Peter and Wendy: Millennials in Neverland
Peter and Wendy: Millennials in Neverland:
I’ve seen the first four episodes of The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy, and I have no idea what to make of it. It’s a lot of fun. I’m just not sure what it is yet. Here’s the description from t…“Peter and Wendy made me laugh. A lot. This is exactly how you’d picture Peter Pan and the Darlings if they were fifteen years older and living in modern America and literally nothing else was changed about them. Peter is goofy, cheeky, and goes back and forth between charming and infuriating. John takes everything too seriously, but is really no less childish than Peter or Michael. He’s essentially Dwight K. Schrute, right down to being Assistant [To The] Editor-in-Chief of his father’s newspaper. He’s contrasted and complemented by Michael, who is Michael Scott as played by Michael Cera. In the fourth episode, Michael and Peter skip work to play video games and share a “magic” brownie. (Yeah, it’s that kind of show.) Wendy, mature to a fault and surrogate mom to her brothers, could’ve easily be written as the resident shrewish buzzkill. She isn’t. She’s quirky, sweet, and fun, and when she tells the boys (and us) that everyone has to grow up sometime, we sympathize with her and want to see Peter and her brothers reach this epiphany, too. So far she’s my favorite character.”
This is a really good article. A+ would recommend.
I had the same reaction to the moment when Wendy chooses to go off and have fun with the boys. It would have been easy/obvious/trite to have Wendy be the too-grown-up killjoy. Just as it would have been easy/obvious/trite to have Tink be the “imaginary friend” that only Peter sees and talks to. There were moments as I watched the first four episodes when I found myself assuming that both those things were the case, then was surprised to learn that they weren’t. Wendy chucks her responsibilities to go out the window and have fun with the boys. All four of them see and talk to Tink.
In hindsight it makes perfect sense, and ties the adaptation back to the source in a fun, creative way. But that moment of surprise and discovery was wonderful.
It all starts with the writing. Actors can be cute and charming and hilarious and heartbreaking and scary and awesome, and all the web series that have become important to me over the past few years have had that. But you can’t fake the intelligence, thoughtfulness, and care of good writing. It’s there or it’s not.
In this show it’s here.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1jX3XjF.
Tags: new peter and wendy, npaw.
