Del Toro's Pinocchio and Pinocchio's Donkey Transformation

Warning! SPOILERS for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Pinocchio film is a unique take on the classic tale, changing many elements that were considered staples of Disney’s Pinocchio – including the latter’s scariest scene. For an animated family movie, Disney’s Pinocchio has some pretty terrifying moments, with the film featuring human trafficking, sea monsters eating people, and a child is painfully transforming into a donkey. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio removes some of these elements, and although it takes out the scariest scene from the Disney version, this decision actually makes del Toro’s movie far worse.

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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio changes the setting of the adventures of the wooden puppet, this time setting Pinocchio in fascist Italy in the early 1900s. Because of this, the film makes many changes to the plot in order to better suit this new time period, including adding the villainous Podesta and having Geppetto’s son killed by an air raid in World War I. The film also removes some of its more fantastical elements, with the Fox and the Cat being combined with Mangiafuoco to make Count Volpe in del Toro’s version. However, the removal of fantasy and the addition of fascism change Disney’s scariest scene into something even scarier.

Related: Every Song In Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio


Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Replaces Donkeys With Child Soldiers

pinocchio and other boys on the way to pleasure island

In Disney’s Pinocchio, the titular wooden boy travels to Pleasure Island (called Toyland in the book) near the end of the story, an island where kids can do whatever they want, eat as much as they want, and be as rebellious as they want. However, the true nature of Pinocchio‘s Pleasure Island soon becomes apparent as the children there begin rapidly turning into donkeys, with Pinocchio barely escaping in time after seeing the horrific transformation of his friend Lampwick. In del Toro’s Pinocchio, instead of turning into donkeys at Toyland, the kids are turned into child soldiers at an Italian training camp – which is more realistic and therefore scarier.

Del Toro’s themes of fascism and independent thought are reinforced in the training camp scenes, with the children being trained to become killers and being forced to turn on each other. In this version, the fun games of Toyland are replaced with drills and paintball, making the transition into the kids being actual killers so much more effective. Here, the fun parts of the training camp lead directly into the war and bloodshed, meaning that buying into the fascist ideology and the downfall of the children was something they chose. Although it removes Toyland and the donkeys, the child soldier training camp makes Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio so much darker.

A More Realistic Pinocchio Is Scarier Than Fantasy

Pinocchio looks through two glass cups in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.

Although Disney’s donkey transformations may have scarred many children, del Toro’s relatively realistic take on Pinocchio is so much more effective. Although the wooden boy himself may not have been real, the young children being conscripted into the army and the villagers calling themselves proud fascists were very real, which is much more effective than the Pleasure Island scene. The horrors that took place in this version were actually happening in Italy less than a century ago, making Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio even scarier than the Disney version.

More: GDT’s Pinocchio Voice Cast Guide: What The Actors Look Like In Real Life

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