Maurice Sendak and the Nutcracker

Maurice Sendak and Kent Stowell

In 1979, one Kent Stowell, choreographer for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, contacted illustrator Maurice Sendak about collaborating on a new ballet production of The Nutcracker. Sendak was not interested at first, until Stowell asked him to read the original story by Hoffmann. Sendak was struck by how different the Hoffmann tale and the standard ballet version of the story were. Desiring to help create a new version of the ballet that honored Hoffmann, Tchaikovsky "and ourselves," he worked with Ken on what the new ballet needed, as well as designing sets and costumes to bring the story to life with a visual signature wholly Sendak.

The ballet opened in December 1983 to great acclaim, and the Sendak-Stowell edition of The Nutcracker ran through 2014, before the Pacific Northwest Ballet switched to George Balanchine's version.

Still, there is quite a bit from that version of the ballet out there that exists.

My favorite thing about it is that Sendak's work spurred Ralph Manheim's translation of the original Hoffmann story, reworking many of his design work pictures into illustrations, and offering many new illustrations as well.

The book opens with an introduction by Sendak talking about how he came on board the project, what he disliked about the ballet and what he appreciated about the Hoffmann story, and how he and Stowell adapted the book for ballet. He also briefly mentions that he could only find the original story in Dover's The Tales of Hoffmann, and later talks specifically about illustrating the book, that pictures appear in the book that were not used onstage. He also addresses the translation, quoting the editor of the Dover book in that most English translations of Hoffmann aren't done skillfully and lose a lot of Hoffmann's unique voice, but he believes Manheim finally got it right.

In this way, the book acts as a perfect souvenir for the ballet: it contains some words about the adaptation and production, a faithful translation of the original source material, and illustrations that were originally set and costume designs, or are in the same style. It was published in 1984, and copies were likely for sale in the lobby of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

There was an audiobook of this translation released. Sadly, it's not available through Audible and the audio cassette and CD copies are out of print, but it was read with great gusto by Christopher Plummer and was accompanied with music from Tchaikovsky's score.

The biggest remainder of this edition of the ballet was a film adaptation, essentially filming it, but using some movie magic. Released in 1986, it was titled Nutcracker: The Motion Picture. There were some alterations done to make the ballet more cinematic, notably the ending being altered as cutting between different locations is possible in film, but hard to convey onstage. The film also had a soundtrack album released, containing the complete score.

Part of the ballet's staging is using the story of Pirlipat as a metaphor for Clara's growing up (despite the love given to Hoffmann, it was decided to go with the name Petipa had given her), using an opening the movie didn't use in which Pirlipat chooses to dance with the Nutcracker or the Mouse King. Clara in the film appears to be about fifteen.

The movie opens in Droselmeyer's workshop, showing many shots of the dolls and clocks, Tchaikovsky's score kicking in as he begins to design then build an elaborate clockwork castle. As the opening theme is concluded, Drosselmeyer has fallen asleep after completing his task. The castle comes to life and shows us Clara asleep in bed.

This version re-frames most of the story as Clara's dream, starting with her dreaming about fighting with Fritz, who invites a mouse who bites her. She appears to turn into a mouse herself, but it cuts to the family's Christmas party, and it seems that was just a nightmare.

At the party, Drosselmeyer displays his castle, where a couple of figures dance. The ballet features a sequence with masquerade dancers as Clara discovers the Nutcracker. The interesting thing here is that the music is from Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades rather than The Nutcracker. The masquerade dancers are supposed to represent Pirlipat, the Mouse King and the Nutcracker, but the camera doesn't focus on them, instead having many glances between Clara and Drosselmeyer, who watches her anxiously, which is supposed to suggest an introverted, anti-social nature for the old man, but comes off as creepy.

The rest of the first Act is similar in story to most other versions of the ballet, complete with the growing Christmas tree. I have heard that the Mouse King's tail goes across the stage while he's onstage, but am unsure as to how he was depicted. The film shows him as a giant monstrous mouse, most of his heads being behind him. He appears to grow larger until Clara throws her slipper at him, forcing him to turn into a normal-sized mouse, the Nutcracker chasing him through the giant coat he was wearing, Clara following, coming out the other side replaced with an adult dancer and finding the Nutcracker now transformed into a handsome prince. As they journey together in this fairyland, snowflakes dance.

The second act depicts a more accurate version of the multi-cultured Candy Town of Hoffmann's story, with the same actor who plays Drosselmeyer as a Pasha. In the stage version, Clara declines to return home and at the end, the Pasha is revealed to be Drosselmeyer and Clara is highly disturbed when she removes his eyepatch. In the film, the prince and Clara dance and the Pasha lifts them high into the air, and then suddenly breaks his magic, having them free fall to the ground, transforming back into a Nutcracker and a child before Clara awakens from her nightmare, the final pieces of score being a curtain call in Drosselmeyer's clockwork castle.

To reflect the many cultures described in Hoffmann's story, the people who dance in Act 2 are depicted as people from Chinese, Indian, Arabian and other Eastern cultures instead of foods. One beloved alteration was instead of having a dancer represent coffee in the Arabian dance, a dancer dressed as a caged peacock was brought out of a cage to perform. During the Chinese dance, a dancing tiger in a costume dances, but its paws are tied to the other dancers: it's being controlled.

The Sendak-Stowell edition of The Nutcracker tries to draw on nightmares more than dreams, with anxiety building throughout. They play on Drosselmeyer's character and his relationship with Clara as a starting point. Critics have noted that Drosselmeyer seems antagonistic to her throughout, probably playing on how in the original story, she blames him for the battle as he muffled the clock so the chimes wouldn't scare away the mice. Yet Hoffmann is able to finish the story with a more or less happy ending while this production ends it with nasty surprises.

Given how many editions of The Nutcracker ballet tend to go for a sweet fluffy production, I can only assume a mind like Sendak would think of taking it in the opposite direction and create a more disturbing version. It attempts to bring a core to the storytelling of the piece as opposed to other productions in which the plot is wrapped up in the first act and the second act is entirely the celebration. And while this attempt to bring a more cohesive story to the ballet is welcome, I'm not entirely sure if Hoffmann would have wanted it to be so disturbing.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about 2005, Walt Disney Pictures released a movie titled The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A co-production with Walden Media, the movie did very well, prompting a sequel to hopefully lead to a complete series of Narnia adaptation films. The sequel made money, but not enough to keep Disney happy, and they allowed 20th Century Fox to release the third (and turned out, final) movie. However, Disney wanted to make more successful movies in the fantasy film genre, their next major one being Alice in Wonderland in 2010, directed by Tim Burton.

Alice was massively successful, grossing over a billion dollars. Yet some critics of the film noted its plot similarities to the first Narnia movie. This led to a number of other films in the same genre, some even based on the same source material as classic Disney films, or clearly inspired by those movies: Maleficent, Oz the Great and Powerful, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, Pete's Dragon, and coming soon, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King and Mulan. Oz the Great and Powerful was also cited as having many similar plot points to Alice.

News of a new Nutcracker film began around the same time that I was posting my 2011 Nutcracker blogs, bouncing from studio to studio. Eventually, Disney announced their film would be titled The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, automatically eliciting some curiosity. Hoffmann's story contains two distinct worlds, were these considered two of the realms? As the first trailer dropped in December of 2017, red alerts began to go off in my mind. Why did the trailer not show the Nutcracker? Where was the Mouse King?

So, Disney released the first trailer for The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, their made-to-order holiday hit for next year.

Only impressive thing is the use of Tchaikovsky's score.

The trailer shows nothing recognizable as E.T.A. Hoffman's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. I'm not sure how, but as a kid, I was drawn to that story like a moth to flame, and returning to it years later discovered an enchanting tale about a girl who chooses to believe in her dreams, with a mystery as to whether what she experiences are true or not left dangling until the last page.

And after 2000, every movie adaptation turns it into a "Save the kingdom" story instead. Just like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, just like Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, just like Oz the Great and Powerful. Instead of keeping to the original story, they fit it to something else. It's been done already.

Not helping, where's the actual nutcracker of the story? Where's a shot of Marie (or Clara) holding it? I'd rather watch the ballet again, because at least it's easy to understand why that one has to condense the plot so much.

That was my response to the trailer that I posted on my Facebook. Was I just in my early criticism?

Yes.

The film clearly reuses the same plot skeleton as Alice and Oz, just this time, it's even harder to spot the connections to the original story. One wonders if the writers and other people who created the story even read Hoffmann's original story. The end credits at least say it was "suggested" by Hoffmann's story and the ballet, which is credited to Marius Petipa.

The Stahlbaum family of London (it is identified by name, and Big Ben is seen in the beginning) is having their first Christmas without the late matriarch Marie. Young Clara and her younger brother Fritz enjoy a close friendship. with older sister Louise trying to step into the void created by her mother's passing. Their father, struggling without his late wife, gives the children presents their mother asked him to distribute. Clara receives a decorative silver egg that is locked shut.

The family then goes to godfather Drosselmeyer's Christmas Eve party, where Clara accuses her father of being selfish. Drosselmeyer distributes gifts to the guests, which he distributes by strings tied to a tree that lead off to the gift. Clara's leads through several halls and eventually into a dark passageway that leads her into a snowy wood. It leads to a little golden key suspended in a tree that a mouse steals.

Chasing the mouse, Clara enlists the assistance of a soldier (she identifies it as a nutcracker, although it's unclear how she would've known) named Captain Philip Hoffman as they trace the Mouse into the "Fourth Realm," where they are attacked by the "Mouse King," a swarm of thousands of mice that take a vaguely humanoid shape. Hoffman rescues Clara and as they leave the Fourth Realm, the giant clockwork operated by Mother Ginger calls to Clara and says she has the key.

The pair go to the castle at the center of the Four Realms in the Christmas Tree Forest. (Wait, did they just base the design of this world on the Land of Oz?) Here, Clara meets the Regents of the other three Realms: Hawthorne of the Realm of Flowers, Shiver of the Realm of Snowflakes, and Sugar Plum of the Realm of Sweets. They explain that Clara's mother created their world and that Mother Ginger was the fourth Regent, until something happened that disgraced the Realm of Amusements. Sugar Plum reveals that she has a plan to create an army to defend the other realms, she just needs the key for the Engine, which brought the people of the realms to life. It appears that the key needed for the Egg is the same, so Clara, Philip and a variety of soldiers go to the Fourth Realm to retrieve it.

After a run-in with Mother Ginger, Clara manages to obtain the key, but is frustrated to discover that the egg is a music box. Sugar Plum then uses the key to activate the Engine so she can bring tin soldiers subservient to her to life. She then throws Clara, Philip, Hawthorne and Shiver into prison, making it clear that Sugar Plum was lying about Mother Ginger all along. Clara manages to break out and sends Philip to Mother Ginger to warn her while she breaks into the Engine Room. Philip and the Mice join forces to face off against Sugar Plum's army while Clara manages to make the Engine turn Sugar Plum back into a porcelain doll.

With peace restored to the four realms and Mother Ginger taking her place as a regent again, Clara heads home. She apologizes to her father, coming to understand he's having trouble dealing with his grief. They enjoy a dance with each other as the film ends.

The film's plot isn't very unique, and doesn't seem to build on the original story further. It clearly fits the mold of movies like Alice and Oz in that a person has issues in the regular world, then winds up in a fantasy world where their adventure sees them deal with that, which often includes them gaining confidence in themselves so they can step up to some challenge. (Clara discovers the egg also contains a mirror, and this combined with a note saying "All that you need is inside" assures her that she can set the Realms to order again.) Duplicitous characters, loyal companions and creatures who aren't what they seem at first come into play, often with some special item needing to be retrieved (the vorpal sword, Glinda's wand, or a key). At the end, our main character is a better person for the adventure.

It might be fine if any of these were used to convey any of the themes put forward in Hoffmann's story, but any fail to materialize. Sugar Plum's treachery might be akin to Princess Pirlipat reneging on her promise or the idea that appearances don't necessarily reflect true natures, but given how more similar it is to trends in recent Disney films (Prince Hans in Frozen springs to mind), I find it unlikely. This movie finds a way to use both the names "Marie" and "Clara" by making Marie the name of Clara's mother. The lead mouse is named "Mouserinks." Clara's older sister appears and the family's last name from the Hoffmann story is used. (Dumas changed it to "Silberhaus.")

I am baffled how Disney's version eschewed classic imagery of the story for something so markedly different. Where is Clara holding the Nutcracker? The closest we get is a flashback of her putting an ornament shaped like one on the Christmas tree or her acknowledging Fritz's present, which happens to be one. And the classic Mouse King (one head or seven) is nowhere to be seen. There's little recognizable as the Nutcracker story left, replaced with Disney's generic fantasy tropes.

There's a few other odd things that jumped out to me early in the film. Louise receives a dress that belonged to her late mother, and the shot of her father seeing her in it is supposed to convey him being reminded of his wife and missing her, but perhaps it lingers too long and suggests something unwholesome going on. Later, he demands a dance with her, which out of context can just be seen as confirmation of the unwholesome concept. When Clara receives the egg, Fritz asks her about it. Perhaps I blinked or missed a shot, but it seemed they were on opposite sides of the room, and Fritz appeared to be looking towards the nearest wall while talking to Clara about her gift. It turns out, she was sitting in front of him.

It was also disappointing that Disney retained the Stahlbaum family's and Drosselmeyer's German names, but relocated the story to London. If any studio could make a distinctly German Nutcracker happen, you would think it'd be Disney. Frozen took inspiration from countries near Germany.

While the movie fails to live up to the imagination and themes of the original Hoffmann story, there are good points. The music by James Newton Howard manages to adapt Tchaivosky's score for the ballet impressively. Being a Disney production, the production values are very good. The only special effect that seemed off in my rarely CG-critical opinion was Sugar Plum flying. The cast does their part to make what they hoped would be a good movie, and I liked Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer, but given the character's role in the original story, he is severely underutilized here.

I won't be surprised if some kids mark this version as a favorite as they won't think to compare it to Disney's other live action fantasy output and fondly remember going to see the movie with their family. To be fair, despite it being formulaic, it was generally enjoyable. So it'll find some afterlife, despite how it fared at the box office and with critics.

Petipa's The Nutcracker ballet and Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite

Ivan Vsevolozhsky

In my 2011 blogs about The Nutcracker, I devoted one entry to Alexandre Dumas' version of the story. Although the story is largely the same with some additions and subtle alterations, it was this version that saw Hoffmann's story become more widespread. It is believed that it was his version consulted in creating the famous ballet adaptation.

The ballet originated in Russia as the second half of a double bill program with an opera. The Imperial Theater of Saint Petersburg's Ivan Vsevolozhsky commissioned Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to compose the music for both. Leading up the story for the ballet and the choreography would be Marius Petipa.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky was a highly successful composer but personally had many personal issues, such as depression. He had two failed marriages, and despite Soviet attempts to expunge his same sex attractions, is noted to have been homosexual. He died less than a year after The Nutcracker debuted, some say it was a disease that took his life, but others believe it was suicide. His music is often a go-to example for classical music, particularly many of his Nutcracker themes.

It's been noted that Tchaikovsky had a lot of western influence in his music and it rarely sounded distinctly Russian. It's easy to see why this music has carried over into many adaptations of The Nutcracker outside of the ballet as it lends itself to being adapted for other purposes. As it was, the Russian dance (the Candy Canes) in the second act of The Nutcracker became especially beloved in Russia.

Marius Petipa

Marius Petipa was a well-accomplished choreographer, who had in the past shown a bit of a wild side in seducing married women, and he would tailor ballets around the talents of his own wife. Many of Petipa's ballets are considered to be notable in the genre. Yet while Petipa did begin the work, falling ill, a lot of the choreography work for The Nutcracker fell to his assistant, Lev Ivanov. It is debated as to which choreographer should receive credit for the ballet's original choreography.

The choice of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King as a story to adapt for the ballet was indeed puzzling. Ballet consists of two elements: music and dance. With no dialogue, storytelling was limited. Thus, Hoffmann's original story was greatly cut down and streamlined for the ballet adaptation. Further complicating the production was the number of roles to be filled by children. These performers would require simpler choreography than adult performers.

It is interesting that the original production of The Nutcracker appears to be where Marie was first renamed Clara, a switch that persists into many adaptations. I had originally wondered if Petipa changed it to prevent comparisons to his own name, but it actually seems I was close: his wife was named Maria, and his daughter was named Marie. (Interestingly, she married Sergei Gustavovich Legat, who played the Nutcracker in the original production.) Perhaps Petipa wanted to dodge his reputation of nepotism, or perhaps he didn't want a character to have the same name as his daughter, who was already in her own career as a dancer. So, it was changed to Clara.

It has been noted that Marie has a doll named Clara in the original book and much has been made over the two swapping names, but I've only noticed the doll being named at all in The Nutcracker Prince.

The ballet debuted on December 18, 1892, 74 years after the original Hoffmann story appeared. The story adaptation was as follows:

Clara and Fritz eagerly await their Christmas party, to be attended by many guests. At the party, their godfather Drosselmeyer presents a couple of dancing clockwork dolls that entertain until they wind down. Clara is enthralled with his gift of a nutcracker, but Fritz ends up breaking it. Clara cares for the broken Nutcracker.

At midnight, Clara sneaks back downstairs to check on the Nutcracker. Seeing Drosselmeyer on the clock, the room begins to fill with mice and the Christmas tree grows to a huge height. The Mouse King reveals himself, but the Nutcracker rises from his bed and calls the army of toys to arms. When the Mouse King is about to strike the Nutcracker, Clara throws her shoe at him, letting the Nutcracker get the upper hand and defeat him.

The Nutcracker transforms into a prince and takes Clara to a snowy pine forest, where the snowflakes dance.

Act 1, as you will note if you saw the previous blog, breaks down most of Hoffmann's plot to a small storyline. Act 2 takes place in a castle where various characters are going about as the Nutcracker and Clara arrive. Chief among these is the Sugar Plum Fairy. In dance, the Nutcracker recounts the victory over the Mouse King. Various characters representing many drinks and sweets dance in celebration of Clara and the Nutcracker being crowned the rulers of the kingdom.


Act 2 takes a few elements from the chapters in which Marie and the Nutcracker explore the Land of Sweets and arrive at Marzipan castle. There are people of all types involved with food. Yet, dancing was only noted in Hoffmann to occur at Marie's wedding celebration.

The reception of The Nutcracker was decidedly mixed, and the fact that it had been viewed in a double bill with Iolanta and ran past midnight likely didn't help the critics. Some critics hated some of the dancers, some loved them. One claimed it was impossible to tell what was happening.

In any case, the ballet was not re-staged for some time and would have been forgotten had Tchaikovsky not adapted eight pieces from his score into the 20 minute Nutcracker Suite. The popularity of the music kept interest in the complete work alive, and audiences across the United States heard a generous amount of it in Disney's Fantasia, accompanied with state of the art animation (for the time) in 1940.

Tchaikovsky's music had a life of its own. Not just in the Suite and in recordings and performances without the ballet, but in that it is lively and it's hard not to imagine movement while you listen. The beats in the music suggest movement, that something's going on. The grand nature of the Christmas party scenes fits Hoffmann's themes of excitedly celebrating the holiday as a child.

Stagings of the ballet first occurred in the United States in 1944, with choreographer George Balanchine beginning his famous version for the New York City ballet in 1954. This version is quite similar to the original version in plot.

Various other ballets have used Petipa's original choreography, some have adult dancers as the children, and some use original choreography or heavily alter the plot.

There was no way a ballet adaptation could do everything Hoffmann's original story did. Cutting away for the Nutcracker's backstory would be far too confusing, as would Marie's sacrifices to save the Nutcracker. Plot wise, the adaptation makes sense.

The problem is that this is the Nutcracker that people know, and as of recently, adaptations turn to it instead of the original text for their source, filling in the gaps of the story with original ideas that are rarely as good as Hoffmann's original. Yet, it's the ballet that has kept the story around for so long and kept it from slipping into obscurity. Much like MGM's The Wizard of Oz film is to L. Frank Baum's original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it's the landmark version and gateway to the original, but many people ignore going further than the famous version.

Regardless of how you feel about the ballet itself, I find it difficult to fault the music, as it's beautiful. As a kid, I loved the March and the other lively themes. Today, I love the Grand Pas De Deux at the end as it begins in beauty and melts into a darker theme before ending on a stirring note. To me, the final page of Hoffmann's story and the Final Waltz are basically inseparable.

Perhaps it is fitting that the ballet's grandest contribution to the Nutcracker legacy is the music. Let me quote from Hoffmann here:

[Music] reveals an unknown kingdom to mankind: a world that has nothing in common with the outward, material world that surrounds it, and in which we leave behind all predetermined conceptual feelings in order to give ourselves up to the inexpressible.

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King: Cracking the Shell of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Classic

In December of 2011, I wrote a variety of blogs about E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and a number of its adaptations. Since that time, there have been two highly noteworthy derivative works released and I came across other adaptations, so I've decided to revisit the story this December.

Ralph Manheim

The version of the original Hoffmann story that I'm familiar with is translated by Ralph Manheim, an eminent translator of German literature, whose other notable translations include The Neverending Story, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Mein Kampf. Manheim was Jewish and was certainly not sympathetic to Hitler, yet in the latter book, he set the standard he would create for his translations of fantasy works: he would strive to emulate the author's language and wordplay into English. For Hitler, this included carrying over some grammatical errors in letting this historical figure speak for himself. For the fantasies, this meant capturing the whimsical nature of these stories and making them accessible to a new audience. That is why Manheim's translation—available only in a large format edition illustrated by Maurice Sendak—is the only one I recommend.

The illustrations that you will see in this blog are from a portfolio of illustrations by Peter Carl Geissler, produced about 1840, and the illustrations by Jocelyn SC from the first English translation in 1853.

Hoffmann's early life saw him estranged from his father and elder brother when his parents separated. Young Ernst was living with his mother and her three siblings. Hoffmann's two aunts, he remembered fondly, but his uncle was not so kind and got the nickname "O Weh" ("oh dear!"). He would go on to work as a clerk before his attempts at composing and artwork got some attention. Napoleon's invasion of Warsaw had actually forced him to go to Berlin. When Napoleon invaded Germany, he was forced to leave his home yet again. It was seven years before he was able to return home at last. Yet this did not stop him in his love of writing and creating stories, as well as artistic output as a composer and draftsman and caricature artist. (His birth name was actually Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, but he used Amadeus instead of Wilhelm as a pseudonym as a nod to his favorite composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.) He also served as a music critic and jurist.

Nussknacker und Mausekönig was originally published in 1816, in Kindermärchen, some six years before Hoffmann's death, putting it at a time when he had become his most creative. In 1818, it was reprinted in his anthology Die Serapions-brüder (The Serapion Brethren) named for a literary circle he was a part of. While presented as a work one of the writers is sharing with his friends, it is wholly Hoffmann's story:

“Stop, stop!” cried Lothair. “If we give this spirit-seer Cyprian a chance, we shall be drawn into a regular labyrinth of dreams, presentiments, and all the rest of it. Allow me to dispel the gloomy tone which has come upon us at one stroke, by reading you—as a finale to our present sitting—a children's story which I wrote a short time ago, as I believe, under the direct inspiration of the tricksy spirit Puck, himself.”

“A children's story by you, Lothair!” they all cried.

“Even so,” said Lothair. “It may seem to you a piece of insanity that I should write a children's story; but let me read it to you, and then give your verdicts.”

Lothair took a carefully written manuscript from his pocket, and read.

The story begins at Christmas as the younger two children of the Stahlbaum family await their Christmas presents. This well-to-do family sees three sets of gifts: the presents on the tree that German tradition says were placed by the Christ child, the gifts from their parents, and an elaborate clockwork invention by their godfather Herr Drosselmeyer, a judge and clockmaker who also repairs the family's clocks.

The children—the eldest being Louise, the second being Fritz, and the youngest being Marie—are thrilled with their gifts, with Fritz getting his much-longed for soldiers to supplement his toy army, both girls getting dresses (Louise immediately tries on her new one, while Marie decides she'd rather look at it a bit longer), and Marie also receives a nice dollhouse. They are also impressed with Droselmeyer's new clockwork castle, but the inventor is frustrated when Fritz asks him to alter how it works and then declares that he's bored of seeing it do the same thing over and over.

Marie soon finds a nutcracker on the tree, her father instructing her on how to use the little man to crack nuts. Observing it, Marie notes that it's not attractive, but reflecting on how her godfather isn't exactly an attractive man either, but he is good, decides that there is more to him than meets the eye. When Fritz decides to crack nuts, he picks harder and larger nuts, causing the Nutcracker to lose some teeth and break his jaw. Marie, fascinated by the little man, bandages it and puts it in a doll bed.

Marie sits up and as she's about to go to bed, she spots her godfather sitting on the clock, muffling the sound of the chimes so mice invade the room, led by a large seven-headed king. It is at this point that she hits the glass door of the toy cabinet with her elbow and breaks it. This allows Fritz's army, led by the Nutcracker to battle the mice. The toys are overwhelmed with the mice, but as the Mouse King is about to strike the Nutcracker, Marie takes off one of her slippers and throws it at the King, making her faint onto the floor.

Marie awakens in bed, her mother wondering what she was doing. She explains that she found Marie at about midnight lying on the floor with her arm bleeding with cut glass from the cabinet and a lot of the toys around her, no sign of the mice anywhere. Marie has a fever and a sore arm that will take several days to recover.

During this time, her godfather visits and tells her how "ugliness came into Nutcracker's family." Over the course of three days, he tells her how a king was celebrating the birth of his new princess with a feast, the sausage course being ruined when the Mouse Queen and her family ate most of the fat, resulting in coarse and dry sausages. In retaliation, the king ordered all the mice in the castle killed, forcing the Mouse Queen to threaten a curse on the princess. Despite a guard of nursemaids with cats on their laps, the Mouse Queen manages to place her curse, making the princess ugly, with hints that she is now a live wooden person like a nutcracker. The court clockmaker—Christian Elias Drosselmeyer, who may or may not be Marie's godfather—and court astronomer look into the matter and find that the curse can be broken if the kernel of the Krakatuk nut is fed to princess, having been broken by a young man who has never shaved or worn boots. The two spend sixteen years searching in vain, but before returning to the king, the clockmaker decides to visit his cousin in Nuremberg, who not only happens to have the nut, but also a son who fits the description. The clockmaker decides to ensure a royal reward from the king and has several other young men attempt in vain to break the nut. When the younger Herr Drosselmeyer breaks the nut and takes the required seven steps backward to break the curse, he is cursed by the Mouse Queen, who is killed with the final step, and changed into a nutcracker. The princess and king renege on their promised rewards and banish the nutcracker and the clockmaker. However, it is foretold that the nutcracker's curse can be broken if he can find the love of a young woman in spite of his ugliness and vanquish the Mouse King, the son of the Queen.

As Marie recovers, at night, she is visited by the Mouse King, demanding her Christmas candy or else he will destroy the Nutcracker. She obeys, but the next night, he demands her precious sugar dolls, which she also sacrifices. On his third demand, she tells the Nutcracker that she's afraid that soon she'll have nothing to trade. He comes to life briefly and asks for a sword. Asking Fritz, he provides one from one of his soldiers.

That night, Marie hears a scuffle and a loud squeak. Nutcracker comes to her door and presents her with the seven crowns of the Mouse King and asks her to come with him. At her request, he takes the shortest route, which is through a ladder coming out of the sleeve of her father's fur coat.

Coming out into a meadow, Marie spots whimsical little animals, structures made of delicious baked goods, and dancing figures rather like many of the sugar dolls she gave up. Going along, they find Gingerbread City and Candytown on their way to a lake full of swans, rather like the one Marie once asked her godfather to make. They take a gondola across the lake, during which Marie spots a lovely face in the water. Believing it to be the princess from her godfather's story, Nutcracker tells her that it is her own face.

Coming to Marmalade Grove, Nutcracker and Marie come across another city that Manheim translates as Candytown. (Giving two cities the same name has been cited as the one flaw in this translation. The cities are in German "Bonbonhausen" and "Konfektburg," so a more proper translation might be "Bonbon Village" and "Candytown.") Passing through, they see a large variety of people of all nations beginning to quarrel and fight with each other, the hubbub being broken by the Lord Mayor ringing a bell and crying "Pastrycook!" Nutcracker explains that Pastrycook is a cruel spirit whose name invokes existential questions into the minds of the people. They come to Marzipan Castle, which is being repaired after the giant Sweettooth ate some of a tower before paying him off with some of the city and Marmalade Grove.

Arriving at the castle, they are met by Nutcracker's four sisters who cry to have their brother finally return. In the castle, the sisters begin to show off their cooking skills and asking Marie to use a mortar to pound rock candy. As the festivities begin, silvery mists seem to sweep her away, and she seems to fall... into her bed at home.

Awakening, Marie tells her parents of her adventure, but they scoff at the dream and even Herr Drosselmeyer claims that the seven crowns of the Mouse King were charms from his old watch chain that he gave to Marie. Her family has seemingly had enough of her fantastic claims and forbid her to speak of them or else Nutcracker and all her toys will be thrown out.

Some time passes and finally, one day Marie declares her love for the Nutcracker. Hearing her godfather call it nonsense, she falls off of her seat, her mother reproaching her and telling her that her godfather's nephew from Nuremberg has arrived.

The nephew cracks nuts for the family and gives Marie replacement sugar dolls for the ones she sacrificed. Going to the glass cabinet with Marie, he confesses he returns her love for him and asks for her hand in marriage, she accepts and the story ends by telling how they were married a year later and went to live in the Marzipan Castle, where it says they live still in a marvelous land of beauty.

In Die Serapions-brüder, the title characters comment on the story:

“Tell me, dear Lothair,” said Theodore, "how you can call your Nutcracker and the King of the Mice a children's story? It is impossible that children should follow the delicate threads which run through the structure of it, and hold together its apparently heterogeneous parts. The most they could do would be to keep hold of detached fragments, and enjoy those, here and there."

“And is that not enough?” answered Lothair. “I think it is a great mistake to suppose that clever, imaginative children—and it is only they who are in question here—should content themselves with the empty nonsense which is so often set before them under the name of Children's Tales. They want something much better; and it is surprising how much they see and appreciate which escapes a good, honest, well-informed papa. Before I read this story to you, I read it to the only sort of audience whom I look upon as competent critics of it, to wit, my sister's children. Fritz, who is a great soldier, was delighted with his namesake's army, and the battle carried him away altogether. He cried 'prr and poof, and schmetterdeng, and boom booroom,' after me, in a ringing voice; jigged about on his chair, and cast an eye towards his sword, as if he would go to Nutcracker's aid when he got into danger. He had never read Shakespeare, or the recent newspaper accounts of fighting; so that all the significance of the military strategy and evolutions connected with that greatest of battles escaped him completely, as well as ‘A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!’ And in the same way dear little Eugenie thoroughly appreciated, in her kind heart, Marie's regard for little Nutcracker, and was moved to tears when she sacrificed her playthings and her picture-books—even her little Christmas dress—to rescue her darling; and doubted not for a moment as to the existence of the glittering Candy Mead on to which Marie stepped from the neck of the mysterious fox-fur cloak in her father's wardrobe. The account of Toyland delighted the children more than I can tell.”

“That part of your story,” said Ottmar, “keeping in view the circumstance that the readers or listeners are to be children, I think the most successful. The interpolation of the story of the Hard Nut, although the 'cement' of the whole lies there, I consider to be a fault, because the story is—in appearance at all events—complicated and confused by it, and it rather stretches and broadens the threads. You have declared that we are incompetent critics, and so reduced us to silence; but I cannot help telling you that, if you bring this tale before the public, many very rational people—particularly those who never have been children themselves (which is the case with many)—will shrug their shoulders and shake their heads, and say the whole affair is a pack of stupid nonsense; or, at all events, that some attack of fever must have suggested your ideas, because nobody in his sound and sober senses could have written such a piece of chaotic monstrosity.”

“Very good,” said Lothair, “to such a head-shaker I should make a profound reverence, lay my hand on my heart, and assure him that it is little service to an author if all sorts of fancies dawn upon him in a confused dream, unless he can discuss them with himself by the light of sound reason and judgment, and work out the threads of them firmly and soberly. Moreover, I would say that no description of work demands a clear and quiet mind more absolutely than just this; for, although it must have the effect of flashing out in all directions with the most arbitrary disregard of all rules, it must contain a firm kernel within it.”

The story has its peculiarities. I note that the story provides a duality in that Hoffmann's narration comes from a voice that understands child-like imagination and wonder. Fritz's enthusiasm for his toy soldiers is encouraged by Hoffmann and they are spoken of as if they are live, real soldiers. Early on, Marie's understanding of Drosselmeyer repairing a clock is described as him sticking sharp objects into it, with her understanding that despite the appearance, this doesn't "hurt" the clock, giving the first hint that this child isn't past thinking inanimate objects might actually live. Thus, when Marie's strange adventures with the Nutcracker and the Mouse King begin, they are treated every bit as matter of fact.

When Marie's parents come into the story, they often offer alternate explanations for Marie's claims. Being the adults, their grown up view is a little cynical, but the story could be that Marie is having dreams or letting her imagination run wild, that is, until the last page when we are told of her marriage.

How old is Marie at the end? Some adaptations have her as much older than the preceding events when she is seven, but while the story says some time has passed, it might be that she is still seven when she is engaged, and married at eight. Yet the nephew's age is never outrightly stated either, the suggestion that he had "never shaved or worn boots" being that he was very young. And we must remember that this is 1818 in Germany, where child marriage was finally banned in 2017. I'd personally prefer the interpretation that some years have passed and she's now at a more mature age, but the text isn't explicit. In any case, while the romance factor in the story is high, it is not tinged with sexual implications.

There are other factors to consider with Marie's age and her marriage. When Marie is forbidden to speak about the Nutcracker, she becomes quieter and doesn't play as much anymore. This suggests that she has come into maturity, but is she becoming mature before her time or is this talking about the young woman she grew into? Either interpretation works.

A big theme is the subversion of attractive appearances being good. The Nutcracker is unattractive, but is full of glowing praise and admiration for Marie and fights nobly. The princess, however, has her beauty raved about, but when it comes time for gratitude for young Drosselmeyer's breaking her curse, she rebuffs him. It asks its audience to look past appearances.

There are a few German traditions about the wooden nutcrackers, with high quality wooden dolls with strong jaws for cracking nuts believed to originate from the region. It is said that nutcrackers are a symbol of good luck and will protect the home from evil spirits. Hoffmann seems to play on this idea in that there are no evil spirits, but there are wicked mice who seem capable of magic. And the nutcracker of the story is himself cursed.

Why do toys and candy figure so highly in the story? Hoffmann had come from war-ravaged times and locales where luxuries such as sweets were rare, so having an abundance of them is the epitome of the opposite of the times he saw. It was fantastical extravagance, whereas today it might only seem whimsical.

Toys of course figure into the childhood factor of the narrative. They were similar luxuries for well to do families, particularly the nice ones that the Stahlbaum family is described as owning. Toys are the friends of children and their treasures. However, during the battle, the toys also become soldiers, and we might find some commentary coming from a man twice displaced by Napoleon in that toys are replaceable and also breakable.

A big part of Marie's role in the story is her willingness to sacrifice her things for the Nutcracker. Feminist critics may note that often, women are usually expected to give way to men, but it is her choice to do so, although the Nutcracker does tell her that she doesn't need to do it, asking her for a sword instead. He praises her for it, and when the curse is finally broken fully, he replaces many of the things she lost.

I find it interesting that Hoffmann describes Marie's beloved sugar dolls and then the first humanoid characters she encounters with the Nutcracker in their celebratory journey are similar in description to the ones she loved the most. In addition, she also sacrificed her little store of candy and finds a world where candy is in abundance. It is as if the things she gave up are in this fantastical world, only now made greater.

And what of the mice? Mice could carry disease, or chew up valuable possessions or ruin food stores. Thus, having them nearby was to be avoided.

I find something very interesting about the fact that Hoffmann enjoyed a loving female presence at a young age and that the hero of The Nutcracker is actually a young girl instead of the titular character. I would not go so far as to call this a feminist story, particularly as Marie has little say in her participation in the proceedings, plus the questions about her marriage. However she is the main character and does play an important role in the proceedings.

It is also interesting that in the backstory of the Nutcracker, two of the prominent characters are female: the princess and the Mouse Queen, named Pirlipat and Mouserinks. The Queen also plays a role, but is not as prominent.

The male characters are generally focused on war: Fritz with his toy soldiers, and the fight between the titular characters. Marie's father is largely secondary to the plot, but more mysterious is Herr Drosselmeyer who always seems as if he knows more than what he's saying. All named male characters except the Nutcracker (and the doctor who tends to Marie's wounds) are at some point antagonistic to Marie. Godfather Drosselmeyer and Fritz are only briefly so, most of the time supporting Marie. Fritz is even spoken of highly by the narrator. It's interesting to note that Hoffmann lacked positive adult male figures in childhood when this is considered. The Nutcracker and Herr Drosselmeyer are not considered to be handsome, but are presented as some of the positive male figures. This story is clearly lacking in glowing examples of male characters, so despite the title characters, this doesn't revel in masculinity.

Another interesting point about the story is that Marie is forbidden to speak of her experiences with the Nutcracker while Fritz throughout the stories talks about his toy soldiers as if they're real and is never reproached. When he hears that his army failed to stop the mice, he even demotes some of them, but when Marie is forbidden from her tales, he seemingly turns on her by refusing to listen and even promoting his soldiers again. Is Fritz allowed his fantasy because he's a boy? Is it because he's younger? Is it because his games of war are accepted as normal instead of Marie's stories of the strange things she's seen? Are there unfair pressures being put on Marie? Is it some lingering effect of the Mouse Queen's curse or is it classic sexism?

And of course, there is the central good and evil battle. Can we extrapolate that mice are evil and toys are good? In the viewpoint of a child in Germany during the early 19th century, sure. But the curious thing of Hoffmann is that although he writes a fairy-tale, he makes no pretense at creating a moral.

The Land of Sweets that Marie and the Nutcracker visit then rule over is an early example of an alternate world in fantasy literature. It is far from the first, and many more would follow. I'm unsure of tales of "otherworlds" aimed at children, though. And unlike many stories that feature them, the visit to this Land is short and depicted as a reward and celebration, unlike Wonderland, Neverland, Oz or Narnia where the majority of the story happens there. This story takes place mainly in "our world." In fact, it is only when we see the Land of Sweets that we arrive in an outdoor setting in the story. Marie's story until that point has taken place entirely inside her home.

There is a widespread misconception about Hoffmann's original story being dark and terrifying or dreary and depressing. I wonder if anyone making these claims has actually read Hoffmann's story for themselves, particularly as these are usually done in talking up adaptations such as those of Dumas and Petipa. Hoffmann includes quite a bit of humor and good nature, contrasting smartly with darker moments to make a more interesting story rather than a bland one.

To speak further of the story, it speaks clearly of German Christmas traditions. Characters have German last names. The ranks of soldiers are clearly German. However, other English translations and adaptations remove German references. This is likely due to negative feelings towards Germany around the first and second World Wars. Film adaptations are either vague about where the story takes place, rarely making a suggestion that it's Germany. Some even clearly place it elsewhere. If you want to read more about The Nutcracker and its influence on other works and its retellings, please see this informative article.

Thus, we have a unique fantasy tale. It defies many popular conventions of story telling, but holds together on its own, and in a good way leaves the reader asking a few questions. Treat yourself to a copy of Manheim and Sendak's version and enjoy a good read.

Sources:

Nutcracker; E.T.A. Hoffmann, translated by Ralph Manheim, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, Crown Publishers, 1983

Hoffmann, E.T.A.: Nußknacker und Mausekönig; Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

The Serapion Brothers, Vol. 1; E.T.A. Hoffmann, translated by Alexander Ewing, Project Gutenberg

E.T.A. Hoffmann; Wikipedia

Christopher Robin (2018)

Has there ever been a storybook bear with as storied a history as Winnie the Pooh?

The earliest origin of Winnie the Pooh is in 1914 as Canadian Lt. Harry Colebourn bought a bear cub who had been raised with people and was thus quite gentle. He named the female bear Winnipeg or "Winnie." Traveling with the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, she became their mascot and was eventually left in the care of the London Zoo.

It was at the London Zoo that she attracted the attention of a little boy named Christopher Robin Milne, who liked her so much that his teddy bear (formerly Edward Bear) was renamed Winnie-the-Pooh. Young Christopher's imagination and games he played with his stuffed animals became the inspiration for verse and stories by his father, Alan Alexander Milne, who would write two books of poems featuring fictionalized versions of young Christopher and his bear and two books of stories about Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin and all of their friends in the Forest.

The fiction of A.A. Milne became a worldwide hit, having captured the imagination of readers with a frank and honest portrayal of how a child sees the world.

However, young Christopher was not pleased about the fame he had been exposed to. When he went off to boarding school, he was bullied for his connection to the stories. He and his parents would eventually become estranged, although in the end, he made peace with his father. The existing toys that inspired the stories are currently on display in the New York Public Library, and a lot of tourism and preservation of Ashdown Forest is owed to what the Milnes did.

The fictional world of Winnie-the-Pooh was adapted for radio and stage, and eventually television and film, most famously by Walt Disney's animated featurettes that were eventually compiled into the feature film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Disney wasn't the only one to bring Pooh to film, as Shirley Temple's television show had previously adapted several of the Pooh stories using large marionettes. Soyuzmultfilm, the famous Russian animation studio, also released a trilogy of Pooh animated shorts. But Disney has certainly had the most media presence with four television shows, additional shorts, a variety of small release and direct to video films, and a 2011 proper animated sequel to Many Adventures simply titled Winnie the Pooh.

Fans of the characters have long debated as to how different Disney's version is from the original Milne version. There are many thoughtful comparisons, but I won't go into them now.

I had often thought that I would like to see a different film version of the stories. Since Pooh and many of his friends are toys, it would be interesting to see living toys onscreen interacting with the boy who owned them, in addition to Rabbit and Owl, who were supposed to be actual forest animals. Shirley Temple's television version had come pretty close with the marionettes. My personal favorite version of the Milne stories are readings by the late Peter Dennis, which of course offered no visuals, but let you imagine a Pooh different from Disney's.

And so, I was very interested to hear about Christopher Robin, a new offering by Disney which would be their first attempt at a live action Pooh with CGI. (The television series Welcome to Pooh Corner featured the characters as people in full-body costumes and the later The Book of Pooh depicted them with puppets with some CGI enhancements.) The thing is, it would also be a sequel to the main Pooh stories by depicting an adult Christopher Robin. This past Tuesday, I went to my local cinema, took care of a "rumbly in my tumbly" with some nachos, and watched the film.

There was no doubt that the fictional adult Christopher Robin would differ greatly from the real Christopher Robin Milne. Perhaps at the most simplified theme, they are similar in that they leave Pooh and his friends behind and happily return to them later. Both do get married and have a daughter.

The film opens with a celebration in the Hundred Acre Wood (Disney's name for the Forest, which wasn't named in Milne's stories, though there is a Hundred Acre Wood in the Forest), and you see the main Pooh characters Disney focused on: Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo, and Tigger. They are depicted throughout the film with CGI that remembers most of them are living toys and Owl and Rabbit are real animals. (Disney has seemingly dropped their original character Gopher and they never used Rabbit's Friends and Relations.) They're joined by a young Christopher Robin, yet it's a boy who's getting older and taller, about to go through puberty.

The loving care that Disney took to these opening scenes actually made this fan of the Milne stories tear up.

A curious thing about this film is that it depicts the Hundred Acre Wood as another world that Christopher can access via the green door in a tree. In the original stories, Christopher is said to live "behind a green door in another part of the Forest," so I suppose this interpretation is completely valid. I had always assumed Christopher Robin arriving in the Forest was when the little boy would go to play.

Years pass for Christopher and major events take place in his life. His father dies, he goes to boarding school, he begins work, he meets a lovely woman named Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) that he marries and has a daughter with, and he serves in the second World War.

When the story finally slows down to a regular pace, Christopher (Ewan McGregor) is now probably at the youngest in his late 30s (McGregor himself is a few years from fifty) and has no time to think of his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. In fact, he lets his job at Winslow Luggage keep him so busy that he barely has time for Evelyn or his daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). At this particular time, his employer Giles (Mark Gatiss) has made him work the same weekend that he and his family were going to go to Sussex. This means Evelyn and Madeline leave without him.

Over in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings, who also voices Tigger) looks around for his friends, but can't find them. With no other choice, he heads to the green door and steps out into a park a frustrated Christopher happens to go to. Irritated at being interrupted and knowing his wife is right about how much he has to work, Christopher reluctantly has to go to Sussex so he can return Pooh to the Hundred Acre Wood.

The story of course goes on further with a reclamation of Christopher's childhood joys and a merry chase as Pooh, Piglet (voiced by Nick Mohammed), Tigger and Eeyore (voiced by Brad Garrett) meet Madeline who tries to return her father's papers to him after they were left behind in the Hundred Acre Wood.

The film is very sweet and of course has the message that you can keep your imagination alive as an adult and to make sure you make time for really matters most. Perhaps it's a little too on the nose for some, as several critics have detracted it. But for Pooh fans like me, while it might not be the most perfect adaptation of Milne's characters, bringing the simple nature of Pooh to an adult character just felt more in keeping with the spirit with the original stories than any of the animated films or shorts.

To me, it was a great joy to see the Pooh characters lovingly realized in three dimensions on the big screen set in a real forest (scenes were actually filmed in the real Ashdown Forest in Sussex, which was the basis of the Forest in the original stories). I would love it if Disney could return to the original Milne stories and depict them again (throughout the many Pooh animated features, most of the stories have been adapted for animation somehow) in this manner. Perhaps something for that new streaming service they're working on?

In any case, if you love tributes to classic literature (the film does pay many a homage to the original books), Winnie-the-Pooh, or just fun little movies that entertain, check out Christopher Robin before it leaves cinemas!

Picnic at Hanging Rock - The Mini Series

The most viewed entry on this blog is my 2009 piece about Picnic at Hanging Rock, the novel by Joan Lindsay and the film adaptation by Peter Weir. It's gotten a few comments since, particularly pointing out that the supposed excised ending may not actually be Lindsay's work. I'll accept that as a possibility.

But that's not the point at hand right now. The story has been revisited for a six episode miniseries by Australian company Foxtel, and in the US, it's available through Amazon Prime video.

In case you don't want to read my older blog, let me sum up the story: during an outing to a rock formation near Mount Macedon, three girls from Appleyard College (a finishing school for girls) and a teacher go missing without a trace. The mystery has a huge effect on the locals, particularly Michael Fitzhubert, and the remaining staff and students at the College, and the fates of some characters aren't so mysterious.

As Weir's film is so iconic, comparing this to that film is inevitable. As they share source material and the real Hanging Rock is featured in both, there's scenes that mirror each other, sometimes feeling like an intentional duplication.

It's surprising that the film is noted for its slow pace, but the miniseries doesn't really do that. Instead, it creates a new subplot and fleshes out the backstories of the characters, or rather, the writers' interpretations of these characters.

If you're looking for fidelity to the source material, then Weir's film is the more faithful version. As I said nine years ago, the book and film complement each other (though there are differences). The dreamlike quality of both isn't exactly replicated here.

Taking a 21st Century stance, there's more care given to instances of women having agency in society. The most altered character due to this is none other than Mrs. Appleyard, the headmistress of the college. Rachel Roberts played her in Weir's film, starting as a warm but strict gray-haired matron figure and over the course of the film turning into a terrifying villain. In the miniseries, she is played by Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) as a much younger incarnation of the character. Her new backstory reveals some surprising things about her, but makes her more sympathetic rather than scary, even though the character retains her nasty side.

One of the missing girls is now a girl of color, and a teacher has been rewritten to be a lesbian. There's a major suggestion that the missing girls successfully ran away, but whether the missing teacher was part of it or tried to stop them isn't made clear. The main mystery of the story is left unresolved, as it should be.

In the novel, one of the teachers at the school gets a nasty fate. In Weir's film, they wisely just have her leave the College. Her fate is restored and even expanded upon here. During the climax of the story, a gruesome sight is described by Lindsay. Weir filmed a toned down version of it, but it did not make the final cut. It is not even included in the miniseries, despite the moment in which it happens being expanded on.

I'm not of the opinion that remakes should never happen. Sometimes a new interpretation of a story finds new depth to the story and can make us think about it differently and appreciate it more. However, now having watched the entire series, I find little defense for making a six-hour adaptation of a story that had been previously adapted faithfully in two hours. Adding so much additional material lets you see a version of the story and characters as interpreted by certain people. However, the dreamlike ambiguity of the novel and Weir's film work in their favor. You were allowed to make your own interpretations and conclusions.

That said, I can't say the miniseries was bad. It was interesting to see another filmed version after Weir. Talent and technical aspects were handled well. It was intriguing enough to go ahead and keep going. And re-examining the characters under a 21st century eye was quite welcome.

Check it out if you're interested in seeing one specific version of this story, but the original novel and Weir's film are going to be the continuing classic versions.