I really loved Figaro (not Gideon) because of his personality. I love any time an animated character doesn't speak, but manages to communicate that much personality and emotion. Plus he's just given so many fun moments.
I've got a few responses to Edgar's review I've been meaning to get to. First of all, thanks for researching the history of the project, it's interesting to hear what the original intent was and how it developed into the final product.
Even the musical sequences, albeit far and few between, seemed to serve the purpose of the story.
I don't think I touched on this in my review, but I did appreciate that the musical sequences do serve the story. In
Snow White, most of the sequences are songs for the sake of songs, which I really enjoyed, but in
Pinnochio they were integrated into the story, helping it feel like a more cohesive whole.
And yet, by the film’s end, the fairy rewards the cricket for his efforts anyways with the shiny golden badge he asked for in the beginning of the tale. What have I overlooked?
Your point about Jiminy Cricket and evaluation of his role sounds pretty spot on to me. I think I just assumed he was being rewarded for his good intentions, and that things worked out in the end, but you're right. I don't recall any solid examples of him really contributing to
Pinnochio's growth. I'm going to tie this into the following point:
There are no major antagonists per say in the story, only a series of smaller foes that are hurdles which Pinocchio must surpass in order to vanquish the real villain of the story: temptation. The temptation of earning skipping school, the temptation of earning money the easy way, the temptation to lie in order to hide one’s faults and mistakes. As mature cinephiles (except for a few of us), we understand this message, this is very clear. But as part of a children’s tale, I thought it was a clever idea. Don’t make the villain a monster, a ghost or an alien. Rather, have the hero challenged above all else by his own weaknesses.
I can't really argue with the morals the movie sets out to teach, but in regards to both Pinnochio and Jiminy Cricket, I felt like it works better on paper than in the film. Neither Jiminy or Pinnochio truly succeed at their goals in any significant way, and it's just dumb luck that they always recovered from the rotten situations they got into. Pinnochio makes mistake after mistake, but does he ever actually learn? His decision to rescue Geppeto is not a moral one, it's as selfish an act as the ones prior to it.