Disney's "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" Update

Although we announced the trailer release on Twitter the day it came out, we realize there may not be a handy summary of details, the trailer and screenshots etc regarding this highly anticipated Winter release from Disney, and thought it might be nice to gather them here to bring folks up to date, especially as the film will be released a little earlier than "Christmas week" as originally planned.

We posted at length during the development and pre-production of the film HERE and HERE, explaining the sources being used and the approach (along with the cast list) so we'll just get straight to the synopsis to remind you of where the plot is being hinted at going, and the limited looks so far. (They still have a lot of work to do with special effects etc, which will likely take most of the year.)

Here's the latest on how the production is going:

(In late December), the (Disney) studio announced it was planning a massive 32 days of additional photography on the ballet-inspired fantasy movie, bringing in “Captain America: The First Avenger” director Joe Johnston instead of original filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom. The studio said Hallstrom was unavailable due to scheduling issues — though he has no other projected publicly lined up — but he will be involved with postproduction. (TheWrap)

Here's the official synopsis, released with the trailer in December:

All Clara (Mackenzie Foy) wants is a key – a one-of-a-kind key that will unlock a box that holds a priceless gift from her late mother. A golden thread, presented to her at godfather Drosselmeyer’s (Morgan Freeman) annual holiday party, leads her to the coveted key—which promptly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world. It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world. Starring Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy and featuring a special performance by Misty Copeland, Disney’s new holiday feature film “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” is directed by Lasse Hallström and inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale. In theaters on Nov. 2, 2018.

Here's the trailer:

No summary would be complete without a boat-load of stills. the fantasy aspect is very apparent, though the responses to the visuals seem to be quite mixed. Some people love them, others are calling it an "Alice in Wonderland reboot". It's early days yet, considering how much still needs to be done, but what do our readers think about it so far? (Note: Pictures shown in no particular order.)

We barely get to see Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger but she's intriguing, even in just a glimpse. And she has a wooden sword...

We get glimpses of Misty Copeland dancing "all the parts" as The Ballerina. 

For your reference, from our post on Twitter in December: 

Misty Copeland on diversity & her 'Nutcracker' princess: "(my scenes are)...kind of a production within..the movie...a performance characters are experiencing...I’m portraying all the scenes in Nutcracker, the snow scene, battle scene, land of the sweets." https://t.co/4doQCz8CkX

— Gypsy Thornton (@inkgypsy) December 5, 2017

While we have no doubt Copeland's dancing will be phenomenal, we're yet to be wowed by this sequence and hope the end result will have more innovation than what's been shown to date. The use of Tchaikovsky's score means we'll definitely be treated to another variation on this beloved suite; definitely a plus.

This sequence where Clara sees a tag on a string, rope or ribbon, then follows it in some sort of Victorian parlour Christmas game, is intriguing. We've seen a couple of games like this in films and TV episodes before (Reign anyone?) and even vaguely remember playing something like this as children but finding information on this game is proving difficult to dig up. We're quite curious about the significance and symbolism it may have with regard to the story and the four realms. Feel free to chime in and share links in the comments, if you find some online resources on this topic.

This tree opening and framing looks really familiar! (Pan's Labyrinth, Once Upon A Time, Maleficent, among others...)

And finally a little bit of odd trivia that folklorists should enjoy, from The Times:

Margaret Thatcher’s influence has been widely felt but few would have put money on the Iron Lady being the inspiration for a Disney heroine. According to Keira Knightley, the puffed-up pink hairdo flaunted by her character, the Sugar Plum Fairy, in Disney’s forthcoming film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, was based on Thatcher’s bouffant, in volume if not colour. “There were a couple of Tory female politicians I thought of,” Knightley tells Variety. “She’s Margaret Thatcher meets Marilyn Monroe.”

Cast

• Mackenzie Foy as Clara
• Jayden Fowora-Knight as Philip
• Keira Knightley as Sugar Plum Fairy, the Sweets Realm Queen
• Helen Mirren as Mother Ginger
• Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer
• Misty Copeland as The Ballerina
• Eugenio Derbez as Flower Realm King
• Miranda Hart as Dew Drop Fairy
• Jack Whitehall as Harlequin
• Ellie Bamber as Louise
• Richard E. Grant as Snow Realm King

This shot of Clara in the toy soldier's uniform is possibly the most intriguing to us; it indicates she's not a passive child-heroine, but an active protagonist. While the other visuals are fine, this is the one that makes us curious. Bring on November!

D23 Unveils Details on Disney's 'Nutcracker & the Four Realms'

People seem to be very excited about the details of Disney's live action 'The Nutcracker and the Four Realms' that have been revealed at the D23 convention this past week. No visuals, other than the title card have been released to the public yet but we're told by all fans who've seen it that "it's beautiful! - at least as beautiful as Beauty and the Beast", and there is a little intriguing information about the synopsis we can share.

(In case you missed it, you can catch up on everything we've known about this movie to date HERE so you can read the following with more context.)

Gennady Spirin's illustration of the Mouse King for The Nutcracker

From the Disney's Inside The Magic report:

The film will star Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, along with Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren. It’s a re-imagining of the classic story – a cross between Alice in Wonderland, Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia with a bit of a Narnia vibe. 

The film largely takes place in a strange and mysterious parallel world—home to Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. But it’s the ominous Fourth Realm where Clara must take on a tyrant called Mother Ginger as well as a gang of mice who’ve stolen a coveted key from Clara. 

“The Mouse King is made up of thousands of mice—a cutting-edge CG creation. But we wanted him to move in a way that would be wonderfully surprising and incredibly cool, so we called on Lil Buck to provide the style of dance that defines the character. (InsideTheMagic)

The glaring omission from this report (!) is that the ABT's Principal Ballerina, Misty Copeland, will also star and be dancing in the film, not to mention that she will be THE reason many people go to see this film.

Speaking of dance, the style showcased by Lil Buck for the Mouse King's motion style, is called 'jookin' and is basically a contemporary cross between pop-n-lock and breakdance.

Here's a little more information on the actual realms from EW:

Bailey also elaborated on the four realms that Clara visits during her magical Christmas Eve adventure: The Land of Flowers, attended by Eugenio Derbez’s Hawthorn; The Land of Snowflakes, lorded over by Richard E. Grant’s Shiver; the Land of Sweets, dominated by Knightley’s Sugar Plum Fairy; and the fourth realm, belonging to the villainous Mother Ginger, played by Mirren.

Lil Buck showcasing his 'jookin' at D23 2017

The movie is (still) reportedly inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale (he is credited with the story, while Ashleigh Powell is credited with the screenplay) but the influence of the popular revisions and ballet variations are clearly very influential as well. That said, with this being a 'darker version of the Nutcracker story' (as reported by various posts by D23 attendees) hopefully we'll see some of Hoffman's original touch - and his wonderful character of Marie, who is much less delicate than the now-traditional Clara - in there. (We highly recommend the NPR article which interviews Professor Zipes on the story HERE, and discusses Hoffman's original and how the story became watered down.)

'Nutcracker' finished filming in January this year (2017) and is currently in post-production release date for this movie has been bumped up to November 2, 2018, meaning Disney's live action 'Mulan' will be re-slated for a later debut, possibly 2019, as the Christmas/Holiday 2018 slot is set for 'Mary Poppins Returns'.

With SDCC (San Diego ComiCon) in full swing this week we should start to see some visuals released very soon, so stay tuned.

Sources: OhMyDisney, EW, InsideTheMagic, AWN.com

Stories for the Season: The Nutcracker (Like You've Never Seen It Before)

I mentioned I was going to focus on Christmas/Yule/Winter Solstice appropriate tales over the remainder of the Holiday season so it makes sense to start with "Nutcracker"."The Nutcracker" is possibly 'the' fairy tale most think of when it comes to Christmas time and I'm often surprised to hear of the types of people that make going to see a 'Nutcracker" ballet production a yearly tradition. People who don't normally think about fairy tales or follow ballet often grew up going with their parents so it's become something Christmas wouldn't be complete without.

Since a lot of you follow the SurLaLune blog too I won't repeat much about E.T.A. Hoffman's story, the many books which beautifully illustrate it or the traditional ballet. Instead I have two Nutcracker offerings you may not have come across before, both by ballet companies.
The first is Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker and has a few twists to the story, although it remains a family-friendly ballet with a strong positive Christmas feel.Here's a summary from The Royal Sadler's Wells Ballet Company - a production that's quickly become loved and a new tradition itself:

This delicious theatrical feast has family-sized helpings of Matthew Bourne's trademark wit, pathos and magical fantasy. Nutcracker! follows Clara's bittersweet journey from a hilariously bleak Christmas Eve at Dr. Dross' Orphanage, through a shimmering, ice-skating winter wonderland to the scrumptious candy kingdom of Sweetieland.

There's a whole website especially about Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker too, with tons more information - you can see that HERE.Here's a montage/promo:


It's also available on DVD HERE.
The second is a more adult ballet, choreographed by Graeme Murphy for The Australian Ballet Company and is called "Nutcracker - the Story of Clara".Here's the summary:

This is no ordinary Nutcracker; it is a quintessentially Australian reinterpretation created by the incomparable Graeme Murphy, who was for many years the driving spirit of the Sydney Dance Company. It is a reinterpretation that celebrates the history of ballet in Australia, and of the Australian Ballet itself with its links to the great Russian ballet tradition. In this version, Clara is not a child but a frail Russian ex-ballerina, reliving her illustrious career (Edit FTNH: through feverish dreams) on a hot summer night in Melbourne (Edit FTNH: Christmas is, of course, blisteringly hot in Australia!), and looking back on her St Petersburg days with a group of her fellow expatriate dancers. In the course of this career we see child Clara on her opening night, Clara at the height of her career, and the older Clara looking back.

Here you can see the film that's projected onto the back scrim during a key sequence - "Graeme Murphy's Nutcracker is set on a sweltering Melbourne Christmas Eve in the late 1950s. Clara is not a child but a frail ex-ballerina, reliving her rich and eventful life in one night of feverish dreams. This film segment is projected over the whole set; it sets the scene for the start of the Russian revolution. The Bolsheviks are now portrayed as rats and our heroin is woven amongst this extraordinarily well shot footage of Siegei Eisenstein's Oktiabr (October: Ten Days That Shook the World), which was - incredibly! - filmed some 80 years ago..." (from the video description):

You can learn a lot more about Graeme Murphy's Nutcracker ballet and see lots more images HERE and/or get a copy of the production on DVD HERE.
Both use Tchaikovsky's score, are beautiful and are undeniably 'Nutcracker', albeit in different ways. If you love the Nutcracker ballet or dance and ballet in general I highly recommend them both.

"Alma" by Rodrigo Blaas

Here's a little treat for the season - especially with my focus for the coming week of Christmas/Yule stories. Just announced today, for a limited time over Christmas you can see a new animated short online about a very sweet little girl and a creepy toyshop. It's not specifically for Christmas but fits with the current focus on Winter (in the Northern hemisphere), children and toys. This short film is already busy winning awards all over the place.While it is kinda spooky it doesn't have any truly scary images - it's more the concept. But it's very in keeping with fairy tales - especially those by E.T.A. Hoffman (Nutcracker anyone?).Here's the announcement from Cartoon Brew:

For a limited time during the holidays, Rodrigo Blaas has made his spooky CG short Alma available for viewing online. Blaas is an animator at Pixar who took time off from the studio and returned to his native Spain to make this independent film. His brother, Alfonso Blaas, served as the film’s art director. The film’s official website is AlmaShortFilm.com.

I'm posting the teaser so you can a) have a preview and b) when the video is no longer available, people visiting the blog can still have a taste of this wonderful short.

The teaser:

The full short - for a limited time only during Christmas 2009:

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.