I’ve been meaning to mention this ever since Chris at Movie Marketing Madness posted the trailers below back in July, but it kept slipping my mind. Anyway, following the mixed blessing that was Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002; my review) — it bankrupted the producers, but it remains by far the top-grossing independent evangelical movie ever made — the owners of the VeggieTales franchise have decided to forge ahead with a follow-up called The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.
The film doesn’t come out until January, but Terry Mattingly has devoted his newest column to the movie and its makers:
This time around, the vegetables don’t quote scripture and their adventure doesn’t turn into a funny version of a Bible story. Still, the artist also known as Bob the Tomato stressed that Veggie fans don’t have to worry that these pirates have abandoned the faith.
“You can do a story like this one of two ways,” said Phil Vischer, who created Big Idea, Inc., and continues to work as a writer and performer for the company.
“You can say, ‘Let’s start with a Bible story and then we’ll figure out where our characters fit into it.’ When you do this, you know that you already have a story and some characters and there is a biblical message in there. The challenge is figuring out how to make it VeggieTales story. You have to find the humor.” . . .
If the first approach to telling stories starts with the Bible and then blends in humor, the second begins with a funny story and then tries to blend in some faith. That’s what happened in 2003 when Vischer had his rowboat vision and wrote the script for “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.”
“You can do it either way. This time, we just started out with the slacker pirates and we went from there,” he said. “When you go this route, someone always has to ask, ‘So what’s the lesson here?’ I usually have to say, ‘I don’t know right now, but we’ll dig around until we find one.’ “
So the new movie’s message is biblical, even if it doesn’t openly quote the Bible. . . .
My kids will be one month shy of their second birthday when this film comes out. I wonder if they will be ready to see it by then?
The theatrical trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pe0ado8h7Q
Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly.
The teaser that appeared on some VeggieTales DVDs a while ago:
Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly.
And hey, did Vischer suggest in that last video that it was possible, or indeed desirable, to be both a pirate and a hero? (“…it’s a real adventure, where they’ll have to be real pirates and see if they can become real heroes…”) Some might find that a bit problematic.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In