Can we stop calling films like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland or the upcoming live-action Winnie the Pooh “remakes” or “reboots”? Because that’s not what they are. 2010’s Alice in Wonderland and its 2016 sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass were sequels that counted on the audience’s familiarity with both Lewis Carroll’s original story and Disney’s 1951 animated version. And given the release of the synopsis of the Winnie the Pooh movie coming up in the near future, it looks like this “remake” is going to follow the same path. It’s not a remake or a reboot: it’s a sequel, and I just have one thing to say about this sequel to a story I loved growing up: oh, bother.
***Before moving forward, I feel the need to preface this whole article: I love Winnie the Pooh. Growing up, the character of Winnie the Pooh was right up there with Simba from The Lion King and Buzz and Woody from Toy Story on my list of favorite Disney characters. He may be “a bear of very little brain,” but he makes up for it by being a bear with a very big heart, surrounded by friends for whom he would do anything, and who would help each other out of any jam. The thing I want most from this film is for them to do these characters that I loved growing up justice. But given the synopsis that we have, I now have greater doubts about that hope than I ever did before. Preface concluded. Moving on.***
This movie isn’t even going to be called Winnie the Pooh or any such variation; according to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be called Christopher Robin, and will center on Christopher Robin as he reunites with Winnie the Pooh as an adult. Here is the synopsis found on THR:
“The story centers on Robin, the adult version of the boy who in the A.A. Milne books shares his adventures with the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood. Robin has grown out of the joyful imagination he had as a young boy and is now a businessman who prioritizes work over his wife and daughter. With his home life on the brink, the last thing his life needs is the return of Pooh, who needs his help in finding his friends again. Robin has to find a way to help both sides or risk losing everything he holds dear.”
I have a few issues with this synopsis. Number one: his name is Christopher Robin, not just Robin, so why are they shortening it? In the 1977 Disney film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the characters and the narrator always refer to Christopher Robin as either “Christopher Robin” or “Christopher,” but never “Robin.” This isn’t a Batman movie, Disney, so there are no Robins here. Only a Christopher Robin.
Number two: he “has grown out of the joyful imagination he had as a young boy and is now a businessman who prioritizes work over his wife and daughter”? I agree with the folks over at Collider.com, who, in their article, point out that this sounds eerily similar to Steven Spielberg’s Hook, starring the late great Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan, though I can only speak from reading the summary of Hook, not from actually seeing it. But that’s not the real reason that this part of the synopsis bothers me: what really bothers me is that this is a trend in films like this, including 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, where the main human character who is so full of imagination and a sense of adventure grows up to dismiss it and becomes dull and boring. It sort of flies in the face of one of Walt Disney’s sentiments regarding adults and growing up, that “adults are only kids grown up, anyway.” Disney’s sentiment implies that adults have the capacity to hold onto their sense of childlike wonder into their adult lives, being able to grow up while also keeping a bit of who they were as children alive. I don’t think a kid like Christopher Robin would lose that sense of wonder that came from his adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, no matter how wrapped up in his business he becomes. Further, in my opinion, it doesn’t make sense for Christopher Robin to become a businessman of any kind; a kid with the kind of creativity that he had would grow up to be a writer or a filmmaker or maybe even a teacher, but not a businessman. So, in that sense, the film’s logic is already lost on me.
Finally, “With his home life on the brink, the last thing his life needs is the return of Pooh, who needs his help in finding his friends again.” The last part of this is fine, with Pooh needing Christopher Robin’s help to find the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood; it should make for an interesting adventure. The first part, “with his home life on the brink,” is okay; maybe Pooh can help Christopher Robin connect more with the latter’s wife and daughter. The part that bothers me the most is the middle part: “the last thing his life needs is the return of Pooh.” I don’t know what the deal is with Christopher Robin, but to think that Winnie the Pooh is “the last thing his life needs” is heartbreaking, completely against his character, and, most importantly, nearly ruins the relationship that these two characters have in the books and movies. Going back to the 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, it ends with Christopher Robin and Pooh walking around the Hundred Acre Wood, and Pooh promising to never forget Christopher Robin, something that Christopher Robin himself asks him to promise. The narrator ends the film by saying “wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in the enchanted place on top of the forest, a little bear will always be waiting.” All of this implies a true friendship that can handle silly things like time or growing up, and to wash that away in favor of conflict between the two main characters is disgusting. Granted, we’re talking about a little boy and his friendship with a toy bear, but even so, a sense of nostalgia should accompany any sort of reunion between Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, not a sense of dread or annoyance. It undercuts the original message of the 1977 film and feels totally out of place in this franchise about friendship, imagination, and helping others.
As you can tell, this article is one part analysis of the synopsis that we got this week, two thousand parts rant about Disney messing with a cast of characters that made up an important aspect of my childhood development. I really hope that I am proven wrong and that Christopher Robin turns out to be an excellent addition to the Winnie the Pooh franchise. But as it stands right now, I must repeat my sentiment from earlier in this article: Oh, bother.