Paddington (Christmas 2014)

[JonoD]

 

I don't know how many people are likely to care about this, but I'd be willing to bet that maybe one or two people from England who grew up watching the Paddington cartoons just might...

 

For those who don't know, Paddington Bear was originally a series of books written by Michael Bond, about a clumsy bear who stowed away from Peru and was subsequently adopted by a family who found him at Paddington Station in London one day. The stories basically follow Paddington's mishaps and adventures during his time in England.

 

A lot of people know Paddington from the animated show of him that was produced in the 70s:

 

 

Well, Paddington is now getting a feature length CGi/live action film in the Christmas season of 2014.

 

Personally... I think it looks beautiful, and I'm actually really looking forward to it. The teaser is nicely shot, and most of all Paddington looks freaking adorable. and oh my god... His hat is red like it's meant to be.

 

Some big names attached as well, including new doctor Peter Capaldi. On top of that, they've got Colin Firth voicing Paddington... King George from The King's Speech for those unfamiliar. I cannot wait.

[#AR]

...PADDINGTON?!? WHAT?

HO. LY. CRAP. IT'S BEEN FOR-FREAKIN' EVER SINCE I'VE READ THOSE BOOKS.

Damn I used to love this series so freakin' much.

[Spin Attaxx]

...well, this shows far more promise than the Postman Pat movie to be sure. If they manage to make it a classic Disney-esque family film (read: no unlucky everydudes and their girlfriend who steal the spotlight or dated pop culture refences), I'd say it would fit the tone of the original series just fine.

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

This is one of my favourite episodes!

 

Kinda interested in the movie, is it all CG? Or just paddington? 

[JonoD]

It's only Paddington who's CG in this.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Oh good... because I think humans in that CG style would start to fall into uncanny valley territory.

[Salamander]

Count me in as another one of those thinking "So is this going to be the redemption for that Postman Pat abomination?"

 

Don't know if it's going to work, mind.  Too little to judge on right now.  All you can say is that Paddington looks totally different when you try to depict him realistically.

[PaddyFancy]

A First Great Western Intercity 125, pulling into London Paddington, carrying a little bear from darkest Peru? Freaking yeessssss....

[Big Panda]

The teaser alone made me smile from ear to ear.

I have faith that this will be a decent movie, particularly since the Harry Potter people are behind it.

[JezMM]

Yeah this certainly looks a lot more tasteful revival than Postman Pat.  I don't have a huge attachment to Paddington but might check this out if it's well-received.

[Applejack1973]

And at last the trailer is here.

 

I been waiting since Christmas where the poster came up.

[JonoD]

I've just looked over the film's IMDB page, and interestingly, Peter Capaldi isn't listed, yet he's quite clearly credited here in the teaser.

I'm starting to think we'll be seeing him play Mr. Curry.

[iDEATH]

From the teaser alone, this is actually looking really nice.

 

I'm sure I remember seeing something in some film magazine about Colin Farrell getting the role of padington and thinking it was really strange, must have been a misquote, Colin Firth makes much more sense

wasn't sure if it'd be another Postman Pat style film but yeah...i'm excited for this.

[Milo]

Surprised I missed this thread. I'm a fan of the original books and from the little I've seen of the animated series it's pretty nice.

 

Quite optimistic for the film and I'm hopeful it will stay true to the original spirit/tone of the books....unlike that Postman Pat..."movie"...

[Spin Attaxx]

Aaaand new trailer. And... well...

 

 

Suffice it to say, at around the halfway point when Paddington put those toothbrushes in his ears then pulled them out, one thing became clear to me.

 

The Cycle* continues.

 

*Taking a beloved cartoon character and making a live action/CGI film about them that ends up being awful due to going against the source material, focusing more on a human than the supposed main character and inserting pop culture references and gross-out jokes for the hell of it

[Milo]

^ That moment was exactly when the smile I had on my face died. It looked so promising too... ;_;

 

Quite optimistic for the film and I'm hopeful it will stay true to the original spirit/tone of the books....unlike that Postman Pat..."movie"...

 

Now if you excuse me, I have to go eat dinner.

 

 

EDIT: I just absolutely love this look of uncertainty "Paddington" expresses to the mirror/audience before he does the toothbrush bit.

 

 

"...look, to all fans of the original books and the cartoon, I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. I never even wanted to do this, let alone be a part of this movie."

[Kevin]

Damn you trailer for killing my hopes! I remember watching Paddington when I was little and I was hoping a revival via a movie would be a good one, but sadly from the trailer, it's not looking to be the case.

[Briraka]

Holy shit, I didn't even remember that I used to like Paddington when I was but a wee lad until I saw this garish display of toilet humor.

F.M.L.

[SchemingMinor]

Aaaand new trailer. And... well...

 

 

Suffice it to say, at around the halfway point when Paddington put those toothbrushes in his ears then pulled them out, one thing became clear to me.

 

The Cycle* continues.

 

*Taking a beloved cartoon character and making a live action/CGI film about them that ends up being awful due to going against the source material, focusing more on a human than the supposed main character and inserting pop culture references and gross-out jokes for the hell of it

Frankly I found out a big reason why these movies are nothing close to the source material that they are supposed to resemble and that is because they come from rejected movie scripts that companies have no idea what to do with, so in order to market off of them they just slap a pop cultural franchise onto it and hope it sells. I wish I could remember the name they have for these type of movies.

 

Wild Wild West from what I recall is one of those movies that came from a different script that never had the source material in mind.

 

For all we know this could have been a script from a family flick with Adam Sandler in mind (though he never turns down anything.)

 

But yeah, this movie looks like another CGI nightmare.

[-Mark-]

He looks like Doge. 

 

[JonoD]

Yep... Even I admit that this has killed most of my anticipation for the film. I'll watch more of the trailers as they come out, but if they're going down the route of that kind of humor, I can't imagine this will be that pleasant a viewing experience.

 

Paddington actually looked great in that initial teaser, but here... Eeugh. He looks too 'bear-like' to me here.

[Salamander]

JonoD, thanks for putting that old Paddington episode in the first post.  It had been a very long time since I'd seen any of the animated series (and I never read the books), but rewatching it reminds me of their innocent, quaint charm.  Charm that the movie seems to be quite lacking.

 

I watched the new movie trailer in the Sonic movie topic, and, well, yes.  As everyone else has said, "Oh no, not another one."  On visuals alone, I think they could've gotten away with Paddington if he was actually wearing the iconic duffel coat, and that would help him look a lot more... cute, I guess?  Less like just a random CGI bear.  (Edit: Apparently he does have the duffel coat sometimes, as it's in promotional art, but that has its own problems, as Shadzter has recently pointed out in the status updates.  So why isn't it in the trailer?)  But considering the quality of the bathroom sequence as a whole then it's quite clear that there's no redeeming the film.  It's kind of a shame, as I thought the escalator sequence near the end was actually much funnier and closer to the spirit of the original, but the bathroom sequence is just the kind of gross-out gags and mindless CGI action that's already been done a million times and has (I'm reasonably sure) nothing to do with the source material.

 

The sad thing is that, no matter how much people hate them, films like this keep on being made.  Either they actually make money, or the execs in charge are incompetent and literally have no idea what people want.  But congratulations on alienating the people who actually know what Paddington is, though.  It's quite a feat to make a nostalgia movie that can only be repulsive to the people who feel the nostalgia.

[Detective Shadzter]

Was hoping this would turn out good, as I used to love the cartoon, but I'm not impressed with that new trailer.

 

At least #CreepyPaddington has come out of this. 

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a577326/creepypaddington-meme-will-haunt-your-dreams-forever.html#~oH3DOZXfnrZUOf

[TheGerkuman]

Y'know, that stuff happened in the original book. (The bathroom stuff, anyway)

[Doctor MK]

Even though I was pretty indifferent to 99% of the footage in that trailer, I must admit I laughed at the "dogs must be carried" bit. Silly language-related stuff like that always makes me chuckle blame all my studying of Linguistics, I guess...!

 

I won't write this film off entirely just yet - Paddington seems like something they might ultimately treat with better care than something like Postman Pat, even if it's not really on show so far - and the animation does look pretty nice if nothing else. I like Paddington's facial expressions, and the fact he's remaining primarily mute through most of the trailer seems promising too. I don't want to see the Peruvian bear cracking wise every five seconds simply because he's got a celebrity voice.

 

So yeah, could go either way. Probably will be a bit rubbish, but likely not as terrible as some other revamps of well known children's stories.