Peter Pan/YMMV

---

Mainly from the novel or play

• Adaptation Displacement: It's often forgotten that it began life as a play, before being adapted into a novel (both by JM Barrie).
• Alternative Character Interpretation: One of the rare cases in which it hits on something, since most of the people who consider Pan evil have no idea that early drafts of the story had him as the villain, taking children away from their parents.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • In everyone who goes to Neverland; in Peter himself so much it's scary.
  • The one thing he ever briefly has angst over is the fact that he had no parents, and he'll never have a family or know true love because he can't grow up, which is a bit of a Tear Jerker. In Hook he gives in to this and leaves Neverland.
• Hell Is That Noise: For Hook, the sound of a ticking clock is generally cause for alarm, as it almost always means the Crocodile is nearby.
• No Yay: Wendy/Hook. Good god, Wendy/Hook. "For a moment she was entranced by him." See the 2003 film version as well.
• Special Effect Failure: There have been many accidents with the tethers during the stage adaptations.
• Toy Ship: Peter and Wendy. Also Wendy and Hook, depending on the handling of the adaptation.
• Unfortunate Implications: J.M. Barrie's depiction of the Native Americans is just awkward. For a start, "Piccaninny" isn't an actual tribe, but an old slur to describe black children. "Squaw," which isn't even a real Native American word, has a history of being used in a derogatory manner toward NA women in a manner similar to "cunt." And then there's that whole Honor Before Reason thing.
• The Woobie: Say it with Wendy and me, everyone--"Poor Tootles!" Despite being the only Lost Boy who might accurately be called "nice", he's Born Unlucky and his self-esteem is virtually non-existant. Not to mention that he's always saying things like this:

"I did it...When ladies used to come to me in dreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she really came, I shot her."

Disney's Peter Pan

• Ear Worm: The crocodile's tick-tock song
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Tinkerbell, who went on to become a Disney company mascot and get her own spin-off.
  • Also, Captain Hook.
• Fair for Its Day: The movie's embarrassing portrayal of the Indian tribe was actually one of the more positive representations of Native Americans at the time.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The first words in the film (by an unnamed narrator) are "All this has happened before...and it will happen again."
• Ho Yay: Hook and Smee. Smee seems to live for nothing more than serving Hook, which he does quite cheerfully. He's also quite the bumbler, and yet Hook hasn't killed him yet, despite shooting a man for singing distractingly or hurling one overboard for an irksome comment. He also calls exclusively for Smee with insane gusto any time he needs saving, and during the 'life of a pirate' song there's the affectionate little feather tickle Hook gives Smee, and Smee seems quite smitten by it.
• Jerkass Woobie: Tinkerbell.
  • Captain Hook qualifies too, he may be evil but he suffers more than he deserves and unlike most Disney Villains has an understandable reason to want to kill Peter
• Memetic Mutation: "SMEEEEE!!!"
• Newer Than They Think: Specifically, the line in the novel read "second to the right". All Disney did was add the word "star" after "second".
• Nightmare Fuel: David Hall's early treatment of the film is even further from the play and extremely horrific.
• Smurfette Breakout: Tinkerbell has her own spinoff franchise.
• Unfortunate Implications: The racism in J.M. Barrie's book is awkward enough today, but Disney arguably takes it Up to Eleven. One of the most glaring examples are the juxtaposition of teepees and totem poles - these belonged to two completely different cultures, and are as awkward and unrealistic as the Eiffel Tower in Moscow. The song What Made the Red Man Red? also implies that the "red man" used to be white (Eurocentricism/Anglocentrism).
  • The Indians obviously aren't meant to represent any specific tribe or culture (in fact at the time the novel was written "Indian" was used to mean almost any low-tech native culture). The fact that so many stereotypes in the scene are played to negative and comical effect have quite enough Unfortunate Implications on their own.
• Values Dissonance: Watching "What Made the Red Man Red?" today can be uncomfortable to say the least.

Peter Pan (live-action film)

• Accidental Innuendo: "Both hands." Probably doubles as Squick for many.
  • "You´ll never make a man out of me!"
• Awesome Music: Well, the music was after all, composed by James Newton Howard. So awesome that Disney stole it for use in their Disneyland commercials.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Slightly. The actor who plays him admitted to being surprised at having so many fans after doing only one film.
• Jerkass Woobie: Peter and Hook both qualify.
• Nightmare Fuel: The more monstrous portrayal of the mermaids and the only one to date to actually show the stump of Hook's severed arm.
• No Yay:
  • Sometimes the response to the Hook/Wendy dynamic, including from several professional reviewers. Word of God says they didn't realize when they were shooting just how that was going to look on film.
    • Never mind that it's a pretty accurate portrayal of Wendy's attraction to Hook in the novel.
    • One reviewer didn't have a problem with that as much as with his perception of Hook's attraction to her.
  • The Foe Yay between Hook and Peter can fall into this category, too.
  • One reviewer speculated that a lot of the creepiness could be attributed to the fact that Hook has No Sense of Personal Space with either of them. At all. Jason Isaacs has mentioned in interviews how incredibly uncomfortable some of that was to portray.
• Uncanny Valley: The mermaids, with their grey-ish skin, webbed hands and blank eyes.