Yes, I really did watch this...
Title:
Barbie in A
Christmas Carol
Format:
CGI animation
Country:
USA
Production company:
Rainmaker Entertainment, for Mattel Entertainment
Year:
2008
Length:
76 minutes
Setting:
Americanised, fantasy version of London in the Victorian
era, with a modern day framing story
Background:
In the first decade of the 21st century,
Mattel – the toy company behind the famous Barbie dolls – commissioned a series
of CGI animated straight-to-DVD films starring Barbie in various scenarios,
often retellings of fairy tales or other famous stories – there are, for
example, other films in the series based on Rapunzel and even on another
nineteenth century classic, The Three
Musketeers. Barbie in A Christmas
Carol was one of the last of this run, which was evidently brought to an
end in 2009 to concentrate on telling stories of Barbie in more modern
settings.
The story sees Barbie telling her younger sister Kelly
the story of Victorian singing star “Eden Starling”, who is then “played” by
Barbie (although not the same voice actress) in the version of A Christmas Carol which follows.
Cast and crew:
Kelly Sheridan plays the modern-day Barbie’s voice, as
she had done for most of the films in this run. Once we’re in the main body of
the story, Barbie as Eden Starling is voiced by British actress Morwenna Banks
– who, like the majority of the cast, has spent her career primarily doing
voiceover work, perhaps most notably as Mummy Pig in the hugely successful
British children’s TV animation series Peppa
Pig.
Scriptwriter Elise Allen had worked on Saved By the Bell: The College Years and
Saved By the Bell: The New Class in
the 1990s, as well as on Cosby, the
nothing-like-the-original US remake of One
Foot in the Grave. She also scripted several other of Mattel’s Barbie
features both before and after this. Director William Lau had also worked on
several of the other Barbie projects and did several more after this – perhaps
the most notable other credit on his extensive animation CV is episodes of one
of the various Transformers
spin-offs, Beast Wars.
 |
| This production's ES meets her Marley, "Aunt Marie", as possibly animation's most irritating comic relief animal character watches on. |
Underdone Potato:
Eden Starling owns her own theatre and is the most famous
singer in London, but is mean to the various other staff she employs there,
hating Christmas and expecting them all to work on Christmas Day. This includes
her best friend Catherine, who she’s known since childhood, and whose
relationship with Eden forms the main plank of the story and its moral, with
Christina taking the place of Bob Cratchit and to a degree Nephew Fred as well,
although Christina’s love interest is named ‘Freddie’.
Once Eden has told them all they have to work on
Christmas Day, we see her being awoken at night by the ghost of her Aunt Marie,
who raised her. Like much of the tale, Marie’s version of Marley is much
friendlier and softened, although she does still wear the chains she formed in
life – of selfishness, we are told, warnings against selfishness being the key
theme of this version of the story – and in a nice little touch that suits this
version, the additions to her chains are hand mirrors rather than cash boxes.
Past:
The Ghost of Christmas Past is probably the closest of
the three seen here to the traditional depictions, although definitely female
rather than androgynous, and with no cap with which to snuff her out. In terms
of personality, the Spirit actually most closely resembles the forceful,
squeaky, irritating version seen in Scrooged,
and it’s hard to believe this wasn’t a direct inspiration.
Instead of Scrooge’s school we see Eden Starling lonely
and being forced to rehearse in her aunt’s house, before escaping to
Catherine’s family next door for a party that stands in for the Fezziwigs’
festivities. As on all the journeys, Eden’s cat Chuzzlewit – the most
irritating bit of pointless comic relief you can imagine – tags along for the
ride, which leads to the interesting revelation that animals within the visions
can see them, even if the people cannot as they are “more sensitive”, although
this is admittedly quite a well-worn trope of other ghostly storytelling.
Present:
The Ghost here is very much a straight female version of
the usual male Spirit – large and jolly.
Eden finds out that her best friend Catherine has been
sneaking out to help children at an orphanage, which is now under threat of
closure. One of the children at the orphanage is Tammy, who walks with a
crutch, taking the place of Tiny Tim for this version.
Yet to Come:
As you might perhaps expect, there is no ominous hooded
figure for this version – which does seem a shame, actually, as the Muppets
managed to do it very well and it’s difficult to argue they were aimed at a
substantially more mature age group than those watching a Barbie film. The
Ghost of “Christmas Future” here does briefly wear a hood when she first
appears, but she is simply a tall, thin, elegant lady who speaks throughout her
appearance and is quite friendly, on the whole.
Catherine has gone on to become the most famous dress
designer of the age, while Eden is poor, no longer famous, and with only her
cat for company. Eden goes to visit Catherine for help, but finds that after
Eden fired her from the theatre for turning up late to work on Christmas Day,
she has become as miserable and bitter about Christmas, and as mean to her
employees, as Eden herself was.
What’s To-Day:
Barbie goes to the window to see what day it is, but
there’s no passing boy to ask. She just hears people wishing each other a Merry
Christmas, and gets the idea.
As you’d expect, she’s now nice to all her friends and
employees, sends them home to their families instead of working, saves the
orphanage, and lives happily ever after for all I know. There is quite a nice
touch in that as the shops are all closed, she goes around her house finding
things she can give to her staff as presents.
 |
| The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come - allegedly... |
Review:
Clearly I am well out of the target audience for a Barbie
film, and while this is by no means completely devoid of all merit, is an
extremely “soft” retelling of the tale. As I mentioned above, it is clearly
possible to make a child-friendly version of the story which still packs a
punch, as the Muppets proved, but then again the Muppet version of the tale is
rightly regarded as something special, and they can’t all come up to that
standard.
While it’s always nice to think of the story being
introduced to new audiences, it’s hard to imagine this making a massive impact
on any young minds. The CGI is extremely cheap-looking, with the whole thing
resembling a Barbie computer game that’s accidentally been left on demo mode.
It’s also lumbered with a couple of really dreadful songs, and several of the
performances – most notably Luke Smith as Freddy – are extremely wooden.
There are a couple of nice little throwaway references to
Dickens’s work – the cat Chuzzlewit, of course, as well as a dog called Boz,
and characters called Jacob and Nell, so Elise Allen clearly had some idea of
what she was doing. But I’m afraid that, for me, any version where they have to
resort to having the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as a speaking character is
marked down for a lack of creativity and imagination. Or they just lacked the
courage to have the story pack its full warning punch, although in fairness to
the creative team here it can’t be so easy when you have a company like Mattell
and their worries over the reputation of their brand hanging over you.
In a nutshell:
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than very young
children indeed being in any way captivated by this. Not worth seeking out
unless you are a fanatical completist – either for Barbie tie-ins or A Christmas Carol adaptations!
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