“The Muppets Christmas carol” starts with a typical picture of a London back street at Christmas, snow on the rooftops, smoke coming from the top of chimneys. Also the audience are introduced to the characters by rolling credits as it goes closer into the street. There were two narrators .In the novel it was dickens using first person narrative, as in the film uses third person narrative using gonzo pretending to be Dickens.
The Muppets represent he working class. Michael Cain (Scrooge) and other human actors represent the middle class people. Michael Cain was used to play Scrooge because a human is larger than the Muppets so it gives the feeling that he has a powerful presence. In both the novel and film they say that he “is hard and as sharp as a flint.” This smile makes you feel he is more powerful than anyone else, and more mean than anyone else.
The language in both the film and the novel are very descriptive. The film uses many different smiles and metaphors that Dickens uses in the novel. At the begging of both we are told, “Old marley was as dead as a door nail.” This is used at the begging to emphasise the importance of marleys death. Gonzo describes Scrooge before we even meet him. He describes him as “a tight fisted hand at he grindstone,squeezing,wrenching,covertous old sinner”. In the film lots of figures of speech are used and was an excellent way of getting the audiences attention. The language is easier to understand in the film because the visual effects and the commentary accompany it from Gonzo throughout the film.
The use of music throughout the film was excellent. The start of the film when the credits were rolling the music had a typical Christmas feel. This is a typical feature of a Disney film. It was happy and joyful then a bit later there is the town singing about Scrooge describing him as a mean character. Song is used in the film to create the mood and feeling of characters or atmosphere. One song in particular, which catches the attention of the audience, is when Bell sings the ballad to the young Scrooge. This is shown well by Henson when you have the older Scrooge (Michel Cain) crying. Then you have the music with the ghost of Christmas yet to come. It is a slow haunting piece of music.
The use of close ups in the film were well used. The close ups were used to show the expressions and feeling on Scrooges face which Dickens describes in the novel.
The use of special effects was very impressive and well thought of. A very good example I can use is using the Muppets as the marley brothers. The reason for this is when they have chain wrapped around them it is more funny seeing them with chains on than a human actor, the use of a human actor wrapped in chains could alarm children.
My conclusion is that the film was very good. It was a lot more exciting than the book. This is due to the deception in the novel being shown as visual effects. The film is better and more effective to show children due to the language being easier to understand.
