Narrative Illustration/ My thoughts on the Movie

Cover art by Lane Smith

After reading the James and the Giant Peach novel I fourth it would be interesting to watch the 1996 movie interpretation. There are some very noticeable differences in the two stories, one of the most important is the removal of the cloud men. They wear a big part of the book but play no part in the movie also, the rhino from the beginning of the book plays a much bigger part as he seems to follow James thru the story. Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker don’t die in the movie interpretation. The shark scene is much different as instead of a shola of sharks the team are faced with a giant mechanised shark. This seems a bit odd after reading the book but it’s interesting to think about. The movie adds an entirely new plot driver as the team wish to find a compass which can only be found in a sunken pirate ship. This leads to an action scene which is not in the book.

One of the characters was removed in the movie, this being Silk Worm. The character didn’t do much in the book which is why I think the decision was made. Despite the missing character I think the move dose a much better job of hindering the bug’s characters. I think the seam more defined in the movie as I thought the only bug characters which had a lot of personality in the book wear Centipede and Earth Worm.

I think the art style is also worth of note as it’s quite interesting. Most of the movie is animated using stop motion animation. The puppets which are used have very destined designs which I think fit the feel of the story. Being a movie there wear a lot of creative which worked on this project which makes it difficult to pin point a particular designer. I still want to bear this art style I mined when I move on to my design work.