I GET RLLY RLLY HAPPY WHEN PEOPLE LIKE MY HOOK POSTS ( @cutesiewooren hi hi hi I see ur hook reblogs and bestow upon ye a doodle) AND IT MAKES ME WANNA DRAW MORE HOOK STUFF BC I LOVE LOVE LOVE THAT MOVIE SO-
A few days ago, I saw some Disneyfied Hook fan art on DA, and it made me rewatch the movie. I imagined the animated film, and I started drawing it. I filled five pages of my sketchbook in a single day.
I started researching all the Lost Boys that have appeared on Disney, from the Disney Junior show my nephew watched as a kid, the originals, the ones that appeared on OUAT, and even the ones that appeared in the new 2023 live-action series. (I also wanted to include the Lost Boys who star in Hook.) Simply because there are a lot of children in the movie, and it occurred to me to add them to Hook's AU.
My obsession reached the point where I started looking for every voice actor who would play the characters. Even casting Will Arnett as Peter Banning… If he's the one who played Sweet Pete…
I just imagined a teaser showing Peter waking up startled from a nightmare (The Chip & Dale Movie), with Ranger Rescue playing in the background in the living room, and his children Jack and Maggie fast asleep next to him…
(I saw that the series aired from 1989-1990, so it fits the era.)
Right now, I'm doing some height references for the characters, trying to draw them Disney-style. And these are the ones I've got so far (The red paint was because I spilled it while helping my nephew with a project).
One thing I'll change from the movie is that Jack is 12, like Peter, since in Hook, when Peter Pan left Neverland, he was 10 years old, so they would both be the same age as a parallel.
For now, this is what I'll put down for my ideas because I have a lot of them in my head and I need to organize them.
Even 1991's Hook showed that Jack and Peter fell for the allure of Neverland while Maggie never forgot and just wanted to go home. Implying, the way 2003's Peter Pan outright said, girls are much too clever. Disney is stomping all over this story.
Listen to me, Hook is a genius Peter Pan adaptation/reimagining. In so many ways. I know as a film, it apparently had its disappointments, but just speaking as a Peter Pan fan (of the book and the play), whatever Jim Hart/Nick Castle were doing when they were making story decisions for that movie, it worked.
I could gush.
I'm going to gush. This is going to be long. If you like Peter Pan, keep reading.
Disney is stomping all over the story with their new movie in so many ways. And Peter Pan 2003 is an almost one-to-one, 108% accurate adaptation of the original book/play, so I'm gonna talk about that in regards to Hook-
First of all, yes, the whole Maggie thing is SO smart and SO accurate to how Barrie chose to portray women in general in the original story. All the major female characters have their silly, petty, foolish moments like real women of all ages do, yes, but when Barrie portrays what's naturally good about good women, he knocks it out of the park. Wendy is selfless and compassionate, Tink dies for someone she loves, Mrs. Darling is a graceful nurturer and her husband's rock.
Like, when Barrie uses Peter to say "girls are too clever to fall out of their prams", that's not just Peter being manipulative, that's the kind of thing Barrie really thought about females. It's in all of his plays and all of his books. He doesn't ignore women's general faults, but he does love to showcase why it's not good for man to be alone.
In the original story, when you're in the Neverland, the longer you stay there, the less you remember of your life on the mainland. John and Michael just totally forget they ever had real parents and start acting like Wendy, who is playing pretend, is their only mother figure. Wendy is realizing she's forgetting real life too, and makes it a nightly thing to tell all the boys the same story - of how they got to Neverland and how they're eventually gonna go back, and why, and how their real mother specifically will always be waiting for them and she has no doubt about that because that's real love.
And that's what Hook is about, second of all. Peter forgets who he used to be as a child, and it's actually normal for Peter to forget important things - finite memory in an infinite existence - but this is him forgetting who he is. And that's a big deal because he forgets not only what it was like to be young and what he personally was missing (parents, a family, the gaping hole in his magical life that created a lack of consistent real love), but he forgets what made him as a character the hero of the story. As sword-fighting leader of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan was confident, honorable, and unafraid.
This is who Peter Pan is. He's selfish and arrogant and kind of a butt sometimes (like little boys often are) but the thing that makes him special isn't that he can fly or never age (though those things are cool). The other Lost Boys can fly and don't age, either, in the original story. Peter is a born leader. Peter protects the Lost Boys. Peter doesn't kill a pirate while he's sleeping; he waits for the guy to wake up. Peter won't strike Hook while he's unarmed and tries to help him up onto solid ground in the middle of a fight before continuing the duel because that's the right thing. Peter won't keep a girl in Neverland against her will. Peter lets the kite take Wendy to safety and sits wounded on a rock alone, waiting to die without being scared. Peter Pan is a hero.
Peter Banning forgot all of that. Peter Banning doesn't remember what it's like to be young, or to want parents, or to crave real love. He doesn't remember that to die will be an awfully big adventure. He's terrified of death. He's terrified of heights. He's scared of everything. He doesn't protect his kids or care about their interests or watch when they're putting on a play or attend a single baseball game or spend any time with them at all. The one thing Peter Pan had to be forever barred from, Peter Banning got to have - a family - and he forgets what it feels like not to have that and neglects them.
So Jack gets to Neverland and is scared (and manipulated by pirates, the thing his great-grandmother before him went through and never fell for), and he's spent his young life craving the attention and affection of his workaholic Peter Banning dad and never gets it, literally watches Peter give up on saving him and Maggie because he's too scared (Peter Pan never gave up) and that hurts, so of course he starts forgetting who he is and where he came from because that's easier and he's his father's son.
But Maggie!! is Wendy's great-granddaughter!!! and like the other women in the Peter Pan canon, she doesn't forget for one second who she is or where they came from or what's important, and she knows the pirates are bad and Peter is good, and she knows her family loves her, and she knows her dad loves her, and even though she watched Peter give up too, she begs Jack not to forget and tries actively to remind him of the truth. She rejects the pirate life. She never loses faith. She's just a little kid but she's polite and she's a good girl and she won't do what mommy said not to even in Neverland. Wendy wrote "dirty pig" on the greasy windows of the Jolly Roger because she wasn't scared of pirates and she was disgusted that grown men never took care of business on that ship and it was filthy. Maggie is cut of the same cloth, just much younger on her first trip to Neverland.
LisTEN. There are no girls in the Lost Boys because GIRLS in the Peter Pan canon have something that little boys don't right away, because girls are different from boys. Girls are naturally more in touch with emotions. Girls are often (not always) more mature. They understand things little boys sometimes (not always) don't understand. Girls are sometimes (not always) smarter than boys in certain areas. Girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams, and girls don't forget what's important and that they must grow up someday, and girls - mothers - will always keep the window open for their children. There are no girls in the Lost Boys! DEAL WITH IT. It's OKAY.
Hook is amazing. It takes little details in the margins and paragraphs of Barrie's story and incorporates them in this one zany film. It takes some of the clearest messages and themes in the book and yells it through a megaphone. "Don't forget the great things about being a child! Don't forget what true love is! Don't forget why it's necessary to grow up! Don't forget what's bad about staying a kid forever! Grow up, but keep the childlike faith and the childlike confidence and remember what kids need, and give those things to your own children!"
Hook says this stuff with Tootles. It says it with Rufio. It says it with Jack and with Maggie in two different outcomes. It says it most of all with Peter.
I LOVE HOOK. I watch it all the time, especially on rainy days. I will die on this hill. Go watch it. It's on HBO Max and you can watch it free right here with no ads you're welcome, and I myself own two copies of it on DVD just in case.
Thank you for listening and drop me a line with your own thoughts if you have any; I don't want to be rambling in a vacuum XD
- Fixated on success and is a workaholic to the point he ignores his family.
- Is emotionally unavailable to his family and struggles with emotions.
- Unable to connect with anyone who is a child/teenager and even told off the lost boys.
- As young Peter Pan he was obsessed with Wendy and went to her window/house often, but didn't see her as a romantic partner, more so as mother figure. He ended up falling in love with Wendy's daughter.
- Doesn't/didn't want to grow up and stay child like.
Any other details:
I'm trying to keep this more on this movie, but you could say all Peter Pan interpretations are autistic.
