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The Pagemaster
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The Pagemaster, a live action/animated film released by 20th Century Fox on November 23, 1994 is based on an illustrative book of the same name by David Kirschner and Ernie Contreras. The book is illustrated by Jerry Tiritilli. The movie was directed by Joe Johnston (live action) and Maurice Hunt (animation).
imist Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) lives his life based on statistics and fears practically everything.
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Encyclopedia
The Pagemaster, a live action/animated film released by 20th Century Fox on November 23, 1994 is based on an illustrative book of the same name by David Kirschner and Ernie Contreras. The book is illustrated by Jerry Tiritilli. The movie was directed by Joe Johnston (live action) and Maurice Hunt (animation).
Plot
Pessimist Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) lives his life based on statistics and fears practically everything. His exasperated parents have tried multiple ways to build up the courage of their son, but to little success. Richard is sent by his father (Ed Begley, Jr.) to buy a bag of nails so that he can build a treehouse. However, Richard gets caught in a deadly thunderstorm and takes shelter in a library. Here, he is met by Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), the eccentric librarian who tries to find a book for Richard and gives him a library card. However, Richard does not want any books, he just wants to call his parents and go home. Mr. Dewey points the boy towards a payphone. Richard wanders off and finds a large rotunda painted with classic-fictional characters. Richard slips recklessly on some water that had dripped from his coat and falls down unconscious. He awakens and finds the rotunda paintings being melted, forming a wave of color that transforms him and the library into illustrations.
Richard is approached by the Pagemaster (voiced by Lloyd) who sends him on a journey into the fiction section to find the "exit". Along the way, Richard befriends three anthropomorphic books: Adventure, a swashbuckling pirate-like book (Patrick Stewart), Fantasy, a sassy but caring fairy tale book (Whoopi Goldberg), and Horror, a fearful "hunchbook" with a misshapen spine (Frank Welker). The three agree to help Richard to find his way out if he checks them out with his library card. Together, the quartet encounter classic-fictional characters. They meet Dr. Jekyll in a haunted house where he transforms into the monstrous Mr. Hyde, before heading out into open waters to the Land of Adventure. However, the group are separated by an attack by Moby Dick. Richard and Adventure are picked up by the crew of the Jolly Roger, captained by Long John Silver. The pirates go to Treasure Island, but find no treasure, nearly causing a mutiny between the captain and crew. Fantasy and Horror appear and defeat the pirates. Silver attempts to take Richard with him, but he retreats when Richard threatens him with a sword. Adventure insults Horror, causing the hunchbook to get captured by Lilliputians from Gulliver's Travels. Adventure saves him and they make up.
As the group travels through the fantasy section, Richard sees the exit sign on the top of a mountain. However, a sleeping dragon is awakened and chases Richard and his friends. Richard fights the dragon off with a sword and shield, but the dragon wraps its tail around him, shaking his armor and weapons off of him. The dragon then tosses him into the air and swallows him whole. Richard finds books in the dragon's stomach and uses a beanstalk to escape. The heroes arrive at the top and enter a large dark room where the Pagemaster awaits them. Richard angrily berates the Pagemaster for the horrors he has suffered, but the Pagemaster reveals that the journey was intended to make Richard face his fears. The characters Richard had met beforehand reappear in a magical twister congratulating him. Richard then awakens, discovering that he had been unconscious all along. Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror, all appear next to his body as real books. Mr. Dewey finds him, and, even though the library policy only allows a person to check out two books at time, lets him check out all three books "just this once". Richard returns home a braver kid, sleeping in his new treehouse. Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror appear as silhouettes on a wall talking, Adventure gets kissed by Fantasy unintentionally off-screen.
Cast
- Macaulay Culkin as Richard Tyler: A young American boy who seems to have a fear of everything and runs his life based on safety statistics. He is transformed into an illustration while exploring a library and must face his fears in an animated world.
- Christopher Lloyd as Mr. Dewey/The Pagemaster: The eccentric librarian and caretaker of a seemingly abandoned library. Dewey seems disappointed that children do not read books anymore and frightens Richard with his outbursts. Mr. Dewey's alternate form is the Pagemaster, Keeper of the Books and Guardian of the Written Word. The Pagemaster sends Richard on his journey into the fiction section to face his fears. Lloyd's facial structure and appearance was incorporated into the Pagemaster's.
- Ed Begley, Jr. and Mel Harris as Alan and Claire Tyler: Richard's supportive parents. Alan considers himself a bad father due to his continuous attempts to help Richard drop his worries, but most have failed. He builds a treehouse in an attempt to help Richard conquer his fear of heights.
- Patrick Stewart as Adventure: A swashbuckling thriller book resembling a stereotypical pirate. He wears a fake eyepatch and has a large number of pirate-based weapons and items in his pages. He has an aggressive relationship with the other books, but learns to swallow his pride and be friends. He falls in love with Fantasy in the climax of the film. He is described by the director Joe Johnston as a representative of all previous thriller and adventure heroes known in fiction.
- Whoopi Goldberg as Fantasy: A fairy tale-styled book. She can be aggressive and hotheaded but is caring and sassy. She helps Richard on his journey, mishelved by accident. She has an uneasy relationship with Adventure, but they fall in love by the film's climax. Joe Johnston wanted a tough black woman as Fantasy rather than a white woman.
- Frank Welker as Horror: A third book who helps Richard. Despite his name, he is quite the opposite of horrific. He is misunderstood and is afraid -- very similar to Richard. However, he is very gentle and good-natured. He tries to befriend Adventure, who returns it with aggression, claiming Horror could never match up to him. Joe Johnston describes Horror as a book with a mishapened spine, whose mother was an encyclopedia and his father was a paperback, which led to him being mishelved for life.
- Leonard Nimoy as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The fictional scientist who can transform into a horrific monster. He terrorises Richard and the books in the haunted house.
- George Hearn as Captain Ahab: An almost psychotic whale hunter who is out to kill the giant whale, Moby Dick.
- Jim Cummings as Long John Silver: Captain of the Jolly Roger galleon. Long John Silver recruits Richard as the ship's cabinboy and respects Richard for standing up to him with a sword. He is missing a leg and uses a crutch for support.
- Phil Hartman as Tom Morgan: A pirate on the Jolly Roger, possibly first mate. He is rather violent pirate, threatening to chop apart Richard and eat Silver's parrot.
- Ed Gilbert as George Merry: An obese and ugly pirate on the Jolly Roger. He leads the mutiny against Long John Silver.
- B.J. Ward as The Queen of Hearts: The tyrannical ruler of Wonderland. Appears in a cameo to scare Richard while he searches for a book while trapped in a dragon's stomach.
- Dorian Harewood, Richard Erdman, Fernando Escandon and Robert Picardo as Pirates: Various pirates on the Jolly Roger. They cause a mutiny against their captain Long John Silver, but are all knocked out by Horror.
Production Notes
The Pagemaster took three years to develop. The crew consisted of some of the best animators during the early 1990s. Notable films worked on by the animators include An American Tail, The Land Before Time, and Aladdin. This was one of the first films to feature live-action, traditional animation, and CGI animation all together. One scene involving a computer generated dragon made from paint was used, a challenge for the filmmakers. All of the fictional works featured in the film were created and first published before January 1, 1923, making them a part of the public domain in most countries. The theme songs to the movie are "Dream Away", sung by Babyface and Lisa Stansfield; the other being "Whatever You Imagine", sung by Wendy Moten.
The majority of the cast has appeared in some form or another on Star Trek. (Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Whoopi Goldberg played Guinan, Leonard Nimoy played Mr. Spock, Robert Picardo played The Doctor, Christopher Lloyd played Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Ed Begley, Jr. played Henry Starling in two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, George Hearn played Dr. Berel in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and B. J. Ward played numerous characters in Star Trek computer games as did Jim Cummings. Composer James Horner was also the composer for Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.). Frank Welker played the "lawyer" of Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien in the episode "Tribunal" from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Promotional advertisements for this film used the theme from the 1984 film The Last Starfighter.
Reception and Release
The film was a co-production between 20th Century Fox and Turner Pictures. Fox handled U.S. distribution, while Turner Pictures Worldwide handled international distribution. Turner Broadcasting handles telecast rights of the film to be aired on their variety of television networks (including Cartoon Network). Warner Bros. now handles international distribution to the film as a result of the Turner/Time Warner merger in 1996.
The film grossed $13,670,688 in theaters (with a reported production budget of $40 million, excluding marketing and advertising costs). Despite the large amount of effort put into the film, including the cast of recognized actors, the film did not attract a large enough audience to make a large amount of money. Not much film merchandise was sold, only soft toys of the main characters, t-shirts, and a Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and SNES game of the same title as well as a PC game. A behind-the-scenes documentary was produced to show how the film was produced, hosted by Christopher Lloyd playing his character of Mr. Dewey. The film was released on VHS and LaserDisc worldwide (by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment; internationally by Turner Home Entertainment or Columbia TriStar Home Video), and has developed a notable fanbase since its release.
Brian Lowry of Variety said that the film wouldn't satisfy adults and didn't do enough with its famous fictional characters, although he noted that, "A more inspired moment has Richard using a book, 'Jack and the Beanstalk,' to escape from the belly of a dragon. Unfortunately, such moments are few and far between."
Video Game
In the same year that this film was released, a video game version of the movie came out. It was developed by Probe Software Ltd. and published by Fox Interactive.
Literary Allusions
There are several smaller allusions to poems, books and rhymes in the movie in addition to the more obvious ones:
- Above the doorway of Dr. Jekyll's mansion, a raven calls out "nevermore" and then flies off. Both the raven and the doorway are references to the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
- Horror calls out "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" as he is being dragged into a hole in the floor by Mr. Hyde. This is an allusion to Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is set in a time period when churches offered limited sanctuary from arrest.
- The magic carpet that appears when Fantasy uses the story of Arabian Nights to help escape from the dragon is from her 1001st page, a nod to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (an alternate name for Arabian Nights).
- While inside the belly of the dragon, Richard opens Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, releasing the The Queen of Hearts who shouts "off with his head!".
- There are two references to The Wizard of Oz - once when Richard asks Fantasy if he has to "click his heels" in order to go home, and again when the characters are seen walking on a yellow brick road.
- There are also two references to A Christmas Carol - the first when Richard slides down the hallway and we hear some dialogue of the introduction to the Ghost of Christmas Past, and the other when Richard, Adventure and Fantasy walk in a graveyard and one of the graves says "Jacob Marley", and even has chains.
- There are even two references to Jack and the Beanstalk - the first when Richard slides down the hallway and we hear the giant roaring Fe, Fie, Fo, Fum, and when Richard uses a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk to grow the giant beanstalk out of the dragon's mouth.
Various other books are seen on screen, though no explicit reference to either is ever made. These include The Shining by Stephen King, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
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