Today the new film from Disney: “Bridge to Terabithia” opens in wide release. My review for the film is coming a little later tonight, although for now I’ll say that I enjoyed the fiim very much, and it’s a movie that Disney should be proud of. However, their actions are NOT something they should be proud of.
Look, we all know that it’s the role of the marketing department to make a movie look as good and appeal to as many people as possible. That’s their job… we all understand that… so we don’t get upset at marketing for making a bad movie look good. That’s their job.
BUT… to me, it’s an entirely different story when a studio purposefully outright lies and deceives the movie going public in order to TRICK them into going to see their film. That is what Disney has done with the Bridge to Terabithia marketing. Through their misleading trailers and commercials, Disney has been touting this film as some sort of FANTASY/ADVENTURE film in the same vein as Narnia. BUT IT’S ALL A TOTAL LIE.
Bridge to Terabithia is neither a fantasy nor an adventure film. On it’s most basic level it’s a story about two young friends and the friendship between them. Yes, together they have an imaginary “world” they escape to once in a while… but my friends… that imaginary world really has nothing to do with the plot of the film overall, and very little of the movie takes place there. This is a human story in the real world… nothing more.
I’m torn, on the one hand I want to encourage people to see this movie, because it really is quite good and really touching. But on the other hand i want to tell people to punish Disney for their tactics and stay away from this film. I’m just grumpy. :P Decide for yourselves.
Disney=liars Too bad Disney, you should have just had faith in this nice little film.
As a side note, for the really observant among you, you’ll know I had an article like this one up about 2 weeks ago… I was asked to take it down as a courtesy until closer to the release date. So here it is again.
