The Pilgrim's Progress is a 2019 animated Fantasy Adventure film released by Revelation Media, based on the book by John Bunyan. The movie stars David Thorpe as Christian, Jonathan Keeble as Faithful, Justin Butcher as Hopeful, and Andrew Wyncott as Apollyon, with John Rhys-Davies providing the voice of Evangelist.
Christian finds his life disrupted when he receives the job of destroying all materials after another local, Faithful Pathfinder, goes missing and takes a book from the man's effects. Gradually becoming too burdened to stand it, he sets out to find the Celestial City, despite the trouble stalking him every step.
It is available on Tubi.
This film provides examples of the following tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The movie ends with Christiana finding a letter from her husband, convincing her he's alive and presumably leading to her own journey.
- Ash Face: Supervisor #6 ends up covered in ash after Apollyon gets the news that Christian escaped.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: The narrator talks about the near-slavery in which the citizens of Not-Cursed spend their days and then comments that naturally it was a great shock when a man went missing, except that the last part is delivered by the horrified lower Supervisor reporting to his superior.
- Bad Boss: Apollyon beats and scorches his underlings for letting any of his subjects escape.
- Bright Is Not Good:
- Mr. Worldly Wiseman wears brightly colored fancy clothes but he nearly gets Christian killed with his advice.
- Vanity Fair runs a perpetual carnival that is very bright and colorful, but the people immediately resort to violence when rebuffed, ultimately killing Faithful.
- Catapult Nightmare: After spending the day exposed to Faithful's notes and drawings, Christian has a nightmare about the city being destroyed by fire and bolts upright as he awakens.
- The Ditherer: Pliable changes his mind easily and constantly. He starts out with Obstinate, who's trying to stop Christian, but becomes intrigued by the promises in the book. However, the Swamp of Despondency discourages him and he turns back.
- Driven to Suicide: The giant Despair torments Christian and Hopeful and leaves them all manner of things like rope and weapons to kill themselves with, in hopes of invoking this.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Throughout the story, Christian gets beaten, tortured, tempted, and scared half to death rather regularly, not to mention his grief that he couldn't coax his wife and sons to leave with him. The story ends with him reaching the Celestial City, happily reuniting with Hopeful and Faithful, and Christiana and the boys starting their own journey, meaning that Christian's wish that his family was here will ultimately come true.
- Exact Words:
- When Christian starts on his journey, Obstinate tackles him and grabs him by the ankles, saying he won't release him till he listens to reason. Christian agrees...and keeps walking as soon as Obstinate lets go. As he points out, he said he'd listen, not stop. Obstinate groans and continues after him.
- While drowning in the Swamp of Despondency, Christian calls for help...and gets rescued by a man named Help.
- Gender Flip: In the original novel, the Interpreter is male, but here he is reimagined as a female.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The denizens of Vanity Fair implicitly burn Faithful at the stake, but the viewer (and Christian) see only a column of fire through the prison window.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Christian refuses to return with him, Obstinate calls him a stubborn man. He later gives a Hypocrisy Nod by saying that at least he's stubborn in a beneficial way.
- I See Them, Too: Evangelist is the first person who can actually see Christian's burden; everybody else sees nothing and thinks he's going mad.
- Meaningful Name: Just like the original, the characters' names are pointed statements about their characters. However, certain characters get their names expanded, making them even more meaningful.
- Obstinate gives his surname as "Heady", which suggests "hardheaded", a common synonym for "obstinate".
- Christian's surname is "Pilgrim", which is a common term used for Christians and which makes it even more evident that he's the main character; the story is literally about his progress.
- Nothing Is Scarier: After getting the report that Faithful's tracks lead to the outer realms, the Supervisor tells his lackey to spread a lie that something horrible happened to the missing man. He explicitly recommends bring as vague as possible to allow their imaginations to run riot.
- Not His Blood: While Christian is making the final swim to the Celestial City, Apollyon turns up to attack him as he promised earlier. As he loses consciousness, he sees a cloud of blood. When he awakens in the city, he's told that the blood wasn't his; it was the blood of the city's prince, protecting him from Apollyon.
- Our Dragons Are Different: During Christian’s journey he encounters “the Supervisor” (who is actually Apollyon). After failing to talk Christian out of his quest, he turns into a dragon and tries to kill him. The dragon form has the traditional six limbs but lacks the long neck normally seen on western dragons.
- Psychic Strangle: While he usually opts to dangle or throw someone around rather than going for the choking that other villains prefer, Apollyon has psychic powers which he uses to beat up anyone who displeases him.
- Running Gag: For much of Help's scene, he keeps throwing water over Christian to clean the Swamp of Despondency off him, usually with little warning.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Supervisors can change from humanoids to bat creatures and back again at will.
