The very first attempt at talking about resuscitation and organ donation ethics in a Disney movie

You can put a dog on a leash. But what about death? Life? 

Let's see a bit of Burton's "Frankenweenie"...behind the scene: explore connections between Frankenweenie and Apple's late boss Steve Jobs...

Brain death ethics and "dead" donor ethics? Typical expert stuff, closed-door medicine... ignored by a broad public (especially the young generation, but not only, pretty much everybody actually ...) as long as the broad public has not been hit by storm sparks... I mean, something like... next-of-kin organ donation decision... Frankenweenie's Sparky-the-dog sparks memories of storms... like Jobs' health issues, transplant and death...

As Steve Jobs, Apple's ex-boss, was dying after a liver transplant that gave him more than two years of additional life, two major Disney movies were in the works: Brave and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie... Connections between Disney and Jobs were intense and ...conflictual. Jobs was involved in Pixar (owned it) that in turn was bought by Disney... Jobs used to be Disney's main shareholder... On one occasion, Jobs got Disney's head management fired (those guys sucked... Really really...)

Brave and Frankenweenie were both made by people who where deeply moved by Steve Jobs' health and death issues... and grieving... Brave can be interpreted as the parable of Disney and Jobs' complicated (and intense) relationship... Parable of the Prodigal Son (both Disney and Jobs can be alternatively seen in the Prodigal Son's role)... Brave is a fantastic story that can be enjoyed by any stranger to these little issues and conflicts (behind-the-scene story) between Jobs and Disney...

Frankenweenie is an entire different story... Same context; different result... Burton is dealing with death, ok... sort of happens all the time... But in this case, he wanted to deal with ethics related to death, to organ donation, to resuscitation... A difficult subject... a highly sensitive issue in the transplant medicine community and among some people (you may have heard about that DNR thing)... Did you know that sometimes, a potential brain dead organ donor has to be resuscitated on and on for the sake of organ donation - and not for his or her well-being... let's say... letting him or her go without pain... DNR can be linked to organ donation... Few people know this... Even fewer films (especially entertaining films) deal with this sensitive issue... I guess Mr. Burton wanted to make a "Première"... Frankenweenie is a timid attempt at dealing with something that has never been dealt with before... Organ donors are not dead. They are dying... They can be resuscited, just like Sparky the dog... Is it a good thing or a bad thing? At least, it is a disturbing one... says the movie... Good thing or bad thing?? Burton doesn't want to answer the question. He's exploring it... A dying "donor" (a young man involved in a traffic accident) gave his liver to Steve Jobs... Steve got two and a half years of additional life thanks to organ "donation"... Donation or sacrifice? Maybe both... And a transplant is not a cure, since Steve ended up... dying.

Sparky the dog can be seen both as a dying organ donor and as a transplanted "patient"... This is the beauty of the story...

In my opinion Frankenweenie is a very touching story, but not an easy one to look at because it's full of "cultural" references (besides Frankenstein) and has a hidden background that cannot be explained so easily (transplant issues, DNR issues, Jobs death...). With Frankenweenie, I think quite frankly that Burton has been very... brave. Lot of work remains, though...

You can put a dog on a leash. But what about death? Life?...

Pic.