Spoiler Alerts, kids!
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas was not what I was expecting. Firstly, I did not think that it was going to be like a musical with a lot of singing and dancing. The title fits the plot very well. If you haven’t watched the movie, skip this because I am going to spoil it: Jack, the skeleton, discovers Christmas Town and wants to take over Christmas. He works and works his butt off preparing for the big day. Having the other people, the Halloween characters (who all live in Halloween Town), help by making presents (filled with scary toys), making a Santa costume, and capturing Santa. Sally tries to warn Jack that this day will go horribly wrong, but he doesn’t listen. On the big day, he delivers scary toys to children and then gets attacked by artillery until it hits his reindeers and his sleigh explodes. He feels very sorry for what he did and did not mean for it to hurt others. From this, he goes back and saves the real Santa, along with Sally who is captured by Oogie Boogie. When Santa is saved, he goes and saves the day delivering good presents to the kids.
My favorite character was honestly, the Mayor. Although he was not shown all that much, the parts where he was there were super funny. For example, in the beginning when he goes to Jack’s house but Jack is not there and he has a meltdown. I also really like how when his emotion changes, his head turns the other way showing that he is either happy, excited and joyful or mad, angry or sad. Another character is Sally, who is a big part in the movie. She has a vision that this day will go wrong and tries everything that she can do to stop it. First she just tries to talk Jack out of it but he doesn’t listen, then she creates the fog so that the reindeer can’t see the path, and then when all that fails, she tries to go save the real Santa who is captured but then Oogie Boogie captures Sally.
Henry Selick, the animation director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, was born on November 30, 1952. He is a major stop motion producer and famous for his productions, James and the Giant Peach, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and his next upcoming production, Wendall and Wild. Stop motion is an animated film where puppets are moved slightly so they appear to be moving in the film. In one second of film, there are 24 frames, which means the animators have to move the puppets just a tiny bit so that they are one fluid motion in the film. 2 seconds of film takes producers about an entire workday to film. Imagine an entire day of hard work for 2 seconds of film! In The Nightmare Before Christmas, there are a lot of singing and dancing parts as I said before. That means that they would have to move the puppets’ mouth and body parts to get it to look real. In my opinion and I think for most other people, that would be very difficult because of how tiny a bit of detail they would have to move and the time it would take to produce a dancing puppet.
I think that The Nightmare Before Christmas was a pretty good movie. It was not my favorite movie but it was still pretty interesting to watch. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 95% which is fantastic. Along with Common Sense media giving it a 5/5! Wow! Looks like a lot of people really like it. IMDb gave it a 8/10 which isn’t as good of a review but still incredible!
Compared to his other movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas was his best film. According to Rotten Tomatoes, a trusted review for movies and films, gave Coraline a 90%. James and the Giant Peach got a 91%. The Nightmare Before Christmas got a 95%. I am excited to see his new film, Wendall and Wind, to see what Rotten Tomatoes gives that film.
Overall, I enjoyed this film and appreciate the time it took to make as well as the hard work Henry Selick and his other producers took to make this film. It was entertaining with all the singing and fun dances. I would give it a 8/10 because I am not that big a fan of musicals but I know that they people who are would definitely enjoy it. I would recommend this to anyone whose favorite holidays are Halloween and Christmas and who like musicals.