What's up with all those movies based on fairy tales?

PERSPECTIVE

Hollywood’s Grimm obsession:

Why grown-ups embrace the promise of happily ever after, now more than ever.

[originally appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe, MARCH 24, 2013]

Angelina Jolie in "Maleficent," due in theaters next year. (PHOTOGRAPH BY PETER KRAMER/AP/NBC)

FEE-FI-FO-FUM,I SMELL THE BLOOD OF A HOLLYWOOD TREND.

After nearly a century of fairy-tale films targeted in large part at kids — starting with Walt Disney’s 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — there’s another, edgier treatment on the rise. Last year, moviegoers saw two versions of the Grimm Brothers’ Snow White story in Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts and Snow White and the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart. Next year, Angelina Jolie will star as Sleeping Beauty’s nemesis in Malificent, and Disney is looking to release a live-action version of Cinderella directed by Kenneth Branagh. We’ve recently seen movies like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Jack the Giant Slayer in theaters and Grimm and Once Upon a Time on TV. The list goes on and on. What accounts for this boom in adult-sized fairy tales?

Part of the answer is that the stories and themes of the Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen never really left cineplexes — they’ve just been in better disguises. Working Girl, Pretty Woman, and Maid in Manhattan all borrowed heavily from the rags-to-riches Cinderella story. Snow White, so concerned with beauty and aging and jealousy, can be seen in countless mother/daughter rivalry plots. “We use bits and pieces of fairy tales all the time to fashion new stories, but often in ways so subtle that they escape our attention,” says Maria Tatar, chairwoman of the Program in Folklore & Mythology at Harvard University. Even Quentin Tarantino’s bloody Django Unchained, Tatar points out, draws from theSleeping Beauty tale.

The trend can be partly explained by practical concerns. After years of fantasy-themed bombs in the ’80s and ’90s (remember Legend with Tom Cruise?), the wildly successful Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies — which both started appearing in 2001 — convinced Hollywood that audiences were once again willing to suspend disbelief and embrace worlds of wizards and goblins. But with cash cows like The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien already spoken for, studios began looking to mine gold in older stories. (And since fairy tales tend to be in the public domain, they offer a bonus: no pesky author estates with which to negotiate film and toy rights.)

But I also think something deeper is going on. Maybe it’s that these sexier action-packed tales — with epic plots and gloomy themes — are finally returning to their roots.

Once thoroughly dire and dark, fairy tales were re-imagined as entertainment for kids in the 19th century. “They were moved like old furniture from the parlor into the nursery — that’s how Tolkien put it,” Tatar explains. With the arrival of the movies, the yarns became “cartoon versions of what adults once told around the fireside.” Disney, in particular, made a point of leaving out the nastiest  stuff — the child abandonment, the cannibalism, the incest. “Today,” Tatar says, “we are back in touch with the darker elements in the tales.”

And yet those terrible stories projected up on the screen can also be comforting, if only because we know their endings in our bones. The land of Real Life, located just outside the darkened theater’s doors, remains a fairly bleak place of taxes, political gridlock, and climate change. A realm of chain mail, swords, and magic spells will always be more enchanting than that.

“Fairy tales give us a burst of melodrama,” Tatar says, “confronting us with worst-case scenarios and reassuring us that there will be a happily ever after.”

In fairy tales, the evil and greedy get true punishment, not just a slap on the wrist from Congress, and the hero always overcomes his or her travails to emerge victorious, albeit a little traumatized, from the experience. With the help of his sister, Hansel managed to escape getting eaten by a witch. Compared with that, doesn’t digging out from under a mountain of credit card debt or dodging a looming foreclosure seem like child’s play?

Ethan Gilsdorf, a frequent contributor to the Globe Magazine, is the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

Taken for a ride

With the new Pirates of the Caribbean out in theaters, it's clear the movie-theme park synergy is conquering our entertainment dollar

In search of movie plots, Hollywood has mined books, plays, TV shows, mythology, epic poems, even religious texts. Today, cinematic narrative is unearthed in other, less traditional places --- comic books, video games, cartoons, toy and theme parks rides.

Take "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," which opens Friday, the fourth film in the multi-billion-dollar franchise based on the 1967 Disneyland attraction featuring  "Avast, mateys!" pirate talk, skeletons at the ship's wheel, and buccaneers chasing wenches.

Why keep making feature-length adventures inspired by what are essentially elaborate, 10-minute log rides? Is Hollywood that desperate for ideas? Are audiences that unadventurous?To make money? Perhaps. Intellectual property owners do want to make money. The "Pirates" ride at Disney is a beloved institution, with name recognition. Well-executed as a movie series, the Johnny Depp juggernaut have conquered the box office, spawned spin-off novels, picture books, action figures, and video games.

But there are other forces at work here.

Newer generations of genre fans don't want merely to absorb narratives on the big screen. They want to participate in fictional worlds. Multi-platform, movie/book/video game tie-in products are built to sate this desire to experience the narrative outside the movie theater, to interact more directly with the storyline, or to help create a narrative --- whether by playing an video game, writing fan fiction or collecting tchotchkes or other fandom activities.

Movie-inspired amusement park attractions complete the cycle. Take your pick from dozens: Peter Pan to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (all based on Disney movie adaptations of classic books); Shrek to E.T. to Men in Black; Revenge of the Mummy, Jaws, to Jurassic Park. The Star Tours motion simulator attraction (now closed at US Disney parks for an upgrade and open only at Tokyo Disneyland) takes place in the "Star Wars" film universe. Warner Bros. Movie World (in Australia) has attractions based on "Batman," "Austin Powers," "Scooby Doo" and Marilyn Monroe. At Thorpe Park (in Britain), there's Saw, the world's first roller coaster based on a horror film. We've come a long way since the first roller coasters began appearing in15th century Russia.

So far, only the Walt Disney Company has the pop-cultural relevance and gravitas to get away with basing a movie on an amusement park attraction. That said, few of these adaptations have raked in pirate-like booty. Take "The Country Bears" (2002), based on the Country Bear Jamboree, both critically derided and a $35 million box office dud. Performing better was Brian DePalma's "Mission to Mars" (2000), partially inspired by the old attraction of the same name that was discontinued in the early 1990s; the EPCOT ride Mission: Space was built after the film came out and houses several of the movie props plus the rotating "gravity wheel" set. "The Haunted Mansion" (2003) also did somewhat better. ("Tower of Terror" (1997), based on the Disney-MGM Studios ride, was a made for TV movie.)

What's clear is that amusement parks have always been associated with deviance. Ever since the carnival came to town, so have carnies, serial killers, and torrid summer romances with strangers. In "Rollercoaster" (1977) --- released in Sensurround, an effect that vibrated theater seats with huge bass speakers --- Timothy Bottoms's plot to blow up a roller coaster is thwarted by ride inspector George Segal. Then here's the creepy side to those "It's a Small World" robots. In the dreadful "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" (1978),  the '70s rock band, in full makeup, battles an evil engineer turning park-goers into mindless cyborgs. In the adult-themed Wild West amusement park of "Westworld" (1973), androids malfunction and start killing the patrons; its sequel, "Futureworld" (1976) concerns a cloning machine and a sci-fi-theme. The "Jurassic Park" movies (1993, 1997, 2001) further fueled fears of mad scientists and technology run amok, and nicely skewered the wholesome, antiseptic Disney park experience.

Of course, theme parks aren't just for cyborgs and dinosaurs; the undead also love them. Two brothers, Jason Patric and Corey Haim, are the new kids in town in "The Lost Boys" (1987), and must confront Kiefer Sutherland and his gang of teenage vampires plaguing an amusement park set on the California coast. In "Zombieland" (2009), zombie apocalypse survivors Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg hit the road in search of a safe haven, eventually landing in the "Pacific Playland" amusement park, where various rides play a role in the climactic battles.

But not all theme parks are nefarious. "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) begins with the lighter theme of summer vacations gone wrong. Chevy Chase drives his family cross-country to the Disney-like Walley World, only to find the park closed for repairs. Which drives Chase crazy, turning him into a BB gun-wielding psychopath. The funny kind. In the 15th James Bond installment, "The Living Daylights" (1987), the Ferris wheel at Vienna's Prater park is where Timothy Dalton scores with one of his Bond girls. In the dramedy "Adventureland" (2009), recent college grad Eisenberg (again) is stuck with a summer job at an amusement park in his hometown (bad), then falls in love (good). At least there are no zombies.

The most lucrative scenario for an entertainment mogul would be to base an entire amusement park on a single franchise. Disney began this by dividing its parks into vague "worlds," like Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Frontierland, and Adventureland. The "movie studio" parks at Universal and Disney/MGM developed this concept, basing parks around various but mostly unrelated movies ("Jaws," etc). Then Universal's Islands of Adventure created mini-parks devoted to themes like Marvel super heroes, cartoons such as "0Rocky and Bullwinkle," "Jurassic Park"/dinosaurs, ancient myths, and the world of Dr. Seuss. One of these "islands," The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, has blazed a new trail by devoting itself to a single consistent, fictional world. The park opened last year, and features Dragon Challenge, a double roller coaster with intertwining tracks; a more conventional steel roller coaster called Flight of the Hippogriff; and a tour of Hogwarts Castle  called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey that ends with a broomstick ride past spiders, the Whomping Willow and Dementors. The "set" includes a restaurant, various fake storefronts and real stores where you can purchase merchandise like sugar quills, lemon drops, Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, and your own broomstick.

It's only a matter of time before entire, giant theme parks are based on the most lucrative franchises in history: Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Avatar. But if they build them, will fans come?

In the Boston area, there's an entrepreneur who is hoping that answer is yes. Based at Patriot Place in Foxborough, Matt DuPlessie's company 5 Wits taps into our desire to be part of a movie plot. DuPlessie's walk-through spy adventure Espionage (not affiliated with the James Bond franchise, but definitely inspired by it) opened last fall, and another attraction, 20,000 Leagues, based on Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," opened in March. Neither limits users to train car tracks or restricts their motions with seat belts; visitors walk freely through the sets to solve puzzles and, hopefully, save the day.

As the movie-theme park alliance has offered successful synergies, audiences have grown more sophisticated in their taste for special effects. The environments of the original Anaheim and Orlando Disney rides seem primitive by today's standards. Oddly, the quartet of "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies also have very little to do with the ride's original plot, such as it is, which simply evokes generic pirate-themed worlds. To fix this, the old attractions have been retro-fitted and refurbished with better lighting and audio effects. Audio-animatronic figures of Captain Jack Sparrow, his nemesis Barbossa, the squid-faced Davy Jones (all voiced by Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Bill Nighy respectively) have been added that match the movie world more closely. Of course, the franchise branding had to be updated too; the pirate ship banner and other signage outside the Disney rides now matches the movie poster typeface and other marketing collateral.

While the digital bling of XBox Live, CGI and motion capture may have usurped the power of theme-park attractions, it turns out roller-coaster rides and haunted houses still have their nostalgic tug. They remain an outdated but nonetheless real-world way to participate in cinematic narrative. Taking a ride can still make us feel part of the movie.

As long as the movie is worth the ride.

Recently there's been talk of Jon Favreau ("Iron Man") directing a film based on the entire Disney theme park, Magic Kingdom, but no details yet on what the plot might be. Undead Mickey with assault rifle? 

I'd pay to see that.

Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the award-winning book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, his travel memoir investigation into fantasy and gaming subcultures the Huffington Post called “part personal odyssey, part medieval mid-life crisis, and part wide-ranging survey of all things freaky and geeky," National Public Radio described as "Lord of the Rings meets Jack Kerouac’s On the Road" and Wired.com proclaimed, “For anyone who has ever spent time within imaginary realms, the book will speak volumes.” Follow Ethan's adventures at http://www.fantasyfreaksbook.com.