Line #4 YMMV/JamesAndTheGiantPeach


1	* {{Applicability}}: The story can be seen as a metaphor for emigrating for a better life.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: You can't go wrong with Music/RandyNewman composing the songs and score.
3	** "We're Family," a sweet, lilting number that illustrates the bond that James has formed with his arthropod companions.
4	** "Good News" is the perfect note on which to end the story -- energetic, triumphant, and upbeat.
5	** "My Name is James," in which James expresses his hopes of finally leaving his miserable life behind and getting to New York as he had hoped to do with his parents, is probably the most wonderful IWantSong in any live-action Disney musical.
6	** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zydg6V7pnmA opening theme]] is absolutely ''beautiful''. Even more so when it turns out that it was [[spoiler: Mr. Grasshopper playing it on the violin.]]
7	%%Do NOT add the villains as Complete Monsters without going to the cleanup thread first.
8	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment:
9	** In the book, at one point, a giant bat flies past the peach, spooking the passengers. This is never brought up again.
10	** In the movie:
11	*** When James and Miss Spider go underwater to search for the Centipide, they swim near a figurehead of James's aunts. There is no explanation for this, other than as possible Foreshadowing, and it is otherwise completely unseen by James and Miss Spider.
12	*** [[spoiler: TheStinger qualifies. An arcade game called "Spike the Aunts" is shown, where James's aunts are bashed by the rhino. It's bizarre and has no connection to the plot, [[FridgeHorror although it may give the implication that the aunts were killed by the rhino]]]].
13	* CrossesTheLineTwice: In true Creator/RoaldDahl fashion, James' parents abruptly getting eaten by a rhinoceros at the beginning of the story is so deliberately absurd that it's difficult to find it tragic, at least until the aunts' treatment of James is made clear. Even in the movie, where the rhinoceros is a mass of black clouds and lightning and very possibly a metaphor for something else, can still invoke this.
14	* CultClassic: The movie isn’t too well known, but those who have seen it find it to be a highly fun film with great characters.
15	* DirectorDisplacement: To a lesser extent than ''The Nightmare Before Christmas'', but still... Creator/TimBurton was one of the producers, and that's enough for some people to believe he directed it, while it was actually Creator/HenrySelick.
16	* FanficFuel: The magic crocodile tongues can make "marvelous things happen" wherever they go, turning a bunch of bugs into BenevolentMonsters, James into a {{Toon}} and caused a dead tree to grow a gargantuan peach in less than a minute. The bag the old man gave James was ''full'' of them and they're all on the loose in Great Britain. What other weird, fantastical things are going on thanks to those slimy things?
17	* HilariousInHindsight
18	** The undead pirate scene, which is led by [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Jack Skellington]], has an expy of WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck among his crew. Six years later, ''VideoGame/{{Kingdom Hearts\|I}}'' was released, with Donald as one of the main characters and Halloween Town being a playable world, with Jack serving as its GuestStarPartyMember. Likewise, the main party become undead there, though Donald is turned into a {{Mummy}} instead. Even more hilarious in the French dub of the film; Sora and James have [[Creator/DonaldReignoux the same voice actor]]!
19	** A giant mechanical shark tried to take down the peach? No wonder [[VideoGame/BanjoKazooie Grunty imprisoned him in her lair]]. [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation That monster is dangerous!]]
20	*** What will the shark attack next, [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime a garden?]]
21	** James begins his adventure by entering a fantastical ribbed tunnel to a strange house, at the climax, he has to run to safety as platforms are being torn away beneath his feet, and he defiantly shouts "No, I'm not!" in the final confrontation. All of these are experiences that the eponymous heroine of a [[{{WesternAnimation/Coraline}} later Selick film]] will have.
22	*** Not to mention finding a mother figure in a spider-like creature. Thankfully, Miss Spider is actually benevolent.
23	** Miss Spider (French) and Centipede (Brooklyn) often squabble despite being on the same team. [[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Another famous team]] would later feature two characters of the same nationalities with much the same dynamic.
24	** When the Centipede is caught by the pirates, [[https://youtu.be/hBFovm9TAvw?t=62 a bubble transition]] to James and Miss Spider turns out to be similar to the bubble transitions used by [[WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarepants a certain popular cartoon]]. For bonus points, the Centipede was whistling "Blow The Man Down" before being caught, a sea shanty whose melody served as the inspiration for the TitleThemeTune of said cartoon.
25	* HoYay: Between the Grasshopper and the Centipede in the night scene just before the song "We're Family." A private violin performance of Bach's Partita No. 3, Gavotte en Rondeau, as their mode of transport soars over a moonlit sea seems to edge on the romantic side of things; especially when one considers how flustered Mr. Grasshopper is to be caught by James in the middle of things.
26	* MoralEventHorizon: Both Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker are abusive legal guardians towards James in the movie. However, they finally cross it when they outright attempt to '''MURDER''' him [[AxCrazy with axes]] (with all of New York City watching, no less)!
27	* NarmCharm: The robotic shark being obvious CGI manages to make it look even more creepy and unnatural.
28	* NauseaFuel: That disgusting fish head pie James receives from his aunts for dinner in the movie. This is, in fact, a [[AluminumChristmasTrees real meal]] called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargazy_pie stargazy pie]].
29	** Stargazy pie has the heads and tails of (usually) pilchards poking out of the crust, so that when cooked, the 'junk' parts of the fish can leak flavourful oils back into the pie filling. James, on the other hand, was just offered fish heads on a plate, being both unsettling to look at and relatively nutritionally barren.
30	* RetroactiveRecognition: Hey, is that [[Franchise/HarryPotter Remus Lupin]] and [[Film/WonderWoman2017 Ares]] as the Earthworm?
31	** And [[Franchise/HarryPotter Professor Sprout]] as Aunt Sponge and the Glow Worm?
32	* TearJerker: In the book, James's heroic rescue of the Centipede when he falls off the airborne peach. James orders the Silkworm to spin a rope, which he ties around his waist, and jumps off the peach. Before he returns, the insects presume him dead, and the Old-Green-Grasshopper plays a funeral march on his violin. However, James succeeds in the rescue.
33	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The concept of turning the ordinary rhino that killed James's parents in the book into a Chernabog-esque EldritchAbomination itself was not a bad idea in-of-itself. The trouble for some was the execution, as there was no backstory, apparent motive, nor hint of explanations [[note]] Ie, why did it attack James's parents in the first place? Were the aunts aware that it was a cloud monster in the beginning, or just taunting him? Why did the rhino wait until the group reached New York to attack them as opposed to earlier? Was it even real or just James's imagination?[[/note]].
34	* UnexpectedCharacter: [[WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas Jack Skellington]] lends his likeness to the captain of the skeleton pirates. Henry Selick and Tim Burton worked on both films and the model for Jack was reused for the pirate captain.
35	* TheWoobie:
36	** James. Poor, poor James. He had such GoodParents, until they died and his evil aunts took him in. You can guess how well THAT went for him. Worse, while watching his aunts publicize the giant peach, kids are present there. However, James is locked in his bedroom, and he sheds a tear as the only possible friends he would make just come and go.
37	*** Taken up to eleven in the musical. We first see James in an orphanage having a nightmare about his parents' deaths. Then, the Matron Nurse tells him he's leaving the orphanage to go live with his aunts, whom he's never met while telling him not to be a nuisance because he can't ever go back to the orphanage. Spiker and Sponge take every opportunity to taunt James AND his deceased parents, call him worthless and threaten to put him down a well as punishment. To top it off, they destroy James's mother's scarf and his father's glasses IN FRONT OF HIM while telling him he has to sleep outside. And the best part? He's between the ages of six and eight (like the book), as the musical confirms James is young enough to still be afraid of the dark. By the time James has his second nightmare on the peach and tells the insects that his parents are dead, he's pretty much on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Thank goodness "Everywhere That You Are" starts up.
38	** Miss Spider can also come across as this in the book. It's hard to not feel bad for her when she confesses that she doesn't understand why people hate spiders, or when she bursts into tears in the middle of talking about her relatives being killed in front of her. Her film counterpart, while more of a DeadpanSnarker, also has some shades of woobiness as well; she isolates herself because she's aware the other bugs fear and distrust her, and she admits that she doesn't know what it's like to have friends.
39	** Mr. Centipede, at least in the movie, could be seen as a JerkassWoobie if you read his boisterous attitude as mostly bravado; it's hard not to feel for him after he accidentally steers the ship off-course and the other bugs shun him.

Context YMMV / JamesAndTheGiantPeach