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Not a single mention of the Nutcracker except for the title and with Mother Ginger as the villain, it makes me wonder if they've scrapped the Mouse King completely.

The trailer we saw opens with a carriage moving through the snow, while the instantly recognizable voice of Morgan Freeman narrates that it is Christmas Eve, a time of mystery. We then see an elaborate Christmas party, with a young girl wandering through the house, following a strange thread. Eventually, her path leads her into a snow-covered land, fantastic and over-the-the-top in its design. There are a lot of patterns in this world and it looks, for better or worse, very similar to Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland remake.

Interestingly, our own Peter Sciretta noted that the concept art shown after the trailer maybe looked more like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings rather than Alice in Wonderland.

What the trailer didn’t show was the Nutcracker himself, who will be brought to life via CGI. The elaborate ballet dance numbers will be created by Misty Copeland and Sergei Polunin, two of the world’s most respected modern dancers.

The film largely takes place in a strange and mysterious parallel world—home to Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. But it’s the ominous Fourth Realm where Clara must take on a tyrant called Mother Ginger as well as a gang of mice who’ve stolen a coveted key from Clara.

“The Mouse King is made up of thousands of mice—a cutting-edge CG creation. But we wanted him to move in a way that would be wonderfully surprising and incredibly cool, so we called on Lil Buck to provide the style of dance that defines the character. He is so talented and the way he makes this character move is unbelievable,” said Sean Bailey, President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production.

Los Angeles-based dancer Lil Buck hit the stage at D23 Expo 2017 to demonstrate the kind of street dancing—called jookin—that informed the way his character moves in the film. The performance earned a standing ovation.

I hope they don't go the route of her mother being dead and this is the only thing she has left from her, especially since her Godfather/Uncle Drosselmeyer would have made more sense to have given the gift since he is a tinkerer and creates toys that would likely open from a magical key.

The D23 footage showed Clara receiving a special key from Drosselmeyer, which unlocks the magical, lush world of the Nutcracker.

This film sounds and looks so cool! I only wish it was actually supposed to be Disney's version of The Nutcracker and was titled as such. I don't need it to be animated. Live-action is more fitting for ballet dances.

I only wish it was actually supposed to be Disney's version of The Nutcracker and was titled as such.

Oh, well because of what JeanGreyForever said, I actually do not mind the title at all, since it's a lot like the original book title. I wish this was coming out much sooner than almost a year from now! Is Keira Knightly the one in the pink dress in that one photo?

The concept of the Four Realms and Mother Ginger seem entirely new though. I'll have to re-read the original to see if she was some auxiliary character, or maybe she has a brief role in the ballet.

Mother Ginger is essentially a one-off character that appears in the Act 2 divertissement (alongside the Russian Dance, Chinese Dance etc.). I believe that she's based on a French folk character (often from puppet and travelling theatre shows) called Mère Gigogne whose several dozen children would emerge from under her skirt - basically nothing like the Mother Ginger in the film from what we know so far. The ballet version basically replicates the folk character traits, with a group of dancing children popping out from under the skirt of a tall pantomime dame on stilts, as in this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKDWzn5Jeq4

That said, she often gets cut out in a lot of stagings of the ballet. The version of The Nutcracker I saw last year by English National Ballet (one of the main ballet companies in the UK) cut it out, and I believe the versions performed by other companies in the UK don't include it.