the point. Disney's point is, and will be, simple. People recognize the name, "Winnie the Pooh," and some may even be interested in seeing a remanufactured show around stuffed animals and the little child that imagines them to life. The problem will be that Disney will once again fail in their attempt to have a winner because the will have done nothing new and will drive off the people that fondly remember Winnie the Pooh as it was intended to be.

I think it's sad that companies like Disney are doing this. Get your heads out of your pockets and movie making out of the arena of committee and what may happen is that the Disney's in the world may begin to make good, original, movies. The financial windfalls will follow. The success will be there. But first, you actually have to find creativity and not try and rehash an old and beloved idea with a new and blatantly ignorant twist. It will never successfully work.