Movies - The Nightmare Before Christmas

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	Movies - The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is a stop motion animated musical film about the inhabitants of Halloween Town who take over Christmas one year, directed by stop-motion animator Henry Selick. The film is loosely based on drawings and a poem by Tim Burton, and he served as co-producer. He did not direct the film as is sometimes believed, but he was still heavily involved.

The film was released by Touchstone Pictures, a film studio owned by the Walt Disney Company, after the main Walt Disney Pictures division balked at some of the darker content.

Synopsis

The film centers on Jack Skellington, the much adored leader of Halloween Town. Although Jack is loved and respected by the townspeople, he is bored with the repetitiveness of his Halloween festivities and feels that there is something unknown to him that is missing from his life. One day while wandering in the woods with his dog Zero, Jack discovers a circle of trees unlike anything that he has seen before. Each tree has a door on it representing a different holiday. When Jack opens the Christmas door he is sucked into the wonderful world of Christmas Town. Jack is mesmerized by the color and cheerfulness of the holiday, and realizes that this is exactly what he has been searching for.

When Jack returns to Halloween Town he locks himself in his home and performs countless experiments to try to better understand Christmas Town. Soon Jack calls a meeting in Town Hall and reveals his plans to take over Christmas. All of the townspeople pitch in to create their own twisted version of the holiday. Sally, a close friend and admirer of Jack, tries to warn him that she thinks it is a bad idea to take over something he knows nothing about, but Jack is too wrapped in his fantasies to listen.

In order to successfully take over Christmas, Jack enlists the help of a trio of misfits named Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap Santa Claus. The children take him to a villainous monster named Oogie Boogie.

On Christmas Eve, Jack embarks on his makeshift sleigh flanked by skeleton reindeer and his ghost dog, Zero. Jack's scary and sometimes dangerous presents put the people in the real world in a panic and they begin to call the police with reports of attacking Christmas toys and an imposter Santa Claus. Soon, Jack is targeted by the military and shot down. At the same time, Sally goes to try and rescue Santa Claus but is captured by Oogie Boogie and the two are in risk of their lives.

When Jack finds himself and his sleigh crashed in a graveyard and his vision of Christmas wrecked, he realizes that he is the Pumpkin King and that he should stick to what he knows best; Halloween. In order to salvage Christmas Jack hurries back to Halloween Town and confronts Oogie Boogie. After Jack destroys Oogie, revealing him to be nothing more that a burlap sack full of bugs, Santa Claus hurries to deliver the correct presents and save Christmas. Once Santa has delivered all the presents he brings the Christmas spirit to Halloween Town, including snow, and the citizens are amazed by the new sensations.

Finally, Sally reveals her true feelings to Jack and the movie ends on a kiss.

Initial Conception

The original ideas for the film came to Tim Burton while working as an animator for Disney. Burton has stated that he was inspired by being at a store and seeing them taking down the Halloween merchandise and changing it out for Christmas displays. While at work, Burton scribbled out the poem on a piece of paper as well as a few drawings. These initial versions only included Jack, Zero and Santa Claus and the plot was subsequently much different than that of the film. Originally, Tim Burton pitched his idea to Disney, but it was declined. Disney told him the theme was too dark in nature, so he kept his sketches and continued his work on Disney's The Black Cauldron (film). It wasn't until years later that he was able to start production on something that had become his dream to create.

Production

'The Nightmare Before Christmas' marked the first time that a stop motion movie had been attempted at this scale. Because of this fact, a great deal of imagination and inventiveness had to be used in making the film. In order to produce the film, Tim Burton assembled a hand-picked group of animators, artists, and crew members to work on the film and founded a production company called Skellington Studios. In order to flesh out the script and come up with new characters (as the initial poems only had Jack, Zero and Santa Claus), Burton hired screenwriter Caroline Thompson. Burton also worked very closely with composer and long time collaborator Danny Elfman to write songs for the film. Because Burton was not able to give his full attention to the project (he was contractually bound to direct Batman Returns), he hired director Henry Selick to helm the project. Selick brought an understanding of the media to the film and maintained a vision close to that of Burton.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Nightmare Before Christmas ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Nightmare Before Christmas; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - The Nightmare Before Christmas

Synopsis

Initial Conception

Production

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