Alright, let’s just get it out of the way, I hadn’t watched The Nightmare Before Christmas until last night. I had friends when I was a kid who would rave about Jack and Sally and how good it was, but I just never got around to it. We’re officially into December so of course it was on TV, I couldn’t be bothered changing the channel and accidentally watched the whole thing. And I have opinions.
If you’re in the same boat as I was 24 hours ago and haven’t seen the film, the gist is that Jack Skellington has something missing from his life and decides that Christmas is going to be his thing now. He kidnaps Santa, tries to make Christmas spooky, ruins everything and then has to go and un-kidnap Santa so that Christmas can be saved.
And you know what? That’s exactly what would happen if Sally was absolutely wiped from the entire film.
As far as I could tell, Sally’s role was to warn him about the fact that he would absolutely ruin Christmas – a warning Jack totally ignored by the way – and to eventually get captured so Jack can rescue her along with Santa. If she wasn’t there in the first place, Jack would still have ruined Christmas and had to rescue Santa, so go figure. Like I said, the plot remains the same.
After all is said and done, Jack is told that he should have listened to Sally the entire time because she’s so smart, and then realises that they should always have been together. Don’t ask me what caused this realisation because he’s straight up ignored her until this point.
Maybe I just don’t have the nostalgia attached to this movie because I never watched it as a kid, or maybe Blink 182 singing “we can live like Jack and Sally if we want” made me assume that this was some sort of romance film. I’ve decided I don’t want to live like Sally at all though. She does nothing.