Disney's A Christmas Carol

''A Christmas Carol'' (also known as ''Disney's A Christmas Carol'') is a 2009 American animated Christmas fantasy film based on the 1843 novel of the same name by Charles Dickens. Co-produced, written for the screen and directed by Robert Zemeckis, it is Disney's third adaptation of the novel, following ''Mickey's Christmas Carol'' (1983) and ''The Muppet Christmas Carol'' (1992). Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and ImageMovers Digital (a joint venture between Zemeckis's ImageMovers and The Walt Disney Company) and released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the film stars an ensemble voice cast including Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins, Robin Wright Penn, and Cary Elwes.

The film was animated through the process of motion capture, a technique used in ImageMovers' previous animated films including ''The Polar Express'' (2004), '' Monster House'' (2006), and ''Beowulf'' (2007). Like the previous film Zemeckis has directed, Alan Silvestri returned to compose the score. ''A Christmas Carol'' was the first film produced by ImageMovers Digital, and also was, along with ''Mars Needs Moms'' (2011), the only ImageMovers Digital projects made, before the studio was shut down by The Walt Disney Company for unsatisfactory box office results.

''A Christmas Carol'' had its world premiere in London on November 3, 2009, which coincided with the switching-on of the annual Oxford Street and Regent Street Christmas lights; it was later released in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D, and IMAX 3D formats in the United States on November 6. It grossed 325.3 million worldwide against a $175–200 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized its dark tone and script, but praised its visuals, Silvestri's score, and the performances of Carrey and Oldman. Despite the mixed reception, the film was nominated for Favorite Animated Movie and Carrey won Favorite Voice From an Animated Movie at the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards.

Plot

Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy, penny-pinching, and lonely moneylender living in Victorian London who refuses to partake in the merriment of Christmas. On Christmas Eve 1843, he declines his cheerful nephew Fred's invitation to the annual Christmas dinner party and dismisses two gentlemen who are collecting money for charity. His loyal employee Bob Cratchit requests to not work on Christmas Day so he can spend time with his family, to which Scrooge reluctantly agrees. That night, Scrooge encounters the shackled ghost of his seven years dead business partner Jacob Marley in his home. Marley warns Scrooge to repent his ways or suffer a worse fate, stating that three spirits will visit him over three nights.

At one o'clock, Scrooge is visited by the candle-like Ghost of Christmas Past, who shows him visions of his early life, such as his lonely boarding school days, his relationship with his beloved sister Fan and his time as an apprentice under the benevolent Fezziwig. The young Scrooge met a young woman named Belle, with whom he falls in love, but his focus on accruing wealth drives them apart. Scrooge extinguishes the Ghost's flame and returns home.

Scrooge next meets the merry Ghost of Christmas Present, who shows how others find joy on Christmas Day. Scrooge and the Ghost visit Bob's house, learning his family is content with their small dinner and meagre home. Scrooge takes pity on Bob's ill son Tiny Tim, whom the rapidly ageing Ghost comments might not survive until next Christmas. They next visit Fred's house, where Fred insists the guests raise a toast to Scrooge in spite of his stinginess and general ill will. Before the Ghost withers away, he shows Scrooge the evils of "Ignorance" and "Want".

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come takes Scrooge into the future where a recent death elicits no sympathy from London's inhabitants. After being chased across London by the Ghost, Scrooge sees his charwoman Mrs. Dilber trade the deceased's possessions to a fence named Old Joe. Scrooge sees the deceased's body but refuses to see his face. After being shown a couple relieved of the death, Scrooge asks to see tenderness connected to death; the Ghost shows Scrooge the Cratchits' home, where he sees Bob and his family mourning the death of Tiny Tim. Clarifying for the identity of the dead man, Scrooge is taken to a cemetery, where the Ghost points out a neglected grave, bearing the name of Scrooge and that he will die on Christmas Day of an unknown (possibly imminent) year. Scrooge desperately vows to change his ways before falling into his empty coffin above the flames of Hell, only to find himself returned to his bedroom in the present.

Discovering it is Christmas Day, a gleeful Scrooge begins spreading happiness and joy around London, anonymously sending the Cratchits a turkey dinner, finding one the portly gentleman and agreeing to give to charity, and then attending Fred's Christmas dinner, where he is warmly welcomed. The next day, Scrooge raises Bob's salary and pledges his support for the Cratchits. Scrooge becomes a father figure to Tiny Tim, who overcomes his ailments and is restored to health, and now treats everyone with kindness, generosity, and compassion, thus embodying the Christmas spirit.

Voice cast

* Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge, a stingy, penny-pinching, and lonely old man whose sheer miserly nature leads him to despise Christmas and all things which engender happiness.
Carrey also portrays:
** Ghost of Christmas Past, who is depicted as an androgynous man with a flickering flame for a head and a body like a candle and speaks with an Irish accent.
** Ghost of Christmas Present, who is depicted as a towering man with red hair, a full beard, and a green ermine robe, and is a jolly figure prone to hearty laughter and speaks with a Yorkshire accent.
** Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who is depicted as an ominous shadow of Scrooge's alter ago. His appearance is of a figure in a large black hooded cloak.
* Gary Oldman as
** Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's poor underpaid clerk.
** Jacob Marley, the ghost of Scrooge's former business partner who is bound in chains.
** Oldman also provides the motion capture for Tiny Tim, Cratchit's youngest son.
* Colin Firth as Fred, Scrooge's cheerful nephew and only living relative. He is the son of Scrooge's long dead sister Fan.
* Bob Hoskins as Mr. Nigel Fezziwig, the proprietor of a warehouse business for whom Scrooge worked as a young apprentice.
** Hoskins also portrays Old Joe, a fence who buys the belongings of the deceased Scrooge from Mrs. Dilber.
* Robin Wright Penn as
** Fan, Scrooge's beloved late sister who was the mother of Fred.
** Belle, Scrooge's neglected fiancée.
* Cary Elwes as Portly Gentleman #1/Dick Wilkins/Mad Fiddler/Guest #2/Business Man #1
** Elwes would also act as a stand-in for Scrooge or the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present in scenes where these characters appear together, as all were portrayed by Jim Carrey.
* Fionnula Flanagan as Mrs. Dilber, Scrooge's charwoman.
* Steve Valentine as Funerary Undertaker/Topper
* Daryl Sabara as Undertaker's Apprentice/Tattered Caroler #1/Beggar Boy #1/Peter Cratchit/Well-Dressed Caroler #1
* Sage Ryan as Tattered Caroler #2
* Amber Gainey Meade as Tattered Caroler #3/ Well-Dressed Caroler #2
* Ryan Ochoa as Tattered Caroler #4/Beggar Boy #2/Young Cratchit Boy/Ignorance Boy/Young Boy with Sleigh/Tiny Tim
* Bobbi Page as Tattered Caroler #5/Well-Dressed Caroler #3
* Ron Bottitta as Tattered Caroler #6/Well-Dressed Caroler #4
* Sammi Hanratty as Beggar Boy #3/Young Cratchit Girl/Want Girl
* Julian Holloway as Fat Cook/Portly Gentleman #2/Business Man #3
* Jacquie Barnbrook as Mrs. Allie Fezziwig/Fred's sister-in-law/Well-Dressed Caroler #5
* Lesley Manville as Mrs. Emily Cratchit
* Molly C. Quinn as Belinda Cratchit
* Fay Masterson as Martha Cratchit/Guest #1/Caroline
* Leslie Zemeckis as Janet Holywell, Fred's wife.
* Paul Blackthorne as Guest #3/Business Man #2
* Michael Hyland as Guest #4
* Kerry Hoyt as Adult Ignorance
* Julene Renee-Preciado as Adult Want

Production

After making ''The Polar Express'' (2004), Robert Zemeckis stated that he "fell in love with digital theater" and tried finding an avenue in order to use the format again. He eventually decided that an adaptation of Charles Dickens's '' A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'' would be an opportunity to achieve this. Upon rereading the story, he realized that "the story has never been realized in a way that it was actually imagined by Charles Dickens as he wrote it," as well as that "it's as if he wrote this story to be a movie because it's so visual and so cinematic." Zemeckis has stated previously that ''A Christmas Carol'' is one of his favorite stories dealing with time travel. Ebenezer Scrooge actor Jim Carrey has described the film as "a classical version of ''A Christmas Carol'' ..There are a lot of vocal things, a lot of physical things, I have to do. Not to mention doing the accents properly, the English, Irish accents ��I want it to fly in the UK. I want it to be good and I want them to go, 'Yeah, that's for real.' We were very true to the book. It's beautiful. It's an incredible film."

The Walt Disney Company partnered with Amtrak to promote the film with a special nationwide exhibition train tour, starting at Los Angeles in May 2009 and visiting 40 cities, finishing in New York City in November.

Soundtrack

The film's music was written, composed, orchestrated and conducted by Alan Silvestri and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. The film's music was also orchestrated by William Ross, Conrad Pope and John Ashton Thomas and performed by London Voices and The Hollywood Studio Symphony. Much of the film's music was based on traditional Christmas carols such as "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", "Deck the Halls", "O Come, All Ye Faithful", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" and "Joy to the World". The film's theme song, titled "God Bless Us Everyone", was written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silverstri and performed by Italian classical crossover tenor Andrea Bocelli. The film's soundtrack album was recorded in 2009 at The Newman Scoring Stage in Los Angeles, California. The film's soundtrack album was also released on 3 November 2009 by Walt Disney Records.

"Present" by JUJU is the theme song for the Japanese version.

Track listing

Release

''A Christmas Carol'' opened London on November 3, 2009, and was theatrically released on November 6, 2009, in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Home media

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on November 16, 2010 in a single-disc DVD, two-disc 2D Blu-ray/DVD combo and in a four-disc combo pack that includes a Blu-ray 3D, a regular Blu-ray, a DVD and a digital copy. This marked the first time that a film was available in Blu-ray 3D the same day as a standard Blu-ray, as well as Disney's first in the Blu-ray 3D market along with ''Alice in Wonderland'' (2010). The DVD contains deleted scenes and two featurettes called "On Set with Sammi" and "Capturing ''A Christmas Carol''". The Blu-ray also has a "Digital Advent Calendar" and the featurette "Behind the Carol: The Full Motion-Capture Experience". The Blu-ray 3D has an exclusive 3D game called "Mr. Scrooge's Wild Ride".

The film grossed $69 million in home sales.

Reception

Box office

''A Christmas Carol'' grossed $137.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $187.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $325.3 million. Due to its high production and marketing costs, the film lost the studio an estimated $50–100 million, and forced Mark Zoradi, president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Group and the head of worldwide marketing, to resign.

The film opened at #1 in 3,683 theaters, grossing $30.1 million its opening weekend, with an average of $8,159 per theater.

In the United Kingdom, ''A Christmas Carol'' topped the box office on two occasions; the first was when it opened, the second was five weeks later when it leapfrogged box office chart toppers ''2012'', '' The Twilight Saga: New Moon'' and ''Paranormal Activity'' despite family competition from ''Nativity!'', another Christmas-themed film.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of 202 critics have given the film a positive review with an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus read, "Robert Zemeckis' 3-D animated take on the Dickens classic tries hard, but its dazzling special effects distract from an array of fine performances from Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman." On Metacritic, another aggregator, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' gave the film four stars out of four, calling it "an exhilarating visual experience". Owen Gleiberman of ''Entertainment Weekly'' gave the film an A, applauding the film as "a marvelous and touching yuletide toy of a movie". Joe Neumaier of the ''New York Daily News'' gave the film 3/5 stars and stated the film "is well-crafted but artless, detailed but lacking soul." Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com gave the film a mixed review claiming the movie "is a triumph of something—but it's certainly not the Christmas spirit." Joe Morgenstern of ''The Wall Street Journal'' wrote in his review that the film's "tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey's voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen other roles." ''The Daily Telegraph'' reviewer Tim Robey wrote, "How much is gained by the half-real visual style for this story is open to question—the early scenes are laborious and never quite alive, and the explosion of jollity at the end lacks the virtue of being funny." Peter Bradshaw in ''The Guardian'' also criticized the technology: "The hi-tech sheen is impressive but in an unexciting way. I wanted to see real human faces convey real human emotions." ''Time Out'' London praised the film for sticking to Dickens' original dialogue but also questioned the technology by saying, "To an extent, this 'Christmas Carol' is a case of style—and stylisation—overwhelming substance."

In 2019, Robert Keeling of ''Den of Geek'' praised the animation. He felt Scrooge’s encounter with the final ghost to be “a bit tedious, as it soon becomes an elaborate chase scene purely designed to show off the 3D” but called the film “an enjoyable and memorable version.”

Awards and nominations

See also

* List of Christmas films
* List of ghost films
* Adaptations of ''A Christmas Carol''

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas Carol (2009 film), A
2009 films
2009 American animated films
2009 computer-animated films
2009 fantasy films
2009 3D films
2000s fantasy adventure films
2000s fantasy drama films
2000s children's fantasy films
2000s ghost films
2000s Christmas films
2000s children's animated films
2000s English-language films
2000s dark fantasy films
American 3D films
American children's animated adventure films
American children's animated fantasy films
American Christmas films
American computer-animated films
American fantasy adventure films
American fantasy drama films
American ghost films
Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
Films with screenplays by Robert Zemeckis
Films scored by Alan Silvestri
Animated films based on A Christmas Carol
Animated films set in London
Christmas adventure films
IMAX films
Films using motion capture
Films set in 1793
Films set in 1802
Films set in 1843
Films about size change
Animated films about time travel
Films set in the Victorian era
American dark fantasy films
ImageMovers films
Walt Disney Pictures animated films
2009 drama films
Films produced by Robert Zemeckis
Animated films set in the 1790s
Animated films set in the 1800s
Animated films set in the 1840s
Films about disability in the United Kingdom
English-language fantasy adventure films
English-language fantasy drama films
2000s films about time travel
English-language Christmas films
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award–winning films
Animated Christmas films