Don’t Touch It!

I think every book-lover, or movie-lover, or any-type-of-creative-property-lover has an ideal. That one something that is so close to the core of who you are that you turn into a feral dog at the thought of anyone toying with it in even the most minor of ways. It might be a classic car, one version of a song, a specific work of fiction…

Mine is Peter Pan. Many people know some version of the story: maybe the Disney animated film, maybe the Mary Martin play. I’ve met few who have actually read the novel, and only one who has admitted to a deep and abiding love for it.

I did not read J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan until I was an adult. About two years ago, in fact. Which is weird, because I checked the video of the play out of the library and watched the Disney VHS so much it drove my mother crazy. Peter Pan’s Flight is my favorite ride at Disneyland. I read all the time. Why did I never get around to the classic novel?

I felt its truth in my heart and my solar plexus and the backs of my eyes. It poked me right in things I felt that I could never articulate, and the (positive) adjective most commonly used to describe me is articulate.

So when I saw this:

I felt like this:
http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_16x16.swf?pid=vgvldbmxfz

It is not a feeling based in rational thought but, Joe Wright? I will cut you. Trust.

Lest you think I am a hater NerdGirl who will bear no departure from canon, know that I will openly admit to loving Hook and the 2003 Peter Pan live-action film. Those movies get it.