Starting a thread for the original Mary Poppins movie since I noticed during discussion on the sequel that we didn't have one yet.
As mentioned in that thread I gave this movie a second chance to see if my opinion changed from the unfavorable reaction I had to my first viewing.
I liked it significantly more this time around, and appreciate it now even more than I like it. While still not completely my kind of film I definitely understand the fans it has. I know what my problem with it was the first time. I was too young to understand the real point of the story, so I didn't see any story. All I got from it was a string of random zany events one after another with no purpose or connection to them, and that kind of thing has always really bothered me, so I didn't like it as a whole because those parts were all I took away.
This time I understood what was really going on and enjoyed it well enough for the most part. The chalk land sequence goes on WAY too long; strictly technically speaking it's really neat how they blended animation and live action and did the other effects, but for contributing to the story it doesn't in any way that would be lessened if at least half of it was cut out. That part still got to me and I was thinking uh oh here we go again I'm going to feel the same way after all, but once it got past that things picked up and I liked the rest of the movie more or less.
Mary Poppins
I'm glad you enjoyed the movie a little more this time around! If you ever read the books, they are more an episodic style, with lots of shorter adventures versus one long connected adventure, which might contribute a bit to what bothered you as a child about different parts that you didn't see the connection to. The original film is quite different from the books in many ways, and it totally makes sense to put a continuous story in, but the source material might be part of why things were done the way they were.
