Pinocchio Expanded Universe reviews

a blog reviewing all and any pinocchio media, starting with Carlo Callodi's 1883 novel

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self-portrait

this isn't pinocchio related at all its just a self portrait i drew but i doubt anybody follows me on tumblr for consistent pinocchio reviews

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The Swallowed Man (Novel)

10/10 This book is so good! A short novella in the from the broken and haunted man himself, Gepetto, creator of the puppet boy. This book includes illustrations and photos to represent art Gepetto made during his time in the whale and its some really good art. This book is very faithful to the original theres lots of neat references i haven't seen in many other pinocchio adaptations but also its very much its own thing since its from Gepetto's perspective and we learn his backstory and then at the end of the book the ending is different and much darker than the original (i don't mean the original original ending when Collodi planned on ending it with Pinocchio being hung, i mean the "i'm a real boy" ending). I didn't like the random story Gepetto made up about a porcelain boy. I did like the second wooden boy he made, even scarier than Pinocchio!

I got my copy of this book a little wet which is ironic because it has fake water stains in the book to make it seem like its Gepetto's real journal from inside the whale. I love books like this seeing inside the mind of a mad man and its written really well.

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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Accuracy 4/10

its a very different story but i think it has enough of the same characters and events to be called accurate, I quite like some of the ways characters are used in different ways, instead of the fairy there are 2 blue angels inspired by biblical descriptions of angels, they are beings of life and death, talking about death Pinocchio dies a lot in this film, a bit like how in the book he was originally planned to die in chapter 15. The black rabbits are like grim reapers. The fox and the cat are replaced with a man called Volpe who is fairly similiar to his original character, and Spazzatura who is completely different to the cat, she is an abused monkey who helps Pinocchio, I love Spazzatura.

Quality 10/10The best Pinocchio adaptation by far, first of all stop motion is just a beautiful art form and this is no exception. The film itself has good humour especially from the cricket but also does more serious moments really well and can get really dark but in a more complex way than the orignal book, in the book characters just get basically tortured whereas this adaption is a more tragic story, its based in fascist italy and this works really well for the story, in the original book the lesson is that obedience is good but in this film its shown that extreme obedience like in Pinocchio and also Fascist Italy is definitely a bad thing. Instead of turning them into donkeys they turn children into obedient soldiers which i think is a really clever use of the original story. Just like in Disney's Pinocchio of the same year this adaptation added the plot point of Gepetto having a dead son, in the Disney movie this isn't really developed on but in this film its really important, at the start Gepetto hates that he has this annoying puppet instead of his son, this isn't what he wanted, he wanted his son back and Pinocchio is not even close to a replacement but by the end of the film he learns to love Pinocchio and that is the lesson, he doesn't even turn into a real boy because thats not necessary, he just becomes a better person.

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Disney’s Pinocchio (2022)

Accuracy 2/10 It's not even accurate to the 1940s Disney one so definitely not accurate to the original book. It mainly just adds a few extra bits to the plot to make it a bit different to the original Disney one: Gepetto has a dead wife and son, but this isn’t developed very well, its only really mentioned a couple of times, its supposed to be a motive for his woodcarving and his wish for a son, Gepetto says “Pinocchio, when you first came to me, I might have made you think I wanted somebody else. But it was you I was wishing for. You will always be my real boy. There isn't a single thing I would change about you”, Gepetto has no conflict about wanting his son back he’s just completely moved on and loves Pinocchio now, that is not a compelling story, another addition is the character of Fabiana she is also completely irrelevant to the main plot and just kinda has her own tiny plot where she starts as poor puppeteer and then shows up near the end of the film as theatre director. The Land Of Toys is insanely big, like a theme park the size of a town has these random smoke creatures

 Quality 2/10 Really bad. The main good quality of the original was the beautiful animation whereas this was live action with some CGI, the fox and cat especially are weird CGI, I quite like the character designs but the animation is just too uncanny to enjoy, it also has that lifeless animal problem like the live action Lion King film, making the animals realistic makes them worse.

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The Golden Key, or The Adventures Of Buratino

The author of this book, Aleksey Toltsoy, just decided to write his own version of Pinocchio, the book is russian and Buratino (the russian equivalent to Pinocchio in the book) is very popular in russia. I couldn’t find an easy way to get an english copy of the book so i just found a pdf of the original russian and google translated it and when the translation looked weird i looked up the individual words a bit.

The Golden Key starts off very similiar to The Adventures Of Pinocchio for the first few chapters  but then after Buratino is rescued from being hung the plot completely deviates from the original. The Golden Key is not a coming of age or a moral lesson like Pinocchio is, instead this is about action adventure, a more fun exciting fairy tale where theres actually a plot with villains and goals. There is a part at the beginning which tries to be like Pinocchio and tell a moral lesson, Buratino is attacked by an ‘evil rat’ while looking for food, Papa Carlo (Gepetto) says this is a consequence of his frivolity/mischief, this just isn’t true, its not his fault he was attacked by a literal EVIL RAT, spoilers: they even end up killing the rat at the end of the book. the main characters are: Karabas Barabas (magiafuecoco): he is the director of the theatre and also a doctor of puppet science, he wants to find the golden key Pierrot: a commedia dell arte characte(sad clown)r, in this he’s a puppet from the theatre who performs a play where he gets slapped and wails about his lost fiancee. He also says lots of poetry Malvina (The Blue Fairy): Pierrot’s fiancee, another puppet from the theatre, she lives in the woods with the animals who do everything for her, most strangely caterpillars who make their toothpaste. Artemon (medoro): a poodle dog who doesn’t have much going for him really, he’s just a dog, he does dog things including brutally murdering a rat Buratino (Pinocchio): wooden boy whose dad happens to have the door for The Golden Key, otherwise Buratino doesn’t do much except go the places that the story requires.

Theres also some other new characters like the turtle who guards the key, and Duremar the leech salesman who follows Karabas about, and theres some of the characters from Pinocchio like the police dogs and of course the fox and the cat who have names.

Also the fox has a gun. And Buratino uses Karabas Barabas’ long beard to his adavantage by running around the trees and getting him stuck.

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Pinocchio (2019)

Accuracy 9/10

another very accurate adaptation, this one includes the characters of the Snail, The Tuna Fish and Master Cherry. It also includes the scene where fish turn pinocchio back into a puppet from a donkey, in the original the fish eat the donkeys flesh away revealing the wooden boy underneath, this is difficult to adapt because it is nightmare fuel bu this film does a good a job as possible to make it work and seem like a magical transformation. Overall it just feels like a very faithful well done adaptation of the book.

8/10

the prosthetics in this film are the best so far, Pinocchio looks really wooden, The Snail, The Gorilla, The Cricket and the other marionettes all have really cool prosthetics. I liked Gepetto in this film, he's played by the same actor as Pinocchio in the 2002 film, he works much better as Gepetto (because he is an old man) I liked the start of the film showing his life before PInocchio and I liked the end of the film showing his life now, he's a poor man.

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Pinocchio (2012)

accuracy 9/10

very accurate, not quite as direct as 1976 and 2002 but a good adaptation does move events around to make the story work better as a film. It includes lots of minor characters and scenes which aren't included in other adaptations: Medoro, The Snail, The Green Fisherman. It doesn't include the most horrid and creepy moments. The shark bit was kinda skipped over and they didn’t explain that the sea monster had asthma and thats how they escaped while he was sleeping with his mouth open. 

Quality 8/10

Very good film, I would reccomend this one (unlike all of the others so far) it is beautifully animated, the story is actually nicer than the original, some nice changes include when he becomes a real boy he doesn't also get a fancy house, the gift of life is enough I don't think it was necessary in the book to have a fancy house too, it was a bit too happily ever after in the book and in this film its like he got the one important thing to him and Gepetto. The Character design is great, all the characters look really cool except Pinocchio and I was a bit dissapointed by the Fox. The cricket design is the best yet, its difficult to make a cartoon cricket look good and like a cricket and I think this one works best. The musical element is nice, just some short songs to liven up a little. Overall I'd just say that this is just a lovely beautiful children's movie and you should watch it, its free on youtube. (P.S I watched the english dub, it was alright, some of the songs were a bit off maybe but some were fine)

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Pinocchio (2002) review

Accuracy 9/10

it follows the story very faithfully and the right parts are removed and added to make it a more coherent story and fit the length of a film, there is the obvious accuracy problem of Pinocchio looking nothing like a wooden puppet as he is played by a 50 year old man with no makeup or prosthetic to make him look wooden, even the animals who are also played by grown men have prosthetics and accesories to make them look more animalistic. This film includes a lot of details that have been missed out in previous adaptations, I think the italian films are more accurate because its an italian book.  Leonardo as Lampwick is called in this film was an odd character, he didn’t seem like a mischievous boy maybe because he was played by a 38 year old man, his death wasn’t emotional at all it was just a donkey lying down with a voiceover from a 38 year old man, when he turned into a donkey he just had donkey ears then in the next scene he was replaced with a real donkey. The final scene when Pinocchio looks at his old puppet body when he’s now a real boy doesn’t work because his puppet body is a 50 year old man playing dead and his real boy body is a 50 year old men wearing different clothes.

Quality: 2/10

There are 2 really awful aspects of this film 1. Pinocchio is played by an adult man but is still portrayed as little boy, the actor for the Pinocchio is the director himself why did he do this, all the other children who are meant to be 9-12 are played by men well into their adulthood. The animals are all grown men too, not so much of an issue but The Cricket is a boring bald old man. 2. There is actual animal cruelty in the film, the donkeys are whipped and made to do cruel tricks. everything else about this film isn’t great quality just not a good film. The only good thing about this film is the Shark, the cgi is quite good for 2002 and the inside of the shark moves like its a real living creature. I watched the english dub because i couldn’t find the original italian anywhere, the dub was alright I just really don’t like dubs for live action. 

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The Adventures Of Pinocchio (1996)

Accuracy 4/10

similiar to Disney’s Pinocchio the 1996 the whole story and theme is changed in major ways to make it a more wholesome kids film. In this version Pinocchio is made even nicer than Disney’s, Pinocchio is an innocent baby in this film, he barely even knows how to speak to begin with and the naughtiest thing he does is eat some cake but its clear he doesn’t know any better, Pinocchio is a victim and a hero, he gets manipulated by Vulpe(The Fox), Felinet (The Cat)and Lorenzini(Fire eater) but each time he fights back. The blue fairy isn’t present in this film at all, Pinocchio is given life by the love carving in a tree and he becomes a real boy when his father finally loves him as his own son. The other characters are changed a lot too, fire eater or as he is called in the film Lorenzini becomes the overarching villain, he is behind the boy to donkey theme park and he becomes the monster who swallows Gepetto and Pinocchio, I guess this ties the story together but those 3 characters didn’t need to be the same guy. The Fox and The Cat are human and there are no animal characters apart from the cricket, The Fox and The Cat have swapped their dynamics, The Cat is now the clever one and The Fox is more the sidekick. 

Quality 8/10

Pinocchio’s blend of stop motion, animatronics, puppetry and CGI is terrifying and uncanny, The Talking Cricket is also bad CGI  but I don’t mind him so much since he is a funny guy I like how he always changes his hat. I love the outfits of The Fox and The Cat, they look so cool. I was expecting this film to be a lot weirder and scarier but its actually just a regular nice family film

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Pinocchio (1992) by Golden Films

Accuracy 7/10

This film is following the same story as the book but all jumbled around, its only a 48 minute film and to make it this short all the events are moved about and combined, I think it would make no sense to someone who hasn’t read the book. One thing I like how they adapted is the woodpeckers cutting Pinocchio’s nose off which was done much better than the 1972 italian film. I feel like the reason for Pinocchio’s transformation is slightly changed, its more about making his father proud than just being obedient and studious.

Quality: 3/10

Not a good film, I hate Pinocchio’s voice and lots of the other characters have bad italian accents, its bad for lots of similiar reason as the 1972 italian film, just overall bad quality, this wouldn’t even make sense as a film without reading the book.

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The Adventures of Pinocchio (1972)

Accuracy 10/10

this film is a very accurate adaptation, pretty much all the events from the book happen and the parts which don’t fit into the film are summarised in a storybook style. It even animates the most horrifying moments, pinocchio getting hung, pinocchio turning into a donkey, alidoro drowning, pinocchio about to get boiled alive, lampwick dying, they are truly horrifying moments, one moment they didn't animate is when the fish eat pinocchios donkey body revealing the wooden boy inside and I think that really would be the most horrifying moments if aanimated accurately. I didn't like the way it showed the final scene of pinocchio becoming a real boy his body and house just slowly transformed into a new one whereas in the book he just wakes up in a new body in a new house and his old body and maybe his old house too still exists it's not a transformation. Pinocchio himself looks fairly book accurate, about the same as he does in many illustrations, his hat doesn't really look like it's made of bread but it's still said to be, the same with his shirt made of paper that somehow survives being underwater.

Quality 2/10

This film is awful, the animation is bad the characters are animated in this looping style like an animatronic or a video game character where they are constantly moving in a short repeated loop, especially the background characters, it just looks weird. The music isn’t very good, the voice acting isn’t very good i watched the english dub, i can’t say much about the original italian. This film is just quite awful in every way even though its a faithful adaptation.

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Disney’s Pinocchio 1940

Accuracy 3/10

This film is quite different to the books, its a much shorter story and has scenes of action and song which leaves even less time for all the strange situations Pinocchio gets in, only about 5 chapters from the book happen and lots of stuff its changed or added, characters have significant name and design changes, there are new characters namely Gepetto’s pets, his cat and his fish. The whole theme and lesson of the film is also changed from the book, instead of being a naughty boy learning obedience and finally studying hard to become a real boy he is a more innocent boy who just listened to some strangers and got in a bad situation, its then his brave act of saving his father that turns him into a real boy. its also much less dark, the original book is very dark and horrible at times but this film is always quite nice. The blue fairy’s role was changed into that of a wish granter, instead of a mysterious living piece of wood given to gepetto Pinocchio is an existing marionette that Gepetto wishes was alive and The Blue Fairy grants this wish.

Quality 9/10

This is a really good film it might not be the most accurate adaptation but the film itself apart from Pinocchio is very good and perhaps even better than the book, it at least makes more sense, teaches a better lesson and is more enjoyable for a wider audience, everything looks and sounds amazing in this film, its very impressive that this was made in 1940 and is much better than many far more recent animated films. 

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The Adventures Of Pinocchio 1883 complete review

This is a review of Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures Of Pinocchio (spoilers ahead), I read the 1926 translation. Pinocchio’s tale is weird, random and dark, absurd things happen which are often quite dark and horrible, Pinocchio gets abused, hung, enslaved etc, I can see that it is a lesson for children about the world and about how to be a good moral boy but it is often a bit too extreme because of either having too cruel punishments for Pinocchio or just not making sense. Its definitely not a fair story, Pinocchio is not that bad but he keeps getting punished more than he should, its not a fair story but I don’t think its meant to be, it would be awful to be a poor boy in 1800s Italy. I read on Wikipedia that originally Pinocchio died at the end of Chapter 15 but Collodi’s editor told him he had to carry on and write a good ending, I couldn’t find a source for this but it sounds like something Collodi would do. Pinocchio is a book all about a poor child with no experience in the world facing all the world’s difficulties.

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The Adventures Of Pinocchio final chapter review

Chapter 36 I wonder if he is going to finally be a real boy, hold on let me read the chapter name first. "Pinocchio finally ceases to be a marionette and becomes a real boy" wow, spoilers, seriously all the chapter names are like this. Some more Pinocchio biology, he can see better at night than by day why is this? Of course it is not explained. Pinocchio can sweat? Pinocchio gives money to the snail to give to the pinocchio instead of taking the money there himself which would be much faster, right? Wrong! The snail can run as fast as a lizard now! Pinocchio wakes up and he's a real boy in a fancy home! "When bad boys become good and kind they have the power of making their homes gay and new with happiness" Pinocchio's original wooden body still exists but lifeless it must be quite creepy for pinocchio to see his former body lying lifeless. And that's the end! the ending really doesn't explain anything but I still believe my theory of the fairy being the reason why all this magic happens. Also the ending is incredibly predictable, wow he learned his lesson and works really hard now and he has been rewarded by becoming a real boy.

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The Adventures Of Pinocchio 1883  Review Ch 28-35

Chapter 28 There is a man who is green, he catches pinocchio from the sea and despite looking like a little wooden boy he thinks he must be a type of fish since he is from the sea, most likely a crab and nothing Pinocchio says will change his mind. Pinocchio squirmed like an eel this is the second time this simile has been used. Chapter 29 His nose grew again! What he said was that he is "very good boy, fond of study, obedient, kind to his father and to his whole family" which i guess is mostly not true but its kinda sad that Pinocchio doesn't think of himself as a good boy. The doorknocker turned into an eel, what is it with this book and eels? A Snail gives Pinocchio food made of rocks and cardboard, where did she get this food? is this punishment for Pinocchio or some kind of test or did she just eat food like this or maybe Pinocchio is just wrong and the food was just slightly stale, who knows? Chapter 30 Pinocchio once again succumbs to peer pressure, he is willing to leave his family for a life without study. There is a boy called lampwick because he is tall and thin but also because he looks "woebegone" which means miserable. Chapter 31 Sometimes in this book something happens with absolutely no further explanation, actually very often. One of the weirdest things so far is there are some blue and yellow striped donkeys wearing shoes, I understand that these are probably children turned into donkeys because I know that happens to Pinocchio but why would they be bright colours? The man taking them to the land of toys bites the ears of one of his donkeys to let Pinocchio on which is unnecessarily gruesome. This land is entirely populated by 8-14 year old boys, a little creepy that this man collects them all here if you ask me. Chapter 32 So turning into a donkey is just a thing that happens to all boys who stop studying? why hadn't this happened to Pinocchio before, I thought maybe this aligned with my Fairy theory that she is the mastermind behind it all but the man has been doing this turning boys into donkey scam for a while so how does it work? Chapter 33 This man just makes up lies about Pinocchio, why isn't his nose growing? he says that Pinocchio has performed before kings and queens and emperors and that he is as savage donkey from the wilds of Africa. I'm not a big fan of all the wipping, idk if it falls under child cruelty or animal cruelty but it is definitely bad. Pinocchio is then sold to be turned into a drum and his buyer's method of killing is tying Pinocchio to a rock and chucking him into the ocean from a cliff to drown Chapter 34 HE SQUIRMED LIKE AN EEL FOR THE 3RD TIME apparently sea water is the antidote for the mysterious boy to donkey magic transformation SIKE it was actually several fish that ate the flesh of the donkey which revealed that Pinocchio was under there all along so it would have actually been fine if he had been skinned. There is a goat on a rock in the middle of the ocean with the hair colour of the Fairy, I don't understand this fairy lady, she better be explained. The giant shark has asthma, how does a sharks even get asthmas they don’t have lungs? also I think it is just a shark I guess disney turned it into a whale because that makes slightly more sense Chapter 35 Gepetto!!! he's been living here for 2 YEARS off of the supplies of a sunken ship. Pinocchio recaps the whole story to him with no paragraph breaks. Gepetto couldn't escape because he can't swim.

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The Adventures Of Pinocchio 1883  Review Ch 19-27

Chapter 19 Another random talking bird giving advice Pinocchio's dream house had a thousand horses a giant lemonade cellar and a library of sweet foods. The magistrate is a gorilla/monkey with a long beard (another long bearded character?) And lensless glasses. There are wooden people AND dogs working as police officers. Pinocchio is arrested for getting robbed? As a lesson I guess? And then he is released after ,4 months when the Emperor releases all prisoners from prison which probably includes, you know, murderers and worse! Chapter 20 Pinocchio bumps into giant snake and upon waking the snake he falls to the floor and the snake finds this so funny that he just dies. Chapter 21 Pinocchio tries to steal some grapes because he is starving so the farmer makes pinocchio do the job of his dog under horrible working conditions that would be unethical even for a dog, pinocchio has such cruel punishment to teach him to be a better boy and pinocchio even believes that he deserves it Chapter 22 Pinocchio refuses to be bribed and does the right thing of alerting the farmers of the chicken stealers (who happen to be talking weasels) but when they are caught the farmer says he is going to turn the weasels into dinner (that is murder!) this farmer is a horrible person! Chapter 23 The fairy died from grief from pinocchio leaving? Surely this cannot be true. this causes pinocchio to cry for several hours if this turns out to be one of the fairy's lessons this is messed up. Pinocchio literally becomes suicidal! Also Pinocchio hates chickpeas, chickpeas are great. Chapter 24 This terrible shark sure sounds big( this is the whale, right but it's still way bigger than that, it's the size of a 5 storey building!) Chapter 25 so the blue fairy didn't die but instead she aged quickly into an old woman? Chapter 26 Children bully pinocchio for being a marionette but only respect him once they realise that they cannot physically harm him. Pinocchio really isn't the bad guy here he gets bullied and punished so much, poor guy. He goes off to find the 'shark' who killed his dad which is a totally valid reason to skip a day of school Chapter 27 Oh wowee another prank perhaps pinocchio should not have trusted these awful kids. The bullies call pinocchio a little turkey cock. So there are carabineers (police officers?) Who are mastiffs and there are also human carabineers who have mastiffs? This is very peculiar.

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Medoro from The Adventures Of Pinocchio 1883

This guy is so cool, he is a poodle in fancy clothes, he also has a little glass coach drawn by 200 white mice.

Description from book: “A magnificent Poodle appeared, walking on his hind legs just like a man. He was dressed in court livery. A tricorn trimmed with gold lace was set at a rakish angle over a wig of white curls that dropped down to his waist. He wore a jaunty coat of chocolate-colored velvet, with diamond buttons, and with two huge pockets which were always filled with bones, dropped there at dinner by his loving mistress. Breeches of crimson velvet, silk stockings, and low, silver-buckled slippers completed his costume. His tail was encased in a blue silk covering, which was to protect it from the rain.”