Sorry kids, but we won't be seeing "The Lorax." Eric Felten explains how the movie is just the latest example of The Bad! Bad! Bad! Biggering of Dr. Seuss:
Which also explains why the new movie version of "The Lorax" has all the resonance of a crumpled tin can. There's nothing mysterious about the Once-ler—now reduced to stock character No. 14-B (young man eager to prove to his unloving mother that he can be a success). And the producers also took from the stockroom a standard-issue Hollywood villain, the evil businessman. The Once-ler, in Dr. Seuss's telling, loved Truffula trees—alas, so much that he consumed them all. Now we have a story about a tyrannical tycoon, Mr. O'Hare, who opposes oxygen-producing trees because they compete with his bottled-air business.
Once-ler-like, I am filled with regret for having encouraged such Gluppity-Glupp by paying for my family to see it, thus doing my small sad part in biggering the box office. If only there were an answer to Hollywood's cultural clear-cutting as simple as planting a seed.
Another childrens movie where the writers try to resolve their mother/father issues and demonstrate their utter ignorance regarding the world of business? No thanks.
