Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story
Encyclopedia
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story is a 2001 American television miniseries
. It was directed by Brian Henson
and was a co-production of CBS
and Jim Henson Television. It is an alternative version of the classic English
fairy tale
Jack and the Beanstalk
. The story was considerably reworked to reflect what Henson believed to be a more ethical, humanist view. The cast includes Matthew Modine
(as the modern day descendent of Jack), Mia Sara (as a mysterious woman attempting to bring him to justice for the murder of a giant), Jon Voight
, and Vanessa Redgrave
. Richard Attenborough
, Darryl Hannah, and a young James Corden
play giants. Among the other giants in the film are beings from the mythology of various cultures, including Hebrew
, Buddhist
, and Nordic
.
) convinces him to turn down a project involving alternative food supplies of genetically-engineered plants to feed the third world, and also to build a casino complex in a small town. The locals object. During construction, the workers discover the skeleton of a giant. A strange young woman called Ondine then appears and accuses Jack of being a murderer before vanishing in a flash of light. That night a man sneaks into his house and takes him to see an old woman- who Jack recognises as a great-aunt who he believed was dead- who tells him the traditional version of the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" in which the giant is portrayed as a selfish gluttonous brute who cared for nothing or anyone, subsequently giving him the last magic bean (The original Jack was given five beans but only four grew into the beanstalk, the fifth one landing on rock instead of earth), suggesting that the tale that she has told him may not be the truth, and that the answers he seeks about recent events may be found at the other end of the beanstalk.
Jack plants the bean in the forest near the location where the giant was discovered, and the bean grows into a huge beanstalk leading Jack into the world of the giants, a magical world where a single day passes for every year that passes on the ground below. Jack is left stranded in the giant world after the beanstalk dissolves (apparently cut down by someone back on Earth) and discovers that the giant was an extremely benevolent person; kind, honest, and a loving friend and father who had also adopted Ondine and raised her as his own daughter, with Jack betraying his trust then stealing the Singing Harp and the Golden Goose, and Jack's mother killing the giant. Jack's descendents grew rich, at the "truly horrible" cost of the giant's world being subjected to the fact that "no crops will grow; we will never see spring again" as the giant world slowly dies over time. Only with the death of the Robinson family would the magic be restored, hence the Robinson family curse. Despite her doubts about Jack after what happened when she fell for his ancestor- due to the different flow of time between the worlds only around one year has passed in the Land of the Giants as opposed to centuries here-, Ondine recognises that Jack is not the man his ancestor was, and transports him back to Earth to help her find the Harp of Harmony and the Goose of Prosperity. During their search, Jack learns that his 'great-aunt' is actually the mother of the first Jack, and the one who actually struck the blow that killed the giant; while her children were cursed to die young, she was cursed to live forever and witness their punishment. Jack's manager is also revealed to have known the truth all along and was entrusted to tell Jack when he came of age, but instead encouraged Jack to care about nothing but his work and never marry so when he died the manager would inheirit the company (he also admits to having cut down the beanstalk and left Jack stranded in the giant world). He intends to shoot Jack and Ondine, but some of the giants suddenly intervene and scare him away (at the end of the story a newspaper headline reveals he is still on the run, widely believed to be crazy due his belief he is being hunted by giants).
With the return of the Goose and Harp, the Giants' world is restored, the Giants thank Jack for undoing his ancestors' mistakes. Ondine then spends one of their weeks (seven years in our world) with Jack.
, who had previously collaborated with Henson on Muppet Treasure Island
. Henson later declared that during that time he came to hate the original story. “It’s a fairy tale that became part of British culture during a time when empire building and conquering other cultures was heroic”, he said. “No matter how bad you say the giant was and all of that, the morality really stinks.”
Ultimately, the story ended up taking place in the present time, with Jack Robinson, the head of a large company journeying to the land of the giants to right the wrongs of his family’s past. “Again, it returns thematically to how we all should be sharing in the responsibility to bring balance to the Force..." states Henson.
These changes resulted in a darker story. “It’s not particularly a piece that kids should watch on their own, but it’s a great piece for adults to watch with their children” said Henson on that kayuan..
was given the task of branching out into computer animation, compositing and matte painting, as well as creating animatronic characters. "It made sense to use The Creature Shop not only from a financial perspective but also for the benefits of having everyone working under one roof. The same group that conceived the characters and visual effects were also responsible for their creation, resulting in a unified, consistent look," said Henson. With 400 plus effects shots, the film includes many fantasy elements, but Henson described it as having more human characters and more reality than many of his other fantasy and science-fiction projects, which he said was refreshing.
In order to create the giant beanstalk, which, in the film, shoots up out of the forest floor and into the sky, there was an extensive use of CGI, However, a practical, 20 feet (6.1 m) section was built for actor Matthew Modine to climb.
The Creature Shop working with Visual Effects Supervisor Julian Parry also created an entirely computer-generated character. Harmonia is a human-like, animated, talking statue that is part of the Golden Harp (one of the giant’s original treasures). Originally, Henson and his team considered using a live-action actress, because Henson wanted the character to be very life-like. However, the decision was made to instead try to achieve such an effect with computer animation. “… If we had used an actress, she wouldn’t have looked magical - she would have simply looked like a person with gold paint hugging a harp,” said Sean Feeney, Creature shop visual effects producer for the film.
Several animatronic characters were also created… a puppeteered goose and an animatronic head for the giant Cernos. All of the giants in the film are played by regular-sized actors and actresses composited into the film so that they appear to be much larger. Their movements were also slowed down.
“In each instance, we tried to use the most appropriate technique, whether it was through animatronics, puppetry, prosthetics, CGI, or hybrids,” said Feeney.
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
. It was directed by Brian Henson
Brian Henson
Brian Henson is an Academy Award-winning puppeteer, director, producer, and technician. The son of puppeteers Jane and Jim Henson, Brian was born in New York City, New York....
and was a co-production of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and Jim Henson Television. It is an alternative version of the classic English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
Jack and the Beanstalk
Jack and the Beanstalk
Jack and the Beanstalk is a folktale said by English historian Francis Palgrave to be an oral legend that arrived in England with the Vikings. The tale is closely associated with the tale of Jack the Giant-killer. It is known under a number of versions...
. The story was considerably reworked to reflect what Henson believed to be a more ethical, humanist view. The cast includes Matthew Modine
Matthew Modine
Matthew Avery Modine is an award-winning American actor. His film roles include Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, the title character in Alan Parker's Birdy, high school wrestler Louden Swain in Vision Quest, football star turned spy Alec McCall in Funky Monkey and the...
(as the modern day descendent of Jack), Mia Sara (as a mysterious woman attempting to bring him to justice for the murder of a giant), Jon Voight
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
, and Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave
Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
. Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
, Darryl Hannah, and a young James Corden
James Corden
James Kimberley Corden is an English actor, television writer, producer and presenter. He is co-creator and star of BBC comedy shows Gavin & Stacey and Horne & Corden, and acted in the 2009 film Lesbian Vampire Killers....
play giants. Among the other giants in the film are beings from the mythology of various cultures, including Hebrew
Hebrews
Hebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
, Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, and Nordic
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
.
Plot
Jack Robinson is a rich CEO of a large company. Throughout his family's past, no Robinson male has lived to be over 40, and Jack keeps having a dream about his father and an angry giant. He tries very hard to stay healthy with the help of his Albanian butler. The man who manages his business affairs (Jon VoightJon Voight
Jonathan Vincent "Jon" Voight is an American actor. He has received an Academy Award, out of four nominations, and three Golden Globe Awards, out of nine nominations. Voight is the father of actress Angelina Jolie....
) convinces him to turn down a project involving alternative food supplies of genetically-engineered plants to feed the third world, and also to build a casino complex in a small town. The locals object. During construction, the workers discover the skeleton of a giant. A strange young woman called Ondine then appears and accuses Jack of being a murderer before vanishing in a flash of light. That night a man sneaks into his house and takes him to see an old woman- who Jack recognises as a great-aunt who he believed was dead- who tells him the traditional version of the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" in which the giant is portrayed as a selfish gluttonous brute who cared for nothing or anyone, subsequently giving him the last magic bean (The original Jack was given five beans but only four grew into the beanstalk, the fifth one landing on rock instead of earth), suggesting that the tale that she has told him may not be the truth, and that the answers he seeks about recent events may be found at the other end of the beanstalk.
Jack plants the bean in the forest near the location where the giant was discovered, and the bean grows into a huge beanstalk leading Jack into the world of the giants, a magical world where a single day passes for every year that passes on the ground below. Jack is left stranded in the giant world after the beanstalk dissolves (apparently cut down by someone back on Earth) and discovers that the giant was an extremely benevolent person; kind, honest, and a loving friend and father who had also adopted Ondine and raised her as his own daughter, with Jack betraying his trust then stealing the Singing Harp and the Golden Goose, and Jack's mother killing the giant. Jack's descendents grew rich, at the "truly horrible" cost of the giant's world being subjected to the fact that "no crops will grow; we will never see spring again" as the giant world slowly dies over time. Only with the death of the Robinson family would the magic be restored, hence the Robinson family curse. Despite her doubts about Jack after what happened when she fell for his ancestor- due to the different flow of time between the worlds only around one year has passed in the Land of the Giants as opposed to centuries here-, Ondine recognises that Jack is not the man his ancestor was, and transports him back to Earth to help her find the Harp of Harmony and the Goose of Prosperity. During their search, Jack learns that his 'great-aunt' is actually the mother of the first Jack, and the one who actually struck the blow that killed the giant; while her children were cursed to die young, she was cursed to live forever and witness their punishment. Jack's manager is also revealed to have known the truth all along and was entrusted to tell Jack when he came of age, but instead encouraged Jack to care about nothing but his work and never marry so when he died the manager would inheirit the company (he also admits to having cut down the beanstalk and left Jack stranded in the giant world). He intends to shoot Jack and Ondine, but some of the giants suddenly intervene and scare him away (at the end of the story a newspaper headline reveals he is still on the run, widely believed to be crazy due his belief he is being hunted by giants).
With the return of the Goose and Harp, the Giants' world is restored, the Giants thank Jack for undoing his ancestors' mistakes. Ondine then spends one of their weeks (seven years in our world) with Jack.
Origin
When CBS executive Michael Wright originally proposed the idea of a Jack and the Beanstalk TV miniseries, Henson originally refused, but reconsidered when he was told he would be allowed to alter the original story. He then worked on the story with screenwriter James V. HartJames V. Hart
James V. "Jim" Hart is an American screenwriter and author.-Career:He wrote the 2005 children's novel Capt. Hook: The Adventures of a Notorious Youth, a prequel depicting J. M. Barrie's villain Captain Hook, the nemesis of Peter Pan, when Hook was a youngster...
, who had previously collaborated with Henson on Muppet Treasure Island
Muppet Treasure Island
Muppet Treasure Island is a 1996 American musical film based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. It is the fifth feature film to star The Muppets and was directed by Jim Henson's son Brian Henson....
. Henson later declared that during that time he came to hate the original story. “It’s a fairy tale that became part of British culture during a time when empire building and conquering other cultures was heroic”, he said. “No matter how bad you say the giant was and all of that, the morality really stinks.”
Ultimately, the story ended up taking place in the present time, with Jack Robinson, the head of a large company journeying to the land of the giants to right the wrongs of his family’s past. “Again, it returns thematically to how we all should be sharing in the responsibility to bring balance to the Force..." states Henson.
These changes resulted in a darker story. “It’s not particularly a piece that kids should watch on their own, but it’s a great piece for adults to watch with their children” said Henson on that kayuan..
Production
To create the special and visual effects in the film, Jim Henson's Creature ShopJim Henson's Creature Shop
Jim Henson's Creature Shop is a company founded in 1979 by puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, and Frank Oz.It was originally created as a result of the observation that the team that had been put together for The Dark Crystal was extremely hard to recreate for Labyrinth, since the...
was given the task of branching out into computer animation, compositing and matte painting, as well as creating animatronic characters. "It made sense to use The Creature Shop not only from a financial perspective but also for the benefits of having everyone working under one roof. The same group that conceived the characters and visual effects were also responsible for their creation, resulting in a unified, consistent look," said Henson. With 400 plus effects shots, the film includes many fantasy elements, but Henson described it as having more human characters and more reality than many of his other fantasy and science-fiction projects, which he said was refreshing.
In order to create the giant beanstalk, which, in the film, shoots up out of the forest floor and into the sky, there was an extensive use of CGI, However, a practical, 20 feet (6.1 m) section was built for actor Matthew Modine to climb.
The Creature Shop working with Visual Effects Supervisor Julian Parry also created an entirely computer-generated character. Harmonia is a human-like, animated, talking statue that is part of the Golden Harp (one of the giant’s original treasures). Originally, Henson and his team considered using a live-action actress, because Henson wanted the character to be very life-like. However, the decision was made to instead try to achieve such an effect with computer animation. “… If we had used an actress, she wouldn’t have looked magical - she would have simply looked like a person with gold paint hugging a harp,” said Sean Feeney, Creature shop visual effects producer for the film.
Several animatronic characters were also created… a puppeteered goose and an animatronic head for the giant Cernos. All of the giants in the film are played by regular-sized actors and actresses composited into the film so that they appear to be much larger. Their movements were also slowed down.
“In each instance, we tried to use the most appropriate technique, whether it was through animatronics, puppetry, prosthetics, CGI, or hybrids,” said Feeney.
Sources
- Joe Nazzaro, Back to the Beanstalk, Starlog Fantasy Worlds (magazine), February 2002, pages 56-59
- Karen Moltenbrey, A Twisted Tale: Artists use digital effects to give a modern-day slant to a classic fairy tale, Computer Graphics World (magazine), January 2002, Volume 25, Number 1, pages 24-27