Peter Pan (1953)

The basis of another Fantasyland classic ride, today's movie is Peter Pan.

The Movie:

Peter Pan is the 14th film in the Disney Animated Canon and one of the most revered of Disney's Silver Age. The Silver Age movies are the films of the 1950s and 60s in which Disney returned to the standards of their pre-WWII movies up through the death of Walt Disney. Peter Pan was also the last film worked on by all nine of Disney's "Nine Old Men," the animation pioneers who were the heart of Disney animation.

Peter Pan is based on the 1904 play by British author J.M. Barrie (and the subsequent 1911 novelization). The title character is the "boy who wouldn't grow up." He lives in Neverland with the fairy Tinker Bell and his pack of Lost Boys, while facing off with the band of pirates led by Captain Hook and his first mate Mr. Smee. The story begins with the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, who live in the nursery, where Wendy tells the stories of Peter Pan and John and Michael act them out. However, Wendy's father insists she must grow up, and has just one last night to spend in the nursery. That same night, Peter Pan comes to retrieve his shadow, which he had lost there on a previous visit. He is discovered by the children, and then decides to take them with him back to Neverland, setting off the story's adventure.

Oh boy, this one is going to be complicated to parse out, so let's start with the positive. There is no denying the story is a classic, timeless tale. Peter Pan is one of the most famous stories in both children's literature and British literature, so give credit where it is due to Barrie for that. It has been adapted many times for stage, TV, movies, comics, and much more, but of all those, the Disney version is the most widely known. Through the art of animation, Disney was able to provide a visual representation of the story that was far more grand than its stage origins, especially when the characters fly. These are some of the most magical scenes in any animated movie. For the most part, Peter Pan is a fun film, and one that I always enjoyed as a kid.

But on the other hand, many elements of this movie have not aged well at all. Some of these elements are minor things that only seem out of place because it is hard to imagine a children's cartoon today getting made with them - several scenes of smoking and the villain straight up shooting someone just for annoying him. A little more noticeable is that at times the movie comes across as fairly sexist. Some of this goes back to the original story, but Disney's version has several instances of its own dialogue that don't help matters.

And then there is the Native American issue. The Indians, as they were called in the story, were present in Barrie's original play, and reflective of a turn-of-the-20th-century understanding, were already somewhat stereotypical caricatures of various aspects of Native Americans. Especially keep in mind, this story was being written from a British perspective. The Disney movie, being a cartoon, plays these caricatures up even more dramatically. Nothing in the movie seems like it was done with any sort of malice, but from a modern standpoint, it is highly racist. This undoubtedly puts Disney in a hard bind, because Peter Pan is so popular, but without straight-up censoring their own film in a big way, there is no way around how this movie depicts Native Americans.

(This is an issue all more recent adaptations of Peter Pan try to work around. Disney's own licensed stage show Peter Pan Jr. changes the song "What Makes the Red Man Red?" to "What Makes the Brave Man Brave?" with new lyrics - it even gets a verse with the line as "brave girl." The recent TV production of the non-Disney Broadway musical updated its own music to include more accurate Native American lyrics. However, the recent prequel film Pan faced its own controversy by casting a white actress as Tiger Lily. And of course, it is interesting to note the differences in how Disney deals with Peter Pan vs Song of the South, another older film that has been called racist. We'll get to that one later.)

Peter Pan has no shortage of iconic music. Most of the songs are by Sammy Cahn and Sammy Fain, including the aforementioned "What Makes the Red Man Red?" "The Second Star to the Right," and the movie's most iconic song, "You Can Fly!" Winston Hibler and Ted Sears contributed the earworm "Following the Leader," while the crocodile's leitmotif is from the cut song "Never Smile at a Crocodile" by Jack Lawrence and Frank Churchill. Plus the movie gets another wonderful score by Oliver Wallace.

It should be noted that Disney has mined this movie for several spinoff projects. A sequel, Return to Neverland, was originally produced for straight-to-DVD release, but ended up having a theatrical run. Tinker Bell would wind up as the main character for an entire Fairies franchise, and a Disney Channel cartoon called Jake and the Neverland Pirates features a group of kids facing off against the crew of Captain Hook.

And one more thing - Tinker Bell. Disney's lovable fairy is down-right mean-spirited in this movie. She was in the play as well, but here it is taken up to 11. It's kind of funny considering how popular of a character she is.

Presence in the Parks:

You better believe Peter Pan has a home in the Disney Parks. Peter Pan's Flight was an opening day attraction at Disneyland in 1955 and is now found at WDW's Magic Kingdom along with parks in Paris, Tokyo, and Shanghai. This is one of the most popular attractions in the park.

The Disneyland version originally did not include animatronics of Peter Pan, as the rider was supposed to playing the part of Peter Pan. However, early guests were surprised not to see Peter, so the animatronics were used in all other versions of the ride and placed in Disneyland when it was redone in 1983. The 1983 refurbishment of Disneyland also brought the removal of the Pirate Ship Restaurant and Skull Rock, though a ship restaurant and Skull Rock can still be seen in the Paris park in Adventureland.

The Magic Kingdom version of the ride opened with the park in 1971. A new, longer, interactive queue was added in 2014 by taking over the adjacent restroom space. (New Tangled-themed restrooms were built across the walkway in the space formerly occupied by the Skyway Station.) This new queue is bypassed for those using a FastPass, so even though the ride usually has one of the longer waits, some guests will forego the FastPass for this ride just to see the queue.

Entrance to Peter Pan's Flight, Magic Kingdom, May 2015

There are a variety of meetable characters from Peter Pan. Peter himself is found in Fantasyland, and occasionally Wendy can be found there too. Captain Hook appears rarely, mostly around Halloween, and Mr. Smee has been known to pop up at Epcot's World Showcase. Tinker Bell has her own meeting area at the Main Street Town Square Theater. She moved there after having her own "Magical Nook" in Adventureland 2011-2014, and before that she and other Disney Fairies had a "Pixie Hollow" meet in the former Mickey's Toontown Fair that was closed for the Storybook Circus expansion of Fantasyland.

The Pixie Hollow meet still exists in Disneyland in the place of the former Ariel's Grotto. Interestingly, original plans for the New Fantasyland had an entire Pixie Hollow section that would have served as a meeting area for Tinker Bell, Cinderella, and Aurora, which would have been placed instead of Storybook Circus. However, when a new head of parks was installed in 2009, he was worried that this would 1. overbalance Fantasyland with attractions that appealed mostly to little girls, and 2. eliminate the second most profitable retail location in the park. So we got what we have now.

Speaking of Tinker Bell, she is almost like a second mascot to Disney, and has been since pretty much the movie came out. Iconically, she flies over the castle as part of the Disney logo and as the traditional start to the fireworks show.

Of all the characters from the movie, one of the Lost Boys, Nibs, gets his own card in the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.

Back on the west coast, the original Fantasmic! at Disneyland had a huge scene involving Peter Pan. When the show came to the Studios in Florida, that portion of the show instead went to Pocahontas, which was a recent movie at the time. The original Fantasmic! left in 2016, and the new version has several other movies taking over the Peter Pan portion of the show.

The characters continue to get love in the various parades and nighttime shows. Notably, the movie got several floats in the currently not running Main Street Electrical Parade.