Mary Poppins Returns -- New Trailer

Cue the "practically perfect in every way" and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" puns. 

This morning was...rough, for a variety of reasons. But, then this trailer dropped and things got a little brighter:

First--that cast! I knew Emily Blunt was playing Mary Poppins (and that the iconic Dame Julie Andrews gave her her blessing); I knew that Lin-Manuel Miranda was playing Jack -- not Bert!!! -- I even knew that Dick Van Dyke was playing/reprising the role of Mr. Dawes (again, not Bert). 

But Angela Lansbury! Colin Firth! Julie Walters! And Meryl Streep!!!

Second--this is probably uber-nerdy even for an uber-Disney-nerd, but I love the film-specific castles in the front of each film:

But I also left a piece of my heart in London, so there's that. 

Third--the old-school 2D animation!!! 😍😍😍

ScreenRant has a really cool article on the attention to detail in this sequence -- how it's not just an homage to the original film or a remake of it, that's worth a read. (For example, how the characters' clothes look they were drawn/animated, which you can kinda see above!) 

Fourth--the CGI. When it came out in the 1960s, Mary Poppins was a technical innovation for its time (something that can always be said of Disney) -- but with the advances in CGI, the magic is going to seem so much more...fluid. 

I'm sure this film will be filled with Easter eggs and nods to the original film -- the kite, the original house with the infamous bannister, the chimney sweeps dancing, the 2D animation, Jane campaigning for women's rights, just like her mother -- which makes my heart happy on so many levels. There's even a questionable Cockney accent from LMM, continuing Dick Van Dyke's terrible accent tradition. 

Look, I'm sure P. L. Travers -- author of the original Mary Poppins book -- would probably hate this film too. I've blogged about Disney's Mary Poppins and Distory before, with the end result being my decision to both love the books as one of the cornerstones of children's literature and the Disney movie as a cornerstone of my own childhood. (Julie Andrews was one of my grandmother's favorite actresses and we watched this movie together a lot.) I know that the Disney movie(s) are Disneyfied versions of the books and while I wish Disney would reflect that in this film -- especially given it's setting during the Depression, a less cheerful, more no-nonsense Mary Poppins would fit -- I'm not expecting them too. The trailer reflects that -- it looks a magical concoction about the wonder and purity of childhood -- and I can't wait to see it.