What is your favorite movie version of a Christmas carol?

[Tripe]

He's been around since '47.

[FordPrefect]

My favorite version of the story is The Muppet Christmas Carol. Even though it has some pretty goofy parts, it's still pretty true to the source material and includes actual narration from the book. I also like the idea of the narrator being a character in the story's universe who follows the characters around while he tells the story. I like the way Scrooge is so mean he comes off as a little crazy for certain scenes. I like the "When Love Is Gone" song, so I always watch the fullscreen version. This is probably the only case where I prefer to see the film this way, just for that song. I have the hope that someday someone at Disney Home Entertainment will make a widescreen version of the movie with the song in it. Brian Henson said that the reason it wasn't in the theatrical cut was for pacing issues. When it was released on home video, the idea was that since people could stop the movie anytime they want, they could put the song back in. This doesn't explain the reason why the song is only in the fullscreen version of the DVD though, aside from sheer laziness on the part of the home video people.

I also like Mickey's Christmas Carol. It's a bit short, but it works pretty well. I love that they brought back Willie the Giant from "Mickey and the Beanstalk". I also like the scene with the Ghost of Christmas Future. It's uniquely memorable. For one thing, it's the only fairly straightforward version I can think of where the Ghost actually talks to Scrooge. Plus, the whole bit with his grave being a firey pit is good old fashioned nightmare fuel for the kiddies.  Heck, even if he hadn't reformed at this point in the story, I still would have felt sorry for him. At the beginning of the short he comes off as more of a grouch than anything else.

If someone forced me to go with a version of the story that didn't have Muppets or Disney characters, I'd probably go with the Patrick Stewart version. This post reminded me that I saw the DVD for "The Flinstones Christmas Carol" at the store the other day. It's slightly bothered me for ages that the Flinstones shouldn't be celebrating Christmas in the first place, much less putting on a version of The Christmas Carol. Is the audience supposed to believe that there are prehistoric versions of Jesus Christ and Charles Dickens?  On Henson's Dinosaurs, they celebrated a holiday called "Refrigerator Day" so they were still able to parody the celebration surrounding it. I also like how on Futurama, Christmas has changed to Xmas over a a thousand years. Considering everything else wrong with it, at least the Star Wars characters aren't celebrating Christmas in the Holiday Special.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Considering everything else wrong with it, at least the Star Wars characters aren't celebrating Christmas in the Holiday Special.

That's probably because they wanted to PC and not exclude other holidays like Hanukkah.....

People might stop going to the movie out of protest.   

[Scrivener]

Considering everything else wrong with it, at least the Star Wars characters aren't celebrating Christmas in the Holiday Special.

That's probably because they wanted to PC and not exclude other holidays like Hanukkah.....

People might stop going to the movie out of protest.   

Here's the odd bit.  We keep thinking of "SWHS" as an ersatz Christmas special, but it was originally aired in mid-November.  They may well have been trying to give us a Thanksgiving special, but failed so utterly that their special ended up tainting Christmas instead.

Think it over, everyone.  Kinda interesting hypothesis, I do believe ...

[Tripe]

I think you're right on the money there. Life Day is sort of harvest festival type thing, which is also what Thanksgiving is ultimately.

[PlayMSTie]

I caught a bit of the George C. Scott version on TV the other day. Now, maybe this isn't fair to say because I didn't see the whole thing, but what I did see seemed so terribly, TERRIBLY solemn, which seems all wrong to me. If you're going to adapt Dickens, you don't want solemn. He had way too much liveliness in him, even when he was being serious. If the whole movie was like that -- and I know that's a big if; maybe someone who saw the whole thing can set me straight on this -- then I think the Muppet version captured the spirit of the original much better!

[Hebs]

Edit: aww over I see

Well, I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. 

[Tripe]

Well alrighty then

[Phantom of Krankor]

I caught a bit of the George C. Scott version on TV the other day. Now, maybe this isn't fair to say because I didn't see the whole thing, but what I did see seemed so terribly, TERRIBLY solemn, which seems all wrong to me. If you're going to adapt Dickens, you don't want solemn. He had way too much liveliness in him, even when he was being serious. If the whole movie was like that -- and I know that's a big if; maybe someone who saw the whole thing can set me straight on this -- then I think the Muppet version captured the spirit of the original much better!

Basically all the Scrooge introduction scenes, Jacob Marley scenes, and Ghost of Christmas yet to come scenes are pretty solumn and dark. The rest of the movie I'd say, has a nice jolly christmas feel to them.

[Manos]

Muppets.

I think Michael Caine is a perfect Scrooge, and it stays remarkably close to the book (despite being cast with mostly foam).