nightmare before christmas

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 stop motion animated musical film about the inhabitants of Halloween Town who take over Christmas one year, directed by stop-motion animator Henry Selick. The film is loosely based on drawings and a poem by Tim Burton, and he served as co-producer. He did not direct the film as is sometimes believed, but he was heavily involved.

The film was released by Touchstone Pictures, a film studio owned by the Walt Disney Company, after the main Walt Disney Pictures division balked at some of the darker content.

The remastered 3-D version of the film is planned to be re-released by Walt Disney Pictures on October 20, 2006. Note that it will be 3-D via 3-D glasses and not CGI. [1]

Synopsis

The film begins with the introduction of Halloween Town and its much adored leader Jack Skellington, The Pumpkin King. ("This is Halloween"). Although Jack is loved and respected by the townspeople, he is bored with the repetitiveness of his Halloween festivities and feels that there is something unknown to him that is missing from his life ("Jack's Lament"). One day while wandering in the woods with his dog Zero, Jack discovers a circle of trees unlike anything that he has seen before. Each tree has a door on it representing a different holiday. When Jack opens the Christmas door he is sucked into the wonderful world of Christmas Town. Jack is mesmerized by the color and cheerfulness of the holiday, and realizes that this is exactly what he has been searching for ("What's This?").

Jack immediately calls a meeting in Town Hall and reveals the splendid sights that were to be seen in Christmas Town ("Town Meeting Song"). Unfortunately, the denizens of Halloween Town have no possible way of understanding such a place. Frustrated from the misunderstandings, Jack describes the leader of Christmas Town in the only way the town members can understand: as a lobster-red creature possessing a deep voice and flying on a sleigh like a vulture in the sky. Jack refers to him as "Sandy Claws". Distraught by his friends' inability to understand Christmas, Jack locks himself in his home and performs multiple experiments to try to better understand Christmas Town ("Jack's Obsession"). He finally comes to the realization that all he has to do is believe in Christmas, and decides to improve it. He informs the town of his intention to take over Christmas for that year. In order to successfully take over Christmas, Jack enlists the help of a trio of misfits named Lock, Shock, and Barrel to kidnap "Sandy Claws", aka Santa Claus ("Kidnap the Sandy Claws"). Misled by the town meeting, all of the townspeople pitch in to create their own twisted version of the holiday ("Making Christmas").

After capturing the so called Sandy Claws (after accidentally kidnapping the Easter Bunny instead), Jack allows Lock, Shock, and Barrel to take him away and keep him safe, which they mischieviously interpret to take Sandy Claws to their boss, the villainous, gambling monster, Oogie Boogie ("Oogie Boogie's Song").

Sally, who is secretly in love with Jack, tries to warn him that taking over something he knows nothing about may be a bad idea. However, Jack is too wrapped in his fantasies to listen ("Sally's Song").

On Christmas Eve, Jack embarks on his makeshift sleigh led by skeleton reindeer and his ghost dog, Zero. Jack's scary (and sometimes dangerous) presents cause people in the real world to panic: they begin to call the police with reports of a false Santa Claus and attacking Christmas toys. Soon, Jack is targeted by the military and shot down. At the same time, Sally sets off to rescue Santa Claus but is captured by Oogie Boogie and the two are in risk of their lives.

When Jack finds himself and his sleigh crashed in a graveyard and his vision of Christmas wrecked, he realizes that he is the Pumpkin King and that he should stick to what he knows best: Halloween ("Poor Old Jack"). In order to salvage Christmas, Jack hurries back to Halloween Town and confronts Oogie Boogie. After Jack destroys Oogie, revealing him to be nothing more than a burlap sack full of bugs, Santa Claus exits to correct Jack's misdeeds and save Christmas. Santa is later seen flying overhead bringing Christmas spirit to Halloween Town, including snow, and the citizens are amazed by the new sensations ("Finale/Reprise").

Finally, Sally reveals her true feelings for Jack and the movie ends with a kiss.

Cast (voices)

• Chris Sarandon: Jack Skellington (speaking)
• Danny Elfman: Jack Skellington (singing), Barrel, Clown with the Tearaway Face
• Catherine O'Hara: Sally, Shock
• William Hickey: Dr. Finklestein
• Glenn Shadix: Mayor
• Paul Reubens: Lock
• Ken Page: Oogie Boogie
• Ed Ivory: Santa Claus[sandy claws]
• Greg Proops:Harlequin Demon, Sax Player, Devil
• Carmen Twillie: Man Under the Stairs
• Debi Durst: Corpse Mom, Corpse Kid, Zeldaborn the Little Witch
• Randy Crenshaw: Mr. Hyde, Behemoth,Vampire
• Kerry Katz: Corpse Dad, Vampire
• Sherwood Ball:Mummy Kid, Vampire
• Glenn Walters: Wolfman

On the soundtrack album, Patrick Stewart voices the opening narrative poem. A second poem, also read by Stewart, is included before the "End Credits" music; in this passage, the narrator (probably Santa Claus) describes a visit he made to Halloween Town many years after the events of the film.

Songs

• This Is Halloween - Halloweentown Citizens
• Jack's Lament - Jack
• What's This? - Jack
• Town Meeting Song - Jack/Halloweentown Citizens
• Jack's Obsession - Jack/Halloweentown Citizens
• Kidnap the Sandy Claws - Lock/Shock/Barrel
• Making Christmas - Jack/Halloweentown Citizens
• Oogie Boogie's Song - Oogie Boogie/Santa Claus
• Sally's Song - Sally
• Poor Jack - Jack
• Finale/Reprise - Jack/Sally/Halloweentown Citizens

Initial conception

The original ideas for the film came to Tim Burton while working as an animator for Disney. Burton has stated that he was inspired by being at a store and seeing them taking down the Halloween merchandise and changing it out for Christmas displays. Also, Tim loved holiday movies such as How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. In an interview he also described The Nightmare Before Christmas as almost an opposite of The Grinch because instead of wanting to destroy Christmas, Jack wants to celebrate it but accidentally destroys it. While at work, Burton scribbled out the poem on a piece of paper as well as a few drawings. These initial versions only included Jack, Zero and Santa Claus. The plot was very different from that of the film. Originally, Tim Burton pitched his idea to Disney, but it was declined. Disney told him the theme was too dark in nature, so he kept his sketches and continued his work on Disney's The Black Cauldron. It wasn't until years later that he was able to start production on something that had become his dream to create.

Production

The Nightmare Before Christmas marked the first time that a stop motion movie had been attempted at this scale. Because of this fact, a great deal of imagination and inventiveness had to be used in making the film. In order to produce the film, Tim Burton assembled a hand-picked group of animators, artists, and crew members to work on the film and founded a production company called Skellington Studios. In order to flesh out the script and come up with new characters (as an artist himself he was very specific as to the look and feel of the movie, even limiting them to orange, black and white for the primary colors of Halloween Town). Burton also encouraged the artists to not use their dominant hands as to give their drawings his trademark feel. Once the sets had been approved they were then made into half scale mock-ups out of cardboard. These were then used as guidelines to build the actual sets. The puppets were constructed with a detail metal armature as a skeleton, and then placed into moulds which were injected with a foam latex. From there they were sent to the fabrication department to be painted and finished. Multiple puppets were made of most of the characters so that they could cycle between the set and fabrication for touch ups.

The crew often had to improvise solutions to problems that they encountered during production. One of these problems was to give facial expressions to the puppets and making them speak. This was accomplished in a number of different fashions. Some puppets had mouths that were moved manually while some of the main puppets, such as Jack, were given hundreds of replaceable heads so that they could have a greater range of expression. The puppet for Sally was given interchangeable masks that were integrated behind her hairline because her hair was too long to be sculpted for the number of heads that would be needed. Another problem that was faced was allowing the animators to work on the sets. Because some were so large, the animators were worried that they would have to reach too far to move the puppets. This problem was solved by building the sets in different sections that could be separated when an animator was working and then placed back together for the shot.

The actual production of filming was a very slow and grueling process, taking over 3 years to finish. The animators worked on multiple sound stages at once to improve productivity on the film but a week’s work was still only a minute’s worth of actual film. The animators had to be very careful to be cautious on the sets as a simple thing such as a bump to one of the puppets could ruin a shot and they would have to start from scratch.

At the finish of the production of the film, the sets and puppets all faced different fates. Henry Selick kept a great deal of props from the film in his personal collection, and some of the animators also took home the puppets. Many of the sets were simply discarded as there was so many of them and they took up a great deal of space. A number of the puppets with a more human like structure were cut open and the armature taken out, as they were custom made and expensive. The Town Hall can currently be seen on display by the staircase leading from the ground to the 1st floor at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney, Orlando, Florida.

Public reaction

Nightmare originally opened in wide release on October 29, 1993. Although it received generally rave reviews by critics, the film struggled to find an audience. It eventually earned a respectable $50 million at the box office, but still was not nearly as successful as many other Disney films of that time.

Nightmare Before Christmas was nominated for best original score in the 1994 Golden Globes, as well as an Oscar nomination for Visual Effects, however it lost in both cases.

Legacy

When Nightmare was released on video, the general public began to discover it and it quickly gained a cult following, especially among the goth scene. In more recent years, Nightmare has become a mainstream hit and is even considered a holiday classic.

The same studio that produced Nightmare later created another stop motion movie based on the Roald Dahl book, James and the Giant Peach (1996), though it did not succeed to the same extent.

In 2005, Tim Burton returned to the medium of stop motion with his new film, Corpse Bride, which was distributed by Warner Bros.

For a Halloween 2006 release, The movie is planned to go under a 3D Rerelease, shown in select theaters on October 20.

In addition to a re-release, Disney will also release a new soundtrack. Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Marilyn Manson, Fiona Apple and She Wants Revenge will all appear on a special two-disc edition of the "Nightmare" soundtrack, contributing cover versions of songs featured in the film. The double-disc set will hit stores October 24, 2006. [2]

Technical data

• Title: The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Directed by: Henry Selick
• Written by: Caroline Thompson and Michael McDowell
• Music by: Danny Elfman
• Released on: October 13, 1993
• American picture
• Specifications: Technicolor, 35 mm 1.66:1 (colours, Dolby digital sound)
• Genre: animation, fantasy, satire, musical
• Runtime: 76 minutes
• MPAA rating: PG for some scary images

Merchandising

The Nightmare Before Christmas has become one of the most successful franchises ever in terms of selling merchandise, and much of the original merchandise has become highly collectible and rare. A very dedicated group of collectors has developed over the years, utilizing on-line auction websites such as eBay to obtain rare items.

In recent years, with the introduction of alternative clothing stores such as Hot Topic, there has been an explosion of new merchandise. This has caused a great deal of tension and debate between some of the original fans and the people buying these newer items. Some of the original fans maintain that the newer merchandise is overproduced and uninspired, as well as poorly made, and thus is cheapening a film which, at one point, was a cult classic.

Haunted Mansion Holiday

For the past five years, the Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland in California and Japan have received a Nightmare Before Christmas themed overlay (Entitled Haunted Mansion Holiday in California and Holiday Nightmare in Japan), for their Haunted Mansion attractions. The Magic Kingdom Park in Florida might bring this themed overlay to their park as well. The attractions are closed in September each year for themes to be completely overhauled, and open again themed in October until January of the next year. The attraction generally has a one night opening event each year that includes special guests, a dinner, special merchandise, and a ride through the attraction, although the Happiest Celebration on Earth halted that in Disneyland in 2005. Starting in 2001, the ride has included a score that was written specifically for the ride by film composer Danny Elfman. There has been a great deal of speculation recently that 2006 will be the last year for the event, allegedly at Tim Burton's request. Despite this, Disney CEO Bob Iger dismissed these rumours at the shareholders meeting in 2006, saying "there is no reason why the Haunted Mansion Holiday will not go ahead".

Video games

A video game based on the original movie was released in 2005. The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge is an action/adventure game developed by Capcom from Japan for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox systems. Intended to be a sequel to the movie, the game features the return of all the well-known characters in a new and arguably darker story with upgraded versions of the film's songs. In the story, Jack leaves Halloween Town to satisfy his curiosity. During Jack's absence, unfortunately, Oogie Boogie is reconstructed. By the time Jack returns, the monster has taken over Halloween Town and tricked its people into thinking Jack has abandoned them. Now Jack has to stop Oogie Boogie's evil plans as he attempts to take over the other holiday worlds, and the 'real' world. The game features controls similar to Devil May Cry. The game features a weapon known as a 'Soul Robber'. In the game players get other costumes such as "Pumpkin King," and "Santa Jack".

A GBA game, The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King came out in fall 2005. The opposite of the PlayStation and Xbox versions, the GBA game works as a prequel to the movie. The Pumpkin King is a side-scrolling action platformer (similar to Metroid and Castlevania) in which the player controls Jack Skellington and use a number of different weapons to fight enemies and traverse obstacles. The side-scrolling adventure game centers on the first time Jack faced off against his nemesis, Oogie Boogie, to eventually become the Pumpkin King. The game's plot will kick off with the invasion of some unusual bugs in Halloween Town. Jack soon discovers that these nasty insects are under the control of Oogie Boogie, who's looking to take over Halloween himself. With these creepy wheels set in motion, it will be up to Jack and his friends--including characters such as Zero, Sally, Dr. Finklestein, and others--to both stop Oogie and save Halloween.

Halloween Town's first appearance in a video game was one of the worlds in the Square Enix/Disney Kingdom Hearts video game series. In this game, Jack tries to create an artificial heart so he can control the Heartless for use in his "Heartless Halloween". His plan goes awry when Oogie Boogie (one of the Disney villains allied with Maleficent) steals the heart, ingests it, and tries to use it to control the Heartless for his own purposes. Jack then teams up with Sora and the others to stop Oogie Boogie's plans. Jack can also join Sora's party whenever they are in Halloween Town. He was also included in the GameBoy Advance game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as a Friend Card sporting his own unique Sleights, or combos. In this version, he helps Sora stop Oogie Boogie after the latter drank a potion that shows the true memories of the heart and frightens all but the most pure-hearted. His appearance as a Friend unlocks the availability of the Pumpkinhead Keyblade Card as well.

Kingdom Hearts II also features Halloween Town and its residents. It seemingly follows the movie plot, in which Jack tries to take Santa Claus's place in Christmas. However, at one point during the story, Jack and Santa mention this being the second time Jack has attempted to take over Christmas. This justifies the theory that Kingdom Hearts II takes place after the events of the movie (Although is it not specified whether it also takes place after Oogie's Revenge, as that game and the Kingdom Hearts series are owned by different companies, though the fact Jack does not wield the Soul Robber in this game may mean that this takes place before Oogie's Revenge, or that the game is not in the Kingdom Hearts continuity), minus Oogie Boogie. In the game, Maleficent arrives to recruit Lock, Shock, and Barrel to help her wreck Christmas Town and make Santa Claus into a Heartless. But when Sora arrives to help Jack as Santa's bodyguard, Maleficent uses her powers to revive Oogie Boogie, who now seems to have a short-term memory loss, remembering only his undying hatred of Jack and "sidekicks". Nonetheless, Oogie Boogie is defeated just as he had been before.

In the second visit, Jack (still wearing the Santa outfit) teams up with Sora to help bring back lost presents to Santa. During their mission, the two learn of a mysterious "gift-thief". This thief turns out to be a robotic creature created by Dr. Finklestein, referred to as the "Experiment." It is caught and defeated while attempting to find a heart by stealing Santa's presents since it lacked its own.

Trading card game

Sometime during 2005, a card game called The Nightmare Before Christmas TCG, was released. In March 2006, a new set came out: Christmas Town. A tournament kit also came out during that time.

Trivia

• Jack Skellington may have been inspired by Jack Pumpkinhead of the Oz books, while Sally may have been inspired by Scraps, the Patchwork Girl from the same series.
• Jack may have also been inspired by the original legends revolving around the Jack O Lantern, concerning a man named Jack who was too cruel to go to Heaven, but was not allowed in Hell, thus being forced to walk the earth with his turnip lantern.
• There is a hidden Mickey when Jack is on the train in Christmas Town. The Steam blower puffs out a Mickey shaped cloud but it quickly turns into a rabbit shaped cloud.
• In the German version, Sally was dubbed by Nina Hagen.
• In the Italian version, Jack is voiced over by Renato Zero.
• In the spanish version, the movie is titled "Jack's strange world".
• In the song, "This is Halloween", the lyrics "...tender lumplings everywhere..." refers to "Tender Lumplings," a song composed by Danny Elfman when he was with Oingo Boingo.
• Behemoth is based on B-movie actor/Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson.
• Jack makes his first appearance in Beetlejuice (1988) on top of Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton)'s carousel hat towards the end when Beetlejuice rises out of the floor, after summoned by Lydia (Winona Ryder).
• The cat from Tim Burton's first film, Vincent (1982) is present in the beginning of the film. It is the cat that jumps onto the garbage can.
• Patrick Stewart did the original introduction for the movie, which can be heard on the film's soundtrack.
• Tim Burton has said the original poem was inspired after seeing Halloween merchandise display in a store being taken down and replaced by a Christmas display. The juxtaposition of ghouls and goblins with Santa and his reindeer sparked his imagination.
• The snake seen in the movie is the Saturn Sandworm from Beetlejuice.
• Two items were invented to facilitate the filming of the movie: One was a "light alarm" which would warn the animators if any of the stage lights failed to come on. The other was a system that enabled a puppeteer to seamlessly switch to a replacement puppet if a puppet broke during a shot. Prior to this, either situation, a light failing to come on or a puppet breaking would destroy a shot.
• The theme from Batman (1989), a previous Burton/Elfman collaboration, can briefly be heard when the search-lights are looking for Jack.
• Two toys that Jack delivers reference Batman Returns, the film Tim Burton had directing commitments towards at the time. One is an evil duck on wheels, which is the vehicle that the Penguin drives. The other is an evil cat doll, which has the same head as the mascot for Shreck's corporation.
• The teaser trailer tells us that the film was originally produced by the major Disney division, playing the movie heavily as the next generation of filmmaking. By the time the theatrical trailer was released, the production team had changed (Touchstone Pictures, which is itself a division of Disney), and the comparisons to Walt Disney as the new great animator are gone. The reason for this was, at the time Disney did not think it proper to have a "PG" rating under the Disney banner, so it was switched to the Touchstone banner.
• This was the first movie to ever be fully animated using the stop-motion technique that was favored by Tim Burton for special effects in some of his other movies for its surreal quality. The animators received Oscar nominations for Best Visual Effects as a result, but lost to ILM who created the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park (1993)
• Oogie Boogie is inspired by Cab Calloway, who provided character voices and musical numbers for several Fleischer Bros. cartoons; he and Santa Claus quote dialog from the Betty Boop short "The Old Man of the Mountain", when Santa asks (quoting Betty's line) "What are you going to do now?", and Oogie returns Calloway's (as the Old Man) "Goin' do the best I can..."
• The character design in Okage: Shadow King has been said to be reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is unclear whether the similarity is an intentional tribute or merely due to Nightmare's immense popularity in Japan.
• During the song "Kidnap the Sandy Claws," Barrel lures a bug into a cage using a lollipop. When he picks up the cage in the next shot the lollipop is no longer there.
• In early drafts, Doctor Finklestein was intended to be Oogie Boogie. Rumor has it that the idea was scrapped after Tim kicked a hole in the wall. ^{citation needed]}
• The movie was spoofed in a Halloween episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. A pumpkinheaded Jack mourns how bored he is with Halloween and uses Zero as a tissue to blow his nose. He discovers the holiday forest and sees a tree with the Tiny Toons logo on. He tries to open the door, but it falls on him. Later, he is standing around, bored, when the Tiny Toons characters are singing, is then struck by lightning and the title screen crushes him. At the end of the opening credits, he lifts up the title screen and groans, 'How long 'til Mother's Day?'
• There was also a spoof in The Critic called 'The Nightmare Before Hanukkah'.
• At the films end vampires are seen playing ice hockey with a pumpkin. The scene was originally shot using a model of Tim Burtons severed head but was replaced by the pumpkin.
• The movie was converted to Disney Digital 3-D (requiring polarized glasses)for a rerelease to be shown in cinemas.
• The webcomic Grim Tales From Down Below by Bleedman features many characters associated with death and hell. Jack is shown to be the brother of the Grim Reaper (from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy), and Sandy, Lock, Shock, and Barrel, Zero, and Oogie Boogie have been seen thus far.

See also

• List of animated feature films
• List of stop-motion films

External links

• The Nightmare Before Christmas at the Internet Movie Database
• HalloweenTown.org - Nightmare Before Christmas Fan site
• NBC.net - Pumpkin Patch - another fan site
• Tim Burton Collective - Tim Burton fan site with a great message board fan community
• Nightmare Before Christmas - original poem by Tim Burton