Martina Rosazza
Story Analysis/Notes for animated feature “The Magician’s Elephant” by Netflix Animatiom
This movie feels like a continuous hit and miss almost by the minute. There is a good base/message and lots of good decisions were made but they are almost always immediately followed by a poor decision right after, making the pace of the movie a constant up and down almost by the minute.
Here are some main core issues:
-Peter’s main goal of finding his sister is in theory a strong enough goal to carry the story. However, this should have been shown at the beginning why this bond is so important. The only scene we see of them together is when Peter is having a very brief dream about it, and well into the first act. This isn’t enough. I think another animated movie with a similar storyline who did this in a much more convincing and engaging way is Anastasia. At the beginning of the movie we are shown a lengthy scene in which we understand the bond between little Anastasia, her father and her grandmother. Anastasia receives a gift and we hear a song which makes the point come across even more strongly. If that weren’t enough, as we are shown adult Anastasia leaving her orphanage in the first sequence of her adult timeline, she sings another song in which we understand that what she’s been looking for this whole time is a family. These two scenes make it so the audience is very much invested in her goal of finding her lost family. If we had seen more of Peter as a young child and his sister, their bond and maybe an unfair separation between them, we would have felt more invested in Peter’s goal of finding her. Some of these points do get cleared in the second and third act, and that’s why I mentioned that good decisions were made, but it doesn’t work exactly because they’re shown that late and not at the very beginning of the movie, which is the bad decision that was made. We do learn in the third act how the brother and sister got separated and that she’s indeed still alive and if this had been shown at the very beginning (just like we know that Anastasia never died when she was separated from her grandmother during the train accident at the beginning of her movie) this would have worked out. So this isn’t a note about the plot per se, but rather the decision to scatter this part of the plot through the three acts instead of making that background story the opening scene.
-Narrating voice works great at the very beginning to introduce the world in which Peter currently lives in but it’s disrupting as it continues to come back at random times during the movie. This approach makes it feel like we’re listening to an audio book with a narrating voice explaining what’s happening instead of a movie. It continuously breaks the pace of the story making a full immersion feeling almost impossible to achieve. To me this is like if when Aladdin met Jasmine a narrating voice said “Aladdin felt an immediate connection with Jasmine, but being a poor thief he didn’t think she would like him”. It’s almost like the narrating voice is spelling out for me what I’m seeing, which kind of defeats the point of watching a movie instead or reading a book.
-There’s too many characters and they serve too little of a role. I would have condensed some of the secondary characters and given them a double/bigger role.
-The idea of the three challenges makes it so it’s hard to have a first act setting the stage for the adventure / second act for the big adventure / third act for the resolution pace because the pace is constantly broken and restarted by the start challenge / end challenge dynamic. I think it may have been more beneficial to present Peter with one big challenge, that maybe entailed more steps, but that looked like a cohesive and compact one goal for him to try to achieve and for the audience to follow along in his pursuit.
Overall I think the idea/message and the main character in this movie would have been strong enough for a good movie but because of a series of bad decisions in the execution of that idea, the overall movie falls short in really entertaining and inspiring the viewer. This to me is a pity because this would have been less difficult to “fix” then when the whole idea behind the story doesn’t hold up (an example of this is Raya by Disney Animation which shows us at the beginning that by trusting someone we could create a war, have our own people turned into stone and lose members of our own family in the fight and then concludes in the third act with the message that we need to trust more).
This is an example of a good idea for a movie and main character that was ruined by the actual execution of it.
FIRST ACT
Good start with rewind idea and action
Narrating voice reminding of Disney classic movie
Idea of people stopping to believe is great but it’s not clear why that happened
Narrating voice to introduce Peter is killing the pace of the story
It would have been more interesting to learn about him and his step father by their actions instead of just being told by the narrating voice (a good example of this is the first scene in Strange World when we see father and son in action, and their different approaches to the challenge they are facing which makes it almost impossible for them to be compatible).
Most difficult question for price of a coin intriguing and magical
This is one of the good ideas I mentioned earlier. This kind of creative good ideas are scattered throughout the story, it would have been great if they were executed properly later on.
Peter using coin for question and not fish like he’s been told by his guardian great in showing character’s initiative
This is why this main character is a good one: he’s active, proactive, taking actions, going against what he’s been told to do to follow his instinct (this is the equivalent of Ariel choosing to go to land even if she’s been told not to or Rapunzel choosing to go see the lanterns even if she’s been told that she can’t). A bad example of this is Amber from Pixar’s Elemental who doesn’t do anything her father doesn’t want her to do even when she knows it’s the right thing to do.
Storyteller and “She Lives”concept, referring to his sister still being alive despite what Peter’s been told, intriguing
Another good idea whose execution is later going to fall short.
“Follow the elephant” concept intriguing
Scene with guardian needs to be better thought out to not only move the plot forward but also show us the tricky dynamic between them
Book sequence great in showing guardian’s approach to life
Cat sequence confusing as it doesn’t serve any purpose for the story
In the third act we understand why this scene was there but this is too gimmicky. This feels like this scene was added here completely randomly just so it can work its purpose in the third act. A better, more coherent way to add this scene here is necessary.
Peter believing the elephant doesn’t exist just because the guardian said so is taking from him and his charm which is unfortunate because him choosing to spend the money for it had given him good points
There’s again this feeling of sometimes good decisions were made for this character, but in the scene after it falls short.
Narrator coming in again not the strongest way to introduce magician, the link should’ve been Peter
Narrator coming in again mid trick is really confusing. This is starting to feel like a book is being read instead of a movie playing.
Magician being able to pull off magic is extremely confusing, even with narrating voice explaining what is happening
Flashback with sister should’ve been first scene
The animated movie Anastasia should have been the reference on how to do this in an engaging way.
Helper reason to help not clear or strong enough
Peter standing his ground against his guardian good to make main character active and strong
And here again, we have a good main character. It just needs to stay consistent, which it doesn’t.
Woman losing ability to walk adds good stakes
Not clear why queen is especially kind to the helper
Elephant issue realistic
Introduction of king brings too many characters too soon
Narrating voice introducing the king breaks pace
Helper bond not hitting strongly enough
Rapunzel and Flynn are a much better example of this. At the beginning, Flynn doesn’t actually want to help or like Rapunzel. He starts liking her only after she displays great charm, initiative and courage by singing her song in the pub with the thugs instead of being scared by them, like he thought she would be. By not only facing that challenge in such a charming great way, but also getting all the thugs to now want to help her, she impresses Flynn who starts to see her differently. We understand why he wants to help her now. This kind of understanding is lacking here in this sequence of The Magician’s Elepahnt.
Elephant acting up good for pace and action
Peter standing in front of shooters to protect elephant great for showing strong main character
Peter figuring out how to help and calm elephant and getting praise from audience further strengthens main character
Three impossible things in exchange for one curious concept but king and his peculiar personality should’ve been more of a theme from the start for this to work out smoothly
This first act that lasted over 30 minutes could have been condensed into a shorter act with more of a punch and stronger pace.
