Film / Christopher Robin

Out of the Wood and into the City

"Perhaps it's our turn to save Christopher."

— Winnie-the-Pooh

Christopher Robin is a 2018 Walt Disney Pictures fantasy film directed by Marc Forster, with a screenplay written by Tom McCarthy, Alex Ross Perry, and Allison Schroeder. It was released on August 3, 2018.

The story is based on A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, and is the franchise's first live action film adaptation. Christopher Robin, the human friend of Winnie-the-Pooh, is now all grown up, and he has lost all sense of imagination. It's up to Pooh and his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood to re-enter Christopher's life and help him find it again.

Previews: Teaser. Trailer.

Not to be confused with the 2017 film Goodbye Christopher Robin, which is a biopic about A. A. Milne and his Real Life son Christopher Robin Milne, who inspired the character.

Cast

The film boasts an All-Star Cast, replacing the usual voices of Christopher Robin's childhood friends with the notable exceptions of Jim Cummings and Brad Garrett^note who voiced Eeyore just once before in one of the CD-ROM games of the 90s as Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore with some of the UK's most talented actors.

The human cast includes:

• Ewan McGregor as adult Christopher Robin
  • Orton O'Brien as young Christopher Robin
• Hayley Atwell as Evelyn Robin
• Bronte Carmichael as Madeline Robin
• Mark Gatiss as Giles Winslow, Jr.

The residents of the Hundred Acre Wood are performed by:

• Jim Cummings as the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger
• Nick Mohammed as the voice of Piglet
• Brad Garrett as the voice of Eeyore
• Peter Capaldi as the voice of Rabbit
• Sophie Okonedo as the voice of Kanga
• Sara Sheen as the voice of Roo
• Toby Jones as the voice of Owl

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Christopher Robin provides examples of:

• A Day in the Limelight: While Christopher Robin has always been an integral part of the franchise, he often just showed up to be the voice of reason to Pooh's antics and often didn't show up in a lot of media involving Winnie the Pooh. This film however has him as the central spotlight character, showing him struggling with his life as an adult after having to let go of the 100 Acre Woods many years ago.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Piglet's sweater is green instead of pink and Rabbit's fur is brown instead of yellow or green, either to reflect the realism of the film or to make them look closer to the way they did in the illustrations of A. A. Milne's novels.
• Another Dimension: The Hundred Acre Wood is implied to be a magical forest separate from the rest of Earth, due to the entrance suddenly showing up in London and the fact that its weather seems to connected to Christopher Robin's mood.
• Arc Words: Two contrasting phrases are brought up throughout the film and recur frequently: "Nothing comes from nothing" and "Doing nothing often leads to the very best kind of something."
• Armor-Piercing Question: Christopher gets smacked by a few of these.
  • Pooh demonstrates Robin's heartbreak.
    Pooh: Did you let me go?
    Christopher: Yes, I suppose I did.
  • Later, Roo asks him, if his daughter is so important to him, more important than his case of important things, "Why isn't she with you?"
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Pooh tells Christopher he came looking for him because his friends are missing and Pooh thought they might be with Christopher, we get this exchange:
  Christopher: Well that's hardly likely; I've scarcely thought about them in years.
  Pooh: Well, we think about you every day.
• Artistic License – Economics: Christopher Robin's solution to the company's money troubles is to lower the prices on their products so more people could afford to buy them. While this isn't entirely unfeasible, the company was looking at cutting twenty percent of its costs, which means their profit margins would have to increase dramatically, and it's dubious if Christopher's plan could do that. Further, it was mentioned earlier that no one is going on vacation because they can't afford to, World War II just happened, and it's not like lowering the price of luggage is going to make a significant impact on the overall costs of planning a holiday. This trope may be considered permissible on account that the reasons for the company's struggles are a secondary plot point at best — the real story of importance is the stress Christopher Robin is under from the job.
• Ascended Fridge Horror: This film is based on the idea of Christopher Robin growing up and its impact on Pooh and his friends, a concept that was only hinted at in previous works but never explicitly explored outside of stories about him leaving for boarding school.
• Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: This is the first Pooh project to ever get a PG rating despite previous movies getting a G rating and the cartoons being rated TV-Y. Then again, this isn't the only time it’s happened to a lighthearted franchise like this. The PG rating presumably comes from a 10 second clip showing Christopher Robin fighting in a battle in World War II, because there's nothing else that would definitely push it into PG territory. Averted in Australia, where the film was rated G for "Very Mild Themes."
• Audience Shift: Downplayed. The film is still largely family friendly and lighthearted. However, unlike the previous animated films, which were primarily aimed towards children, the film is aimed more towards an older audience and contains several scenes that would have been out of place in the previous animated films (such as Christopher Robin fighting in WWII). It's also the first Winnie the Pooh project to get a PG rating as opposed to G like the previous films.
• Awful Wedded Life: Christopher and Evelyn love each other, but his overwork and PTSD are putting a stress on their relationship.
• Big Bad: Winslow, Jr., Christopher Robin’s overbearing and sleazy boss, is the closest thing to a main antagonist that the film has, since it's Christopher’s desire to save his coworkers’ jobs from him that drives much of the plot, and Pooh and Madeline’s “expotition” in the city in the third act.
• Boarding School of Horrors: Christopher Robin gets sent to one, where his love of Pooh gets beaten out of him.
• Book Ends: The film begins with Christopher Robin entering the Hundred Acre Wood through his tree and sitting with Pooh on a log staring out into the sunset. The same thing happens at the end of the film, but this time, Madeline enters through the tree first, followed by her father, and later her mother, and Christopher and Pooh stare at the sunset once again.
• Break the Cutie: The first part of the movie, after Christopher Robin leaves the Hundred Acre Woods to go to boarding school, is the start of a series of traumas for him, as his love of Pooh and his imagination are literally beaten out of him at a Boarding School of Horrors and then, after he meets his wife and helps make a baby, goes off to experience War Is Hell and miss years of his daughter's life. He returns still a good man, but a much more somber man, a broken man, a man who can't remember the joy of childhood and thinks a textbook will be good for bedtime stories.
• Brick Joke:
  • After Evelyn and Madeline leave for the cottage, Christopher discovers a note she left him, along with a picture he drew as a boy of himself and Pooh. In the second act, he and Evelyn find a note she left saying she's gone to hunt Woozles with the gang from Hundred Acre Woods.
  • During the search for their daughter, Christopher introduces Evelyn to the gang as "Evelyn, my wife." Later, Eeyore continues to call her "Evelyn my wife."
• Busby Berkeley Number: "Busy Doing Nothing", which appears halfway through the end credits, featuring home movie-style footage of the Winslow employees vacationing at the beach and dancing, with Richard Sherman playing the piano.
• The Cameo: During the end credits, while everyone is enjoying their beach holiday, Disney Legend Richard M. Sherman appears as a dapper piano player singing the original song, "Busy Doing Nothing".
• Cassandra Truth: When Christopher finds all his friends hiding, they initially don't believe he's himself and deem him a Heffalump in disguise. Once he fakes a fight with one, they recognize him as their friend.
• Chekhov's Gun: At the farewell party, Piglet gives Christopher Robin a sack full of haycorns to remind him of the Hundred Acre Wood. Later, when Christopher is married to Evelyn and has a daughter, Madeline, she discovers the sack full of haycorns and a drawing he made, with Madeline later recognizing Pooh from her father's earlier drawings.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Pretty much Pooh's entire shtick.
  • Eeyore gets in on the game, too, mistaking Christopher introducing "Evelyn, my wife" as not a description, but as part of her name, "Evelyn Mywife".
• Continuity Nod:
  • The opening scene is the last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, previously animated in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Pooh mentions that he's good at doing nothing and that he does nothing all day. Christopher Robin, who had begun attending school, asked Pooh to remember him when he grows up, because grown-ups will have to do "nothing".
  • When Christopher Robin gets stuck in a gap in a tree, Pooh asks if he just ate honey, a nod to Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, where Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's burrow after eating too much honey.
  • When riding in a taxi around London, Tigger calls his reflection in the window a "preposterous impostor", referencing his first scene in the original film.
  • Christopher Robin discovers that Owl's treehouse has fallen over "again", much like it did in Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
  • The third act involves Pooh and his friends venturing out of the Hundred Acre Wood to save Christopher from what they believe to be a monster, just like in Pooh's Grand Adventure. This time, though, Pooh misinterprets it because Christopher Robin directly told him he would be eaten by a Woozle if he lost his work papers (a simplified way of telling Pooh if he lost the papers, he loses his job thanks to his boss Winslow), meaning that Pooh takes Owl's place of mistakenly sending them on an adventure.
  • The bit where Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet fly through the air and slam into Christopher Robin's windshield is a play on the Blustery Day bit where Piglet and Pooh are blown against Owl's window, with Piglet even in a similar pose.
• Covering for the Noise: When Pooh speaks to a person besides Christopher, Christopher often has have to cover it up by speaking quickly over him. However, when his annoying neighbor spots him carrying Pooh in his coat, he has to pretend that Pooh is a sick cat. When Pooh starts talking, he insists that it's his own voice, just changed to sound like Pooh's.
• Darker and Edgier: In this version, the adult Christopher Robin is a cynical workaholic hardened in his childhood by being sent off to boarding school and as an adult by serving in World War II. Furthermore, Pooh comes across as wistful and sad rather than the familiar, happy-go-lucky character we're all used to.
• Dark Reprise: When an exhausted Christopher Robin discovers Madeline's drawings of Pooh and friends, a sadder variation of the famous "Winnie the Pooh" theme song is performed on a piano.
• Demoted to Extra: Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, and Owl suffer this, since they are relegated to only a few scenes and do not join the “expotition” into London. Rabbit and Roo are particularly notable, since the former is usually a part of the main cast of Pooh media (though he has been the most likely of the core five to get shafted or left out), and the latter enjoyed a large amount of spotlight in the 2000s. Kanga in particular only gets a small handful of lines.
• Deus ex Machina: It's pure luck that, of all the windshields of all the cars on the streets of London, the one that Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet land on is Christopher Robin's.
• Disappeared Dad: Christopher Robin's father died when his son was at boarding school, forcing young Christopher to become the man of the house at a very young age. Christopher Robin himself is a downplayed example, he was off at war when his daughter Madeline was born and didn’t meet her until she was three years old. In the present day, due to his busy, hectic schedule, Christopher Robin is largely absent from his daughter's life, which is the main conflict of the movie.
• Disney Acid Sequence: Christopher Robin suffers one when he falls into the Heffalump trap and is knocked out by a falling rock. He has a nightmare of Heffalumps attacking him, and Pooh begging him to come back to him.
• Disneyfication: A moderated one, since the film really pulls no punches with the Ascended Fridge Horror of Christopher Robin growing up, losing his innocence and becoming detached from his imaginary friends (especially during the periods of war and struggling economics). It does however add on a Happy Ending to it all, showing Christopher Robin will eventually reunite with Pooh and the others, something which is left completely ambiguous and doubtful in the original works. Even more so compared to the real-life Christopher Robin Milne, who came to loathe Pooh in his adult years.
• Does This Make Me Look Fat?: When Tigger attaches Christopher’s document folder to Eeyore as protection, Eeyore asks “Does this make me look husky?”
• Downer Beginning: While the opening has the whimsy and fun wordplay of the classic stories as Pooh and friends throw Christopher Robin a party, it's a goodbye party as he's being shipped off to boarding school. It only goes downhill from there, as we see over the credits how he grows up — he's abused at a Boarding School of Horrors, he learns of his father's death while there, and is eventually shipped to the front lines of World War II. The only bright spot is him meeting Evelyn (and even that has a sour point to it, as they conceive Madeline only for Christopher to be drafted and sent to war, missing her entire infancy and much of her life as a toddler).
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Thanks to Pooh and friends, Christopher Robin is not only able to reconnect with his wife and daughter, but he's able to find a way to keep everyone's jobs and call out his boss for making him work the weekend away without contributing anything.
• Elephant in the Room: After Christopher Robin tells Giles off, Giles tries to dismiss Christopher's behavior as crazy, prompting the elder Winslow's inquiry:
  Giles: Dear lord, he has lost his marbles.
  Old Man Winslow: Has he? Let's address the Heffalump in the room, shall we? What were you doing this weekend, Giles?
  Giles: What, me? I told you I was working.
  [A golf ball comes out of Giles' pocket]
• "Eureka!" Moment: When Evelyn tells Eeyore "it's all how you look at it", Christopher looks at the one important paper Madeline saved, turns it upside down, and comes up with his improvised idea for the budget meeting.
• Fisher King: The weather in the Hundred-Acre Wood seems to adjust to reflect Christopher Robin's moods. When he's a child, it's blissful and idyllic. As he grows up, we see it alter to reflect how he feels about the things happening to him (when he learns his father has died, there's snow; when he meets Evelyn, it's pleasant again, and so on), until when he finally returns as a stressed-out, depressed and emotionally-distant adult, it's dark, gloomy, overcast, and full of shadows. When he finally starts unwinding and enjoying life again, it's bright and cheerful. When he has to leave again, it's a bit overcast to reflect his regret, but otherwise remains pleasant as he takes his lighter mood with him. Finally, when he and his family visit at the end (with the implication that they'll all be visiting more frequently), it's idyllic once again.
• Fisher Kingdom: "It's always a sunny day when Christopher Robin comes to play". The Hundred-Acre Wood appears to respond to Christopher's despair, growing dark and foggy, then reflects his reconnection with his childhood, becoming sunny and colorful.
• Foregone Conclusion: If this movie is to be taken by canon, it's come clear that Christopher Robin doesn't begin a relationship with Winifred in A Valentine For You, given that he marries Evelyn.
• The Foreign Subtitle: In Brazil, the movie is known as "Christopher Robin — Um Reencontro Inesquecível". (An Unforgettable Reunion)
• The Ghost: A pretty justified case for the unseen Heffalump.
• Hate Sink: Winslow Jr. Being a Winnie the Pooh story, the film has no actual villains. Winslow Jr. serves the purpose of being a character the audience can root against.
• Heel Realization: Downplayed, but Christopher Robin realizes he's become a Heffalump.
• Hell Is That Noise: Once Christopher returns to the Hundred Acre Wood; it's covered in dense fog. All the while, nightmarish elephant sounds seem to be chasing him everywhere, as it seems a Heffalump is stalking its prey. Ultimately, it turns out to be Owl's weather-vane scraping against some metal.
• Honest Corporate Executive: When his boss Giles Winslow, Jr. tells him their company needs to cut their workforce, Christopher Robin protests, reminding him that he promised the workers good jobs. However, Winslow, Sr. is a straighter example of this, embracing Christopher’s solution to the budget crisis and chastising his son for slacking off and forcing Christopher to do all the work.
• Hope Spot:
  • For Pooh and friends. When Christopher Robin returns to the Hundred Acre Wood, he reunites his gang of beloved old friends, has some fun, and reconciles with Pooh. Sounds perfect, right? Unfortunately, Christopher still goes to return to his life and his work, leaving his friends once again. Pooh is crushed that his best friend is leaving him once again after a short reunion after so many years.
  • Evelyn and Madeline have one when Christopher turns up at the cottage... only to say he can’t stay. They’re both heartbroken.
  • Madeline and Pooh arrive at Winslow's with Christopher's important papers, only for Madeline to slip on wet pavement and lose them all to the wind.
• Human-Focused Adaptation: This film focuses on Christopher and his relationship with his family.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Christopher Robin finds Pooh in a young boy's stroller at the London train station and takes it back from him:
  Christopher Robin: You can't just take a teddy bear from a grown man!
• In Which a Trope Is Described: In a clever Mythology Gag to how the chapters of the original book were titled, the sequence of Christopher Robin growing up has odd-numbered significant events titled this way.
• Ironic Echo Cut: During Christopher's "fight" with the "Heffalump":
  Eeyore: But there's nothing there.
  (Cuts to the log)
  Rabbit: Something is clearly there!
• Kick the Dog: When Christopher nearly loses his work documents, he goes on a rant at Pooh for reentering his life and messing everything up. Pooh meekly apologizes, but Christopher even calls him a "bear of very little brain" with absolutely none of the trademark warmth the saying is known for.
• Kid Hero All Grown-Up: The movie's protagonist is a now adult Christopher Robin who is still a child in the original books and Disney adaptations.
• Literal-Minded: None other than the silly ol' bear himself. When Christopher sees Pooh and says he must've cracked (gone crazy):
  Pooh: I don't see any cracks. (feeling Christopher's face) A few wrinkles, maybe.
  • And because Christopher introduced his spouse as "This is Evelyn, my wife.", this results in poor old Eeyore thinking that's her actual name, leading to delightful incidents like:
  Eeyore: (after Evelyn serves him a cup of tea) "Thank you, Evelyn My Wife.
• Logo Joke: The Disney Castle starts as normal, until the end, when it fades into an E.H. Shepard-type illustration.
• Magical Land: Hundred Acre Wood isn't just a forest where Christopher Robin played as a child outside his family's cottage, but a magical place you access by climbing through a magic door in a tree. It also responds to Christopher Robin's emotional well-being, reflecting his gloominess and him gradually relearning how to play.
• Market-Based Title:
  • The French title is Jean-Christophe and Winnie. Christopher has always been named "Jean-Christophe" in Disney's French translations for some reason. Winnie the Pooh is very well known, but Christopher's family name is rarely if ever mentioned in the French dubs of the franchise (though the Milne books call him "Christophe Robin").
  • In Japan, the film's title is "Pooh to otona ni natta boku", which translates into something like "Pooh and I Who Has Become An Adult".
  • In Norway, the movie's title is Kristoffer Robin og Ole Brumm (Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh). Though "Kristoffer Robin" is a pretty well known character in Norway and probably could have carried the title alone, it's Pooh that Norwegians know and love, and the title was changed to reflect that the movie was about the relationship between the two.
• Meaningful Echo: A lot of Pooh's common sayings get repeated and changed to apply to Christopher. We also get Christopher returning to the Hundred Acre Wood, and he begins to remember his childhood when he returns to the bridge over the river and drops a stick in the water, just as he did when he left for the last time, and his reflection in the water is himself as a child.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The movie starts with young Christopher Robin attending a farewell party with his friends prior to leaving for boarding school. After that, there is a Time Skip years later to him as an adult.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The opening flashback adapts a moment in the Milne books never covered in any of Disney's prior adaptations: the going away party for Christopher Robin that his friends hold for him. It is a mostly faithful adaptation of the final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner, which was previously adapted both at the end of Many Adventures as well as the ending of Pooh's Grand Adventure (which also used the "even when I’m a hundred" line). In addition, the film includes Eeyore's feeble attempt at poetry lifted from the book.
  • The Hundred Acre Wood scenes were filmed at Ashdown Forest, the real-life inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood setting of A. A. Milne's stories illustrated by E.H. Shepard.
  • The outfit young Christopher Robin wears is based on his outfit from the original Shepard illustrations.
  • Piglet wears a green sweater in this film, as he did in the original books and the opening song of the Many Adventures shorts.
  • Christopher Robin finds Eeyore floating belly-up in a river, in just about the exact same pose he had in the same predicament in A Day for Eeyore.
  • As noted in Non-Standard Character Design, both Rabbit and Owl are portrayed as actual living animals despite the rest of the cast being stuffed animals, just as they were in the original Milne stories. Unlike the stuffed animals the stories were based on, who are now residing in the New York Public Library, Owl and Rabbit were completely imagined, and presumably, were based on the nearby wildlife.
  • This is not the first time Pooh and friends have entered the “real” world and had misadventures; on several occasions in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the gang would interact with the real world and people besides Christopher Robin. In "Pooh Day Afternoon", the characters also found themselves having some vehicular mayhem.
  • Pooh's predicament at the start of the film, that he can't find any of his friends, hearkens back to his storyline in Kingdom Hearts, complete with Christopher Robin fulfilling Sora's role in finding them (ironic, as Sora basically replaced Christopher's role in the story).
  • In the novelization, Christopher Robin is bullied by some boys at boarding school. He compares them to Heffalumps in his mind and thinks that Pooh would probably end up liking a Heffalump if he met one, even though he probably wouldn't like the boys. Pooh has previously befriended friendly Heffalumps in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.
• Nepotism: Giles got his job because it's his father's company and he spends most of his time slacking off. By the end, there's a bit of a subversion at the end when his father finds out he spent the weekend golfing and forced Christopher to do all the work and chastises him.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • One of the promos for the film has Pooh surprising a policeman that he can talk. In the film, he is actually speaking to Madeline.
  • The main trailer spells out most of the plot up to Christopher Robin’s reconciliation with Pooh, but implies that a bulk of the film will focus on Pooh and friends journeying into the real world to save Christopher Robin. The trailers don’t mention that they're trying to return Christopher Robin’s work papers to him, and this plot is only the last act of the film.
  • The main trailer also suggests that Christopher Robin quickly agrees to help Pooh find his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood. It doesn’t reveal that it takes quite a bit of cajoling for Christopher Robin to go to the Wood and he's far from enthusiastic even when he does go.
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • Rabbit and Owl are portrayed as a real, living rabbit and owl living amongst the stuffed animals. This has precedent in their storybook and cartoon designs, which depict them as generally more animal-like than the others through details such as less rounded faces, hands with fingers, and lack of stitching, but it is much more notable here. Similarly, Heffalumps in Christopher Robin's nightmare are portrayed as very realistic looking elephants with no anthropomorphism, albeit with oversized tusks to look more frightening.
  • Tigger's design stands out among the group as being a little unusual in a few respects. Pooh, Piglet, and Eeyore have all been designed to look like worn out stuffed animal versions of their pre-Disney counterparts. Tigger, on the other hand, keeps his very distinctive Disney head shape, and for some reason, his stripes are even more faded than his original stuffed animal (although, like all the original designs and unlike Disney, his hands are plush stumps with no thumb).
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: While Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore appear to have aged a bit since they last saw Christopher Robin as a child, Piglet and Roo appear to be two of the few residents of the Hundred Acre Woods that still show no signs of aging after all these years. Even more evident for Rabbit and Owl, who are in fact real animals instead of stuffed toys like the others, yet seem the same as ever.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Despite Christopher Robin's early insistence he must have lost his mind upon seeing Pooh again, it is made apparent that everyone else can see his friends from the Hundred Acre Wood moving and talking as well. Their reaction is largely the same as his.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • How else would a grown up Christopher Robin react when finding himself unexpectedly reunited with Winnie the Pooh?
  • He also panics when he finds that Tigger has switched out his papers for objects from Hundred Acre Woods.
• Real After All:
  • In this film's continuity, the Hundred Acre Wood is confirmed to be a real, magical place that Christopher Robin enters through a tree outside his childhood home, Narnia style, and its residents are living sapient beings that can enter the real world and interact with other people. This isn't fully established until the toys meet Madeline and cause unintentional chaos throughout London, as in every scene before, it could be rationalized as Christopher Robin's imagination or something real only he could see.
  • Ultimately Subverted with the Heffalumps and Woozles. When alone in the Wood, Christopher begins hearing hellish elephant-like sounds and begins to fear that this trope is in play after all. He ends up discovering that the Heffalump sounds were actually the distorted wailing of Owl's weather vane.
• Real Is Brown: Unusual for a Disney and Pooh film, all of the colors are very desaturated to emphasize the depressing reality of what it means to grow up and lose your innocence — even Pooh looks worn and depressed. It's a deliberate example of this trope, as the opening of the film has a brighter, more vibrant color palette, as do the Hundred Acre Wood scenes when Christopher reconciles with his old friends. Even so, the characters themselves were designed to resemble actual plush toys whose fur has faded and pilled with age.
  • Piglet wears a dark green sweater as he did in the original stories, as opposed to the vibrant pink he's mostly known for in Disney works, and Rabbit's fur is brown like in the original stories instead of the yellow or green colors he's given in the cartoons.
  • Played With for Eeyore, who is clearly baby blue as opposed to his usual gray. While the character is usually plain blue for merchandising, the real Eeyore is on display in the New York Public Library, and is quite definitely gray◊.
  • Tigger's stripes have faded to almost be a constant brown. In fact, he's faded much more than the real original Tigger has.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: When Christopher Robin confronts Giles:
  Giles: What the devil is a "Woozle"?
  Christopher Robin: A "woozle" is a slinking little monster who gets everyone else to do his work for him, and hopes that we forget what's important in our lives: our families, our dear friends, the people who love us, the people whom we love. Well, we're here to tell you, I'm here to tell you that we're not afraid of Heffalumps or Woozles anymore, are we?
• Redemption in the Rain: Christopher lightens up noticeably after being caught in a rain storm while trapped in the Heffalump and Woozle Trap (although being bonked on the head by a stone while trying to climb out probably also helped). Once he's floated to the top (in a notably Christ-like pose), he starts to engage more with the Hundred-Acre Wood and its inhabitants rather than just curtly brushing them off.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: While Pooh, Piglet, Kanga, and Roo's cute appearances has been toned down a bit in this film compared to their animation counterparts, they still maintain their friendly appearance even in live-action form. The fact they along with Tigger and Eeyore look like real, well-loved stuffed animals in fact yields its own form of looking very cuddly and endearing.
• Rule of Symbolism: In his Disney nightmare after hitting his head in the Heffalump trap, Christopher Robin is grabbed and dragged away by a Heffalump while Pooh begs him to "come back to us". Adulthood stole Christopher from his friends.
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever the human characters are carrying the animal characters through London, they will at some point have to interact with someone else (a train ticket collector, a salesman, a police officer, etc.). When they finish, the animal character will politely repeat the human character's thanks to the person they were interacting with.
  • Cecil asks Christopher Robin if he has time for a game of gin rummy, with Christopher politely declining.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Among the experiences that have sapped away Christopher Robin's childhood innocence are his days as a soldier in World War II.
• Shout-Out:
  • Christopher Robin's face is briefly obscured by Pooh's balloon, like Renée Magritte's The Son of Man.
  • The inhabitants of 100 Acre Woods claim that Christopher Robin (and Heffalumps) can't see them if they don't move.
• Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The recurring "Nothing comes from nothing" line is a reference to King Lear, where the titular king asks Cordelia what she can say to surpass her sisters' eloquent speeches, she answers "Nothing", which prompts Lear to respond with "Nothing will come of nothing", which is echoed by Lear's fool a few scenes later:
  Kent: This is nothing, fool.
  Fool: Then 'tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer: you gave me nothing for it. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?
  Lear: Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The film starts idealistically in Christopher's childhood, before becoming more cynical as Christopher grows up and his life spirals out of control. However, after Christopher rescues his friends, the film slowly climbs back up the scale to land on a very idealistic ending.
• Smash Cut: During the farewell party scene at the beginning when Tigger has a sugar rush from the cake, the scene abruptly cuts from his frenetic state to him passed out asleep on a table.
  Tigger: Sweets go right to my feets! I'll bounce! And I'll bounce! C'mon, Roo! And I'll bounce! And I'll bounce! And I'll —
  (Smash to Tigger sleeping soundly at the table and the other animals dozing off as well.)
• Something Only They Would Say: Christopher deduces that Madeline is not alone based on the word "expotition" in her note.
• Something They Would Never Say: The other inhabitants of the Hundred-Acre Wood initially refuse to believe that Christopher isn't a Heffalump because he claims that monsters don't exist, which is something the Christopher Robin they remember would never say. Christopher takes this on board and convinces them of who he is by pretending to defeat a Heffalump in combat instead of dismissing its existence.
• Stealth Pun: When slammed onto the car windshield, Eeyore deadpans, "My bum hurts." Another word for bum is ass, and ass is also an old-fashioned word for donkey. So Eeyore could've also meant, "I hurt all over."
• Stealth Sequel: The first scene of the film corresponds with the last scene of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, making this movie the direct sequel.
• Storybook Opening: As a nod to the original featurettes, as well as the books that inspired it, the opening takes place within the pages of the original Milne books, complete with some reproductions of Shepherd's illustrations. Some liberties are taken however. For example, one illustration depicts Christopher and his friends making a "Heffalump and Woozle Trap", but heffalumps and woozles originally appeared in separate stories, never together.
• The Stinger: During the end credits, an old-fashioned film plays showing the Winslow employees (and Christopher's neighbor) on a beach and singing about doing nothing. The last scene also features Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore sitting in beach chairs and wearing sunglasses, and Richard Sherman as a singing piano player.
• Sudden Eye Color: Of all the plush inhabitants of the Hundred-Acre Wood, only Pooh retains his animated counterpart's Black Bead Eyes. Everyone else gets coloured irises. Tigger's are bright green, Eeyore's are amber, and Piglet, Kanga, and Roo's are all dark brown.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In the prologue depicting Christopher's final afternoon in the Hundred Acre Wood, Pooh asks what he'll do if Christopher forgets him. The boy responds that he'll never forget Pooh, painfully unaware that life and growing up will indeed cause him to forget his childhood friends.
  • Played for Laughs when Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore meet Madeline and she asks what a Tigger is. Cue Tigger saying "Well, I'm sure glad you asked! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" and Eeyore saying "Please, not the song..." as Tigger launches into The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pooh's unending quest for honey is what sets the plot in motion when, in his search for it, he notices all his friends are missing. Piglet's love of haycorns also plays a small role once Christopher Robin returns to the Hundred Acre Woods.
• Trail of Bread Crumbs: Piglet left a trail of haycorn shells when they all ran from Owl's house. Christopher and Eeyore follow the trail to find everyone else.
  Eeyore: You don't have to tell me every time you pick one up.
• Truer to the Text:
  • While naturally borrowing a lot from the Disney canon, there's far more Mythology Gags and characteristics taken from the original novels. Pooh's mellow and philosophical side is demonstrated more here over the chipper Kindhearted Simpleton he is in most Disney works, Eeyore is more sarcastic, Rabbit clashes with Owl more than Tigger, Kanga is more childlike and foolish like everyone else. Everyone but Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore are also given British accents to reflect the book's origin.
  • Piglet is depicted with a green sweater like in the original Milne books as opposed to the pink one he gained in the Disney adaptations.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • The growing difference in maturity and intellect has taken its toll between Pooh and Christopher Robin, with the latter frequently getting frustrated with the former's childishness. It soon becomes clear he loves his silly old bear as much as before, though.
  • Expectedly, Rabbit is a bit prickly-tempered with the group. Less expectedly, his grievances tend to be less with Pooh or Tigger like usual and more with Owl (who has bickered with Rabbit in earlier works but far less often).
• Vocal Evolution: Pooh's and Tigger's voices (both provided by Jim Cummings, who has voiced Pooh in particular for over thirty years) have clearly aged after all these years.
• War Is Hell: Christopher Robin's time during World War II is an unpleasant experience. Being away from his family (and the birth of his daughter) for three years is bad enough, but Christopher's last remaining innocence is robbed by the constant barrage of gunfire, screams, explosions and dying men in the cold winter.
• Watching the Sunset: Christopher and Pooh do this three times throughout the film in their usual special spot.
• Watsonian versus Doylist: Half the inhabitants of Hundred-Acre Wood can't go to London... for reasons. Animating that many characters would cost a lot of money. Also script and stuff.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Christopher gives one to Pooh for not actually looking at the compass, and instead following their own footsteps. This leads to Pooh disappearing and Christopher falling into the Heffalumps and Woozles trap, and Christopher having his not quite Heel Realization about Growing Up Sucks.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: The Hundred Acre Wood becomes gloomy and morose when Christopher returns to it, and doesn’t brighten up until he begins to have fun and reunite his old friends. This trope is downplayed overall, though, since the Wood and its inhabitants appear to exist independently of Christopher Robin and his belief in them.

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