Saving Mr. Banks by Using RunPee.com
We went to see Saving Mr. Banks yesterday.
I didn’t get it.
Because I had to pee.
The End.
To make a short story long… I only had a vague idea that Saving Mr. Banks was the story of how Walt Disney wooed P.L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins, to make her book into a Disney movie.
I never saw Mary Poppins. There, I said it, does that make me some kind of communist? So I didn’t know the characters or the story.
After the movie, I was still so confused. Who was Mr. Banks? Where did Mary Poppins come into the picture.
Turns out that because I didn’t consult RunPee.com – the website that used to tell you when you should go pee during a movie, I missed a crucial part of the movie.
RunPee.com used to reveal certain times in movies when the scenes were unessential to the plot. It was a cool site because they would also summarize the scene – but hide the text unless you indicated you wanted to read what you might miss.
But, I would have missed it anyway because RunPee is now an app you have to pay for. I don’t pay for apps.
Saving Mr. Banks is done as flashbacks to when the author was a child. I went to pee when the inspiration for Mary Poppins showed up at her house to care for the author’s sick dad.
So there you have it… I missed the essential plot point of Saving Mr. Banks because I drank a Grande Coke.
The End. (again)
Hey Kirk,
Thanks for taking the time to write out the backstory. It helped. I was OK with the Disney part of the story… Travers wanting no animation and no singing, only agreeing because she was broke, etc. etc. I just couldn’t piece together the “true life” version… I kept trying to figure out who Dick Van Dyke was in Travers life!
Still didn’t care for the movie. My guage is whether I could sit through the movie again – this wouldn’t even come close. Shouldn’t have to watch an old film to understand a new one. 🙂
If you’ve never seen Mary Poppins then you’d probably never really understand “Saving Mr. Banks”. Too bad as it’s a highly rated movie.
Anyway, Mr. Banks is one of the main characters, he’s a banker in London (circa 1910) and the not so doting father of Jane and Michael, his two children. His wife is suffragette and a bit on the ditsy side. The two children have been through a run of nannies all who lasted less than a few months. Mary Poppins (who is rather prim, proper and more than a bit magical) is the newly hired nanny. The whole premise of the thing is for Mary Poppins to make Jane and Michael’s father realize that family, especially his children, are the most important things in his life. Not just his profession. Thus “Saving Mr. Banks”.
“Saving Mr. Banks” has a double meaning it seems. Not only does it apply to the movie’s story but also about the “Mary Poppins” series of books actually being made into a movie.
P.L. Travers wrote the original series of books and absolutely refused to let Disney turn her creation into an animated movie. It was only when the sales of her books finally dropped off and Disney swore to make the movie using real life actors that she finally agreed. Something like that.
You could always find a way to see the original Mary Poppins movie (and manage to make it through Dick Van Dyke’s horrible cockney accent) then you’d probably understand what “Saving Mr. Banks” is all about.
There, one of my classic tl;dr comments. Hope you enjoyed it.