History WesternAnimation / Klaus2019

''Klaus'' is a 2019 animated Christmas film directed by Sergio Pablos (best known for creating the ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' franchise, and as the supervising animator of [[WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet Dr. Delbert Doppler]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}} Tantor]]) which serves as an [[JustSoStory origin story]] for SantaClaus. It's the first feature film to be produced by Pablos's homegrown studio, Sergio Pablos Animation[[note]]Not to be confused with the other animation studio who's initials are [[Creator/SonyPicturesAnimation SPA]].[[/note]] in Madrid and stars the voices of Creator/JasonSchwartzman, Creator/JKSimmons, Creator/RashidaJones, Creator/JoanCusack, Creator/WillSasso and Creator/NormMacDonald.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: A rather unusual one, in that the fictional world of the story seems to be based on 1800s Scandinavia. Jesper Johansen is a common Danish and, to a slightly lesser degree, Norwegian name. Jesper's hometown and supposed civilization compared to Smeerensburg maps pretty well to how Denmark was viewed at the time, while Smeerensburg being a small whaling town on an island far to the north compares it to Svalbard, the Norwegian islands so far north that even Northern Norway consider it a backwater.

* CelestialDeadline: General Johanssen orders Jesper to deliver six thousand letters in a year in Smeerensburg, or else he will be permanently deprived of his family's finances.

* FailureMontage: A lengthy montage of Jesper trying (but failing) to deliver presents at the town.

* ForWantOfANail: Mrs. Krum and Mr. Ellingboe probably would never have taken issue with Jesper and Klaus' toy distribution gig had Jesper not realized one of the deliveries was for an Ellingboe kid that insulted him earlier in the film, making him put coal in his stocking in retaliation and then making up the mythos of the "Naughty List" to intimidate said kid into showing him more respect, which put the idea into the other children's heads that Klaus would reward good deeds with toys and punish bad ones with coal, leading to their parents acting just as altruistically.

* WholePlotReference: Unintentional or not, the initial plot is strikingly similar to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' book ''Going Postal''. A BrilliantButLazy guy (Jesper/Moist Von Lipwig) is commanded by an authority figure (Postmaster General/Lord Vetinari) to head a dilapidated post office or suffer the consequences (cut off financially/hanging). While initially going along with it with a plan to escape, both eventually not only meet their love interests (Alva/Adora Belle Dearheart) who help them, but also find out that GoodFeelsGood with their own IChooseToStay moments.

* PyrrhicVillainy: [[spoiler:The Krums and the Ellingboes (seemingly) destroy the presents and therefore sabotage Christmas. But in the process, Olaf saves Pumpkin [[RescueRomance and the two fall in love]]. What follows in the near future is a wedding between them, uniting the two clans and ending the very feud they worked so hard to save.]]

''Klaus'' is a 2019 Spanish-American animated Christmas comedy film directed by Sergio Pablos (best known for creating the ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' franchise, and as the supervising animator of [[WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet Dr. Delbert Doppler]] and [[WesternAnimation/{{Tarzan}} Tantor]]) which serves as an [[JustSoStory origin story]] for SantaClaus. It's the first feature film to be produced by Pablos's homegrown studio, Sergio Pablos Animation[[note]]Not to be confused with the other animation studio who's initials are [[Creator/SonyPicturesAnimation SPA]].[[/note]] in Madrid and stars the voices of Creator/JasonSchwartzman, Creator/JKSimmons, Creator/RashidaJones, Creator/JoanCusack, Creator/WillSasso and Creator/NormMacDonald.

Most notable is the film's one-of-a-kind visual style, which applies realistic shading and volumetric lighting to "paperless" hand-drawn animation, giving 2D drawings a distinctly 3-dimensional look (sort of an inversion of ''WesternAnimation/{{Paperman}}'''s technique). According to Pablos, he believed that 2D feature animation had gone out of style largely because it [[TechnologyMarchesOn hadn't progressed much since digital ink-and-paint]], which could only make characters look like stickers pasted onto backgrounds and paled in comparison to CGI. Inversely, he believed CGI was becoming old hat, as there was no further ground to break once it had achieved the utmost photorealism. This new technique was his studio's way of not only integrating the 2D characters into 3D environments better, but also keeping hand-drawn animation alive while allowing it to progress technologically into the 21st century.

* SmallParentHugeChild: Mrs. Krum and Mr. Ellingboe are two average-sized adults. However, Mrs. Krum's son Olaf and Mr. Ellingboe's daughter Pumpkin are enormous brutes that tower over the entire town.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: One of the sweetest and most wholesome examples in animated film history: during the HardWorkMontage of the Sami workers helping Klaus, Jesper, and Alva build more toys, there's a brief shot of [[spoiler:Alva snuggled up in bed under the covers with Jesper. Only her head and her upper arms (wrapped around Jesper) are visible and Jesper is staring down at her adoringly, strongly implying that [[TheirFirstTime they just made love.]]]]

-->--'''Klaus

-> ''"A true act of good will always sparks another."''

* DoingInTheWizard: The film deliberately sets out to provide a mundane explanation for all the aspects that would eventually become part of the 'Santa Claus' mythology. Never seeing Santa when he delivers the presents and leaving out cookies for him is because Jesper is ''very'' good at sneaking around and got peckish; Santa [[ChimneyEntry coming down the chimney]] is because chimneys are often the only way to actually get inside the heavily fortified houses in Smeerensburg; the coal-in-the-stocking and the 'naughty list' are created on the spot to scare a young bully who's been a real brat; the flying reindeer come from a half-asleep kid seeing the wagon (later sleigh) actually in the middle of ''crashing;'' [[https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/15/20966847/netflix-klaus-sergio-pablos-interview-despicable-me Santa's helpers are the grateful Sámi rather than elves.]] [[spoiler:The only really magical/supernatural parts are Klaus's wife (apparently) staying with him in the form of the wind, Klaus joining her in the afterlife and whatever happened to enable Klaus to return every Christmas Eve to deliver gifts.]]

* BridalCarry: A gender-swapped example when freshly-wed Pumpkin carrying her groom Olaf down the stairs of the church.

** The level of goodwill and kindness in either the children or adults of each clan is indicated by how colorfully they are dressed

* CunningLinguist: Alva's knowledge of other languages as a teacher [[ChekhovsSkill comes in handy]] when Jesper has her act as a translator for the little Sami girl, Margu. By the end, it's visually implied that Jesper has [[CharacterDevelopment also become fluent in the language]], when he's shown speaking to the Sami alone [[spoiler:after Klaus [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence disappears]]]] without the use of a translator.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Jesper, whose response to a little Sami girl speaking to him in her native language is to tactlessly reply "What's wrong with her mouth?" [[CharacterDevelopment He grows out of it.]]