Pirate AND writer!
Looks interesting. My mom may want to see it; she hates Tom Hanks, but Mary Poppins is one of her favorite movies.
Looking for some stories?
This movie looks so... calculated, which this being a biopic, and a Disney biopic, makes complete sense. I'm finding it hard to get interested in this project knowing how things turned out in real life.
I can't have you close, so I become a ghost and I watch you, I watch you.
So not Ryan Gosling like Tumblr was pushing for. Awaiting their wrath in 3, 2...
Can't comment on Walt Disney without hammering a boot, or rather a jackboot into his "reputation". Exits muttering.
Why did you do this, Tom? Why?
Góðberit Norðling
...Meh, I liked what I saw.
Mad Scientist Wannabe
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Look, Walter Elias Disney was a much more complex guy than the official company line on him says. He did some unpleasant things to get where he is, that's fact.
Darling.
I heard from somewhere that this was a particularly great script. We'll see I guess.
edited 11th Jul '13 7:54:07 PM by edvedd
Visit my Tumblr! I may say things. The Bureau Project
Avvie-free for life!
A complex guy indeed. His acts could be pegged on all parts of any morality spectrum but he did have a big hand in making the Disney that everyone wants to remember, and isn't that what counts?
Not good enough for me. Never will be.
I certainly look forward to the movie, even if it turns out to be not particularly faithful. Every single movie based on a real person I know glossed over some facts (in the case of A Beautiful Mind over a lot of unpleasant ones). And the fight over the script of a movie is a pretty interesting topic, especially since this is about a real movie, meaning we know exactly what was changed (and if we don't we look it perhaps up) and how successful the result was.
Concerning Disney business practices: There are always two sides to every story. He might have screwed over some people during his time. He also got screwed over a couple of times, especially early in his career. That's business. Nowadays some people act as if Disney was the Devil incarnate, which is certainly as far from the truth as the benevolent uncle-figure he pretended to be on screen.
This seems like it might be pure Oscar Bait. In which case I have no interest.
Doesn't look dramatic (and depressing) enough for classical Oscar bait, to be honest. A movie about one of the most beloved movies in the Disney line-up and about the founder of the studio itself looks more like a typical public pleaser. And if I understand this correctly, it's not like Disney decided to a movie about the companies founder, but bought the script after it got listed as the best script not in production.
edited 12th Jul '13 10:16:39 AM by swanpride
Avvie-free for life!
It's fashionable in this day and age to only immortalize the absolute worst parts of a celebrity's career. Sad path that the world is on, isn't it?
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Keep in mind that opposing our entry into World War II is, in itself, not a crime. In fact it was the majority opinion in the U.S., to the alarm of the British. Like most right wingers he didn't trust the Russians, a stance hardly unique to Walt Disney. Most of Roosevelt's cabinet believed that Stalin, not Hitler, was the bigger threat. For political reasons, isolationists were smeared as Nazis, including Charles Limburgh who saved America's ass by reporting on the true size and power of the Luftwaffe.
It's a disservice to the man because not only is he now a "known" fascist, but he's been appropriated by white supremacists as well ("His last words were, don't let the Jews get Disneyland"!
).
...The thing is, most of the world didn't really know about the concentration camps. Most people that heard about it didn't believe it. To this day, some people still don't, because they'd like to believe nothing so horrible could have actually happened.
Also, accusations of anti-Semitism on Disney's part kinda fall flat when, during the negotiations with the (jewish) Sherman brothers, the moment Disney's lawyer used a racial slur Walt fired the man on the spot. The two continue to speak reasonably favorably of Walt to this day.
He wasn't perfect or a saint. Calling him a monster is another issue entirely.
edited 12th Jul '13 11:11:55 PM by unnoun
You just have to look at the people who worked at the Disney Animation Studios...as far as I can tall, Disney didn't really care about your heritage (or gender), as long as you had talent. The Sherman brothers always denied the accusations against him, and they had to work very close with him for years.
That Disney tried to get his movies in Germany released and therefore tried to get along with the Nazis - well, see this from his perspective. Germany was a huge market back then (still is), and full of very talented movie makers and specialists (who had to flee during the war and eventually made Hollywood as big as it is today). The Disney Studios on the other hand were not the big cooperation they were today, Disney just had his one big hit with Snow White and was now struggling because his other movies only got limited release. The only other truly successful movie before the army took over the studios and forced them to make war propaganda was Dumbo, mostly because it didn't cost that much but brought in a lot. The whole war business nearly broke the Disney Studios, before they could land their next hit with Cinderella - reverting back to their roots so to speak.
Slender Family Reject
Looks decent, I suppose. Seems that the focus is on the author, and not Disney himself, which is comforting; maybe gives an excuse to gloss over whatever skeletons the man had in his closet. Why bother when the film isn't really about him? Disney as a character is really just a good method of reeling in an audience. This film could just as easily be about some other "untold true story" about the making of a movie based on a book with complications; I doubt that Mary Poppins is so unique in that respect. The fact that it's Disney/Mary Poppins is just the most ideal choice of similar stories and the one that will get the best reactions (arguably).
That being said, I don't really like Hanks in this role. I imagine an unknown would have been better, but I also like the idea of Joseph Gordon Levitt for some reason as Disney...
"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools" - Napoleon Bonaparte
The fight around Mary Poppins is legendary, though. And yes, there have been other writers unhappy with adaptations of their books beforehand, but in this case....don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Disney really shafted her in the end, when all was said and done and he got what he wanted. But this is an writer whose Illustrator said that the work with her was nightmarish, because there was no room for creativity, every detail had to be done like she wanted. A woman who adopted only one half of a pair of twins because she doesn't wanted the other one, and then lied to her adopted son (who later said that he was one of her experiments). And if you look at some of the demands she had concerning the movie - Victorian music, the era she chose for the book even though the main reason Disney wanted to change that was because it was historically more correct, no animated sequences - I really don't want to know what the result would have been if she had gotten her way (especially since the stories are actually fairly mediocre). Either way, there aren't many writers out there who are that unreasonable about movie adaptations.
edited 14th Jul '13 1:26:54 AM by swanpride
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Move over, Rob Reiner! I smell a romance classic.
I'm a skeptical squirrel
Disney was a human being. Not a saint, not a monster, but a human being. If the Walt Disney brand hadn't been built on wholesome family-friendly goodness, those that get their jollies from such activities wouldn't enjoy using the less pleasant aspects of his character to "prove" that he's a "fraud", and, by extension, that the "wholesome family goodness" that his company ostensibly represents doesn't and never has existed. Both the right-wingers and the counter culturalists like to imagine that everything is simple.
I'd heard that Disney actually didn't much care for the original Mary Poppins book, but thought it held the kernel of a good idea. Hence the differenced between the film and the movie.
If that's the truth (instead of the cheesy story of him promising his daughters that he would adapt it - but then, this might be true, getting the rights was quite an uphill battle, he must have been motivated by something), then I agree with him. If not for the movie, I bet the books would have been vanished into obscurity by now. They were hardly bestsellers to begin with.
Jeffrey Sherman, son of Robert Sherman has spoken out about the script on Facebook a while back.
They have also cast wonderful actors to play the Sherman Brothers. Jason Schwartzman is portraying my Uncle Richard and BJ Novak was just cast to play my late father, Robert B. Sherman. Pretty brilliant choices all around.
Many people have been asking me what I think about all this.
As many of you know, I got a chance to read a draft of this screenplay several months ago now and had issues with it. The script was full of inaccuracies that run afoul of mere poetic license. I lived through that period and recall it and the people involved very well. Of course, I intimately know my lovely late father and my uncle.
I was privileged to hear all of those wonderful songs before just about anyone. Some of my fondest memories were those acetate demos right after dinner. Those times I’d go to their office and Dick would sing me something new and they’d both watch my face for a response.
Dad read my sister Laurie and me the Mary Poppins books. They were good, but kind of creepy, too. Dad, though, was enthusiastic, his mind was racing, his eyes seeing all of the amazing magic as he excitedly told us some of his ideas of how he could adapt these episodic stories and weave them into a musical, moving film. I saw Dad step into his stride during the Poppins years, really feeling he was connecting and creating something magnificent with his brother, Walt Disney, Bill Walsh, Don Da Gradi, Irwin Kostal and the other great minds involved.
I saw his highs, I saw his lows. This was his chance to truly merge his songwriting, poetic and story-telling skills.
"A man has dreams of walking with giants To carve his niche in the edifice of time…"
Dad felt he was walking with giants at this time. He was a deeply humble and shy man, so this wasn’t an ego thing. He never really sought the limelight. Dad felt such deep respect for those artists around him and felt respected and safe and encouraged by them to open and shine, himself; contribute and convey in his own words — real and created — his heartfelt wisdom and philosophies on family, love, understanding, compassion, charity and, I think most importantly, the challenges parenthood. These were hard-learned lessons for him and he poured his soul into helping adapt the screen story and co-create the timeless song score.
"Before the mortar of his zeal has the chance to congeal, The cup is dashed from his lips, His flame is snuffed aborning He’s brought to rack and ruin in his prime."
I never actually met the “colorful" Mrs. Travers, but I did hear all about her at the time. In making “the boys: the sherman brothers’ story" with my cousin Gregg, we waded through the hours and hours — painful hours of tapes recorded at their couple weeks’ meetings with Travers at Disney Studios that are the basis of “Saving Mr. Banks." Bear in mind, the script, the songs, the entire movie was fully developed and storyboarded and ready to go by the time the author flew in on her broomstick, but Mrs. Travers still had to grant the rights.
Truly, listening to those meetings was more than enough of that nutcase for me. I was so impressed by how my Dad, especially, kept his patience with the strange, clueless, vile woman and steadfastly tried to win her over though his passion, intellect and reasoning. She was a shrew and insulting and had nothing at all positive to say about anything they graciously presented. Her endless montra, “No-no-no-no-no-no-no" — even at hearing the brilliant story arc they created, the now-classic music and lyrics.
"My world was calm, well-ordered, exemplary Then came this person with chaos in her wake And now my life’s ambitions go With one fell blow It’s quite a bitter pill to take…"
Travers was a bully and nasty at that. She famously wanted “Greensleeves" to replace key songs and insisted the color red be nowhere in the film. This is also the eccentric woman who told my Dad that the way she got inspired to work was to take a pad out into her garden, sit in the tall grass and rotate in the grass until the feeling hit her.
My dog does that too, by the way.
Travers didn’t get it then and, I assure you, she never understood nor appreciated how my Dad and Dick and the others at Disney had passionately spent years, given arguably their finest work to develop “Mary Poppins" into the classic it eventually became. To boost her relatively obscure book into a household name.
Back to “Saving Mr. Banks."
The Pamela Travers conceived by the screenplays writers is made to be a sort of hero. In the draft I read, at least, she comes up for key story and song notions I absolutely know were my father and uncle’s contributions. She points out that they’d better write a song about that bird woman, pointedly mentions flying kites and a spoonful of sugar. The screenplay suggests that, somehow, by “saving" her precious story from the hands of the bumbling songwriting brothers and their cartoon-making boss, setting them all straight, she will in some sense “save" her own deplorable, drunken loser father who, according to these screenwriters, was the entire basis for her “Mary Poppins" book.
For those of you who’ve read Travers’ original book, the ‘father’s responsibility to his family’ concept is nowhere to be found. That was my father’s and uncle’s added theme. So was the prayer for charity that is “Feed the Birds." The kites were an ode to my Grandfather, Al Sherman, and his simple, inexpensive way of bringing family together. Yes, a man must work hard, but his first responsibility is to his family. Mary and Bert both get that across, singing and speaking my father’s words. All it takes is tuppence, just a spoonful of sugar.
With my Dad passing only a few months ago, it’s especially difficult to see, in “Saving Mr. Banks," his genius and his legacy arbitrarily handed over to someone who, in truth, was bitter and demeaning and sought to stop him from sharing these gifts. The script also has Mrs. Travers making a snide quip about my Dad’s wounded leg and his limp. Those of you who’ve seen “the boys" know that my father was a World War II hero that, at 17, helped drive the Nazis out of Europe. He was shot in the knee charging a hill — a week after he liberated Dachau concentration camp. He was only 19 then. Two years younger than my son, Alex. I can’t even imagine that kind of bravery. What an amazing man. He’s not here now to defend himself against this outrageous slight, so I am speaking out for my Dad.
I have expressed my feelings to the higher ups at Disney and, hopefully, these most blaring wrongs have been corrected. I would love to see a great movie about this time that correctly tells the story. It’s wonderful enough without fudging the facts, believe me. “Mary Poppins," the movie and now the stage play, are a cultural phenomenon, in part due to PL Travers’ books, in part due to Walt Disney, the Sherman Brothers, the screenwriters, the actors, the dancers and the other artists involved.
Mrs. Travers did not “save" the movie with her stubbornness and insight, though, as this storyline suggests. She finally sold out her rights to Walt because of his persistence and because she needed the money.
Ironically, after the enormous success of the film and song score, she wrote additional Poppins books and even named one chapter “Supercalifragiliticexpialidocious" — a word my late Dad and Uncle created.
As I’ve written before, my Dad was an amazing father, first and foremost. He always embraced the message of their version Mary Poppins and, especially, the pivotal song he wrote ("A Man Has Dreams") where Bert cleverly turns Mr. Banks to see, work is important, but family comes first.
"You’ve got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve And all too soon they’re up and grown And then they’ve flown And it’s too late for you to give…
Just that spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, The medicine go down Medicine go down Just a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down…
…Well, goodnight there, guv’nah"
Dad was always there for me, so I will always be here for him and I’ll honor and defend his memory. So will his and Dick’s timeless words and music.
As Dad always said, “The work speaks for itself."”
Just awesome like that
...hm. Truth be told, the scenes in the trailer with the Sherman Brothers was what interested me the most in this, but if the script really fudges the truth that much, I'm not entirely sure what to think.
Wasn't that clear? As far as I know, Disney avoided meeting with Travers and left her to the Sherman brothers, to avoid being forced into making any allowances to her. By not meeting her, he could back out everything anyone else promised her later on.
In the end, the movie will be mostly about Mary Poppins and the thought behind it, and less about who came up with what. I think what Travers wanted mostly, was to create a childhood in the book she herself never had, if she was aware of it or not. I also believe that she thought too much of her own importance, and if she had had her way, the movie would have never ever worked.
Now here's some Oscar Bait that I'm looking forward to.