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The Lorax: starring Zac Efron as The Boy & Taylor Swift as his love interest. Um, what?

“I repeat,” cried the Lorax,
“I speak for the trees!”

“I’m busy,” I told him.
“Shut up, if you please.”

It seems like for every one children’s movie they get right, five go horribly, horribly wrong.

Quite some time ago I heard they were making a CGI version of the primer for budding environmentalists: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. This is one of Cass’s favorite books; one that I’ve read so many times to three children over a decade that I can probably recite it from memory.

Which is to say: there is no way I will avoid seeing this movie in theaters.

I moaned and groaned about how Hollywood seems incapable of coming up with anything new, to be sure. I probably said something along the lines of, “The original is a classic.” Because at heart I am a cantankerous old man.

But Jim Carrey wasn’t involved, and I’m sure the visuals will be stunning, so I kept the grousing to a fair minimum.

Then a few months ago I heard that Danny Devito was to be the “sharpish and bossy” voice of the Lorax, with his “sawdusty sneeze.” This I approved of.

I saw Despicable Me, and enjoyed it much more than I expected, so I was not terribly upset to hear that both the co-director and art director of the upcoming Lorax also worked on that film.

And now…

The animated adventure follows the journey of a boy as he searches for the one thing that will enable him to win the affection of the girl of his dreams. To find it he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world.

Also bringing their talents to the film are global superstars Zac Efron as Ted, the idealistic young boy who searches for the Lorax, and Taylor Swift as Audrey, the girl of Ted’s dreams. Rob Riggle will play financial king O’Hare, and beloved actress Betty White has signed on to portray Ted’s wise Grammy Norma.

Yes, I get that they had to flesh out the story a bit to fill two hours. But you know what? They got so caught up in “biggering, and biggering, and BIGGERING” the storyline, that they totally missed the point of the story.

I know what you are thinking.

Now listen here, Dad!
All you do is yap-yap and say, ‘Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!’

This is an important distinction to make.

Dr. Seuss handed the power to change the world directly into the hands of children.

UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.

By aging the main character old enough to have a “girl of his dreams,” Universal has taken that power away. They made saving the earth the realm of the older kid. Who, apparently, is doing it to win her affection.

They have completely ruined the essence of the story.

Dude, that sucks.

Yap-yap. Bad, bad, bad, bad.

——————————————————————–

Press release here.

March 22, 2011
And the winner is…

Congrats to commenter #1, Danielle, who takes home her very own copy of Pretty Neat: The Buttoned-Up Way to Get Organized and Let Go of Perfection. May your meals be healthy, your chores delegated, and your house less chaotic 🙂

March 21, 2011
Post with a Purpose. Save the Children Quake Relief
You can’t live a perfect day without doing something

for someone who will never be able to repay you.

-John Wooden

An estimated 100,000 children have been affected by the disasters in Japan.

2500 evacuation shelters are currently in place. Many have no electricity or running water.

In the worst-hit areas, hundreds of families are also without electricity, heat or running water. Fuel is in short supply, and there are fears that basic items are not getting to some communities.

There are also shortages of food, water, cooking fuel and clothing.

The weather is unseasonably cold. Snow has fallen.

An estimated 4000 schools have been destroyed or have suffered significant damage.

What this means for Japan’s children:
- fear and a need for psychosocial support.
- stress living in unfamiliar surroundings.
- uncertainty due to the witnessed emotions of the adults around them.
- illness due to exposure and compromised immune systems.
please click this image to donate

One day this winter our power went out for about 36 hours. No electricity, no running water, no means to cook anything. Trapped by icy roads, so no way to get to a warm place, eat a hot meal. I couldn’t stop watching the thermometer drop in our house. The kids were cold, bored, hungry. And I was afraid of how bad it would get overnight.

But I knew that it would be over very soon. That our lives would return to normal, with the flick of a switch.

Please.

If you are a mother who has ever sought to ease the pain or the fear of your child, donate.

If you are a human being who was ever once a child, and remember what it is like to be small, and helpless, and afraid, donate.

If you are an internet mom, please help us to spread the word today.

Save the Children’s initial program plans:
- Expanding child protection activities that staff in the badly damaged city of Sendai have already initiated, with the disaster-tested Child-Friendly Spaces program as the key response
- Providing non-food relief items to families
- Supplying children with “back-to-school” kits of materials
- Initiating a school-based psychosocial support program for children, their parents and other childcare providers to build resilience and coping
- Supporting local and national groups working to help children and families recover over the longer term, with special emphasis on supporting groups addressing educational and child- care needs
- Advocacy to help ensure that the needs of Japan’s children are included in emergency preparedness planning at the prefecture and national levels.
No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.
Aesop

*** Information regarding Save the Children’s projected program plans quoted directly from their website.

All images from Flickr. Click on any photo to be taken to its respective page.
March 20, 2011