Main question: Did Hook die?
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norman891 — 14 years ago(January 10, 2012 11:03 PM)
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No, not a flop but compared to other Spielberg films plus figuring off-setting the HUGE budget, it didn't really meet block-buster status either. I have just about every magazine article, reviews, etc I could get hold of back then (including begging the theater mgr for the marquise poster), and it wasn't really critically well received. Now, as I have pointed out, what film critics find out-standing has been known to bore me to death & I disagreed with their assessment. But I think the bad reviews played a part in there being no sequel, plus neither Hoffman nor Williams were too keen on reprising their respective roles.
<That is EXACTLY the point. A taxidermied crocodile skin stretched over a frame CANNOT come back to life (it growled, it moved, it belched - WTF?). Belching implies to the viewer that is has had a good meal except that's impossible because it's dead, and dead is dead, even in Neverland or Rufio could just pop back to life, right? The damned thing growled, broke loose from its super-structure, and its DEAD makes NO sense. That is pushing beyond the "plausible impossible" (term developed by Disney - i.e., if Donald Duck runs off the edge of a cliff and realizing it, he turns around and runs fast enough, albeit through thin air, he can make it back to safety and the viewer "believes" it possible because its executed in a plausible manner.) But expecting me to buy a hollow shell coming back to life and swallowing/eating Hook is waaaaay beyond plausible.
The whole problem is that towards the end of the script, Spielberg went of on some tangent about the joys of fatherhood (Peter's happy thought) and kept beating us over the head with it, plus he had multiple endings where he "should" have stopped and sent Peter & family back to the "real" world, most notably after the dewigging scene (shameful).
<Well, that's you're opinion which you are entitled to. I for one don't like to have a director/film piss down my back & tell me its rain, so to speak. This is one of the most important questions the film left unanswered - Did Hook die or didn't he? , and it DOES need an answer, definitively, not some cop-out gimmicky reanimating mount of croc skin.
"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." Jethro Tull -
Ash-lee — 14 years ago(January 28, 2012 08:53 PM)
Let's keep it in perspective people - this is a story that is largely popular because of it's myth and magic. It revolves around a boy who can fly with the help of fairy dust and who continually faces off against a grown man and always comes out the victor. He also has the help of other boys and mermaids and he will never age and is forever immortal. This story in particular shows that the women/girls who go to Neverland always remember it and the adventures there but the men/boys who go there will forget in a matter of days (or in the case of Peter: minutes).
And we're thinking it's completely outside the realm of possibility that the croc could come back and kill Hook?
A little less literal is needed when trying to figure out the ifs of the story. -
norman891 — 14 years ago(January 29, 2012 03:42 PM)
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Only because Pan cheats by the very act of flying. As long as Peter flies, there is no way he & Hook can have a "fair" fight, and no way for Hook to win, short of shooting him down which would have been "bad form". Literary Hook was obssessed with showing good form, which is why he didn't shoot Peter out of the sky (& ain't no one fast enough to evade a hunk of lead moving at thousands of feet per second).
<Not necessarily you are assuming that Peter and Jack forgot their adventures in Neverland; never assume. Also, Tootles was one of the original lost boys & HE didn't forget about Neverland, so your theory is as full of holes as a sieve. This story got lost on some diatribe about the joys of parenthood/fatherhood and became less about Hook, which is what it was supposed to be about (that was the title & subject of the film, after all).
<Well, using your logic, then Rufio should be able to come back to life also, right? Except that Hook killed him (albeit in self-defense), so Rufio is dead, permanently. So if dead is really dead for Rufio, then it would also apply to every other living thing in Neverland, which would have, at one time, included said crocodile.
It's a violation of a film principle known as the "plausible impossible". A perfect example of this is that we believe that with happy thoughts & a sprinkling of fairy dust, children and Peter Pan can fly. Now, if Hook runs Rufio through with his sword thereby killing Rufio, Rufio is dead for all eternity. That then also applies to the crocodile, which was not only KILLED but STUFFED ( i.e. - taxidermy) mounted like a tanned bear skin over a frame, there is no skeletal or muscular remains, only a stretched hide.
Therefore the crocodile would have been skinned out, the hide tanned, and stretched over whatever wooden frame the pirates could build for it, to include tying that stupid clock in its jaws. But the crocodile was DEAD permanently (nothing left in it to come back to life), for all eternity, just like Rufio, so the notion of it coming back to life is ludicrous, implausible, and impossible end of story.
<Again, not so. Dead is dead, even in Neverland, and death is a permanent state, so reanimating a taxidermied crocodile hide is pushing the plausible impossible beyond plausible, let alone possible.
"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." Jethro Tull -
Ash-lee — 14 years ago(January 29, 2012 07:04 PM)
Not necessarily you are assuming that Peter and Jack forgot their adventures in Neverland; never assume. Also, Tootles was one of the original lost boys & HE didn't forget about Neverland, so your theory is as full of holes as a sieve. This story got lost on some diatribe about the joys of parenthood/fatherhood and became less about Hook, which is what it was supposed to be about (that was the title & subject of the film, after all).
Peter did forget his time in Neverland, which is why when he returns to Neverland, the Lost Boys and Tink keep trying to make him remember everything. Jack forgot his time on earth because he didn't recognize his own father after a few days. I'm not saying they forgot at the end of the movie, but it is clear that the males have a much harder time remembering the alternate universe than the females.
And case in point, you're
assuming
that Tootles always remembered - we don't know that. We know he did remember when he wakes up from a dream saying, "Hook," but we have no idea if he remembered anything before that or if a dream triggered it (or the dog barking, which started to sound like "Hook" the more it barked). Tootles may or may not have remembered everything - the audience is never told. We know he remembers at the end when he gets his marbles back and sees the fairy dust, but before that we only have the ramblings of a senile old man. This is also a man who has been in Wendy's care for decades and Wendy clearly remembers, so perhaps they talk about Neverland and the memories never faded. We don't know.
Well, using your logic, then Rufio should be able to come back to life also, right? Except that Hook killed him (albeit in self-defense), so Rufio is dead, permanently. So if dead is really dead for Rufio, then it would also apply to every other living thing in Neverland, which would have, at one time, included said crocodile.
Hook may be dead or he may not be - I would be more inclined to think he was alive because they would want to leave the option of a sequel open. It's open-ended for a reason. Maybe he did die - it's open to interpretation and that is my interpretation, but I see nothing wrong with others believing he died. I've always thought he was still alive - that the statue fell and he climbed inside the belly of the beast to get away from the one person he always considered a threat. In fact, I think Spielberg led us to believe he survived for a reason because: "What would the world be, without Captain Hook?"
Rufio was stabbed through the torso with a sword - very definitely dead.
Again, not so. Dead is dead, even in Neverland, and death is a permanent state, so reanimating a taxidermied crocodile hide is pushing the plausible impossible beyond plausible, let alone possible.
The croc was not reanimated - he never got up and started to walk away, he never closed his mouth after Hook disappeared, never chewed to indicate that Hook was being killed, never showed any indication other than some sound effects (which may have been the groaning of a huge taxidermied crocodile falling) - it simply fell and stayed where it landed. -
norman891 — 14 years ago(January 29, 2012 09:09 PM)
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Em, not quite. Actually the croc opens its mouth, dropping the clock (this occurs after Hook punches a hole in it when Tinker Bell intereferes with his killing of Peter),and its head tilts down to look at Hook. It then makes a growling sort of sound, the scaffolding around it breaks away, the croc falls forward and Hook is supposedly propelled inside by the concusive force. Then it belches. Now, that sounds like it has "come back to life", if only for a few minutes, and eaten Hook again; why else would there be a very loud 'frat-boy' belch? And that is definitely not plausible, let alone possible.
It was just another one of Spielberg's flubbed multiple endings to the "final battle" between Peter & Hook. It was like he had several scenarios, didn't know which one to use, so he used them all turning the end into a "humiliate Hook before finishing him off" fest, & as I've always like Hook Better than Peter it pissed me off.
Think about this - we will buy vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc in movies (or books) so long as they are presented in a believable way - Stephen King is a master at this. So why spoil the 'illusion' with a dead crocodile (or its ghost) coming back to life to finish off Hook. It doesn't make sense its a big flashing neon "screw up" sign in the middle of a not so bad movie (which I have watched more than a few times because aside from flubs like that, its a pretty good sequel).
"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." Jethro Tull -
The_Kingpun — 14 years ago(April 02, 2012 01:14 PM)
I like the idea that Hook didn't quite kill the croc and there was still enough life in it to eat him. There's no reason to think the croc was hollowed out and had its skin stretched over a frame because if people don't age in Neverland, then it's entirely possible that the croc wouldn't decompose. Maybe its dead body was just propped up and has dried out over the years. This is fantasy we're dealing with after all.
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MCAN87 — 14 years ago(February 08, 2012 11:41 AM)
I always thought it had something to do with the magic of neverland. After Hook's hook went into the croc it came back to life and moved didn't it? The croc's spirit inhabited the croc-clock and came back for revenge, eating Hook.
-'What do you look for in another human being?'
-'Stone Cold Steve Austin' -
norman891 — 14 years ago(February 08, 2012 05:52 PM)
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Yes, which is really hard to buy, considering that there was nothing of the crocodile left excepts its taxidermied hide.
<There again, what is left for any spirit to inhabit. The croc tower was just a hid stretched over a frame nothing for a spirit to inhabit. It still comes off like a cop-out way for Spielberg to finish off Hook as he'd made a mess of things with his multiple endings, and Hook deserved better than that. It's just not a plausible scenario.
"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." Jethro Tull -
norman891 — 14 years ago(February 12, 2012 08:13 PM)
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Agree with you completely. I also didn't like the way Hook was humiliated (the de-wigging) and ganged up on at the end (lost boys with clocks). It makes it look like Peter can't win without outside help(?). I thought the movie should have focused more on Hook's character than Peter finding his happy thought again it was, after all, titled "Hook".
"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass." Jethro Tull -
CaptCrochet — 14 years ago(February 14, 2012 05:42 AM)
It makes it look like Peter can't win without outside help(?).
When Peter provokes Captain Hook, pirates jump to attack Peter.
Peter tries to fly and Captain Hook use a fish net to bring Peter on the deck.
Some promotionnal illustrations show Peter with a chain ball, maybe a deleted scene or an alternative of the fish net.
So Captain Hook can't win without outside help too.
I also didn't like the way Hook was humiliated (the de-wigging) and ganged up on at the end (lost boys with clocks).
All pirates follow Hook by fear and terror. Lost boys follow Peter by friendship.
In the final, Captain Hook is alone. All pirates left the pirate town or they are captured. Even Smee left the Jolly Roger with a part of the treasure of Hook (an other deleted scene).
Hook humiliated Peter too. When Smee broke the Peter's shirt to see the scar and when he forced him to climb the mast. For me this is a humiliation too.
Captain Hook is an old man. The "de wigging" is a surprise for lost boys and Peter.
They see how he is older than it seems. In the comic book, he broke his hook in the fight.
He lost all his magnificence of his first scene, he lost the fight.
I didn't like Hook's death also I hated Hook's final line
Like I said previously, Captain Hook don't die. Just a deleted scene
A lot of answers of your questions are in deleted scenes. You need to read the Terry Brook's book and the comic book. The script too but it It is less easy to find.
Hook is considered like one of the worst movie of Spielberg (not really but the press love to say that (and all close minded people) so no chance to see an extented version or more extras about the movie.