Peter Pan and the full moon

Who does not know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who does not want to grow up. It is already more than 100 years old (premiered as stage play in London in 1904) and has been adapted to countless screen versions. And next to all the imaginative characters, one encounters repeatedly one thing: the full moon.

Peter Pan lives on an island called »Neverland«. On one excursion to London, together with his little fairy »Tinker Bell«, he meets the girl Wendy Darling and her brothers and takes them all along to Neverland. There, they experience many different adventures together, with elves, pirates, Indians and mermaids … until they later return back to their normal world.

In the screening of 2003, many scenes are bathed in blue moonlight and show the full moon in the nightly sky. This is most impressively depicted in the dance scene »Fairy Dance« with Peter and Wendy (start at 0:57 min), when the two of them float up into the sky, right in front of the circular Moon [*] – accentuated by the heavenly music of James Newton Howard.

There seems to be a special connection between Peter Pan and the full moon. The stuff that dreams are made of …

[*] This is a motif, which incidentally also appears in other movies, for example in »Moon Dance« by Victor and Emily in »Corpse bride« by Tim Burton.