Background
A Cosmic Christmas is one of the earliest offerings from the Canadian studio Nelvana Limited. While they first started with Small Star Cinema and Christmas Two Step, A Cosmic Christmas seems to have been the first film to make an impact. This marked the first of five holiday specials made by Nelvana (though personally, The Devil and Daniel Mouse is the better of the five)
The film doesn't hold a number of recognizable actors, unless you're from the area and/or the era, and, well, that's about it. Let's get into it.
Premise
Peter is a young boy who seems to be in the wrong place at the right time during the Christmas season. We have our typical bratty kids who expect plastic shit that they'll likely never touch again in a few months, whatever floats their boat. Peter has to deal with a quartet of bullies, Marvin the leader, fat boy, weasel-type boy and the girl. No they don't reveal the names of his goons.
Everything starts drearily, going as far as showing a man getting slighted for wanting donations to help the unfortunate. It all takes a turn when Peter supposedly sees a spaceship, and nobody believes him (then again the ship looks like a falling star, who would believe him at this point.) As this was a Christmas special from back in the day, and since Alberta was possibly still is a conservative Canadian area, where's the religious representation at?
Our plot device is a trio of aliens resembling the biblical magi, or if you want to be more specific, The Three Wise Men (the similarities are too clear to pass). The aliens are naive to the very concept of Christmas, even after Peter gives a straightforward summary (while going through the religious aspects), but it doesn't translate well to them. If it did, we wouldn't have a movie.
Peter attempts to show the three what Christmas is about through a tour of the town, but comes out empty due to people themselves not getting the true essence of Christmas. We also get foreshadowing to a brief conflict, where Marvin intends to steal Peter's goose Lucy. To eat. Think of the implications in between.
Peter has a bit more luck in getting his message out when he brings the three to his house. We get more insight to how materialized Christmas has become, the fake Christmas tree being the numero uno offender. It leads to a nice musical number as the aliens envision what Christmas was like in the old days, according to the grandmother (who's waiting for the opportunity to wish the others would know what it's like to grow old)
Our conflict comes in as Marvin steals Lucy, and I think i found the point when the creators put their hands up. It leads to a super long chase sequence, including moments where the townspeople investigate the aliens' ship. It comes to a head when Marvin, Peter and Lucy fall into the frozen lake. Some more stalling later and the people get the insight to form a human chain to save them, with the aliens refusing at first to avoid interference. But luckily they sack up, bite the bullet and help.
Marvin gets reprimanded in a move that I'd like to call too little too late. The townspeople were already wrapped around general greed and apathy, but the craziest thing is that the grandmother gave the worst rebuttal. She said Marvin was just hungry, which given the implications I tried to give would amount to him wanting to kill the bird if he got his way. But I could be overanalyzing this. Everyone comes to a peaceful understanding and have a Christmas party at Peter's house, where the aliens part, having learned the ups and downs of what Christmas really is about.
Animation
Since this was an independent venture produced at an early time and back when they had little assets, I won't be too harsh on the animation. There is some nice weight to the animation, the choppiness is enhanced by it, the character designs are stylish, I'd take that over looking just bland, and it's not as noticeable when animation is looped or reused. It's a fine effort, but it would be improved on overtime in ensuing specials, only to go back down when Nelvana went into the cold embrace of flash animation.
Overall
A simple review for a simple movie. I'd prefer this over Frosty the Snowman and Olive the Other Reindeer (kinda on the latter).
No comments:
Post a Comment