The Little Prince

“The Little Prince,” based on the novella of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, is an animated fictional movie about a girl who moves next door to a quirky, old aviator. The girl’s mother is obsessed with planning her daughter’s future academically and schedules every moment of her life in hopes that she can stay focused on her studies and excel. Meanwhile, the girl becomes friends with the Aviator, and he tells her the story of a little prince.

The prince is a boy who once lived on an asteroid. After leaving the asteroid, he traveled from planet to planet and eventually landed on Earth in the Sahara Desert. There, he met an aviator, who was stranded after his plane crashed. During their time in the desert, the aviator and the prince learn about the importance of friendship and remembering loved ones.

The movie’s theme focuses on the emptiness of life when people forget their childhoods, their uniqueness, and the people who make their lives special. The story shows that slavishly, following a course through life set by societal expectations, and measuring one’s own success according to the views of those in power, cannot produce a truly fulfilling life. The Bible also shows the lack of value in living solely for what the world deems success. In Matthew 16:26 (NASB), Jesus asked, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”

Although this movie identifies the need for something beyond a worldly life, I have some concerns about the way it portrays the spiritual or supernatural dimensions of existence. Although this heavily symbolic story is open to many interpretations, I personally sensed that the supernatural was being portrayed as functions of the mind. For example, there are characters who appear to have deity-like roles, such as ruling the universe, but later the movie depicts them as embodiments of human traits. The dialog alludes to life after death several times, but implies that afterlife existence is first and foremost found in being remembered by those still alive. There are also some occurrences that appear magical on the surface, but the line between imagination and reality is fuzzy.

On one hand, the interpretation of these supernatural phenomena as symbols of one’s imagination could be used to justify the movie, by showing that it is not occult or pagan. But other viewers may see the movie as suggesting a philosophy in which there is no absolute spiritual reality, and that what appears to be spiritual or supernatural is only the result of an individual’s psychological activity.

Morally, this movie does not have a lot of objectionable content per sé, but I found the overall tone of the movie to be disconcerting and slightly eerie, with some serious plot elements that probably make it too intense for many children. The movie is likely to be most appreciated by teenagers and adults who enjoy analyzing stories with symbolism and surreal imagination.

Content Concerns

Violence: A character allows himself to be fatally bitten by a snake in order to release his spirit from his body and reunite with a friend. There is also a fight in which a man tries to trap a girl with a machine consisting of many claws.

Spirituality: In addition to the matters described above, the aviator describes the value of belief as being able to anticipate something that one does not know for sure to be true. However, the Bible describes faith as assurance, saying that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1).

Language: A couple exclamations (“God,” “jeez”).

Substance Use: In one of many strange scenes, there appear to be lots of empty beer bottles on another planet.

Other: The girl lies a few times, once under the suggestion of the aviator who tells her it is okay to falsely claim it is her birthday to get free pancakes from a restaurant. The girl once gets mad at her mother and asks when she will “go away completely.” There are also many scenes where the musical score has an unsettling, dissonant quality, creating a foreboding mood. Also, ***SPOILER*** the aviator dies at the end of the movie, and there is an emotional scene of the girl visiting him in the hospital shortly before death.

Violence: Moderate / Profanity: Mild / Sex/Nudity: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.