Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Henry Selick | Houselights #154

Transcript

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Henry Selick | Houselights #154 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the ned Palty. Welcome back to House Lights, where we have
0:23
been painstakingly animated for the next hour or so to talk about a landmark film
0:29
that everybody loves about as we kick off an examination of Henry Selick's career with
0:36
the House of Selik. So not Tom Sellick, Henry Selick, known for
0:40
all of his stop motion animation work, and the landmark film which has become
0:45
a cultural juggernaut, The Nightmare before Christmas alternatively known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare
0:51
Before Christmas, but we'll leave that part of the discussion for later. I
0:54
am joined by the stop motion heads of mister Darren Moser and mister Tristan redet
1:00
Well, who will have their heads replaced a painstaking one thousand times during the
1:03
course of this podcast. Gentlemen, how are you and can you express it
1:07
in song? Yes, but only with the different voice. Excellent, very
1:12
good, very good. Tristan, how about yourself? I'm doing fantastic.
1:17
I I You know, when you think about Henry Selik, you immediately think
1:22
Night Before Christmas. You think about all the innovation that happened on this movie
1:26
and how it's carried forward in stop motion animation. And while you know,
1:30
stop motion isn't all over the place, it's it's coveted and revered whenever it's
1:36
actually done with very little cheats, and this was this was definitely one that
1:41
had very little cheats, Like I think Selik himself says, this was ninety
1:45
nine point nine percent handmade. And I can't wait to talk about it.
1:49
And I think that one of the before we get into all of our notes
1:55
about it and all of our discussion about it, I want to say that
1:57
it's yet another in a long string of films that was released at just the
2:00
wrong time for award season because it went up against Jurassic Park for Best Visual
2:05
Effects and oopsie, there's no way you're going to be Jurassic Park. So
2:08
sorry about that one, mister Selik. But I'd say that despite the film
2:14
coming out and being classified initially as a modest success, obviously it's gone on
2:19
and it's just become one of those cultural touchstone things. I know that I
2:23
saw it originally in the movie theater. I felt very uncomfortable because I was
2:27
the only person in my party, meaning I was alone, and everybody else
2:31
there was there with their kids. And I got an adult single male.
2:36
Yes, that's true, that's true. And I made sure there was a
2:38
wide swath around me, and I made absolutely no sudden movements whatsoever, because
2:44
I have a feeling that moms would have jumped on me and beat me to
2:46
death. But Darren, did you see this in the movie theater? Or
2:49
was this one that you encountered for the first time on video on video but
2:55
not Blockbuster? This was another classic from camp. As I've said in a
3:02
few others like U Oh, what was that? Princess Bride and a few
3:07
other films, that was definitely a way that many new films were exposed to
3:13
me and this one man, we were singing the songs all summer long.
3:19
People really got into Nightmare before Christmas and just and I see why because it's
3:24
got a lot of really good characters and it's you know, nowadays, we
3:30
don't mind watching it because it fits in that, you know, Halloween two
3:37
the last three months of the year. Basically, you're like, you know,
3:39
it doubles as a Christmas movie and a Halloween movie at the same time,
3:45
a little more one than the other. But yeah, it's definitely a
3:49
staple amongst our house. The kids love it. They love singing the songs.
3:53
My son is dressed as Jack a couple of halloweens at a time.
3:58
So and now I think they even have Jack and Sally at Disneyland as full
4:02
on meet and Greek characters, which is really cool. Yes, I know
4:06
that over in California they also do up the Haunted Mansion with Nightmare before Christmas
4:13
materials. That's right. It's never materialized in Florida that I'm aware of,
4:16
which is kind of bogus. But whatever, It's fine, guys, go
4:19
ahead and hoard them over there in California all the day. Oh, we
4:21
get all the good stuff. We get walking droids, we get Jack and
4:26
Sally. I'm sorry, we're just we're the og Yeah, well we get
4:30
sunburned. So top that one, Tristan. Was this one that you you
4:34
know, we Tristan was taken to the theater to go see this with the
4:38
family. Or was this one that was a date night for mister and missus
4:41
Riddell when they ran home and told you that you had to say this one
4:46
was like, we saw the trailer for it, and my mom looked at
4:48
me, like, oh, and we went and saw it as soon as
4:54
it came out just she and I and I was I was seven at the
4:58
time when this came out, and it was my mother has always loved she's
5:02
had a soft spot for the macab and so when she saw something in mainstream
5:08
film, especially coming out from Touchstone slash Disney, She's like, oh,
5:13
cool, this is something that we can share. This is something I can
5:15
share with my seven year old, Like this is a seven year old's level
5:19
of macab Yes, and so I was just enamored with it. From nineteen
5:25
ninety three onward, I've probably watched it at least once, most likely twice
5:30
a year since nineteen ninety three. Yeah, to go back to yeah,
5:34
yeah, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to walk over there.
5:38
You said it once at least twice. I want to go back to that
5:41
because it's very rare, Like it's very rare to find a film that plays
5:46
well in two different holidays, Like you can watch it for Halloween, you
5:49
can watch it for Christmas, and so it's open season in the last quarter
5:54
of every year, and you can go ahead and have an excuse to rewatch
5:58
it. But I've also found that this movie, and this is from an
6:00
experience with my father. My dad loved this so much that he kept a
6:05
cassette tape of the soundtrack and he would listen to it year round. He
6:10
would just listen to it year round. And Darren, you had mentioned,
6:13
you know, everybody learned the songs and everything. Do you ever find yourself
6:16
dipping into the Nightmare before Christmas? Well before the season, Like, is
6:19
this something where it could be something to pick up the spirits when maybe July
6:24
is going on a little too long. Yeah, oh yeah, there's definitely
6:27
those late summer where you're like, it's hot, I want to pretend it's
6:30
Christmas right now, and you start putting on you know, if I just
6:33
crank the AC enough and play music, then I'll believe that it's December for
6:40
half an hour. Yeah. No, It's again very catchy. We'll often
6:44
play it driving somewhere in the car. You know, this is Halloween.
6:46
It's just so easy to recite and recall. I mean, there are other
6:51
great songs in this movie, but I think that's definitely the standout one for
6:57
us. Yeah, definitely go to Disneyland and I enjoy it, you know,
7:01
for months at a time. It's great, well, always nice.
7:05
Tristan will never know the joy of that. That's that's for certain. But
7:10
I you know the soundtrack and specific I this is one of those ones where
7:16
that one piece of music, when What's this kicks off, became like the
7:23
standard trailer music for the longest time. And so Trisaan, I'll ask you,
7:29
when you hear what's this kickoff? After Jack has fallen into the snow
7:33
and you hear just the the instrumental part of it, do you also hear
7:38
Dan Lafontaine in your head going this Christmas Walt Disney Presents and then just whatever
7:43
the film is after it? A not specifically, I no, not,
7:48
I hate to. I really will say yes and and you know, wear
7:53
his hand and tell the story, but no, I don't, I really
7:57
don't. It's pretty much just when I hear those those bars, I just,
8:00
uh, I just think about that that song. One thing about the
8:03
music that I want that I want to talk about is, uh, I'm
8:07
minored in theater, and uh my theater professor in college really wanted me to
8:13
audition for the upcoming musical. It doesn't matter what the musical was. And
8:18
I told him, I was like, I can't sing, so no,
8:20
He's like, no, he's like, he's like this, he said,
8:24
he complimented me on my voice. He says, you have a really great
8:26
voice. I don't believe that you can't sing. And I was like,
8:28
well, you know I can't. And he said, he's like, just
8:31
audition, just sing, and like I'm, I'm, and we'll we'll get
8:35
down to it. And so I chose Jack's lamentt to sing for my audition
8:39
song. And I had to have like an earbud in so I could hear
8:43
it, and so it sounds like I'm doing an a cappella even though I'm
8:46
the only one that can hear the music. And then halfway through the song,
8:50
he's like, thank you, Dan, thank you so much for auditioning.
8:54
If you have proven yourself right, I appreciate your time. Credit for
9:01
not getting you cast in the entire thing and then regretting it halfway through,
9:05
because that happens from time to time as well. And in terms of regret,
9:11
what I want to ask is, do either of you think that Burton
9:15
regrets not helming this in some way or doesn't or does he regret not being
9:20
more directly involved in it. Because while we sit there and we make the
9:24
jokes about how Selek directed Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. At the same
9:28
time, it's got to be somewhat annoying for a producer director like Burton to
9:35
basically get the credit for the work that he didn't do. Like that's got
9:39
to be sort of an odd feeling for people to come up and be like,
9:41
oh, I love The Nightmare before Christmas, and it's like, well,
9:43
great, thanks, I just made sure the guy showed up and did
9:48
what he was supposed to do. Do you think that that greats on him
9:50
at all? On Tim Burton for not Yeah, being on Tim Burton,
9:54
I think so. I mean, because he wanted to direct it. He
10:00
wanted to, but he said that the only reason why he didn't is because
10:03
he didn't have time. He was doing Batman. He was making Batman Returns
10:05
and doing pre production work for ed Wood. There's just no physical way that
10:11
he could do Nightmare before Christmas because it took three years to make Nightmare before
10:16
Christmas in twenty sound stages and with hundreds of workers, and they would make
10:22
fourty what was it, fourteen seconds a week something like that, And I
10:28
mean that's grueling work. And Henry from Henry Selik's point of view, at
10:31
least from his perspective. He said that Tim Burton spent he came over to
10:37
production over the course of three years, maybe four or five times, never
10:41
spending more than a day or two each time. So over the course of
10:45
three years, that's not that much. But from Tim Burton's perspective, he
10:48
says, Oh, no, this movie is mine, you know, like
10:50
I made the characters. It's done in my style. I produced it.
10:54
I came up with the story, you know, like I got the rights
10:58
from Disney, you know, and everything like that. And like he's like,
11:01
yeah, He's like from a executive producer's perspective, he's like, this
11:05
is my story, this is in my style. I produced it. There's
11:09
a reason why, and this is me speaking. There's a reason why executive
11:13
producers get the Oscar for Best Picture and the directors don't like that kind of
11:16
thing. So he feels like he owns it. Selick is the one saying,
11:22
well, you know, you make it, you know, like that
11:24
kind of thing, and so it is. It is rough. It is
11:28
rough because unless you're a film nerd, most people are like, oh,
11:31
yeah, Tim Burton. Because Selick worked really really hard to make it look
11:35
like a Tim Burton film, like he took it on the chin for that
11:39
one. He made it look like a Tim Burton film. Yeah, I
11:41
have a quote by him saying it's as though Burton laid an egg and I
11:46
sat on it and hatched it. He wasn't involved in a hands on way,
11:50
but his hands are in it. It was my job to make it
11:52
look like a Tim Burton film, which is no different from any of my
11:56
other films. So yeah, it's an interesting And this is also like ninety
12:03
three, So Spielberg's already I know it feels like I'm changing my gears passively,
12:09
but I want to say we've already kind of moved into this era of
12:13
named known directors. Is where I'm going, Like Spielberg in the in the
12:18
late seventies, and like George Lucas, now you're starting to go for directors
12:22
for you know, Wes Anderson, like all these kinds of things. So
12:26
I can see the marketing angle of let's put Tim Burton's name on it.
12:31
I mean, at this point he had done you know, other other work.
12:35
I don't have his philmography in front of me, but like things like
12:37
well, Batman is what God mean to make this movie? Oh yeah,
12:41
there you go, right there, Batman. If you saw Batman, you'll
12:43
love Jack. But but no, I could I could see that angle.
12:48
But I could also see you know, Harry being like, yeah, I
12:50
mean, if you're not a film major, you may not know that.
12:54
Like the general Papas does not know that he directed this movie. Like it
13:00
just does not sink in. I think what's difficult about this one is when
13:05
you look at something like say, I don't know anything else you want to
13:09
pull out. There are executive producers who are really really involved, or they
13:13
hire a director because they're like, go out and make the movie I tell
13:16
you to make. Whereas this I will go ahead and make the statement and
13:22
mister Burton can get mad at me all that he wants to. I don't
13:24
think this happens as well with Tim Burton directing it. When you look at
13:28
the dedication necessary and the technical skill and proficiency necessary to make a movie like
13:35
this, Tim Burton has nothing else in his body of work that approaches the
13:43
exacting detail necessary for this. If this was just and I forgive me for
13:48
saying just, but if this were an animated feature in the sense that you
13:50
had a team of animators drawing things like old school Disney. I can see
13:54
Tim Burton directing that. If you have anything else, like a blend of
14:00
of live action and animation, like who Framed Roger Rabbit, I can see
14:03
Tim Burton directing that. I cannot see Tim Burton making this film. This
14:09
is the work of an incredibly dedicated craftsman who knows the process inside and out
14:16
to the point where he can innovate, and his team can innovate, and
14:20
they trust him to make sure that the right decisions are being made. I
14:24
see nothing in Burton's filmography that indicates he could ever make this movie. Well,
14:31
I mean, you get Corpse Pride, which is stop motion animation directed
14:35
by Burton, which has a tenth of the charm that Nightmare Before Christmas does,
14:41
as a tenth of the homemade feel and just the TecTile nature of the
14:48
world, and it just feels like a lesser attempt at Nightmare and Corpse Bride
14:54
comes around. I feel because he didn't get to direct Nightmare before Christmas,
15:00
he didn't get that glory of saying I was the director and the producer and
15:03
the writer. It was I was the producer and the writer. And actually,
15:09
you know, I mean he didn't even write it alone. I mean
15:11
like Danny Elfman's girlfriend, Caroline Thompson. Yeah, Caroline Thompson did a big
15:18
portion of the writing and she gets very much overlooked for her contributions to the
15:24
picture. Absolutely does. Absolutely her name never comes up. It never comes
15:28
out of crime. You get Tim Burton, you get Henry Seleek. If
15:31
you're lucky, you and you get Danny Elfman. So you mainly get Burton
15:33
and Elfman, you'd never get you rarely get Seleek, you never get Thompson.
15:39
And so yeah, I think what I'm saying is is that Corpse Bride
15:41
has some nice merchandise just because you know, like there are certain characters that
15:45
look pretty cool. But it has John Uphill and the Bottom Carter. But
15:48
it's it came and left. It had no lasting power. This came in
15:52
ninety three, didn't do so well in its release. They kind of fumbled
15:56
the marketing. But then it now now you go into a hot time topic
16:00
and you're just slapped in the face by Nightmare four. But the thing is,
16:03
I want to hit on that because it is regarded as having been a
16:07
quote unquote modest success when it comes out. But it made ninety one and
16:11
a half million dollars, which one hundred million used to be the benchmark for
16:14
a blockbuster. It made ninety one and a half million dollars off of a
16:17
budget of twenty four And the only thing I can possibly think is the reason
16:21
it's regarded as a quote unquote modest hit is because it's coming out during the
16:26
Disney Animation domination block of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin
16:33
and a Lion King and all of this sort of stuff. And so that's
16:38
why it's regarded as this. Well, it didn't do what we wanted.
16:41
It took them three years and they couldn't give us five hundred million dollars.
16:44
Come on, guys, but this is the one animated feature from that time
16:49
period where when it landed there was this I mean, I remember from my
16:56
perspective in my age range, which is older than YouTube gens, this landed
17:02
a little cleaner with the people who were already aging out of the Disney target
17:07
demo of that time. It's not to say that we didn't love Lion King.
17:08
I love Lion King still, older brother the Beast is one of my
17:12
favorite movies. It's a little darker movie. It's like, oh, I
17:15
want to watch that. My dad didn't play the Lion King soundtrack all year
17:19
long, so I hate to break it to everybody, but my dad was
17:23
older than I was, and so it's like, I think that there is
17:26
a more And Darren, I don't know if you agree with this or not,
17:29
but like there's a more cross generational aspect to this than some of the
17:33
Disney Heyday stuff that came out back then. I like I when I saw
17:37
it come out, it landed with everybody. There wasn't a single person I
17:42
knew who saw this who said yeah, it's okay. Everybody went nuts for
17:47
it. And so it's it's one of those things where do you think it
17:49
deserves to be known as a mediocre hit or do you think it's one of
17:52
those ones where it was actually a big hit but it just got lost in
17:56
the shuffle. I wouldn't say lost in the shuffle. Nightmare feels like a
18:02
if it finds its people, if you're the kind of person like it.
18:07
Not that it's not applicable as a mass market movie, because it is,
18:12
but it's also different than like like you're saying those nineties Disney movies that are
18:18
you know, we're gonna aim for the Little Girl or the Little Boy and
18:22
like it's gonna everyone's gonna love it. It's got the catchy song, it's
18:25
you know, like the kiss at the end or whatever. You know,
18:26
it's a formula. This one was kind of anti formula, anti something different,
18:33
and so yeah, if you if you were that kind of person that
18:37
loved this stuff, you soaked it up. One last thing I wanted to
18:41
say about Corpse Fried before we moved on is just the year. So that's
18:45
an five, So that's over ten years after this movie. So all that
18:52
to say is the technology had that had been pioneered in this is used in
18:57
that that that movie is writing. This coattails for sure. If you if
19:03
Nightmare didn't exist, I don't see Tim Burton in five just birthing this type
19:08
of animation like you had to stand on the stones that were laid by Mayor.
19:15
But no, it's it's so interesting. I mean, I feel like
19:21
often when we look back at box office numbers and things like that, it's
19:25
just one data point of what it was. Often we're not even we're either
19:30
not accounting for inflation or we're not accounting for like you know, oh well,
19:34
what was domestic versus you know, overseas, Like, oh well,
19:38
it made three times its budget. Yeah, but a fourth of that was
19:42
local and what That's what everybody looks at. So I think the real mark
19:48
is once they figured out where to plug it in in that Disney mindset and
19:55
the parks in the attractions, Like you said, you know, you can't
19:59
go into any hot topic and not see nime before there's whole stores just dedicated
20:04
to this thing. It resonates, It resonates much more than anything in its
20:10
same demographic. Now, because of that resonance, it is somewhat surprising that
20:17
there has not been a sequel to this, and Disney talked openly about making
20:21
a sequel. Apparently, you know, while I think Henry Selick is the
20:25
only one that pulls us off at the time, apparently Tim Burton helped kill
20:27
that idea, thank goodness. And a lot of people would feel that this
20:33
is this is one of those leave it alone movies. Don't reboot it,
20:37
don't remake it. It's perfect the way that it is. However, very
20:41
recently, just this month. Apparently, Henry Selick said that he would be
20:45
open to the idea of doing a prequel telling the story of how Jack became
20:49
the King of Pumpkin Town. Okay, I'm sorry, the Pumpkin King of
20:52
Halloween tesn. Sorry, it's a lot of words to keep straighten my brom
20:56
I just lost so many nerd points just then. Oh gee, yeah,
20:59
okay, Well I care so Tristan like the same style. That's my only
21:04
question. Is it in the same style or I don't know. I would
21:08
presume in the same style. I think they I think Disney is pitching CG
21:14
and Celik is sticking to his gun saying if I do it, it would
21:17
be handmade. Yeah. Well, I know in O two Disney wanted to
21:21
use computer animation, and I would be shocked if Celik was willing to do
21:26
anything besides the stop motion because it would feel like a betrayal. Would you
21:32
agree, Christan? It would feel like a betrayal to change the style of
21:34
anything that came afterward. Yeah, either either leave it alone or do I'm
21:40
kind of of the opinion where Okay, so Toy Story Toy Story three ended
21:47
the franchise in my opinion, in the best possible way. It's the perpetual
21:51
motion of birth and death and rebirthsy like everything like that through the eyes of
21:56
a new child, and it ended perfectly. But then they're like, no,
22:02
we're going to get greedy because we can still make money out of this,
22:03
or we're going to come out with Toy Story four. The more I
22:06
watched Toy Story four, it's fine, but it's not very good. The
22:08
first time I watched it, I was just like, this is completely unneeded.
22:11
But then they made some shorts along the way, and to me,
22:15
I'm like, that's kind of where the franchise should go. I know that
22:18
there's no money in it, but they should test the waters with a nightmare
22:23
before Christmas short, make it five minutes, make it stop motion, and
22:30
if people just lose their minds over it and they then maybe we can talk
22:33
about a prequel. Yeah, what'd you say, Darren, I'm sorry,
22:36
I just say they will. They will lose their mind. Yes, And
22:38
I think it's not even just a style. If you change it to CG,
22:45
it's a different medium. It's like, I'm trying to think of other
22:48
examples, but we all know other things that have been like two D and
22:55
changed to three D animation, and it just doesn't connect the same way.
23:00
I honestly feel if you kept it in stop motion, the technology has advanced
23:07
so much since ninety three, it is going to look different. It's going
23:11
to be smoother, it's going to move, You're gonna be able to do
23:14
more with it. It's not going to look like nineties stop motion. But
23:19
if you keep it as far as the visual look like the actual pieces,
23:23
I think that will still translate. It's going to look good and better as
23:29
it should. I don't want it to look like, you know, let's
23:32
animate it on twos or whatever to make it look like the nineties. Like,
23:34
No, make it look really nice, like all pull out all the
23:37
stops of all the technology that's changed in a advance since then, but throw
23:42
it at these characters with the right story and your gold Well. I definitely
23:48
think they would want to take less than three years to make something. If
23:52
they made it this time, they would definitely at least lean on the technology
23:55
that would make it a one year production timeline, because three years, like
24:00
unless you're unless they can get James Cameron's Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas,
24:04
you can't take that long to make a film anymore. You know. It's
24:08
one of those things though, where I would say that the ultimate tests for
24:12
whether you should do the sequel by this point because it's been so many years,
24:17
or whether you should do a prequel, or whether you should do anything
24:19
like that, or whether there's anything to be updated about the look is this
24:23
time when I watched it. I watched it with my youngest and she's seen
24:26
it before, but she doesn't notice the difference, Like she's not sitting there
24:32
going, oh, well, this looks like it was thirty years ago.
24:34
Guys, I don't know how I feel about this. This was it just
24:38
works for kids still, So in a sense, I'm inclined to steer completely
24:45
away from the idea of a sequel, because you've got the books, you've
24:48
got the comics, you've got the manga even, you've got toys and dagons,
24:52
you've got stuff going on at Disneyland, you've got concerts, You've got
24:57
all of this beloved stuff. At this point point, it's almost like discussing
25:03
a remake of It's a Wonderful Life. No, this has ossified. This
25:07
is in the cultural zeitgeist. Walk Away Clean, you missed your opportunity.
25:12
If you were going to make a sequel to this, it was in the
25:15
early two thousands, it didn't happen. Walk Away. Just be happy with
25:18
the fact that you have something that is came out in the nineties that's like,
25:22
you know, a modern day snow White. You don't need to touch
25:26
it. You can leave it the way that it is, unless, of
25:29
course, you're going to do a live action adaptation. And Tristan, why
25:32
do you support a live action adaptation of The Night Before Christmas? Just so
25:37
I can get my cosplayed just right? Oh? Fair point? Fair point?
25:41
I like it. I like it. You know that was I mean,
25:44
the one thing that did make this so unique. I mean, you
25:48
know we're talking about how you know, the animation style is different than what
25:51
it was in the nineties. And Darren, you're completely right. I mean
25:55
you look at like Kubo, you know, like and some other stuff we're
25:59
gonna get as we go through this house. It's like, by the time
26:03
we get to Coraline, it's dramatically different, and it's only been a number
26:07
of years at that point. And then I mean when we get to Windle
26:11
and Wild, which came out just last year, we're going to see that
26:15
modern stop motion animation. And it's it's interesting because part of Nightmare Before Christmas
26:22
Charm is the mistakes, is the the stuff that that works, and like
26:27
where every once in a while, like when Jack moves his head, you
26:30
can see a you know, a fingerprint on the back of his head,
26:34
or you know, like the bats that are scurrying around. I actually just
26:38
notice this today. Is that on the Disney Plus version, Like if you
26:41
watch the Apple TV Digital version, the when Oogie goes I'm the Shadow and
26:48
the moon at night and then bats start flying at the camera, you can
26:52
see this the strings carrying the bats. But if you watch that the Disney
26:56
Plus version, you can't see the strings carrying the bats. So they must
27:00
have like digitally removed them at some point a stealthid it the way they did
27:03
with the opening of Splash where they just didn't tell anybody that they did that.
27:07
It's it's crap like that, and like that's neither here nor there.
27:11
It's just saying that like when you see those things, like when you see
27:15
the you know, the strings on the bats, and when you see the
27:17
clouds that are actually just cotton balls, and when you you know, notice
27:22
that some maybe the lighting is a little off here and there, like I'm
27:25
I'm not giving it the the warm glow that I'm trying to. It's just
27:30
those types of things. It's like listening on viol limitations of the time.
27:33
It's it's it makes it unique, it makes it. It gives it warmth
27:38
and depth and a realness to it that you can't get with a lot of
27:42
modern stuff. When I feel I mean, I don't know. I'm not
27:45
an expert on the field of stop motion animation, but I feel like the
27:51
biggest change has been compositing is a lot more. I mean, they're in
27:56
Kubu Kuba, the two strings. I know they did a lot where they
28:00
would have full on animating in front of a green screen and to drop them
28:04
in to a to a shot or a place that they couldn't add them in
28:10
the traditional way. So much of Nightmare is it's all in camera. It's
28:15
everything. I mean, yeah, there's a little bit of compositing, but
28:18
not anywhere near what we get nowadays. It is all there. When I
28:22
saw that behind the scenes, when I saw that behind the scenes of Cubo,
28:26
and it was all green screen and the and the characters were the only
28:29
thing that was real. I was like, that's cheating. Likely not all,
28:36
but there are a lot of some of the big sequences where yeah,
28:37
that's and I think the animators are screaming at me saying, you don't even
28:42
know. And I'm sure, I'm sure I'm ignorant in so many facts,
28:45
but like going from you know, like watching the behind the scenes in Nightmare
28:49
before Christmas and then seeing the seeing twenty literally twenty years later, uh and
28:55
more, you know with Cubo, and it's just like, yeah, we
28:56
have we can totally blend it with background, but you know, like the
29:00
stuff that the interact with is real. Yeah, I mean, like my
29:03
gut is saying it's cheating. But then I totally understand the practicality of it
29:07
where you can't say, like John said, you can't spend three years on
29:10
it today and you can. It's interesting. I feel like, let's say
29:14
they're making it with modern techniques, but you have to kind of rein yourself
29:18
in to steal what was possible back then. And I think of like the
29:25
all present CGI camera trick where you know, I to talk about like when
29:30
you're watching a modern movie and the camera's flying and doing things that cameras don't
29:36
do, and it takes you out of it doesn't feel real if they're compositing
29:41
in a way but still moving the quote unquote camera in a way that was
29:47
really only possible back then. It grounds it in that style. You know,
29:52
I don't expect the camera to flip and fly through objects and get too
29:57
close to things. It starts to feel like, oh, well, then
30:02
that's just all cg. Because that's the omnipresent camera. You can stick wherever
30:07
and make it do whatever you want, losing those limitations. You don't kind
30:12
of realize you're seeing it, but your brain is telling you, like,
30:17
this is not quite right. Then you open up your skull and scratches.
30:21
Yeah, well I'm you know. That's one of my favorite gags is I
30:23
love the little gags because this does fully embrace the idea that they're not I
30:30
know this seems dumb to say, but there are so many properties, even
30:33
in stop motion, where they try to have this quasi reality about it,
30:37
and it's like, no, this is just a fun this is just a
30:41
fun story to be told. But in terms of like the modern stuff,
30:45
what's shocking to me in all honesty is setting aside the question of sequels and
30:48
prequels and all those sorts of things. I'm actually stunned that we've never had
30:55
some sort of adaptation on stage with this if you can find a way to
30:59
do Lying King, and I've had the good fortune of seeing the touring version
31:03
of that, and it's phenomenal, and they use puppets to great extent in
31:07
that production, so amazing, absolutely wonderful. I do not understand why they
31:12
haven't done a live theater version of this. It is. It is a
31:18
musical, so it lends itself to that, and you can pat it with
31:22
a couple of extra songs the way that they do with anything that goes to
31:26
musical, and the Lion King has a song in it that's actually really good
31:30
and works very well with it, And I just I don't understand how that
31:36
hasn't happened yet. I don't know how why that wouldn't have happened, considering
31:41
all the other all the other marketing materials and ancillary materials that have come out
31:48
with this, including a Jenga set, like it never occurred to anybody to
31:52
do this as a musical on stage. It's kind of baffling. Maybe it
31:56
was Tristan's audition that completely cent that I don't know, I mean has been
32:00
on st you know, like they were thinking about it around that time.
32:02
I mean this was in the mid two thousands and so they were just like,
32:06
you know what, this was so horrid. It's ruined the idea.
32:10
Although I have to say, if if it does go live action, I
32:15
can't see anybody but Doug Jones playing Jack. He's got the height, he's
32:20
got the build. Oh my gosh, holy crap. That yeah, that's
32:22
the only way it's going to happen. Well, I mean, yeah,
32:25
you have the puppeteer and stuff like that. But you know, one interesting
32:30
side note just to be sure as well, is when it was reissued in
32:35
two thousand and six is when that new Disney opening was put on top of
32:37
it. Because nobody must remember Touchstone Pictures ever again, it never it never
32:45
really existed, everybody, it's been wiped from our collective memory. But this
32:51
really is one of those ones where I struggle to find any sort of original
32:57
take on things from my perspective, because there's nothing that somebody could you know,
33:01
hasn't said that I would say, And stuff like that. But one
33:06
of the things, because I did actually do a little bit of reading to
33:07
try to, you know, actually put some effort into this. For once,
33:12
I was stunned because I had no idea that there were actual some people
33:19
had a problem with Ogie Boogie Yeah, claiming that there was an element of
33:23
racism to his portrayal. And it absolutely blew my mind that even during production
33:30
Danny Elfman and Caroline Thompson were both concerned about that. And to find out
33:35
that there was some sort of at least according to Wikipedia, there was some
33:39
sort of you know, issue with it raised at the time because of the
33:43
character of Ogie Boogie, Like, I can't I don't know if this is
33:46
Wikipedia being Wikipedia, because Tristan's given you the eyebrows of like. But on
33:52
Wikipedia they talk about they have a whole section that says accusations of racism based
33:58
on Ogie Boogie and and apparently that was one of Elfman's fears. Now,
34:02
the thing is, again, the reason I think this might be just Wikipedia
34:06
being Wikipedia about it is because it says Elfman's predictions came true however, and
34:12
then just talks about what Henry Selick said about stuff, and it's like there's
34:15
no actual citation about anybody actually having an issue with it, that's extant to
34:21
nineteen ninety three. But this is actually a section in Wikipedia where they talk
34:27
about supposed accusations of it. Have you guys ever heard anything about that at
34:30
all? Not once, now, not a single time. And this is
34:35
just some Wikipedia editor being a jerk, then, I mean, maybe I'm
34:38
trying to scratch my head here, and without openly talking about racist stereotypes,
34:46
I'm trying to think of what race Ogibogie could even represent. He's filled with
34:52
me. He's a burlap sack filled with bugs who likes to gamble. As
34:57
far as I know that, I don't, I don't. I can't think
35:00
of any particular ethno group where that's so common. Listen, no single burlap
35:07
sack I've ever run across has even engaged me in a side bet, much
35:10
less a craps game. So you know, the burlap sacks that I know
35:15
are hard working, and you know, law abiding citizens of this country.
35:20
And so is this literally just somebody inserting something into Wikipedia that's just has no
35:25
basis. You'd have to check the sources. I think you just have to
35:29
check the citations. Yeah, because I've never heard of that. I know.
35:30
What I have heard of with Oogie Boogie, and specifically from Selik himself,
35:37
was that Disney pushed back on a few things. There was a few
35:40
things that Disney pushed back on where he was just like, oh, totally,
35:44
I totally get it. Like the first thing was I am the clown
35:46
with the tear away face and he rips off his face and apparently the original
35:52
was like a skull and gore and brains and everything like that, and they're
35:58
like, can you tone that down a little bit? Like, yeah,
36:00
that felt off, I'm sorry. So now it's just a black, gaping
36:02
hole and it's it's still it's still spooky. And then the other one let
36:07
me throw away three months of work, I mean. And the other one
36:12
was, uh, the animator's first win, Sally falls for the first time.
36:19
She's filled with like Frankenstein, bits of flesh and bone and and uh
36:23
and uh and and muscle and things like that, and and that it was
36:29
Selik's idea to stuffer with leaves, and I was like, that's way more
36:31
charming, you know, That's that's just make a scarecrow than Frankenstein. Yeah,
36:37
exactly. Yeah, And I think that's that's what really it's it's much
36:40
more interesting that way, and so that's what Disney recorded. Disney didn't request
36:45
like leaves, but it was Henry's idea to do leaves. And then the
36:47
other one was Uggi Boogie stripping his burlepsack and just being revealed as bugs.
36:52
They pushed back on that, but Celix pushed back on their pushback and said,
36:58
no, this is a big risk. We're going to see what we
37:00
can do with it. We're going to see how far we can push it.
37:02
And he was really worried. He said, he's like, have we
37:05
gone too far? Like is this too spooky? Is it's too scary?
37:07
Is it's too gross? And Tim Burton didn't know about it until it was
37:13
already shot, and he didn't like it. He didn't like how far they
37:17
went with Oggy Boogie. But it was just like, well, we've already
37:21
shot the end of the movie. So they're very lucky that he didn't act
37:27
like Katzenberg and Eisner when they butchered Black Cauldron because they didn't understand that that's
37:32
not how animation works, and they just cut scenes out of it, saying
37:36
can't you just redo this? And all the animators had to say what no,
37:39
no, And so you know, Lucky, let me come full circle
37:44
where you have toy story or like Monsters inc. Literally making bloopers like they
37:50
still got to animate it. It's not extra footage on the cutting room floor.
37:55
So on one side story about that would like to actually talk about it
38:00
is when they were doing the animatics, which is something that they heavily do,
38:05
which you have to for this. Yeah, like you you make sure
38:07
the movie is locked and good to go, you know, through animatics and
38:10
voice work before you do any kind of claymation stop motion, I should say.
38:15
And so Selex's idea was to make a gy boogie doctor finkel in disguise,
38:22
and that that was his That was his twist. It was like the
38:25
whole time it was doctor Finkelstein was the one, you know who you know
38:31
who took Santa Claus in and everything like that and tried to ruin Jack's big
38:37
day and everything like that. And the reason why he did it was because
38:39
Sally chose Jack over him and it was much more of a love interest.
38:45
And they he presented that animatic to Burton. Burton was so enraged at that
38:51
idea that he screamed, turned around, kicked the wall and made a hole
38:57
in the wall and ran out to the parking lot and left. And so
39:00
the animators and Selik cut out that portion of the wall and framed it.
39:06
It's good to know that Tim Burton has a good handle on any anger issues,
39:12
considering I've never heard that story. Maybe him and James Cameron go to
39:15
the same focus group for their anger and cell phone. There's a similar cell
39:21
phoned staple gun to a wall that's been cut out for posterity. Now,
39:24
the thing is, though I can understand the reaction, you know, I
39:28
don't condemn it. I mean, it's not like he kicked Henry Selik,
39:30
right the wall, Okay, kick the wall, all right, you know,
39:32
we kick the wall. It has something to work on. But at
39:36
the same time, bearing wall, it's all good. Well if it was
39:38
a load bearing wall, he would have broken his foot. Yeah, So
39:40
yeah, John, I mean, you just and I know it's it's you're
39:45
you're not you're half jesting, but that's that's that's what it is. It's
39:49
like, yeah, you should get your anger issues under control, but it's
39:52
not like you're running to cocaine and smacking people around in the office or emotionally
39:57
traumatizing people, you know, the way others directors in the history of delight.
40:00
So you know, it's he clearly communicated what a problem he had with
40:06
it in the worst, the best possible worst way he could have And so
40:13
you know, so we get we get the movie as a result. So
40:15
I got the I get the point, like I can't picture that. I
40:20
think he's barely a tertiary character. And to make it's like, no,
40:25
Oogi Boogie is just evil and and mean and bad and represents all the things
40:32
of Halloween Town that we would initially think. But they're not. They're not
40:37
evil and mean and cruel. Oogi Boogie is. But every other character they
40:44
look weird, but kind of in an Adam's family weird way, like they're
40:47
not actually mean. Or they even put in the song it's like it's our
40:52
you know, but we're not We're not mean. Yeah. Well, and
40:55
that's such an important because it's true. Well that that's the sort of thing
41:00
that I think you could have a hook for a prequel on if you have
41:02
the story of Jack becoming the Pumpkin King. There's obviously, you know,
41:07
Ogie Boogie fears Jack Jack run the town before him, right, and an
41:14
interesting story to explore. There's a prequel comic that my wife almost bought like
41:19
last week because my oldest sat at a book fair. I'm kind of mad
41:24
that she didn't get it. It's called Like Jack and Ogi Boogie or Ogi
41:29
Boogie's Revenge or something like that, and it's about the two of them when
41:31
they were younger, trying to become the pumpkin King of Halloween Town. Like
41:37
Ogi wants to be the Pumpkin King, Jack wants to become the Pumpkin King,
41:40
and it's about them duking it up. Well that, I mean,
41:43
that's a story that I'd be interested in seeing. Actually, So maybe nuts
41:47
to me for saying leave it ossified. Maybe there's an argument for that type
41:52
of story, but I think that a series of shorts would be the interesting
41:57
way to go about that, so that if you did not like the result,
42:00
you could ignore it instead of having it be Now. I know everybody
42:05
says, well, if they make a bad sequel, you can just ignore
42:07
it, but it's a little harder to ignore Halloween five than it is to
42:10
ignore, you know, a novelization of something. Sorry, I'm reading about
42:16
the history of the making of the Halloween series right now as Halloween five sprang
42:20
to mind, it's also terrible. But the you know, the overall,
42:25
the overall thing with this film is it's like, I legitimately can't even imagine
42:32
a person disliking this film, Like, but there is a you know,
42:38
it's ninety five percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and there's that part of me that's
42:43
thinking, so there's a person who didn't love this. I really because because
42:47
we're supposed to look at the work of directors and stuff like that, and
42:51
this is obviously Selk's first feature, and this is our first look at Celik.
42:54
Give me something. Can you come at this with somebody saying this was
43:00
too long, or somebody saying this wasn't gory enough, or somebody saying this
43:05
should have been a short, Like, do either of you see that perspective
43:08
at all with this film? I honestly don't. Pause Yeah, Like,
43:13
I honestly don't. And it's hard for me to separate this from nostalgia.
43:19
But at the same time, I have done that in the past, you
43:22
know, where you know, on this show many oft oftentimes on this show
43:25
where I'm like, oh, yeah, no, this, this movie's totally
43:28
rooted in nostalgia. So I'm gonna give it a three. But if it
43:30
wasn't rooted in nostalgia, this is much more of like a two. You
43:32
know, like that, that's just an example. That's not what I'm saying
43:35
for Nightmare. But you know, John, you were talking about your kids
43:38
enjoying it. My eldest loves this movie. Has already watched it three times
43:44
this month because of October, and she absolutely loves it. She's six years
43:49
old and she it's not like she complains that it's too old or it's not
43:53
cgi anything like that, because all the stuff she watches is cgi the Barbie
43:59
movies, the Mickey movie, He's the Gabby's Dollhouse, uh, you know,
44:02
everything but Bluey is c G I and and so like this is.
44:07
She loves it. She loves the tactile nature of it. She loves Jack,
44:09
she loves Sally just uh, you know, two hours ago we had
44:14
a coronation of Jack becoming the Pumpkin King and Sally becoming her queen, you
44:19
know, like with with the dolls that she has. You know, it's
44:22
yeah, it's it's it's this is a film that you know continues on from
44:24
generation to generation. It doesn't need to be updated. There doesn't need to
44:29
be a special addition where you know, Jack blinks, it's he done.
44:34
It's link but not very often. Oh no, Trisa was going for a
44:38
very cheap Star Wars joke that I'm choosing to ignore. But now you've made
44:43
me acknowledge of Darren, So thank you. Jar backfires on both of us.
44:46
Thanks, thanks, thanks for that. Thanks to it made him respond
44:50
respond to, which I really didn't want to do because whatever, and so
44:55
we come. When they took out Jack's machine gun and replaced with the walkie
45:00
talkie, it made the movie so much better. So you know, it's
45:07
it's interesting too because just like Spielberg, we all know Tim Burton really directed
45:10
this. So it is one of those Poltergeist joke everybody. And so I
45:16
would say that at this point, especially with what you just said, Tristan,
45:21
what on earth can we do now but give our star ratings? And
45:24
I want to I'm just gonna put it out here this way. Is anybody
45:28
giving this lesson a five? Nope? Darren, No, it's right.
45:31
So that's a solid cup of tea. You have to recognize what it is
45:37
and what it did, and what it spawned before it after it. So
45:42
let me propose this with this strong opening. We have burned down and salted
45:46
the earth where the wing of King Arthur was, and we are now building
45:51
a new structure that is the House of Selek, that will sit on that
45:54
ground and hopefully redeem what we wasted on previously. So let's go ahead.
46:01
Let's rejoice in this and hope that the rest of the House of Selec doesn't
46:06
make me want to knock down the walls and repaint and stuff like that.
46:09
One thing I want to talk about is, you know, like you know
46:12
how we mentioned before about how even the younger generation appreciates this movie. This
46:16
movie has become part of my daily lexicon, whether it's verbally or within my
46:22
head where like to this, Like just today, just today, man,
46:28
I see a bunny running across my yard and I go and or like somebody
46:35
says like, oh, I need to borrow something, and I'm like,
46:37
really, whatever for? You know, like I thought you liked worms wart.
46:43
It's just there's so there's so many random lines in this that can be
46:49
quoted in the spot back, and we haven't even really talked about the beauty
46:53
that is this voice cast about how you get Danny Elfman, the man himself
46:59
is as Jack Skellington. And Jack sings more than he talks, you know,
47:05
like he there's there's there's a lot of songs in this movie. There's
47:08
way more songs in this movie than there is in a normal musical. Like
47:12
normally you get like five or six songs in a musical. You get ten
47:15
in this one. And you have Chris Sarandon who does the talking voice of
47:19
Jack Skellington, and they did such a good job of pairing those two together
47:22
where it doesn't feel like completely different people. And Catherine O'Hara, the one
47:29
and only Catherine O'Hara who plays Sally and Shock. She's just glorious. And
47:35
she did a live performance, I think a twenty thirteen of Sally song and
47:37
the crowd just lost it, like just her walking on the stage. People
47:43
were acting like it was a Beatles concert. And you know Glenn Shaddocks as
47:47
the mayor, he's I love the story of how he got it, like
47:52
so like he's friends with Burton, you know, like I think they met.
47:55
I don't know if they met on the set of Beetlejuice or previously,
48:00
but he was like Glynn said that he was in Tim Burton's pool, just
48:05
hanging out with a bunch of friends and Burton was in an adjoining hot tub
48:08
and Burton said, Hey, I'm doing a movie called Night Before Christmas.
48:12
And he's like, yeah, you talked about that. It's like, you
48:14
have a pretty booming voice. You want to be the mayor. It's like
48:16
sure, And that was it. That was it, That was That's that's
48:20
all it will say. It's not who you know in Hollywood because my right
48:23
and even Greg Proops is in it, Freakin Greg Greg pot Proops from whose
48:29
line is it anyway? Is plays the Harlequin, Demon, the Devil and
48:31
the sax sax player, and there's just you have Carmen Twilly, Randy Crinshaw,
48:37
Paul Rubens is lock and Ken Page is Oogy Boogie and it's just William
48:43
Hickney. This voice cast is so phenomenal. It's it's beauty. And like
48:50
Danny Elfman said that this was the easiest score and songs that he's ever had
48:53
to write for a movie because it just came to him. He didn't even
48:57
have a script yet, and he wrote this music because Burton was just talking
49:00
about the movie and you know, doing character sketches and says, this is
49:05
what they look like, and this is kind of what I want them to
49:07
do. He's like, all right, And then three days later he'd have
49:08
a song. And his girlfriend, Caroline Thompson was so imbued with with what
49:15
Danny Elfman was going through that she's just like, yeah, I could,
49:16
I could write this because the original writer had to get kicked off because of
49:20
cocaine addiction, and so she's like, I don't like cocaine and I know
49:22
this music, so let's let's do this. It's a win win, it's
49:27
a win win, And this is lightning in a bottle. Everybody's firing in
49:31
all cylinders, the animators, the score, the music, the singers,
49:37
the just the vibe, the texture, the feeling when it came out.
49:40
It's just this is probably one of the handful of perfect films in cinema.
49:49
Yes, right on house, Yeah, next week. Yeah. No,
49:55
I think you're absolutely right. I think, and I'm glad you spoke on
49:59
a lot of of those the voice actors, because I don't I don't believe
50:04
I went to it, but I know some friends who went to a They
50:07
had a thing at the Hollywood Bowl out here where they were playing all the
50:10
songs. It was like a live version of Nightmare and they had Paul Rubins
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and Katherine O'Hare and Danny Elfman. They are doing their parts as Lockshock and
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Barrel and it was amazing. You'll see the video all over the internet.
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But yeah, I think I think the truest thing you said, Tristan,
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this is not a five star because of nostalgia and rose colored glasses. It
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it earned it on its own merits. And I think we all agree that
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Henry, you know, Selek's name should be with reverence, you know,
50:49
and everyone should know it should be Henry Selik presents Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas
50:55
on every cover is what it really should be. Well, Henry Selick was
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at least able to leverage this into a respectable career, and we'll be moving
51:05
forward looking at the next film that he directed, James and the Giant Peach,
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which came out three years after this one, and we will discover whether
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the House of Selec continues on its tremendous, tremendous opening trend. Here on,
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house lights join the revolution, Join the NED Party,