The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 stop motion animated film distributed at Touchstone Pictures and produced and owned by the Walt Disney Company.

## *The Nightmare Before Christmas*

### Written by

Tim Burton (Story and characters)
 Michael McDowell (adaptation)
 Caroline Thompson (Screenplay)

### Produced by

 Tim Burton
  Denise Denovi

## History and Development

Back when he was an animator at Disney, Tim Burton was inspired by the juxtaposition of Halloween decorations at a store being replaced by Christmas decorations and began working on a poem he entitled "The Nightmare Before Christmas". He was influenced not just by the classic poem: A visit from Saint Nicholas, but also the holiday specials Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He

, Tim went back to Disney and pitched his idea of making this story into a film.

There were over 100 puppet makers, set builders, and animators who began their work in 1991. It took three years to animate the entire film, with 24 pictures being taken to make a single second of film. There were 19 sound stages filled with the film's 230 sets and hundreds of individual character puppets

## Plot

The first shot shows a circle of seven trees each with a door in the shape of a holiday icon, an Easter egg door, a shamrock door, a turkey door, ect. As we cycle through each of them, the narrator asks if you've ever wondered where holidays come from. The camera stops at a Jack o' Lantern door which opens and shows you the spooky world of Halloween Town where its citizens are out and about scaring others and celebrating this night of bone chilling fun. The scariest of them all is Jack Skellington, The Pumpkin King. After another successful Halloween, the citizens crowd around their king and overwhelm him with compliments as a young ragdoll named Sally watches in awe from a safe distance. The Town's Mayor suddenly announces the annual awards for the night, letting an exhausted Jack go.

Sally loses her arm in an effort to escape her abusive creator, Dr Finkelstein who tries to bring her back to the laboratory and runs off to the graveyard to tend to her armless stump. Soon, Jack enters, causing Sally to hide behind a tombstone. Jack summons his ghost dog, Zero and expresses how the many years as the top spirit of Halloween have and how he feels like no one understands his yearning for something new. As he and Zero leave for a walk in the woods, Sally emerges and says softly "Jack, I know how you feel." She picks some spices to use for future use, returns to Dr Finkelstein's home and places the herbs in a jar labeled "deadly nightshade". The Doctor finds that his object of infatuation had returned and reattaches her arm as they discus Sally's many escapes.

The next morning, Jack and Zero find themselves in a mysterious forest and discover seven strange doors. One door in particular that catches his eye is a door in the shape of an evergreen tree decorated in colorful balls and a star on the top. He opens the door and is sucked into a colorful world called Christmas Town. Jack is exhilarated by this discovery and takes many things from this town back to Halloween Town. There, he commands the Mayor to call a town meeting right away. Meanwhile, Sally cleverly coaxes the Doctor into drinking one of her deadly nightshade concoctions and slips away to attend the meeting where Jack introduces his fellow monsters to this strange thing called Christmas. Everyone loves it, but Jack isn't satisfied; He wanted to know just what Christmas meant. Later that night, Jack is in bed, closely studying the numerous Christmas books he has collected. The next morning, he borrows some equipment from Finkelstein and experiments on various Christmas items, spending an unusually long time in his tower. That night, Sally escapes yet again to give Jack a gift. She leaves before he can thank her and begins picking the petals of a wildflower which erupts into a vision of a Christmas tree that gets engulfed in flames. Sally realises in horror that Jack's obsession with Christmas will end in disaster.

The next morning, Jack continues to ponder Christmas until he has an idea: why can't someone other than this "Sandy Claws" have Christmas all the time? Why can't Jack himself make an effort to improve it? He announces this idea to the town and gives each citizen a job; Dr Finkelstein gets to create skeleton reindeer, Sally has to make Jack's suit, and a trio of trick or treating pranksters named Lock, Shock, and Barrel are assigned to kidnap Santa and keep him safe until Christmas is over. This trio secretly plans to throw Santa into the underground lair of their exiled man eating master, Oogie Boogie. After accidentally capturing the Easter Bunny, the Boogie Boys try again and come back with the confused Christmas leader. Christmas is nearing as Sally grows more and more uneasy and scared for Jack, who won't take the time to listen to her warnings. Jack in his Santa costume which is missing something crucial he can't quite put his finger on. When Santa is brought to town, Jack kindly tells the not-so-jolly fat man that this year, he can take a nice vacation while someone else does the work. Jack then notices Santa's hat and takes it, completing his disguise. Lock, Shock, and Barrel then take Santa to Oogie Boogie's lair where the walking burlap sack filled with bugs gleefully picks on Santa through insults and casino themed torture devices.

On Christmas Eve, Jack boards his coffin-sleigh and is ready to take off with a sack of macabre toys and gifts when a mass of fog suddenly kicks up; In a last ditch effort to stop Jack, Sally has poured fog juice into the Town's fountain to keep the reindeer from seeing anything. Unfortunately, Zero's tiny jack o' lantern nose glows brightly and Jack realizes that this can help the reindeer see through the fog and places his dog at the front.The sleigh takes off away from the cheering crowd and a heartbroken Sally. In the mainland, Jack delivers the strange and haunted items to terrifies families who overwhelm the police with reports and ultimately causes the army to shoot the imposter down. Meanwhile, Sally learns of Jack's plight and heads to Oogie's dungeon in an attempt to rescue the real Santa Clause only to get caught in the act and set alongside Santa as ingredients to a batch of Oogie's snake and spider stew.

In a graveyard, a battered Jack lays in despair and realizes the mistake he has made. Though he doesn't have full regret, stating he gave it his best and felt on top of the world doing it, he is ready to get back to being the Pumpkin King and returns to Halloween Town to save Santa. He suspects him to be at the Boogie Boy's treehouse, but is angered to hear Santa and Sally's cries bellow in the lair of Jack's nemesis. He sneaks down to free his friends and defeats the Boogie Man by unraveling him and releasing all his bugs into the stew. Jack apologizes to Santa who snatches back his hat and angrily tells the skeleton that he should have listened more to Sally and thought twice about taking Christmas over. He leaves to fix the trouble Jack had caused. Jack then asks Sally how she got down here and she shyly tries to look for what to say. Jack realizes Sally's devotion and feelings for him before they are rescued by the Mayor and the Boogie Boys. The town is overjoyed to see their hero return in one piece and Santa arrives one last time, bringing a snowfall. The citizens happily spend Christmas in the snow and Jack notices that Dr Finkelstein has a new creation and that Sally has run off toward the graveyard. There, Sally goes to the top of Spiral Hill and picks petals off a wildflower before Jack asks if he may join her. The two are happy to know that they belong with one another embrace as Zero flies off into the sky.

## Trivia

* Tim Burton's 1st Disney movie. His others were Alice in Wonderland, Frankenweenie, and Dumbo.
* It is stated in "The Making of..." book that the most difficult shot to film in the entire movie is the shot in which Jack is reaching for the doorknob to Christmasland. Viewers can see the perfect surround reflection of the forest around Jack in the background.
* Danny 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."
* Patrick Stewart did the original introduction for the movie, which can be heard on the film's soundtrack.
* There are three shots in the entire film that were filmed at normal speed (24fps), one is the opening overhead shot of the trees in the forest, the fog coming out of the fountain and the other is the bugs falling into the molten pit in Oogie Boogie's lair.
* In a test shot of the end where the vampires play hockey on the frozen lake, they originally used a head that resembled the head of the film's creator and producer Tim Burton. However, one of the producers told director Henry Selick that Burton probably wouldn't like that, so it was changed at the last moment and re-shot with a jack o' lantern instead of a head. Selick later said that he believed that Burton would have liked the idea, and regretted not asking the man himself.
* Tim Burton and Danny Elfman experienced "creative differences" during filming. For this reason, Burton chose Howard Shore to write the film score of Ed Wood (1994).
* Some of the presents Jack delivers to the kids are nods to Tim Burton films. The snake looks like a Sandworm from Beetlejuice, and the shrunken head is from the afterlife waiting room in the same film. The Vampire Teddy Bear and Duck are both featured in Batman Returns - the Bear as the mascot for Shreck's department store, the duck resembling a vehicle driven by the Penguin.
* At one point, Tim Burton considered making this a TV special rather than a feature film.

## External links and References

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107688/

http://www.digitalmediafx.com/Features/henryselick.html