I will start by saying the CGI in this was pretty terrible, and this is coming from someone who couldn't really catch Henry Cavill's upper lip in Justice League or the bad CGI in Black Panther. What I'm saying is that the CGI is very noticeably bad, but this is a TV special back in 2011, so...
If that doesn't bother you, then let's talk about the story. It was pretty solid and I enjoyed it. This is certainly not a prequel to Disney's Peter Pan or even the original J. M. Barrie novel. The events of the actual "Peter Pan" story would play out somewhat differently following from the events of this prequel.
But the prequel itself had a solid plot, pretty good pacing, and kept me engaged. However, what surprised me the most were the characters. I really didn't expect that a low budget TV special would put so much care into fully realizing the characters. It seems like the creators put a lot of thought behind every one of the characters, even the minor ones. Even if most of them didn't have arcs, they all had distinct personalities and their motivations were well drawn. And all of their choices made sense and were put together with thought. (Even the reason behind why time stands still in Neverland made sense.)
I also liked the diversity in the cast. It was of course 90% white, but there was diversity with respect to what time the characters came from, and their class differences, all of which were evident in their accents. And in the pirate ship, they had pirates from other nationalities which was also reflected in the accents. And I liked the portrayal of the Natives. (I don't know if they were all played by Native actors (and also, idk what was up with Q'orianka Kilcher's acting; I've seen her do a better job elsewhere)). I liked that they didn't call her Tiger Lily, but rather the Native name (of which "Tiger Lily" is the English translation). I like that all of them couldn't magically speak English, only two of them could and they had to translate for the others.
These seem weird little things to give this TV special credit for - but I've come to expect TV shows of this sort to be very careless about details like this. And attention to detail is always a win in my book.
I would have LOVED this as a kid. I had heard about it in college and wanted to watch it back then, but hadn't got around to it. But even now, I think it was a good use of my time!
If that doesn't bother you, then let's talk about the story. It was pretty solid and I enjoyed it. This is certainly not a prequel to Disney's Peter Pan or even the original J. M. Barrie novel. The events of the actual "Peter Pan" story would play out somewhat differently following from the events of this prequel.
But the prequel itself had a solid plot, pretty good pacing, and kept me engaged. However, what surprised me the most were the characters. I really didn't expect that a low budget TV special would put so much care into fully realizing the characters. It seems like the creators put a lot of thought behind every one of the characters, even the minor ones. Even if most of them didn't have arcs, they all had distinct personalities and their motivations were well drawn. And all of their choices made sense and were put together with thought. (Even the reason behind why time stands still in Neverland made sense.)
I also liked the diversity in the cast. It was of course 90% white, but there was diversity with respect to what time the characters came from, and their class differences, all of which were evident in their accents. And in the pirate ship, they had pirates from other nationalities which was also reflected in the accents. And I liked the portrayal of the Natives. (I don't know if they were all played by Native actors (and also, idk what was up with Q'orianka Kilcher's acting; I've seen her do a better job elsewhere)). I liked that they didn't call her Tiger Lily, but rather the Native name (of which "Tiger Lily" is the English translation). I like that all of them couldn't magically speak English, only two of them could and they had to translate for the others.
These seem weird little things to give this TV special credit for - but I've come to expect TV shows of this sort to be very careless about details like this. And attention to detail is always a win in my book.
I would have LOVED this as a kid. I had heard about it in college and wanted to watch it back then, but hadn't got around to it. But even now, I think it was a good use of my time!