The genesis of The Nightmare Before Christmas started with a poem written by Tim Burton when he was only a Disney animator in the early 1980s. With the success of Vincent in 1982, Disney started to consider The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short subject or 30-minute television special.
Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project,
and in 1990, Burton and Disney made a development deal. Production
started in July 1991 in San Francisco. Walt Disney Pictures decided to release the film under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought Nightmare would be "too dark and scary for kids".[2]The Nightmare Before Christmas has been viewed with critical and financial success. Disney has reissued the film annually under their Disney Digital 3-D format since 2006.
Halloween Town is a dream world filled with citizens such as deformedmonsters, ghosts, ghouls, goblins, vampires, werewolves and witches. Jack Skellington
("The Pumpkin King") leads them in a frightful celebration every
Halloween, but he has grown tired of the same routine year after year.
Wandering in the forest outside the town center, he accidentally opens a
portal to "Christmas
Town". Impressed by the feeling and style of Christmas, Jack presents
his findings and his (somewhat limited) understanding of the holiday to
the Halloween Town residents. They fail to grasp his meaning and compare
everything he says to their idea of Halloween. He reluctantly decides
to play along and announces that they will take over Christmas.
Jack's obsession with Christmas leads him to usurp the role of Santa Claus. Every resident is assigned a task, while Sally, a rag doll woman who is created by the town's mad scientist,
begins to feel a romantic attraction towards Jack. However, she alone
fears that his plans will become disastrous. Jack assigns Lock, Shock
and Barrel, a trio of mischievous children, to abduct Santa and bring
him back to Halloween Town. Against Jack's wishes and largely for their
amusement, the trio deliver Santa to Oogie Boogie, a gambling-addict bogeyman who plots to play a game with Santa's life at stake.
Christmas Eve arrives and Sally attempts to stop Jack with fog, but he embarks into the sky on a coffin-like sleigh pulled by skeletal reindeer,
guided by the glowing nose of his ghost dog Zero. He begins to deliver
presents to children around the world, but the gifts (shrunken heads,
Christmas tree-eating snakes, etc.) only terrify the recipients. Jack is
believed to be an imposter attempting to imitate Santa, and the
military goes on alert to blast him out of the sky. The sleigh is shot
down and he is presumed dead by Halloween Town's citizens, but in fact
he has survived the crash, landing in a cemetery. Although he is
depressed by the failure of his plan, he quickly regains his old spirit,
having come up with new ideas for next Halloween. He then rushes back
home to rescue Santa and put things right.
Meanwhile, Sally attempts to free Santa, but is captured by Oogie.
Jack slips into the lair and frees them, then confronts Oogie and
unravels his outer covering to spill out all the bugs that live inside
him. With Oogie gone, Santa reprimands Jack before setting off to
deliver the right presents to the world's children. He makes snow
fall over Halloween Town to show that there are no hard feelings
between himself and Jack; the townspeople are confused by the snow at
first, but soon begin to play happily in it. Jack fallows Sally out into
the graveyard after seeing the Doctor with his new creation. Jack then
sees that he and Sally are meant to be and he reveals that he is highly
attracted to Sally just as she is to him. They then embrace their new
shared feelings for each other and future by kissing under a full moon
on top of the curly hill in the cemtery while Zero watches from a far.
Glenn Shadix as Mayor of Halloween Town: An enthusiastic leader who conducts town meetings.
His wild mood swings from happy to distraught causes his head to spin
between a "happy" and "sad" face. Burton had also previously worked with
Shadix on Beetlejuice.
Ken Page as Oogie Boogie: An un-respected bogeyman in Halloween Town who has a passion for gambling.
Ed Ivory as Santa Claus: Responsible for the annual celebration of Christmas by delivering presents to children around the world.
Paul Reubens, O'Hara, and Elfman provide the voices of Lock, Shock, and Barrel. Reubens previously worked with Burton in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985). Elfman also supplied the voice for the "Clown with the Tear-Away Face". The cast also features comedian Greg Proops of Whose Line is it Anyway? fame voicing various characters.
Burton wrote a three-page poem titled The Nightmare Before Christmas when he was a Disney animator in the early-1980s. Burton took inspiration from television specials of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.[3] With the success of Vincent in 1982, Disney started to consider The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short subject or 30-minute holiday television special. Rick Heinrichs and Burton created concept art and storyboards, with Heinrichs also sculpting character models.[4]
"Back then, I would have done anything to get the project off ground",
Burton explained. "There was a lot of talk of either a short film, like Vincent or a TV special, but it went nowhere. I also wanted to have Vincent Price as narrator." Burton showed Henry Selick, who was also a Disney animator in the early-1980s, the material he and Heinrichs developed.[5]
Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project. In 1990, Burton found out that Disney still owned the film rights, and the two committed to produce a full-length film with Selick as director.[5] Disney was looking forward to Nightmare "to show capabilities of technical and storytelling achievements that were present in Who Framed Roger Rabbit."[6]Nightmare marked Burton's third film in a row to have a Christmas setting. Burton could not direct because of his commitment to Batman Returns and he did not want to be involved with "the painstakingly slow process of stop-motion".[5] To adapt his poem into a screenplay, Burton approached Michael McDowell, his collaborator on Beetlejuice. McDowell and Burton experienced creative differences, which convinced Burton to make the film as a musical with lyrics and compositions by frequent collaborator Danny Elfman. Elfman and Burton created a rough storyline and two-thirds of the film's songs,[1] while Selick and his team of animators began production in July 1991 in San Francisco, California[5] with a crew of 200 workers.[7]Joe Ranft worked as a storyboard artist, while Paul Berry was hired as an animation supervisor.[2]
Elfman found writing Nightmare's 10 songs as "one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. I had a lot in common with Jack Skellington."[4]Caroline Thompson still had yet to be hired to write the screenplay.[1]
With Thompson's screenplay, Selick stated, "there are very few lines of
dialogue that are Caroline's. She became busy on other films and we
were constantly rewriting, reconfiguring and developing the film
visually."[8] The work of Ray Harryhausen, Ladislas Starevich, Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Jan Lenica, Francis Bacon and Wassily Kandinsky influenced the filmmakers. Selick described the production design as akin to a pop-up book.[4][8] In addition, Selick stated, "When we reach Halloween Town, it's entirely German Expressionism. When Jack enters Christmas Town, it's an outrageous Dr. Seuss-esque
setpiece. Finally, when Jack is delivering presents in the "Real
World", everything is plain, simple, and perfectly aligned."[9]
On the direction of the film, Selick reflected, "It's as though he
[Burton] laid the egg, and I sat on it and hatched it. He wasn't
involved in a hands-on way, but his hand is in it. It was my job to make
it look like "a Tim Burton film", which is not so different from my own
films."[8]
When asked on Burton's involvement, Selick claimed, "I don't want to
take away from Tim, but he was not in San Francisco when we made it. He
came up five times over two years, and spent no more than eight or ten
days in total."[8]Walt Disney Animation Studios contributed with some use of second-layering traditional animation.[5] Burton found production somewhat difficult because he was directing Batman Returns and in pre-production of Ed Wood.[1]
The filmmakers constructed 227 puppets to represent the characters in
the movie, with Jack Skellington having "around four hundred heads",
allowing the expression of every possible emotion.[10]
Sally's mouth movements "were animated through the replacement method.
During the animation process, [...] only Sally's face 'mask' was removed
in order to preserve the order of her long, red hair. Sally had ten
types of faces, each made with a series of eleven expressions (e.g. eyes
open and closed, and various facial poses) and synchronised mouth
movements."[11]
The owners of the franchise have undertaken an extensive marketing
campaign of these characters across many media. In addition to the Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland featuring the film's characters,"[12] Jack Skellington, Sally, Pajama Jack, and the mayor have been made into Bendies figures,[13] while Jack and Sally even appear in fine art.[14] Moreover, Sally has been made into an action figure and a Halloween costume.[15] Jack is also the titular character in the short story "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack's story."[16]
Oddly enough, Jim Edwards actually contends that "Tim Burton's animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas is really a movie about the marketing business. The movie's lead character, Jack Skellington, the chief marketing officer
(CMO) for a successful company decides that his success is boring and
he wants the company to have a different business plan. Some have
wondered which real-life company failure the movie is based on: Sergio Zyman's New Coke or Merck's launch and subsequent withdrawal of Vioxx."[17]
Walt Disney Pictures decided to release the film under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought Nightmare
would be "too dark and scary for kids". Selick remembered, "Their
biggest fear, and why it was kind of a stepchild project, [was] they
were afraid of their core audience hating the film and not coming. It
wasn't too dark, too scary. Kids love to get scared. In fact, I don't
think it's too scary at all. Even little, little kids, as young as
three, a lot of them love that film and respond well to it."[2] To help market the film "it was released as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas," Burton explained. "But it turned more into more of a brand-name thing, it turned into something else, which I'm not quite sure about."[1] The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 9.[19]
The film has gone on to receive critical acclaim. Based on 69 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of the critics enjoyed The Nightmare Before Christmas with the consensus of "a stunningly original and visually delightful work of stop-motion animation."[20] With 15 reviewers in the "Top Critics" category, the film has a 100% approval rating.[21] By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 77/100, based on 16 reviews.[22]Roger Ebert (who gave negative reviews to Burton's previous films Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns) gave a highly positive review for Nightmare. Ebert believed the film's visual effects were as revolutionary as Star Wars, taking into account that Nightmare was "filled with imagination that carries us into a new world".[23]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone
called it a restoration of "originality and daring to the Halloween
genre. This dazzling mix of fun and fright also explodes the notion that
animation is kid stuff. ... It's 74 minutes of timeless movie magic."[24]James Berardinelli stated "The Nightmare Before Christmas
has something to offer just about everyone. For the kids, it's a
fantasy celebrating two holidays. For the adults, it's an opportunity to
experience some light entertainment while marveling at how adept
Hollywood has become at these techniques. There are songs, laughs, and a
little romance. In short, The Nightmare Before Christmas does what it intends to: entertain."[25]Desson Thomson of The Washington Post enjoyed stylistic features in common with Oscar Wilde, German Expressionism, the Brothers Grimm and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.[26]
Michael A. Morrison discusses the influence of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas on the film, writing that Jack parallels the Grinch and Zero parallels Max, the Grinch's dog.[27]Philip Nel
writes that the film "challenges the wisdom of adults through its
trickster characters" contrasting Jack as a "good trickster" with Oogie
Boogie, whom he also compares with Dr. Seuss's Dr. Terwilliker, as a bad trickster.[28]
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic see the characters as presented in a
more negative light and criticize the film's characters as having
racial constructs, with the protagonists using "whitespeak" and the
antagonist, Oogie Boogie, using "blackspeak."[29]Entertainment Weekly
reports that fan reception of these characters borders on obsession,
profiling "Laurie and Myk Rudnick a couple who are extremely interested
in the motion picture The Nightmare Before Christmas. Their
degree of obsession with that film is so great that...they named their
son after the real-life person that a character in the film is based
on."[30] This enthusiasm for the characters has spread beyond North America to Japan."[31]
Yvonne Tasker notes "the complex characterization seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas,"[32] Most recently, the film ranked #1 on Rotten Tomatoes Top 25 Best Christmas Movies.[33]
Danny Elfman was worried the characterization of Oogie Boogie would be considered racist by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[34] Elfman's predictions came true; however, director Henry Selick stated the character was inspired by the Betty Boop cartoon The Old Man of the Mountain. "Cab Calloway would dance his inimitable jazz dance and sing "Minnie the Moocher" or "Old Man of the Mountain", and they would rotoscope
him, trace him, turn him into a cartoon character, often transforming
him into an animal, like a walrus," Selick continued. "I think those are
some of the most inventive moments in cartoon history, in no way
racist, even though he was sometimes a villain. We went with Ken Page, who is a black singer, and he had no problem with it".[8]
Around the release of the film, Touchstone president David Hoberman quoted, "I hope Nightmare
goes out and makes a fortune. If it does, great. If it doesn't, that
doesn't negate the validity of the process. The budget was less than any
Disney blockbuster so it doesn't have to earn Aladdin-sized grosses to satisfy us."[4]Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas was given a limited release
on October 15, 1993, before being wide released on October 29. The film
earned $50 million in the United States on its first theatrical run.
On October 20, 2006, Disney reissuedNightmare (no longer under Touchstone Pictures) with conversion to Disney Digital 3-D. Industrial Light & Magic assisted in the process.[2] It made a further $8.7 million in box office gross.[35] Subsequently, the 3-D version of Nightmare has been re-released annually in October.[36]
The 2007 and 2008 reissues earned a $14.5 million and $1.1 million,
respectively, increasing the film's total box office gross to $74.7
million.[36] The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California showed the film in 4-D format from October 21 - October 31, 2010.[37] The reissues have led to a reemergence of 3-D films and advances in Real D Cinema.[38][39]
In 2001, Walt Disney Pictures began to consider producing a sequel, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation.[48] Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of [Nightmare] not to do sequels or things of that kind", Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving
world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a
purity to it and the people that like it", Burton said. "Because it's a
mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity
of it."[39] The 2005 video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge did continue the story of the film, with Capcom's crew of developers going after Tim Burton for advice,[49] and having the collaboration of the film's art director, Deane Taylor.[50] In 2009, Selick said he would do a film sequel if he and Burton could create a good story for it.[51]
^ Michael A. Morrison, Trajectories of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Fourteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997), 154.
^ Philip Nel, Dr. Seuss: American Icon (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004), 95.
^ Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror (Temple University Press, 1997), 281.
^ "OBSESSIVE FANS OF THE WEEK!" in Entertainment Weekly 909 (12/1/2006): 6.
^ Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2002), 75.
