Animated Films 01.2 - The Lorax

[Jonathan]

This is the final thread for our first month of the Children's Animated films project. Given that we are approaching the final week of this month I thought I would open up the thread early.

Personally, I think The Lorax has one of the more obvious of all Dr Seuss' messages - about the environment and caring for one another. Also, like with Horton Hears a Who you may notice the film is different from the book, but no less good.

All right then, I'll let you all get around to commenting, reading and watching then!

[Jonathan]

So what does everyone think about The Lorax at this point? We'll be moving on to our next featured reads next month as these are fast and short to get through...

[Zeljka]

I've read it last week and seen the movie last night. The latter is all right, considering it took many liberties with the original story - Lorax wasn't that amicable with Once-ler, for an example - but the point remained just the same, and I liked it for it. Some ideas of the movie non-related to the story actually irritated me (view spoiler)[(like why the main antagonist had to be one of the little people, I mean what was the point? It was just plain rude and served in my opinion only to alienate small children from them further, like their lives aren't difficult enough already) (hide spoiler)], but I really liked bears and flying fish :)
Anyway, Lorax as the story was very interesting, I would say a bit darker and much sadder than Horton - I didn't read The Cat in the Hat though. Speaking about the ruin man does to his environment, the end of the book doesn't say "now we are going to repair the damage and everything will be fine", but "now everything is up to you, if you do absolutely everything in your power and beyond to save the earth, mayhaps there's hope for you". I exaggerate, but a message is strong anyway, a bit heavy burden for a child to carry. If I had read that as a little child, I think I would have cried for days afterwards.

[Alana]

I certainly wasn't expecting the rather dark, serious tone of this one. Definitely a more obvious message, and a bit more "tree hugger" than I expected from Suess. I liked it, though I think I'd have to read it with care with a child, depending on the sensitivity of the individual child. I haven't seen any of the films yet, but I'm much more curious now. Definitely not a "and they had it all cleaned up before Mom got home" kind of story like The Cat in the Hat.

[Kay Kay]

Ok so I checked this movie out for this challenge, and as I started watching I realized I had seen it before. It was not memorable and I did not enjoy it. It strayed from the story too much Dr. Seuss did it with style. The movie no.