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The nightmare before Christmas
Pumpkins instead of snow globes? Scary and unwanted gifts instead of your favorite and most wished ones? An unknown skeleton-like creature instead of Santa Claus? Welcome to Halloween Town! Where every day the most chilling and frightening events are celebrated, and most definitely the place that changed Christmas.
This story is a 1993 Disney stop-motion film directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton. Originally this film was planned to be a short film or a 30-minute television special, yet Disney and Tim Burton made an agreement and started to develop this project into a movie in the year 1990.
Now into the plot: This story takes place in Halloween Town, where all the town’s citizens have gathered around to celebrate their well-made assignment of scaring all the world. But Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king, has grown bored of this holiday and no longer sees the point in scaring people, so the night of the celebration Jack takes a long walk through the forest, where he finds doorways to other holidays. Intrigued by one with a bright green tree with shiny decorations, he opens the door and falls into a hole that leads him to Christmas Town.
Amazed by everything he sees, the shiny colors, the joyful songs, and the weird thing called snow, he realizes that he has become fascinated with Christmas! So he returns to his town to show everyone all about Christmas, the decorations, and the whole routine, but he worries that the citizens won’t fully grasp the concept of the holiday, so he decides to seclude himself in his lab and perform various experiments on Christmas decorations in an attempt to find a way to explain it to the citizens. After his experiments fail, he concludes that he can not only imitate Christmas but also improve it, so he announces to the town that they’ll take over the holiday.
Jack and the whole town begin to make presents, even creating skeletal flying reindeer, and even Jack got a knitted Santa outfit. As Christmas approaches, Jack tells some kids that go after the name the “Trick-or-treaters” to kidnap Santa Claus so his plan can work out, eventually, in Christmas eve Santa was kidnapped and Jack takes off around the world and begins to deliver his terrifying gifts, as a result, the whole world became alert about the Santa Claus impostor. While flying, Jack was attacked by cannons, destroying his sleigh, so the world presumes him dead and leaves him there. After waking in a graveyard, Jack realizes that his plans ruined Christmas, he starts thinking about this whole experience to finally embrace that he is the Pumpkin King, and he starts to be newly inspired by Halloween. He eventually returns to his town and releases Santa, late to be informed that Santa has come to town and replaced all the things Jack did in the entire world.
I believe this is a well-made iconic film that is entertaining to watch, especially in December when Christmas is afoot. However, how funny it is not the most important thing about the movie, because it also leaves us with an important message, which teaches people that it's fine to be yourself, be proud of what you do, embrace who you are, and never try to be somebody you aren’t. Now that you know this story, are you ready to have a spooky Christmas?
