YMMV / Annie (1982)

• Awesome Music: All of the songs are there, but it's "Easy Street" which steals the entire show.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Miss Hannigan really a bad person, especially regarding the times she lives in? Unlike in the original stage version, she's never shown using Corporal Punishment on the orphans (although she threatens it), nor is their having to live on mush and do hard housework entirely her fault, since money is tight and she can't possibly afford a cleaning staff. Besides, having to be the sole guardian of some sixty children is a stressful situation that could bring out the worst in anyone: it's no wonder she drinks. That said, she does emotionally abuse the girls, and her tendency to punish them by locking them in closets is inexcusable, as is her taking part in Rooster's scheme to kidnap Annie (though she draws the line against letting him kill her).
  • For that matter, why has Miss Hannigan never told Annie that her parents are dead when she knows it all along? The novelization explains that she's been waiting for Annie to do something especially aggravating, so she can punish her in the cruelest way possible by springing the reveal on her. But is this true in the actual movie? Or does her deeply-buried inner decency make her reluctant to crush Annie's hopes?
  • When Annie sings "Dumb Dog" to Sandy when they first meet, is she sincerely insulting him (even though she already rescued him, she claims it's just "what any decent person would have done"), only to warm up to him in spite of herself when he keeps following her anyway? Or is she just faking disdain to make him go away because she has no way to feed him?
• Character Rerailment: The film keeps Daddy Warbucks's uncharacteristic friendship with FDR intact, but mitigates some of the damage by returning Warbucks to his staunch Republican mindset and having the two constantly toss barbs at each other's party affiliations, as well as debate the New Deal.
• Ethnic Scrappy: To many people, Punjab (for being a magical Indian played by a black guy), and Asp (for being a Japanese man who does karate and his solo dance in "We Got Annie" using the "oriental riff" melody, which many people don't like).
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • Warbucks claims the Bolsheviks want to kill him because he proves capitalism works. However, he was an arms dealer during World War One, so the Bolsheviks probably have a far less abstract reason to want to kill him.
  • Some of the lyrics in "Little Girls" were a little nonsensical (e.g. "Little ears, little teeth, everything around me is little!" and "Someday, I'll step on their freckles!") Well, Hannigan was drinking a lot of gin while singing the number, which makes it a Drunken Song, and a drunk person can't be expected to sing lyrics that always make sense.
• Jerkass Woobie: Pepper may be a bully (especially towards Molly), but one has to take into consideration that she's probably a broken soul, who has spent years of abuse at the orphanage (potentially longer than the other girls, since she's the oldest), and has now lost all hope of finding a family who will love her.
  • Annie also mentions that Pepper talked about going to the movies once before coming to the orphanage. If true, this would mean that Pepper, unlike most if not all of the others, has memories of life with her parents, and it would seem to have been a decent one, which would only make it even harder to cope with the abusive environment of the orphanage that she was suddenly thrust into.
• Memetic Mutation: "It's A Hard Knock Life".
• Moral Event Horizon: Rooster tells Annie that he's going to kill her after she escapes their clutches and tears up Warbucks's check, then chases her to the top of the drawbridge and tries to drop her from it. This triggers a Heel–Face Turn in Miss Hannigan, who didn't realize until now that he was really going to kill her (potentially Lily too, who is also horrified, though she'll still have to serve jail time since she didn't actually act to stop Rooster as Miss Hannigan did).
• Tough Act to Follow: This is actually the first of four adaptations of the Broadway musical, but it is the most well-known and beloved of them.
• The Woobie: All of the orphans, but especially Molly- the youngest, which makes her the one little girl that one just wants to reach out to and comfort the most, especially when she wakes up crying from a nightmare at the beginning.

---