James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach is a 1996 live-action/stop-motion film. It was based on the classic children's novel by Roald Dahl (who also wrote "Charlie and the Choclate Factory"). It tells the story of James Henry Trotter (Paul Terry) a young orphan forced to live with his cruel aunts (Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes) after his parents are killed by a rhinoceros. James dreams of escaping to New York City, a beautiful place that his parents told him about. One day a mysteroius stranger gives James, a bag full of magic, which causes a peach grow to a giant size. The Aunts think the peach will make rich and get people to pay them to see it, but James sneaks inside the peach and find a group of insects who have become human-like from the magic and together James and his new friends escape from James' Aunts and travel inside the peach to find a better life.

Plot
James Henry Trotter finds himself living with his two abusive aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after his parents are "eaten by a rhino that appears out of nowhere." Life with his aunts is hard and he dreams of a better place, specifically New York City, a "dream like" place his parents had talked about. His dream comes true when a mysterious stranger appears with a bagful of magic green "crocodile tongues" which are supposed to make his life better. When James is returning to Sponge and Spiker's house, he trips and the "tongues" fall into the root of an old peach tree, affecting it and its inhabitants in amazing ways. One peach is soon found on the tree, and it grows to immense proportions. James ventures into the giant fruit were he finds and befriends a group of anthropomorphic insects (who are all much larger than his small petite frame) who also dream of an ideal home (Mr. Old Green Grasshopper, Mr. Centipede, Mr. Earthworm, Miss Spider, Mrs. Ladybug, Silkworm and Glowworm). Mr. Centipede manages to cut the twig holding the giant peach to the tree, and the peach rolls away to the Atlantic ocean with James and his friends inside it. They use Miss Spider's and Silkworm's silk to tie a hundred seagulls to the peach stem, allowing them to fly their way to New York City while going through a series of adventures such as facing a giant robotic shark, skeletal pirates in an old frozen galleon, and the rhino which is riding with the clouds. The group finally gets to New York City, where James stands up to his aunts and learns to face his fears.

Trivia

 * The film begins with normal live-action, but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York (although the mutated insect characters remained in stop-motion).
 * the pirate ship scene, the Centipede exclaims, "A Skellington!" upon spotting a skeleton that looks like (and is) Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) with a beard and pirate gear. Upon finding a compass moments later, he exclaims, "Jackpot!" One of the pirates looks like Mickey Mouse's dog, Pluto. Another of the skeletons has the bill, sailor's cap, sailor's jacket and voice of Donald Duck. There also is a regular looking Pirate, a Viking and an Inuit.
 * When Cartoon Network airs this, they censor the part where Grasshopper says "You sir, are an ass!" and replace "ass" with "pedant" to make it more "children-appropiate".

Cast

 * Paul Terry plays James
 * Simon Callow voices Grasshopper
 * Richard Dreyfuss voices Centipede
 * Jane Leeves voices Ladybug
 * Susan Sarandon voices Miss Spider
 * David Thewlis voices Earthworm
 * Miriam Margolyes plays Aunt Sponge and voices The Glowworm
 * Joanna Lumley plays Aunt Spiker
 * Pete Postlethwaite plays Mysterious Stranger/Old Man

Production
The film begins with normal live-action for the first twenty minutes,[1] but becomes stop-motion animation after James enters the peach, and then live-action when James enters New York City, New York (although the mutated insect characters remained in stop-motion). Selick had originally planned for James to be a real actor through the entire film, then later considered doing the whole film in stop-motion, but ultimately settled on doing entirely live-action and entirely stop-motion sequences due to costs.[2] Unlike in the novel, James' aunts are not killed by the rolling peach (although his parents' deaths takes place as in the novel), and the film also has James dream of going to New York instead of simply winding up there.[1]

Reception
Although Dahl turned down more than one offer to make an animated film of James and the Giant Peach during his lifetime, his widow, Liccy Dahl, consented to let this film be made.[3] She said that, "I think Roald would have been delighted with what they did with James."[3] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, praising the animated part, but calling the live-action segments "crude."[4]