5 Giant Reasons To Watch 'The BFG'

    • deebashree.mohanty@timesgroup.com
    • Publish Date: Jul 28 2016 2:15PM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Jul 29 2016 3:09PM
5 Giant Reasons To Watch 'The BFG'

Now that the most awaited animation film of the year is playing at a theatre near you, we have decided to churn out a list of reasons why you must now miss the film. And king of the trade, Steven Spielberg, is not the only reason that makes this film a winner. 

1. Watch it for Ruby Barnhill who is one of the best child actors in Hollywood today.

Just like Neel Sethi, who played Mowgli in The Jungle Book, Ruby had to act in a CGI-laden movie where she only has a handful of scenes alongside other human characters. We are curious to see how well she can do without them! 

2. Be Happy With the Best Disney Movie Ending!

Without giving away the ending we can tell you that The BFG has a very satisfying ending that will please adults and children alike. Those deadly man-eating giants are still roaming the earth but they are not very happy by the end of the film. 

3. Is totally like the book 

If you were afan of the book, chances are that you will fall in love with the movie too. Steven Spielberg has done a great job of staying true to the book as much as possible. 

4. It's full on whimsical 

If you believe in magic, this movie will help you find it. From the fun dialogues to the beautiful and imaginative scenery, and the bright colours; everything is straight out of the magic book of Roald Dahl. 

5. Three cheers for Mark Rylance who is simply awesome 

Rylance's motion capture work rivals even the work of the legendary Andy Serkis. According to some critics, the awards categories might open for best mo-cap performance after The BFG because of how well Rylance did. 

Do you seriously need any other reason to book tickets for the show? 


As Steven Spielberg’s 'Big Friendly Giant' releases in India, Dr Susan Rennie, lexicographer, teaches Deebashree Mohanty a few Giant lingo...

 


Speaking of the BFG, tell us more about the language used by the giants? Can you list a few words that could explain how the giants interacted with each other? The Unfriendly giants are very rude to each other, and especially to the BFG, so they use a lot of insults – but they are every creative in how they insult each other! They use alliteration and hardly ever use the same insult twice, so for example they call the BFG a grobby little grub, a pibbling little pitsqueak and a squinky little squiddler. By contrast, the BFG uses some lovely terms of affection for Sophie, which emphasise how tiny she seems to him, so he calls her a snipsy little winkle and a poor little scrumplet.


Can we learn about how language works from the BFG? Yes. There is a lot of fun that these giants have with language. Roald Dahl’s (the author who created BFG) inventions are rarely pure nonsense words. He often starts with a word that children know and then changes the ending or blends it with another word to make something that is new and funny, but that children can still understand. So for example, wonderful becomes wondercrump, and kidnap becomes kidsnatch. Sometimes he uses common English suffixes like –ful, –some and –wise, to make words like murderful, rotsome and maggotwise. 

The BFG even uses words like crockadowndilly for ‘a crocodile’, which sounds very like the English dialect word daffadowndilly meaning ‘daffodil’. Dahl also loves what are called portmanteau words, where you blend two or more words together to combine their meanings, and this is a common way of forming words in English (for example brunch, motel and smog). So in gobblefunk, something delumptious is both delicious and scrumptious; and the giants don’t swallow and then gulp, they do it all at once in a single swallop! 

What is the takeaway from the BFG? Language is a key theme of 'The BFG'. It is a perfect way to interest children in how language works, while having a lot of fun at the same time. It can encourage them to be playful with language, but also to look at it critically. Why after all, do we say frying-pan, not sizzlepan like the BFG? 

Children can also pick up creative techiques like alliteration (fast as a fizzlecrump) and onomatopoeia (lickswishy and uckyslush), and can be inspired to play with spoonerisms (jipping and skumping) and malapropisms (skin and groans). It is a subject that can instil a love of language that will stay with children throughout their lives!

So, do you have a favourite word? I particularly like zozimus, which is the name that Dahl gives to the stuff that dreams are made of. It has a wonderful mystical and magical sound to it, which fits perfectly with its meaning. 

How difficult was it for you to compile these words and their meanings for the giants? Sometimes Dahl explains the word, so we know that a snozzcumber is a striped knobbly vegetable from the description in The BFG. But Dahl leaves some words deliberately vague, such as the names of creatures that inhabit Giant Country, like the humplecrimp and the wraprascal. 

It is important not to dampen children’s imaginations, so in those cases we have followed Dahl in only hinting at the meaning. 


 

Students Speak 


Roald Dahl’s works have been adapted into various formats; but NIE students feel ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ was one of the best films ever made. They have huge expectations from the Steven Spielberg directed ‘Big Friendly Giant’ too... Read more 



Lucy Dahl Shares Her BFG Experience

When I was a child, every night at bedtime, my father would pace back and forth in the bedroom I shared with my older sister, Ophelia, and tell us stories of the BFG. One evening Ophelia asked my father, ‘How do we know that you are not making up the BFG?’ ‘Making him up!’ my father said with horror. ‘Why can’t we go to the window and see him?’ I asked. ‘Because, if you do, he will never come back’. The very next morning, when we woke up and opened our curtains, all of our doubts were dissolved, as written on lawn were: B. F. G. We ran downstairs to tell our father, who was extremely annoyed that his lawn had been tampered with! He used to say if you don’t believe in magic, you will never find it!  

Excerpts  





Comments

Vaishnavi Kaza pace junior college

I think all of Roald Dahl''s books are amazing,one better than the other! My favourite is Charlie and the chocolate factory.

Amit Deshpande GICL

Good article

Ankur Saini G.D.Goenka public School,paschim vihar

Roald dahl''s the BFG is awsome. It concists of excitement as well as morels. The way BFG tells Sophie about his ears he also tell us abot the pain of plants when a flower is plucked from it. I loved this book and will soon go to watch the movie also.

Brenda Marshal PADUA HIGH SCHOOL-MANKHURD

It''s a very good article.....

Ayushi Pandey LILAVATI BAI PODAR (A)-SCRUZ

The BFG is a fun-filled movie with a perfect assortment of so many emotions. Yes, Ruby Barnhill is a wonderful actress and I adore her! The BFG, on the other hand, was a very pleasant and likeable character. The book, being so fantabulous, compelled the film to be exactly like it. ''Matilda'' and ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' are my favourite Roald Dahl books and movies and now ''The BFG'' shall also be included in my list!

Ninaad Narendra Bhat DR. RADHAKRISHNAN-MALAD(W)

I have seen BFG movie. It is superb.

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