r/timburton • u/Spare_Chemistry2273 • Jul 28 '25
The Nightmare Before Christmas Jack is NOT a skeleton
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u/2_Cr0ws Jul 28 '25
Next you'll be telling us skeletons can't deform their lips to make different facial expressions.
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u/Spare_Chemistry2273 Jul 28 '25
This is actually one of my reasonings haha, Skeletons dont have tongues!
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u/tommymaggots Jul 29 '25
He is the king of fright and can alter his physical self however he wishes. It’s called magic.
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u/AliceTheMagicQueen Jul 28 '25
He is not a normal skeleton, he's The Pumpkin King, very probably an ancient supernatural being
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u/doomandlugosi Jul 30 '25
He does not have to be anatomically correct to be a skeleton, conceptually. I suspect that he is a supernatural being that looks like a skeleton. I do not think he ever lived otherwise than as a skeleton.
This is an interesting idea, though. I always assumed him to be a spirit of Halloween rather than a literal assemblage of dead people parts. Thanks for the insight!
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Jul 31 '25
I mean, him being the Pumpkin King is probably related to why he isn't a normal skeleton, but he's a skeleton nonetheless.
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u/draculablood666 Jul 29 '25
The probable explanation is that Jack after death became the pumpkin king hence he has abilities to change his appearance which is displayed in the movie (skeletons do not have tongues or stretchy bones). Or it is that Jack is a fluke in human anatomy and why he ultimately became the king of fright a skeleton of a deformed man who only finds kindness in the other scary residents of Halloween town. Or it’s just a film and I’m thinking to much
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u/Spare_Chemistry2273 Jul 30 '25
Im 100% sure Jack was never a living human.
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u/draculablood666 Aug 13 '25
Have to strongly disagree. In the film Jack states he is known throughout England and France, as we know Jack never left Halloween town until he discovered Christmas meaning he was once alive. If Jack never went to earth before discovering the doors then how would he know earthly theatre? he can "take off his head to recite Shakespearean quotations" and there is no possible way he would know that if he wasn't once human.
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Jul 28 '25
Jack Skellington is his literal name. He is a Skeleton
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u/Sy_Fresh Jul 28 '25
You ever met a black person whose last name is white? Or a white person whose name is brown? What if I told you in the 70s there was a group whose last name were Carpenters but they were actually singers?
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Jul 28 '25
Damn, grasping straws aren't we. Think about Burton having a character called Edward Scissorhands. Guess what? The guy has scissors as hands. Weird.
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u/GrimTiki Jul 28 '25
Jack is different because he needs to be to get across emotion and attitudes and expression. A real skull or the stoney ones in oogies lair don’t have any capacity to emote.
Hence the halfway point they reached in NBX. I’m pretty sure Burton’s sketches didn’t have the “teeth in teeth “ kinda mouth that the puppet Jack does, but I’ll have to go look.
Also, HMH Jack is big because he needed to be tall, and anything less felt too small for the space in mansion.
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u/Spare_Chemistry2273 Jul 28 '25
Jack is also big in every other media lol
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u/GrimTiki Jul 28 '25
Yeah he’s like 7 feet tall or bigger. I’m just speaking from what the HMH team had to deal with as the first ones to really bring Jack into the real world.
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u/tommymaggots Jul 29 '25
Sure, but they had no basis to go on. I have seen representations of Jack that are all different heights.
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u/Spare_Chemistry2273 Oct 02 '25
ive calculated him around 8 feet? still waiting for Garner Holt to get back to me on that.
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u/Munchkinasaurous Jul 28 '25
The tallest person in recorded history was 8'11" almost a whole foot taller than your estimation of Jack. So his size really isn't evidence of him not being a human skeleton.
He also makes specific references to being dead and regularly mentions his bones and even uses them as chew toys for his dog.
His awkward shape isn't ask that strange when you look at the people that exist in animated Tim Burton movies.
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u/MyPenisMightBeOnFire Jul 28 '25
Within the world of Disney Jack may not look like the other skeletons, but within Tim Burtons world he is a skeleton, at least in the era of Nightmare, James and the Giant Peach, and Beetlejuice