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Edward Scissorhands
a Tim Burton film
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Up on a mansion on top of a mountain, an inventor builds a human out of some metal and gives him organs like a heart and brain. His creation has scissors for hands. All he needs is regular hands in order to be complete. The creations name is Edward. The inventor dies of a heart attack before Edward is completed. Edward is all alone until later he is found by an Avon door-to-door saleswoman, Peg Boggs who sees Edward as a kind soul and needs help. She brings Edward back to her house where he is welcomed by her husband, Bill and son, Kevin. Peggy’s neighbors grow to wonder who her new visitor is. Edward shows his artistic talent by trimming the hedges and turning them into topiary. He also has a talent for hair cuts. Peggy's daughter Kim returns after camping with friends. She screams when she sees Edward in her bedroom. Peg informs Kim that Edward is harmless. Kim is the most beautiful thing Edward has ever seen after he saw her high school picture but she finds him odd. The word of Edward spreads and he becomes very popular. Bill informs Edward about the responsibilities of life like having a job, making money and having an account at the bank. Kim comes home and doesn’t have a key to the house, but Edward shows up and is able to pick the lock with one of his scissors. Kim’s boyfriend, Jim, wants to steal his dad’s stuff to sell to this guy for money and he feels Edward to be a great use since he can pick locks. Kim feels it’s a really bad idea and doesn’t want anything to do with it, but she goes along with it even though she knows it’s bad. She lies to Edward in order for him to come along. Jim, Kim, some friends of theirs and Edward break in one night and the alarm goes off and Edward is trapped. The others make a run for it, but Kim doesn’t want to leave Edward behind. Jim drags her out of the house and they drive off. The police show up, Edward gets arrested and spends the night in jail. Peg and Bill show up asking why Edward tried to steal, but Edward doesn’t say a word including the fact that he was tricked into it. The next day Peg brings Edward home. The neighbor believes Edward is a bad seed. Kim explains that she tried to help him escape, but Jim wouldn’t let her and thanks Edward for not telling the police it was them. Edward reveals to Kim that he knew it was Jim’s house and the reason why he participated was because Kim asked him to. Jim shows up and Kim goes to talk to him. Edward is upset and causes some damage to the bathroom. Peg and Bill are trying to find out what is wrong with Edward, but Kim is the only one in the family who knows what he is going through and she feels bad for what she has done. The family is putting up the Christmas decorations for their party. Kim sees Edward sculpting an angel from a giant ice cube. The ice shavings are being thrown into the air and dropping like snow and Kim dances in the snow. After Edward is finished he comes down the ladder and Jim calls out to him because Kim is getting close. Edward gets surprised from the call and accidentally cuts Kim’s hand. Jim has Peg take Kim inside then pushes Edward away and tells him to get lost. Kim has had enough of Jim and breaks up with him and Bill goes looking for Edward. Edward goes around the neighborhood with rage causing some damage to his work until he calms down. The police are called to look for Edward. Back at the house, Kim and Peg sit down hoping Edward is ok and Peg realizes she never thought things through when she brought Edward down to live with them and what could happen. Now she feels it’s better for Edward to go back to the mansion from where he came from. Bill returns with no luck in finding Edward so he and Peg take the car and go looking. Edward sees a police car and heads back to the house where Kim asks if he is alright. Kim doesn’t want Edward to feel any more pain and she has him hold her in his arms. Jim has his friend drive him to Kim’s while they are both intoxicated. Kevin walks home from a friend’s house and is about to get hit with the van. Edward sees the van coming and pushes Kevin out of the way and saves him. People go outside, see Edward on top of Kevin and believe he is attacking him. Peg and Bill show up and take Kevin away. Jim attacks Edward. Edward defends himself by cutting his arm. The police show up and Kim tells Edward to run. Edward flees back to the mansion. The neighborhood goes up the hill in a mob to go after Edward. Kim races to the mansion and finds Edward. Jim shows up with a gun and tries to kill Edward. Edward doesn’t try to fight back and Kim tries to stop Jim. When Jim slaps Kim, Edward defends her and puts an end to this fight by killing Jim. After that Edward and Kim look at each other knowing this is the last time they’ll see each other. Kim kisses Edward and says “I love you”. The mob shows up. Kim finds spare scissorhands that were never used and convinces the mob that Edward is dead with the scissor blades. Everyone goes home. Decades later, elder Kim tells Edward’s story to her granddaughter. She believes he is still alive because it never snowed before he came around. 
Blaine: Tim Burton had directed successful movies year after year from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” to “Beetlejuice” to “Batman”. And the next movie he did was a personal project based on an original idea of his. Tim had created Edward Scissorhands through drawings he did as a teenager and the character was based on Tim being different from everyone else because he was a loaner during his youth. In 1986 Tim was introduced to writer, Caroline Thompson, who shared a quirky sensibility. They knew they wanted to work on a film together and Tim thought they should do the character he created back in high school that has scissors for hands. They developed a script and turned it over to 20th Century Fox and had to wait a week to see what they thought of it and they gave a green light to them along with a $20-million budget. Tim knew the success of “Edward Scissorhands” would depend on the lead actor who played the title role. They auditioned actors like Tom Cruise, William Hurt and Robert Downey Jr. Johnny Depp was still on “21 Jump Street” at the time and he was trying to prove to everyone that he was more than just a teen idol because he hated that. He was recommended to Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi through John Waters who had directed Johnny in his recent film, “Cry Baby”. Johnny had walked in looking for Tim and Denise. He was shy. Denise said she was looking at Johnny’s eyes and she saw these big gentle dough eyes. Tim and Denise looked at each other and knew he was the right guy for the part. Tim was also reunited with Winona Ryder after “Beetlejuice”. Winona played a gothic character in “Beetlejuice” and Tim thought it would be fun to see her play more of a normal suburban type of character. Winona had never done a romance before, but she was dating Johnny at the time and it felt special that the couple were going to be working in their first film together. Winona said being scared and excited at the same time is what made her want to do a better job. The most foe filling aspect of “Edward Scissorhands” for Tim Burton was the chance to work with his long time idol, Vincent Price. Tim had gone to the theater to see Vincent Price’s movies when he was a kid and loved Vincent. Tim already had the pleasure of working with Price eight years earlier when he made the Disney animated short, “Vincent”. Vincent Price saw Tim Burton as someone who uses wonderful ideas to make a motion picture as a visual effect and has great enthusiasm. Vincent Price was ill at that time, but he accepted being apart of “Edward Scissorhands” because it showed Tim Burton's reflection for him as a mentor. Shooting began on March 1990 and the location was shot in Tampa, Florida .Johnny Depp had to wear a skin tight black suit in that humid weather. They did put a cooling element under the suit, but it didn’t work. What was difficult for Johnny was how his performance was going to be because he was bringing a fictional character from a drawing to life. He knew the character was shy, but no one knew what his voice was going to sound like. The way Edward walks Jonny based on Charlie Chaplin. Co-writer, Caroline Thompson, based the character on a dog she used to have because she couldn’t speak and that’s how Edward seemed to her. Johnny Depp would think about a dog a lot with that unconditional love. Another things was the movement of the character. Johnny based the way Edward walked on Charlie Chaplin. The blades on the scissorhands Johnny wears in the film were plastic. Make up artist and visual effects supervisor Stan Winston created a pair of scissorhands for Johnny so he could take them home and figure out how he would get things done with them. Wearing the scissorshands felt like being handicapped for Depp because it was difficult to hold or grab something and it was difficult to go to the bathroom. There was also a mechanical pair that would be operated by four puppeteers that could actually cut for shots with just the hands. Composer Danny Elfman said after he finished the score he almost felt like he didn’t do a good enough job with the music and thought he failed Tim. Then he found out he did a good job and it became one of his favorite music scores that he had done for a film. I know Tim Burton loves Dr. Seusse and I’ve noticed that “Edward Scissorhands” has a couple similarities with “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. Edward lives on a hill just like the Grinch and down below that hill is a colorful neighborhood which is Whoville. And then there is the twisty hair cuts Edward does which makes them look like a who. The funniest scene is when Edward laying down on the water bed for the first time saying goodnight to Peg , he gets scared as the water bed moves. The frightening look on his face is what makes that scene funny. When Kim tells Edward to hold her and his reply is “I can't", it’s either because he’s afraid he’ll just do something wrong again like cut her or he is having trouble forgiving Kim after turning him into a trouble maker and using him, but she doesn’t want him to feel any more pain. Jim is like a bad luck charm because every time there is trouble Edward gets the blame. Anthony Michael Hall was already best known for the John Hughes movies, “Sixteen Candles”, “Breakfast Club” and “Weird Science” as the geek and Tim Burton said that Anthony did a really good job with his role of being the high school jerk. Composer Danny Elfman said when audiences saw the film, there were some who were on Jim’s side because he was loosing his girlfriend to Edward and he didn’t like that. After Edward kills Jim, I believe what he is saying through the down look on his face is that "I’m not proud of it, but it was the only way to stop him." I love the shot towards the end where Edward is walking up the stairs and the light shines beautifully on him like he is glowing and the background is dark. As the release date approached, Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi were worried of what people would think of “Edward Scissorhands” because it wasn’t something familiar like “Batman”, it was a more personal project. Tim Burton had a weak stomach because he was nervous of what the audience would think of it. Co-writter Caroline Thompson was very happy with the reaction when she herd laughing during the first hour of the movie and then turn to sobbing toward the end. Johnny Depp had proven that he was more than a teen idol after that. It meant everything to Tim Burton when Vincent Price saw and loved the film. And Vincent also loved the experience as well. Denise was happy to have written what she described as a love poem for Tim to express himself through. “Edward Scissorhands” is a beautiful movie and my rating is five out of five stars. Music by Danny Elfman Blaine: Danny’s music shows the heart of “Edward Scissorhands”. One of Tim Burton’s drawings of Edward Scissorhands 
Parodies The Simpsons Episode: Homer Scissorhands 
Family Guy Director Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp and composer Danny Elfman at the premiere of “Edward Scissorhands” 
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