The Nightmare Before Christmas: Worldbuilding Discussion
Just in time for Christmas, mods Miri and Werew have written up some thoughts about the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas and the worldbuilding within. We hope you enjoy!
The world in Nightmare Before Christmas is an interesting one from a world building perspective. (And one that goes along with several questions we’ve received over the last year.) Here you have a world, the human world, and you also have these separate, town sized holiday worlds. Each of these holiday worlds is completely different. Different climates, vegetation, animals, people. Each world is accommodating to the populace that lives within it.
Halloween Town is just what its residents need. There is an appropriate level of darkness, pools are the right toxic contents that they aren’t toxic to the locals. Ceilings are high enough to pass beneath. An outsider in Halloween Town is going to have trouble finding the things they need to survive.
When Jack falls into Christmas Town, he reacts with amazement at how different everything is. He wonders at why things are what they are. He searches for monsters under the bed and is surprised to find none. He makes a lot of comparisons to how things are different. That is often how we relate to new things.
When Jack tries to explain Christmas Town to the people of Halloween Town, they have trouble imagining anything but what they know. They try to rationalize the objects with what they would expect. A box they understand. The look of it is unfamiliar, but surely what is inside is what they would expect to find in a box.
Jack decides to approach Christmas from scientific means, taking it apart to try to reconcile it with what he knows of the world. He learns as much as he can but still can’t understand the meaning of it all.
Eventually he decides that he doesn’t have to understand it to believe in it. He takes what he has learned and tries to apply it in his terms. The results are not recognized or welcomed by the residents of the human world on Christmas Eve. It is. It what they have been cultured to expect and they react with both fear and violence. In the end Jack realizes that Christmas is not where he naturally belongs, and really, it isn’t where he wants to be. He’s had his look at the other side and chosen his path.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a yearly staple in my household, both for the movie itself and the incredible stop motion work. Not to mention the sing along aspect of it. It’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it, and worth another if you already have.
Happy holidays, and may one of your gifts in the coming year be the answer to all your world building dilemmas.
Let me start out by saying that I LOVE this movie. It was a staple of my childhood, and it’s an all-around awesome movie. Honestly, even when looking with an intentionally critical eye, I didn’t see much that I thought should be improved. I hope you enjoy this analysis!
The Nightmare Before Christmas is set in a very fantastical world, and one that isn’t really like anything else in mainstream media. This originality is great, but with unique worlds there comes the problem of trying to convey the basics to the audience without getting in the way of the story. Because TNBC is a musical, it allows for a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and a certain amount of exposition by song. It uses the opening number in a particularly effective and believable way to introduce the world, by starting off on halloween and showing us the celebration that the residents put on; this introduces all of the characters (at least to our sight), explains the basic premise of the world, and shows off a lot of the settings and themes.
The introduction of the world by the first song allows the story to get right underway immediately afterwards, with the audience happily on board. Because the setting is introduced so quickly, the movie doesn’t have to waste dialogue time explaining the world, and this allows Jack’s motivations to be introduced within the first ten minutes of the film. This isn’t really worldbuilding, but I think it’s related and I also think that it’s a great and effective way to get the audience hooked right away. Wow, this world is so cool! What, the ruler of it is unhappy with his unchanging life? It’s an immediate, relatable look into his character and drives the rest of the story.
One thing that really sells Halloween Town as being very different from the real world is the culture. This is shown in small, subtle things, especially the idioms and phrases that the people use in ordinary conversation. A few examples that I enjoy:
“Curiosity killed the cat, you know!” -said in a delighted tone rather than a reproachful one.
“Like a vulture in the sky”
theartofmadeline
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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