In The Great Fairy Rescue, the 'villain' of the film is Dr. Griffiths, an entomologist. But throughout the film, I found myself sympathizing with him
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I apologise for the late response, but I found the points you make facinating and apt; I've just seen the movie recently myself. You're absolutely right, IMO. Dr. Griffiths is extremely forward-thinking given the setting and time, and it's also very clear that he loves his daughter. I mean, I get that he's supposed to be the foil of the piece, but he's hardly a complete villain.
...I really have nothing else to add, other than to go on a light tangent. Peter first appeared in Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird, while the play first hit the stage in December of 1904. In TLWB Peter was still living among the Fairy Court of Kensington Gardens and hadn't yet gone to Neverland. So I can totally see 1900 or so as a good frame of reference.
Another tangent! I found myself wondering if Lizzie Griffiths herself was a wink to Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, the two cousins who photographed the Cottingley Fairies.
Poor guy. He's a single father, working hard enough that he can take his daughter to a house in the country for the summer, trying to teach her in a scientific way, and goes for the logical explanation that she made stuff up rather than giving a real fairy Stockholm Syndrome.
Ack, sorry, I typo'd up there -- I meant that it placed the events AFTER the events of Peter Pan. Because we see horse-drawn carriages in the Disney version of Peter Pan, so it makes things somewhat awkward. The timeline tends to be vague, but most takes place it around the end of the 19th century.
But then, I tend to get a headache when I try to mesh the various versions into a coherent timeline, so it's a moot point at best.
Good theory on the name! The reference would be quite apt.
To be fair, horse-drawn vehicles persisted in London alongside motor cars and electric trolleys through the turn of the century, finally gone for good by 1915. (Nice point of reference here.) The timeline gets even more convoluted figuring in The Little White Bird. After Peter runs away and lives in Kensington Gardens for some time, he finds a banknote in the following manner:
Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the Serpentine. P. B. Shelly's first published work was 1810, so that could place Peter's origins maybe even as early as the late 18th century
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Ooooh, interesting -- but the question isn't so much when Peter came to Never Land as when Peter and Tink met up. The fact that Wendy made an appearance in the first movie is an indication that Peter and Tink didn't know each other very long before he met up with Wendy.
Hmm. My theory on the belief aspect is that saying "I don't believe in fairies" only applies to your own personal fairy. Otherwise, some jerk could say it a few hundred times and bam, fairy genocide. So for the oldest fairies -- the ones who have apparently been around for over a century -- the human whose laugh they came from went to their grave believing, and thus they can only die if they're killed by a hawk or something (rather than potentially dying of disbelief). Which would be why many of the fairies from the movies(who, as you point out, would come from laughs in an era where the belief was encouraged) are still around in the books (which are supposed to be set in the modern-ish day).
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...I really have nothing else to add, other than to go on a light tangent. Peter first appeared in Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird, while the play first hit the stage in December of 1904. In TLWB Peter was still living among the Fairy Court of Kensington Gardens and hadn't yet gone to Neverland. So I can totally see 1900 or so as a good frame of reference.
Another tangent! I found myself wondering if Lizzie Griffiths herself was a wink to Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, the two cousins who photographed the Cottingley Fairies.
Reply
Ack, sorry, I typo'd up there -- I meant that it placed the events AFTER the events of Peter Pan. Because we see horse-drawn carriages in the Disney version of Peter Pan, so it makes things somewhat awkward. The timeline tends to be vague, but most takes place it around the end of the 19th century.
But then, I tend to get a headache when I try to mesh the various versions into a coherent timeline, so it's a moot point at best.
Good theory on the name! The reference would be quite apt.
Reply
Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect to be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are people who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had all that and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the Serpentine. P. B. Shelly's first published work was 1810, so that could place Peter's origins maybe even as early as the late 18th century ( ... )
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Hmm. My theory on the belief aspect is that saying "I don't believe in fairies" only applies to your own personal fairy. Otherwise, some jerk could say it a few hundred times and bam, fairy genocide. So for the oldest fairies -- the ones who have apparently been around for over a century -- the human whose laugh they came from went to their grave believing, and thus they can only die if they're killed by a hawk or something (rather than potentially dying of disbelief). Which would be why many of the fairies from the movies(who, as you point out, would come from laughs in an era where the belief was encouraged) are still around in the books (which are supposed to be set in the modern-ish day).
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