This year marks the thirteenth anniversary of one of the best contemporary holiday classics “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Disney leads us down a new path with this trip back to Halloweentown, and this time we get to experience it as if we were actually there. It opens in theaters once again today in glorious Disney Digital 3-D!
Thankfully it seems that the days of red/blue 3-D are going the way of the dodo. Having seen many of those once great movies over the years like “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” and “Jaws 3-D,” sometimes it was almost more headache than enjoyment to watch them. They usually had a moment or two of really cool illusion, like when Jaws comes crashing through the underwater window to bite your head off. But the rest of the movie becomes uncomfortable to watch with one red eye and one blue eye.
Today’s technology is way easier on the eyes and a hell of a lot more fun. The big pair of clear sunglasses that they give you help make the entire experience possible. Polarized light is used to make the whole 3-D world real, like a living pop-up book.
Disney’s first 3-D production was last year’s “Chicken Little.” But “The Nightmare Before Christmas” presented a challenge when the studio decided to re-release it since it was originally 2-D. They went to the only place in the world that would possibly be able to pull off making Skeleton Jack real: the gods of special effects, Industrial Light and Magic.
ILM is the powerhouse of special effects behind most of the films you have been “wowed” by since its beginnings with the original “Star Wars” trilogy.
They had the arduous task of re-digitizing “Nightmare” in its entirety using the original puppets and exact camera moves. The result is that your left eye sees the original film, while your right eye sees the digital re-creation from a slightly different angle. Together it really adds depth to the whole film, not just a moment here or there for cheap thrills.
For those that haven’t experienced the “Nightmare” before, the story takes place in Halloweenland. The Pumpkin King, Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon and Danny Elfman) is frustrated because he wants something new out of his yearly holiday. He stumbles into Christmas Town one night and decides to take over for Santa Claus.
Sally (Catherine O’Hara), a friend who hides her true feelings for Jack, tries to stop him from making a big mistake. Jack has to find out the hard way though that he was not meant to mix Halloween and Christmas. He must find Santa to save Christmas and set things right in the world.
Every year the popularity of this film seems to grow. Many movie theaters make it a seasonal celebration at this time of year. Considering that it is also a musical, it feels like it might be taking over the next generation of fans like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” did in the late 70’s and 80’s. So in that respect, the only way to make this experience even better than delivering it to us in 3-D would be to make it a sing-a-long, too!
