Should we see ‘Pinocchio’ at Christmas or Halloween? The original tale has the answer.
In a year of movie delays and chaotic release lists, it seems odd that we’ve had two movies about Pinocchio, the lying, childish puppet who wants to become a real boy. Along with the Disney version of Robert Zemeckis that sits alongside live-action movies like ‘The Lion King,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ and ‘Dumbo,’ we have the take on the original material of William of the Bull, now available on Netflix.
If you thought being swallowed by a whale, a swindling fox, and Jiminy Cricket leering at can-can girls made Pinocchio one of Disney’s more mature movies, that’s nothing compared to Carlo Collodi’s original story,’ The adventures of Pinocchio’.
Here’s what the Mouse House cut from that children’s puppet’s original story, and why Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is actually a more faithful retelling of the original story.
Originally published in 1881 as part of the Italian magazine ‘Giornale per i bambini’, ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ was anything but suitable for children. It begins with a man named Mastro Cherry, chopping down a log who strangely begins to laugh. Frightened by the whole thing, Cherry gives it to his reclusive friend Geppetto, who has been looking to make a puppet.
Even as he carves it, Pinocchio calls Geppetto “cornmeal mush” because of his yellow hair, causing the creator and Mastro Cherry to quarrel. As soon as the log assumes his Pinocchio persona, he kicks Geppetto in the face and runs off. When the police catch up with Pinocchio, Geppetto is accused of assaulting him, and the hapless puppet maker is taken to prison in front of the villagers.
Pinocchio settles into Geppetto’s empty house and dries his feet by the fire after a neighbor throws a bucket of water at him. He wakes up to find his feet have been burned off like some kind of ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ horror.
When Geppetto is released from prison and builds Pinocchio a new pair of feet, he sells his only coat so that his ungrateful ‘son’ can have a book to go to school with. Pinocchio returns this favor by selling the book to attend a puppet show.
While he is there, an evil puppeteer wants to use Pinocchio as firewood to cook a lamb for his dinner. There are still the cunning Fox and Cat, but here the latter eats a blackbird that tries to warn Pinocchio that they are bandits. The cat gets its comeuppance from him and the vengeful Pinocchio bites its paw.
But it’s crowd favorites like the Blue Fairy or Jiminy Grill who really get the worst of it in ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’. Originally named Talking Cricket, he has a minor role in ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ and is killed when he is hit against the wall with a hammer while trying to give Pinocchio advice.
The Fairy arrives after the Fox and the Cat have hung Pinocchio from a tree and declared him “dead”. This was where Collodi wanted the story to end, as a message to naughty children, but his editors demanded that he continue.
Making Bambi look like Winnie the Pooh, death is pretty much everywhere. Pinocchio meets a snake who dies of a ruptured artery for mocking his misfortune, while also being haunted by the ghost of the talking cricket.
Pinocchio and his friend Candlewick are turned into donkeys, and though Pinocchio changes back, only after a fisherman tries to drown him and the fish eat the skin from his donkey carcass revealing his puppet form. Pinocchio then comes across a dying Candlewick, who is still a donkey and dies of exhaustion before he can be saved.
Instead of being swallowed by a whale, Geppetto and Pinocchio end up in the stomach of a shark; after all, sharks are scarier. They only manage to escape because he has heart problems and asthma, so he sleeps with his mouth open. Like the Disney version, the moral of the story is to work hard to get what you want, but even the end of “The Adventures of Pinocchio” is decidedly dark. Geppetto and the newly human Pinocchio keep the puppet. Lying there like a wooden corpse, the story closes with Pinocchio laughing that he was once a piece of wood.
Although del Toro couldn’t fit everything into his version, there are twists like the burned feet and hard labor plots from the original novel. However, even without being a literal adaptation, it’s more faithful than the same watered-down version we saw Tom Hanks in earlier this year. If you’re a concerned parent who’s ready to leave his kids facing Guillermo del Toro’s version, you might want to think twice before letting them watch del Toro’s version. Of course, the original story is far away, that now would be +16 at the very least.
Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pinocchio’ is now available to watch on Netflix.