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The Pagemaster was a live action/animated film released by 20th Century Fox on November 23, 1994. It was directed by Jurassic Park III's Joe Johnston (live action) and Maurice Hunt (animation).
Synopsis
The film tells the story of a young boy named Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin), who finds shelter from a storm inside a nearby library. Tyler slips and is knocked unconsious while exploring a rotunda in the library. Upon awakening he is led on a journey through conflicts and events that resemble fictional stories, keeping him from finding the exit from the library.
Plot
After an accident in a tree house that he is building for his son, Alan Tyler sends his timid son Richard to buy some nails. On the way, Richard is caught in a storm and finds shelter in a library. There he meets Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), who believes Richard is in his library for a fiction book. Richard wanders through the library looking for a phone to use to call his father and comes across a rotunda. He then slips and falls, hits his head and is knocked unconscious. After waking, Tyler is caught in a wave of paint and becomes an illustration. Richard meets The Pagemaster, who bears a resemblance to Mr. Dewey and the Pagemaster sends Tyler on an adventure to find the "EXIT".
Richard soon meets The Pagemaster's loyal servants. First is Adventure (Patrick Stewart), a swashbuckling pirate book. Later, Richard meets Fantasy (Whoopi Goldberg), a brash fairy tale book. The three flee from the Hound of the Baskervilles and stumble into the horror section of the library, which has changed into an enormous graveyard. They then meet Horror, a "hunchbook" (a cross between hunchback and book). After journeying through the land of adventure and fantasy, the group finally reaches the EXIT where they encounter the Pagemaster. He reveals that the entire adventure was all a test for Richard to face his fears, and the other characters he encountered throughout his adventure appear and congratulate him. Richard returns to the real world with Adventure, Horror and Fantasy, who revert back to normal books. Mr. Dewey points the way to the EXIT and Richard leaves and goes into the tree house his father was building for him. When his parents return from looking for him, they are shocked to find him in the tree house, but are proud of his new courage.
Cast
- Macaulay Culkin as Richard Tyler
- Ed Begley Jr. as Alan Tyler
- Mel Harris as Claire Tyler
- Christopher Lloyd as Mr. Dewey and The Pagemaster
- Patrick Stewart as Adventure (voice)
- Whoopi Goldberg as Fantasy (voice)
- Frank Welker as Horror/Dragon (voice)
- Leonard Nimoy as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (voice)
- George Hearn as Captain Ahab (voice)
Trivia
- The theme songs to the movie, are "Dream Away", sung by Babyface and Lisa Stansfield; the other being "Whatever You Imagine", sung by Wendy Moten.
- There are many different references to different novels and rhymes, such as Humpty Dumpty.
- Not much film merchandise was sold, only soft toys of the main characters, t-shirts, and a Game Boy, Sega Genesis, and SNES game of the same title.
- The majority of the cast has appeared in some form or another on Star Trek. (Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Whoopi Goldberg played Guinan, Leonard Nimoy played Mr. Spock, Robert Picardo played The Doctor, Frank Welker played the voice of Mr. Spock in The Search For Spock, Christopher Lloyd played Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Ed Begley Jr. played Henry Starling in two episodes of Voyager, George Hearn played Dr. Berel in an episode of The Next Generation, and B.J. Ward played numerous characters in Star Trek computer games as did Jim Cummings.)
- Promotional advertisments for this film used the theme from the 1984 film The Last Starfighter.
External link
1994 films | Adventure films | Animated films | Children's films | Fantasy films
"The Pagemaster"