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.