Photo by Milk Chan on Unsplash
This toy (above) is of Pinocchio, the animated protagonist from Disney’s classic film of the same name.
While the movie’s visuals are impressive, the story lacks effective storytelling techniques.
Disney’s Pinocchio falls short despite stellar animation
By Batoul Achy & Seidet Segura
Columnists
This is the second installment of Movie Night with Batoul & Seidet, a monthly series in which Batoul Achy and Seidet Segura will collaborate on and taking turns writing classic movie reviews from a modern perspective.
The 1940 film Pinocchio is one of the most influential animation films, even after 82 years. The movie is well known for a bunch of great reasons, including Pinocchio’s physical features and its detailed animation. Although the movie is visually appealing, the plot and dramatic scenes fail to complete the movie entirely. Pinocchio isn’t the best, but definitely deserves credit for inspiring future generations of animated films.
In the movie, Geppetto, the puppetmaster who built Pinocchio and acts as his father figure, hopes for him to become a real boy. One night, a fairy comes in through the window. She advises Pinocchio to listen to his father and always tell the truth in order to become a real boy. Throughout the movie, Pinocchio goes on crazy adventures as he strives to tell the truth. At the end, Geppetto’s dream does come true and Pinocchio becomes a real boy. His features are the most memorable part of the movie and are what make Pinocchio, Pinocchio. When he tells a lie, his nose grows longer than it actually is in a funny way. His reaction to when it grows longer is also pretty humorous. His wide-open eyes and mouth are what better this moment. Pinocchio’s signature feature is what makes scenes like these unforgettable.
The whole moral of the movie was for him to become honest and kind, but from the start he wasn’t even that bad. When he was tempted with bad things he turned them down and when he didn’t he had no idea it was bad. When you think of Pinocchio, you think of his nose growing, yet throughout the movie his nose only grew once. The whole point of the movie didn’t make sense and when they tried to explain the moral it was messy.
The idea for this film was creative, but was very slow and dragged out. The actions in the scenes were either bland or overdone. It was annoying hearing Pinocchio whine and cry over the smallest things. In addition, some of the scenes were questionable. In one scene, Pinocchio was having a bad reaction to a cigar, while in another he was underwater and had no trouble breathing. The film also contained unnecessary scenes that were out of nowhere, like when the Terrible Dogfish ate Geppetto with no warning. There wasn’t enough build up for such an important event. Problems like these made the movie boring and confusing.
The scenes in Pinocchio were influential for animated movies up to this day. The detailed animation is the highlight of the movie. The colors were pleasing to see and were not obnoxious or loud. They fit the overall aesthetic and vibe of the movie. The way they run smoothly throughout the film definitely captures the audience. Even though the entire movie was hand-drawn, you can see how much effort and detail the animators put into it. You can see its influence on more recent Disney movies like 2009’s The Princess and the Frog. Overall, Pinocchio’s animation is excellent, and is the reason it remains relevant.
Pinocchio was meh, because it had some wholesome, yet dragged-out scenes. However, even though the movie was made many years ago it still holds value for its visuals. Pinocchio deserves respect as a standard for animation, but the story itself was poorly executed.