Almost immediately we are introduced to the childlike theme in this story through the altering of the 20th Century Fox symbol. The snow and silver-like lighting block out any traces of a golden, bright environment, which we are used to seeing in the regular 20th Century Fox symbol. And this use of cold, dark lighting is unusual as we often associate child’s play with bright, happy colours such as yellow, orange or green. The camera now switches to a tracking shot up the stairs of the castle and suggests that we, the viewers, are sneaking in. All the while, soft and childlike music is playing in the background and this increases the childish atmosphere and creates a calm, slow pace.
We now see a collection of cookies ranging from animals to hearts and stars to little men; possibly children. These cookies could be letting us know a little something about Edward. Perhaps the hearts mean that even though he is a robot, he still has a heart and is loving and caring. And the children could be signifying that Edwards mind is not like a grown-up’s. They could be telling us that even though he looks dangerous, he is really just an innocent child that has been forced to live on his own with scissors for hands.
At this point, we see the castle in its entirety from the window of a warm, golden bedroom, and out into the freezing cold. In this room we see a few things that indicate to us that there is a childish theme. For instance the golden lighting used in this scene. There is a lot of golden light in this scene and this gives off a safer feeling than plain darkness. The two objects letting off this golden aura are the lamp that is placed next to the bed and the fireplace. Another thing that indicates to us that there is a childish theme is the doll that is placed at the end of the bed, which has obvious childish qualities.
One thing that is used a lot during the course of the movie is snow. And as we all know it usually snows during winter, and what is in winter? Christmas. Now not only is Christmas about presents, which usually means lots of presents for kids, further linking to the childish theme, but Christmas is about spending time with family and for Edward, this doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t have any family and he doesn’t receive any gifts, which makes him feel even more of an outcast.
Mechanical Theme
In the opening sequences we see extreme close ups of machinery and robots. From these extreme close ups, the viewer is left confused and unaware as to what the sole purpose of these robots is. This gets the viewer intrigued as to what there role is and by this, the viewer is more likely to carry on watching. Another thing that is interesting about only seeing parts of robots is that this could be linked with Edward and his scissorhands. By only seeing parts of robots we don’t see the full picture, meaning we cannot judge it. But when we look at Edward, we do see the full picture and therefore we judge him and this is exactly what Peg does. She can’t see him; all she sees is a black outline of his body, so she is quick to introduce herself and says that she is “as harmless as cherry pie”. But when she sees the full picture of Edward (his scissorhands) she starts to back off and gets very scared very quickly.
One thing that I managed to notice is that some of these robots look as if they have faces. Could this be the creator trying to inject some life into his creations? This seems to be the case as he has given Edward a face and other human traits. Why not give these mini-creations lives. When we see the three robots go by, you can see that they are going up and down. This is shortly followed by a collection of cookie shapes. Could these two things be linked in any way? Perhaps these robots were cookie-cutting machines. And perhaps Edward was given scissorhands to help in the cutting of the cookies.
The colours used in these scenes are primarily black, grey and silver. This suggests to us that the scenes are sad, lonely and dark. Also, the robots suggest to us that the scene is industrial and metal-like, meaning very robotic. Perhaps this could be an insight into the mind of the Creator when he was thinking about creating Edward. This could be him telling himself to make a new robot, a robot that has life.
