#tim burton

I can so vividly remember the first announcement of Long Live the Pumpkin Queen back in 2022 - it was the start of the TNBC Novels, and the fandom was amazed at the concept. We were getting a sequel novel that featured *Sally* as the main character, she and Jack were finally **married**, the synopsis was interesting, and the cover reveal was so beautiful. It was something so new, just like the Zero's Journey comic series.

The book ended up getting delayed by a month (iirc), and by the time LLTPQ released, I had a major change in my life. A family member who I'd been very close with passed away, it essentially tore apart my family, and by the time I got the book in my hands, I was desperate to find some sort of coping mechanism -- and indulging in one of my favorite interests was the perfect outlet for my grieving. Because of this, my reading of Long Live the Pumpkin Queen may have been a bit biased, but I remember initially feeling amazed by it all and had never been so hooked by a book release like this one. I am thankful LLTPQ helped give me some peace of mind in a difficult time of my life.

However, as some time passed, I reflected on what I read a bit more (moving past my grieving helped refresh my perspective), and I realized some of the problems I had with the book. My main gripe had always been about Shea Ernshaw's insistence on dramatically changing Sally's backstory as a character, and villainizing a pretty morally-gray character from the movie. Sally and Finkelstein were no longer a parody of Frankenstein and his Creature, an iconic Halloween duo/tale, with the Creature even making an appearance in the movie, but Sally was now a soft ragdoll with loving parents in fictitious Dream Town where she was kidnapped from, and made to forget by the evil Dr. Finkelstein, who wanted a child after failing to create life.

At the time of the LLTPQ's release, when reviews started getting out and people were actually reading the book, this reveal was pretty huge in the fandom (and understandably so). Two of the main characters were essentially now entirely different people. And a lot of fans, particularly those who liked Dr. Finkelstein, were outraged at these major changes, and made their voice heard pretty loudly in the fandom at the time. It was inescapable to find such hatred in the tags daily for weeks with some aimed directly at the author herself, with insults and harsh words hurdled her way.

I have always agreed with the sentiment here, I did not like the retcon myself and disagreed with the author's feelings on *needing* to change Sally 'belonging to the Doctor', but I was appalled at the behavior by some people. It was not a good representation of the community, we do not tell Disney-hired authors to go to Hell because of their writing, and I'm glad to see we have long moved on since from such times.

However, this brings me to a pretty critical point about LLTPQ as a whole -- it stems from an author's imagination and personal bias in wanting to change the basis of Sally and Dr. Finkelstein as characters. As dramatic as these ideas were, it was not Shea herself who allowed it to become published -- but Tim Burton (+ his team), and Disney themselves..! Shea's interview was extremely important; it gave us a lot of context towards the book, that nearly all of Shea's ideas had been greenlit by both Tim Burton and Disney, who she claimed "loved her ideas".

Now, for those who have been following me, you likely know about TNBC's complicated production history. Tim Burton worked very little on The Nightmare Before Christmas as a movie -- he was busy with another film at the time, and entrusted Nightmare in many other people's hands. One of them was Caroline Thompson, who was the screenwriter for the movie and essentially the writer behind Sally, as it was Caroline who saw Tim Burton's visual sketches of her, and with the help of Danny Elfman, integrated her into the story of TNBC, practically writing her from the ground-up.

With this in mind, it makes perfect sense as to why Tim Burton so freely went with Shea's ideas for Sally. He did not write her, likely does not have the same personal attachment to her as Caroline might, and thus saw little to no issue with completely changing her premise in the book. And Disney really only cares about profit and not the ingenuity of whatever story/characters they're dealing with -- so for Tim Burton to finally act as a sellout and Disney wanting to cash in on the Sally sequel idea they've wanted for YEARS -- I am not shocked at all that they were so lenient with Shea in getting this book out with her ideas.

I will also bring up my grievance with Jack Skellington in these books...he was barely involved in the original LLTPQ because Shea claimed she was too afraid to write him, as he felt "too much like Tim Burton's character". (spoiler alert: He's not! Danny Elfman projected far more into Jack as a character and based him on his own difficulties in periods of his life and wrote him in that perspective). However, when you get to Hour of the Pumpkin Queen and Shadow over the Pumpkin Queen, Jack continues to be missing from the story - he is taken/left behind in time. These instances make me think it came from Disney's influence more than Megan's personal feelings with Jack, as he spares more presence in her stories than in Shea's.

Which -- coming to Hour of the Pumpkin Queen. According to Megan in her interview, Shea could not continue writing for the PQ series, so Disney came to Megan personally to ask if she could continue them, what with her work on the TNBC Novelization and all. (Betting you also -- it was Disney who was behind the 'let's expand this book into two more as a series' idea!). Now, changing authors is a pretty important thing - it means we're missing the original viewpoint with these books, the original voice/intentions with LLTPQ. And any quality increase/decrease is usually due to this fact.

However, I think Megan did a wonderful job with what she was given, and the circumstances she had to work under. Her work with the Novelization was wonderful, but here's the important thing -- I highly suspect that Disney changed routes with how they felt about the Pumpkin Queen series. They might've expected the first book to be a one-off thing, but it did spectacularly well, becoming a quick bestseller that stayed on lists for weeks after its release. It probably made them quite a bit of money - and as you'd expect, they would want to cash in on this, and thus requested more books in the series. (Is anyone surprised Tim Burton would approve this? It's a fat payment, after all!)

But Disney is known for meddling in their artist's projects a LOT, causing delays upon delays with other TNBC comics because of it. I am shocked to hear that Shea wasn't requested to make that many changes for LLTPQ - Tim Burton and Disney Publishing apparently had little alterations they wanted on her end. But this is why the author's interviews are so integral, because we hear directly from Megan that Disney requested pretty important changes for HOTPQ and SOTPQ -- to exclude any mention whatsoever of Jack and Sally having/wanting children, and to get rid of her "dark" ideas for the final book that involved Greek Mythology.

This is curious...why was Disney so lenient on Shea with the first book, but so hard on Megan for the rest of them? Did they increasingly become strict knowing how profitable the PQ series became, or did they start actually *caring* about what they were putting out with these books? Did they favor Shea's ideas because they softened Sally as a character and Nightmare's concepts? After all, children are much more likely to favor a ragdoll made to comfort kids who comes from a lovely land of dreams, compared to a mismatched ragdoll created by the hands of a mad scientist alluding to Mary Shelley's Frakenstein. Ew! Creepy!

--And this is another issue. There is no edge to these books whatsoever. Sally is now soft, with loving parents from a cozy town instead of being imprisoned by an abuser in an unsettling/gothic environment, and the Halloween Town Citizens are rarely portrayed as the creepy/scary beings they are. This book series feels like it panders to young children and not the 12 and up rating it was given. LLTPQ itself -- maybe! But HOTPQ and SOTPQ just feel so...kid-friendly, which is a shame because the general audience for these books are more than likely the 30+ year-olds who have grown up with Nightmare from the 90's.

Jesus Christ. This book series became formulaic and predictable SO QUICKLY. As I've mentioned before, Shea had a personal reason to avoid writing Jack, but his absence becomes a default in these books. Oh no! He's put to sleep in the original story and can't help Sally! Oh no! He's separated from Sally again in HOTPQ and is stuck back in time! Oh no! He's separated from her AGAIN as he's kidnapped into Shadow Town! With Megan mentioning Greek mythology for SOTPQ, it would make you think of a parallel between Orpheus and Eurydice - but that might mean Jack has to actually be present in the story, and Disney can't have that!

...Ooooh, Disney. Your track record with "strong women". They don't need men in their lives, do they? They need to know how to fight, how to look and talk badass, to save the day again and again. I'm afraid Sally was not a good choice at all to keep up this trope. She is a loving, shy, quiet character, who acts in clever ways and doesn't like the spotlight/attention. Her whole Thing is daydreaming and getting lost in her imagination/thoughts. But, no! Sally doesn't NEED Jack Skellington, she can save Halloween Town! Three times, I bet you! She deserves a statue of her riding a cool night horse with a needle sword!

..This book really doesn't do Sally justice. I know a lot of people think it does, but this wasn't for her at all. It's a cool concept to make Sally the main focus of something - after all, Jack's hogged the attention in merchandise and the video games for so long! It's awesome that Zero got his own comic series and Sally her own book. But Disney wanted to cash in on it, make her the protagonist for THREE books, (plus her own Disney Twisted Tales) and I'm afraid that's where things just fell apart. To put her in the position of saving Halloween Town and going on a grand adventure *thrice*? I really think Sally deserves to just stay home and have a family. A peaceful life with Jack. That's all she wanted after freeing herself from her own prison, no? To settle down, and NOT keep having to save all the holiday realms again and again?

Hour of the Pumpkin Queen quickly became a convoluted mess. There are just so many new towns, new characters, all of which feel disconnected from the original Nightmare because it's not about holidays and celebrations anymore. It's about the concepts of sleeping, of chance, of shadows/forgotten, of tides and weather. While these could certainly exist in TNBC -- do they really deserve their own stories in these books while places like Independence Day Town and Thanksgiving Town sit around with nothing to them? You know, the holidays we've seen in the movie that more people are familiar with? I recall Megan saying Disney wanted to expand the world-building in TNBC. And Good God, *did* they. Maybe, way too much!

I really enjoyed Albert and Greta, even Luna Slumberly from HOTPQ, until A & G become questionably toxic to Sally. I've ranted about this enough in my recent SOTPQ review, but it boggles me how Sally became so obsessed with her parents and Dream Town that she practically worships A & G, can see them doing no wrong except being a little complicated and messy, and that living in Dream Town is so enticing to her, that it was a "difficult decision" not to live there. You know. Sally, who claimed that Jack was her home in LLTPQ, and she firmly did not want to be a governor and move to Dream Town. Who feels that being the Pumpkin Queen is who she is, and she wants to stick by her husband who understands the person she is now and who was more important to save than humoring the parents she just barely re-met as an adult.

Rewriting Sally like this makes her a whole different person and character to me. I cannot see this woman in the third book being the same one from the movie. She is a Disney Girlboss in here and I'm afraid the fault lies on Disney themselves for this. They were way too scared to take any chances on letting Sally being a mother, of allowing one of their most iconic Disney couples to finally move on and start a family, of pleasing their audience and having a TNBC/Greek Mythology crossover of sorts. They would rather have Sally go sword fighting, ride a cool powerful horse, and have her save her town again and again to prove how strong she is! And remember she has a loving family now, and was born as a governor to this sweet, soft town! Don't worry about moving on from your abusers or your tough childhood, because the lesson here is that you will eventually learn you were born into a wealthy life with loving parents and that makes everything okay because you can be together again!

God. Just. The refusal of change here, at least the change that Disney doesn't *want*. Sally looks the same on all these covers - why would she continue wearing the patchwork dress she had to make in what were likely awful conditions with whatever fabrics she could get her hands on? She is a Queen now, she can wear/make better clothing, she has a crown she likes to put on her head and a ring on her finger, which we never see on the covers! It's almost funny. Visually, Sally doesn't change as the books progress, which is a great summary on what happens here. She doesn't move forward with her relationship with Jack and have children - she just continues to save the day again and again from a new evil....who end up being her long-lost siblings like a fanfic with oc-inserts...yaaayy...

I still love Long Live the Pumpkin Queen. The Cover was so cool, the story was great, while Shea's weird avoidance of dealing with the Doctor and Jack as characters is a huge turn-off for me, I still love what it was going for. A good example of what a story could look like if Disney doesn't endlessly meddle with it, to make it as "safe" and "child-friendly" as it could be. I wish Disney/Tim Burton had stepped in where it counted -- that maybe exiling an important/main character of TNBC and rewriting his premise completely wasn't a good idea. Which they ended up backtracking on anyway! Isn't that crazy. The third book's final note is allowing Dr. Fink back into Halloween Town, realizing how useful he can be, even though they forced him to a point of no-forgiveness in the original book. Really feels like they were just undoing everything Shea established in LLTPQ, in the realization that they could only do so much with the premise Sally is in now.

Hey, Disney, if you didn't like it, why didn't you say anything? This backtracking only reads as lazy writing. Really should've stood your ground sooner if you were going to end up regretting it! Shouldn't have let the big mouse take advantage of you, Mr. Burton...I get giving them a chance, and the first book was lovely! Wish you cared about your characters, though...I just wonder, why did you let them make more books? We could've stopped at just one! I would've been perfectly happy! But I guess money is everything now, and you are getting old, and things just don't matter as much as they used to, huh..?

Sure is cool to read Megan thanking Tim Burton for Sally at the end of the book. That's fun. I sure love seeing Burton love misplaced over and over again when it comes to TNBC.

I think I'll end things here. If you want my thoughts in a more organized fashion, please just check out my individual reviews on LLTPQ, HOTPQ, and SOTPQ. I think with this post, I am finally done talking about these books. You all know what I like and didn't like about them. I'm so happy this series is over with after four years. It gave me good times and bad times. I can only hope they'll move on to different characters next -- maybe Lock, Shock, and Barrel can get their own thing, or we get a little book about the Mayor or even Oogie Boogie. I'm down to read more TNBC stuff -- just so long as Disney doesn't keep fucking around with it like they ended up doing here...