#swaomee swans

[feminariden]

had i watched this movie when i was 12 years old, i’m sure i would have thought the Onceler was hot, but if i told my 12 yo self, in the future, when i wil be 18, i would spend a saturday night watching a children’ movie, she would totally believe it.

Anyway i did a review of The Lorax, and it’s darn long, so it’s under the cut (pls read it, it took me days to write all this)

Yesterday i saw “The Lorax” (2012), a movie adaptation of the children’s book “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss, a writer who is know for being able to transform heavy social and political topics in stories for little kids...seriously, one of his books “Yertle The Turtle and Other stories” is about Hitler, or “Horton hears a Who” is about post-WWII Japan, jesus...

And the cool thing is his book are actually very good, it’s hard to describe his style but Dr. Seuss’s works are the proof children’s literature can be deep, relevant and though-provoking justas the next book about fascism.

You should totally read some of his books (specially “The Lorax” if you wanna read this), Dr. Seuss was also a very “woke” person, so i’m sure you will like his morals.

So you can see there are high expectations for anything related to this author, “The Lorax” is one of his favorite and most popular stories so course there would be some adaptations, in fact there are 2, an 2d animated short film made in 1972 (i recommend it to all you) and a CGI movie made in 2012.

Of course i watched them both, i don’t wanna compare them, the 1972 short is a perfect reproduction of the book but except some dialogue, there is nothing original, while 2012 movie had lots of new content, but there are some questionable writing decisions.

Speaking of new content, i really liked the soundtrack, there aren’t many OSTs but i felt every melody was right for the every scene, specially the songs, even the deleted ones are all incredibly catchy and well made, otherwise they wouldn’t be huge memes; i also liked the little “easter eggs” like when Lorax revives Onceler you can hear a reprise of “This is the place”, fitting as both scenes are about Onceler bonding with the animals or how “Let It Grow” is a reference to Lorax’s amazing monologue in the 1972 short, and there are many others

Now speaking of the movie, it isn’t neither the best or the worst adaptation ever, it’s ok, i give 7/10, it has some problems, like the fact it fails the Bechdel Test, the Villan Song is basically 1/4 of book, but maybe the biggest mistake is the completely useless “main” plot, the OG book has 64 pages and there isn’t even much text, it would be hard make a movie longer than 30 minutes, i could understand why they decided to add that bland plot...if they didn’t add original stuff in Onceler’s flashback, and worst of all, that original stuff is actually good.

In fact, while i think the hour and 26 minutes spent watching this movie were well spent, the only parts worth REwatching are Onceler’s flashback (aka the book’s plot) and the songs.

Still as i said before this movie did something right, but i really feel like the best way to talk about this is talking about its characters and its deleted material.

Oh by the way, “The Lorax” is the absolute proof you should ALWAYS RELEASE THE UNUSED MATERIAL.

About the animation, it’s CGI, you either like it or not, and i liked the background, the color and the characters design, it’s not good like “Coco” but it works, in particular i loved the truffula trees:

They look cotton candy and they are lovely, i’m sure this is how Dr. Seuss wanted them to be.

Anyway, characters:

Ted Wiggins: i like they gave him a name and a story, the book never said why this child is the middle of nowhere listening a creepy hermit’s backstory, his tale also shows us the horrible consequences of Onceler’s industries; but did Ted really needed to be the protagonist?

In the OG book the child stands for the reader and the seed represents the awareness that only us can save this planet from pollution (worth nothing Dr Seuss’s characters are mostly animals and cute little monsters, while the child is on of his very few humans characters). 

In the movie he should have remained that, he’s bland and the writers didn’t cared enough to give him depth and complexity, just he isn’t worthy to be a main character.

The movie should have been like this:

Opening + first sing (thneedville)

Ted and Audrey

The Air Company

Ted’s family

introduction ends

Ted looks for the Onceler outside the city

Ted meets him

Onceler tells the first part of the story

 He tells Ted to return the next day

Some Air Company and family scenes

Ted returns

Onceler finishes and give him the seed

Ted, family and Audrey plants the seed (+Let It Grow)

Credits

(maybe) Lorax’s return

No secondary plot, lust Lorax and the Onceler, like it should be.

Audrey: well that’s certainly Taylor Swift, like her facial expressions, she was cute, (and it was nice they named her after Dr Seuss’s wife).

Ted’s mom and Gradma Norma: they were funny and good secondary characters, wish they had more lines.

Aloysius O’Hare: ok, i liked him, but he should be a secondary character, not even a minor villan, i liked him because: the Air Company was funny, and so it is that in-your-face Take That to the bottled water business.

I really liked the scene where a worker asks what will be the next each cow-invention and immediately we see O’Hare, like it shows hoe the Onceler and O’Hare are just two of the milions of capitalists, they aren’t special and their inventions and success aren’t outstanding or something, so yeah, erase the whole 1984-esque plan to stop Ted and you can keep him.

The Lorax: what can i say? he is just like his book version, just voiced by The King Danny DeVito, speaking of him, he voiced Lorax in many languages, one of them is italian and it’s pretty funny listening this otherworldly creatures’s weird italian pronunciation.

Anyway as i said there isn’t much to say abut him, he is literally the voice of nature, he is here to say to our faces “stop destroying the environment goddamit”.

I think, they expanded Onceler’s backstory, why the writers didn’t did the same for Lorax?

There is much you can do with him, and even if you don’t wanna say where he come from or what he exactly he is, you can explore his morality, the 1972 version did give him more lines to give more thickness to his opinions, like his whole speech on progress.

Overall: cute, funny and sassy character, he had some hilarious lines (”breakfast is overrated” was my fave), interactions with the Oncelers and the animals were nice.

 Also, this is pretty personal but after the last truffula falls and he starts to fly away, sorry but that moment was too much ridiculous, the whole scene is so incredibly dramatic and then Lorax flies away with his butt up.

Hilarious but i think it was unnecessary, but still in the original book that part was like the only funny moment, so i guess the writers didn’t felt cutting it was a good tribute to the OG story.

The forest critters: they could have been annoying, but they are adorable, funny and childish.

The “problem” with them is in the original book they had more focus, there were at least 12 for when and why they go away, 4 pages for the Bar-ba-loots, 4 pages for the Swaomee Swans and 4 pages for the Humming Fishes, in the movie all these pages are basically 1 minute of “How bad Can i Be?” and then the then all the animals leave the forest together.

In the end it’s not much, but i would be much more effective if we (and the Onceler) saw the animals leave one after the other, like in the original story.

Onceler’s family: probably the best addiction in the movie, because for what we know of Oncie’s OG family, it’s totally possible they were abusive money-hungry piece if shits, all we know is Onceler hired them because he wanted to enrich his family and they left him when he failed.

Maybe they had very few lines but they were a good example of emotionally manipulative family, the sort of people you should NOT consider in your life, they gave the Onceler a good freudian excuse, without making him someone “who did nothing wrong”.

I would like to know more about them, specially why they always looks like middle-class everyday workers rather rich entrepreneurs, even Oncie makes the family rich they looks the same, with the same clothes and all.

Onceler: oh god

So in the OG book he was never seen because he, the capitalist that destroyed the environment, could be anyone, even you, even Jeff Bezos.

In the 1972 short it was implied he is a human with green gloves and green pants, but the movie gives him a face, a backstory and his story gets expanded.

And despite all this change, i feel the character is still the same, he is still morally conflicted greedy capitalist.

Anyway in this movie the Onceler is a handsome, cute young man with a apparently adorkable personality; he’s pleasant, sweet and he likes to sing and play the guitars, he “likes” nature but loves animals and animals love him back, their bond is almost a parody of the “friend of the animals” trope because while their scenes are definitely adorable, you can see the forest’s animals aren’t exactly helpful like in Snowhite.

I think they added this sub-plot so

to show Onceler isn’t good with people and for him it’s easier befriending animals (ANIMALS?!)

to add cuteness

to make the whole flashback much more emotional, in the OG book Onceler was sorry for what he did to them but he didn’t cared until he was all alone; here, all his little ex-friends are now leaving because of his selfish greed, when i think Onceler said “i don’t wanna trouble” to the little critters that used to follow him literally anywhere, like he feels they are now enemies, well, i do feel bad.

He is like a brutal subversion of a male Disney Princess.

About his morality, while it’s the same of the book, the movie kinda make look like he is greedy because it runs in family, while said family is the “Lady Macbeth” of his life.

While “Biggering” is entire entire deleted song about why he is like that, i wrote a comment with my interpretation:

The Onceler’s character really improves with this song, in this movie it seems is greedy because it runs in family, here we see Onceler’s actually very prideful, and he wants prove himself to be the best, “bigger” than everyone else, he knows his company is just like every other, no matter how rich it is, every single company could fail, and even one big like his thneed production “his just trying to survive”, he wants to be proud to say he is a rich and powerful man as long he can, but like Lorax said “he is never satisfied” because there is no end to “biggering”, he saw the chance to be a great man and took it without thinking, i think this song made Onceler even more human”

THE END

this took to much time to write, i could be shorter, but whatever i’m proud, this is my first full review