Mooky wrote:Dr Frankenollie wrote:Mary Poppins Returns also sees the adult Jane compare Michael to their father when Whishaw is shouting angrily; this is baffling, considering the fact that the story of Mary Poppins is how their father becomes a better, kinder man. That Jane would remember George Banks as otherwise is a careless error.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Jane compares Michael to their father only once, referring to his grumpiness somewhat jokingly.
Michael: "Jane, have you gone completely mad? I can't afford to take on anyone else!"
Jane: "Mary Poppins isn't just anyone. Don't you see, Michael? Nobody's hiring nannies anymore. The poor woman has nowhere to go!"
Michael: "Well, neither will we by the end of the week!"
Jane: "You're so grumpy, you sound just like father."
Michael: (indignantly) "I do not!"
Jane: "Give Mary Poppins a chance, you need help just as much as she does."
While I can see how one throwaway line
could be read as undoing a character's whole arc in the previous film, I don't see it that way at all. We're given a glimpse of these characters twenty years after only spending a week with them previously. Surely things have changed for them, but these characters can still get angry. It's not like Mr. Banks turned off that emotion for the rest of his life. Even though he became a kinder, more attentive father, I'm sure ole George could still get grumpy at things. Taxes. The first World War. Not having a grandchild named after him until the third one popped out.
The way I read the scene, Jane is essentially telling Michael not to be like their father was before Mary Poppins came into their lives. As you mentioned, clearly he's become a changed man and she's only referring to it somewhat jokingly. In a sibling-egging-the-other-on kind of way. "Remember how Father used to be? Don't be like that." Perhaps if Jane said that, it would be a more direct way of saying he was no longer like that, but I'd rather the audience already understand that instead of having to be told.
Albert