Roald Dahl's James And The Giant Peach
Hollywood is Calling
I have been a huge fan of Roald Dahl’s works since I could read, but I had never read James and the Giant Peach until this paper. I knew I would probably love it, but I never quite found the time or the effort needed to search out and read this book. I sat down and read it all in one sitting, delighting in Dahl’s descriptions of the world that James and his insect friends interact in. I quickly realized how difficult it would be to decide upon a medium to display a film based on this book.
This story deals with a young boy named James Trotter, an orphan forced to live at his il-tempered aunts’ home. After two years of constant abuse and maltreatment, James is visited by a stranger who gives him a potion to end his problems
of his Aunts, and a promise of a life of adventure. James accidently spills the potion on his way back to his house, only to have a peach tree in his yard grow a peach of huge size. His aunts begin to charge admission to see the large fruit, which causes more pain in James’ life as he has become the sole worker in this enterprise. One night, cleaning the yard of trash left behind by the patrons, he crawls into the peach to discover a group of large, anthropomorphic insects who were also affected by the potion. They break the peach off the tree, roll the peach through the wicked Aunt’s house, and begin an adventure to New York City, where James’ parents often spoke of the opportunity available there. It’s a wonderful story, with great characters and full of adventure. It would be very hard to create a film version of James and the Giant Peach that is not animated. I haven’t seen the film, but from research I found out that it is partially animated through stop-action animation, and the remainder is live action acting. This has been done before in other children’s films, such as Runaway Ralph , Tron, or the Beatrix Potter series. I tend to find that combining two forms of styles such as this is jarring and distracting, and I would rather have one seemless style, such as a CGI production.
CGI feature films have been made since the 1990’s, with Pixar’s film Toy Story leading the charge. Using computer animation, creators can make a film colorful enough to entertain children, but able to create terrific visuals for the more out-of-this-world sequences in this story. I feel as if the insect characters would really benefit from a more realistic style of animation, much more so than stop-action or traditional hand-drawn.
The storyline would be kept as close to the book as possible. While it has been attempted to be censored multiple times , due to it’s use of the word “ass” and for the consumption of whiskey by the insect characters. I have always felt that censorship was more harmful than revealing the truth, and this story is more meant for older children anyways.
I think that done in the style I have outlined here, James and the Giant Peach could be a wonderful film for the ages.
I have been a huge fan of Roald Dahl’s works since I could read, but I had never read James and the Giant Peach until this paper. I knew I would probably love it, but I never quite found the time or the effort needed to search out and read this book. I sat down and read it all in one sitting, delighting in Dahl’s descriptions of the world that James and his insect friends interact in. I quickly realized how difficult it would be to decide upon a medium to display a film based on this book.
This story deals with a young boy named James Trotter, an orphan forced to live at his il-tempered aunts’ home. After two years of constant abuse and maltreatment, James is visited by a stranger who gives him a potion to end his problems
of his Aunts, and a promise of a life of adventure. James accidently spills the potion on his way back to his house, only to have a peach tree in his yard grow a peach of huge size. His aunts begin to charge admission to see the large fruit, which causes more pain in James’ life as he has become the sole worker in this enterprise. One night, cleaning the yard of trash left behind by the patrons, he crawls into the peach to discover a group of large, anthropomorphic insects who were also affected by the potion. They break the peach off the tree, roll the peach through the wicked Aunt’s house, and begin an adventure to New York City, where James’ parents often spoke of the opportunity available there. It’s a wonderful story, with great characters and full of adventure. It would be very hard to create a film version of James and the Giant Peach that is not animated. I haven’t seen the film, but from research I found out that it is partially animated through stop-action animation, and the remainder is live action acting. This has been done before in other children’s films, such as Runaway Ralph , Tron, or the Beatrix Potter series. I tend to find that combining two forms of styles such as this is jarring and distracting, and I would rather have one seemless style, such as a CGI production.
CGI feature films have been made since the 1990’s, with Pixar’s film Toy Story leading the charge. Using computer animation, creators can make a film colorful enough to entertain children, but able to create terrific visuals for the more out-of-this-world sequences in this story. I feel as if the insect characters would really benefit from a more realistic style of animation, much more so than stop-action or traditional hand-drawn.
The storyline would be kept as close to the book as possible. While it has been attempted to be censored multiple times , due to it’s use of the word “ass” and for the consumption of whiskey by the insect characters. I have always felt that censorship was more harmful than revealing the truth, and this story is more meant for older children anyways.
I think that done in the style I have outlined here, James and the Giant Peach could be a wonderful film for the ages.