| “ | With the customers all buying, and the money multiplying, and the PR people lying, and the lawyers all denying, who cares if some things are dying? I don't wanna hear your crying! This is all so gratifying! | „ |
| ~ Once-Ler |
Yup, I'm really doing this one. To clarify right away, this covers the Once-Ler from the unfinished demo version of the 2012 Lorax film, or more specifically its soundtrack since that's all we have from said demo. Any storyboards you've seen on YouTube are fan made, no official media for the demo has ever been released beyond the soundtrack.
What's the Work?[]
The Lorax is a 2012 animated adaptation of Dr. Suess' book of the same name. The film deviated and expanded significantly from the book in many ways, and because of this it went through several iterations before becoming what we got. This is to the point that there is an entire unpublished demo version of the film that was never finished, but all of the songs from it were written and recorded. The story in the demo soundtrack is very different from the one in the final film or even the original book, and as such the characterization of the Once-Ler is different as well. All of the songs can be viewed here.
To clarify, we are only discussing events that are stated in the songs from the demo soundtrack. So if it's not in one of the songs, it's not applicable for this proposal. If there's a leap in time between two songs we can't say that something definitively happened just because it happens in the released film since the story of the demo and final versions are so abundantly different. Basically, you have to listen to this soundtrack as if you haven't seen the real film or read the book since it differs from them massively.
Who is the Once-Ler? What's He Done?[]
"Thneedville (Original Demo)"
While the Once-Ler does not appear in this song, it shows us the direct result of his actions. Thneedville is a completely consumerist society that is made from plastic and steel, where they can't even see the sun due to pollution and destruction of the ecosystem the Once-Ler caused. In Thneedville, everyone only cares about the items they own. It's run by a man named Aloysius O'Hare, who quote "bottled up fresh air" and as he admits in the song, employs everyone in the city and yet rips them off at the same time by selling them something they should be getting for free. The song concludes with a boy singing about wanting a new toy, and stating he's only ever wanted the things he doesn't have, proving everyone in this town is self-centered and materialistic.
"The Once-Ler's Traveling Madness"
This song focuses on the Once-Ler during his travels to find what he needs in order to make his Thneed. He is shown to be immensely bored during said traveling, often playing his guitar in weird ways and complaining to his pet mule Melvin over them having nothing to do. He becomes delirious towards the end, singing the same notes multiple times exhaustedly right as the song concludes.
"I Love Nature"
This song has the Once-Ler sing about his love of nature, although it's mostly from a materialistic point of view. For example, he is shown to love the Truffula trees simply because he can use them in order to make the Thneeds rather than simply for their beauty.
"You Need A Thneed"
This song is the Once-Ler giving an advertisement for his Thneed, which is $3.98 according to him. He goes on about it being new and revolutionary, going as far as to claim nothing in history has been able to do what it is capable of. He then lists some of its functions, such as a sock, suit, boxing glove, and the list just goes on. He ends the song by stating that everyone needs a Thneed regardless of their political affiliation, whether they're Republican, Democratic, or so on.
"Nobody Needs A Thneed"
This song has the Once-Ler singing about the failure of his product, calling it dumb and lame because nobody has wanted it up to this point. He sarcastically states that nobody needs it and that he's an idiot for having made it, but he seems to start cheering himself up by the end by singing and playing his guitar.
"Biggering"
This song takes place some time after the last one where the Once-Ler has finally begun to see some level of success on selling the Thneed. He begins it by stating he originally did not need everything that he wants, that he was content with knitting his Thneed in peace, but with more time he's decided to reassess things. He now wants to start a full on company to sell his Thneed's with a bigger staff and more materialistic things for himself such as a larger office, desk, and hat to wear. He goes on to speak on how he is increasing the size of his company, before the Lorax arrives to speak with him. The Lorax thoroughly chews him out, saying that greed has become a pet in his head that he is feeding, and as he continues to feed it the hungrier it becomes, although the Lorax clarifies that the Once-Ler can't blame greed for what he's doing. The Lorax then states the Once-Ler has a worm inside of him he is feeding, and that as he tries to find it, the worm continues to hide, but then states that this "worm" is really pride, as pride is what keeps a person greedy enough to keep going even after they've seen success. This is followed by the Once-Ler repeating the principle of "survival of the fittest" where the animal that wins kills others, then claiming his company is in fact and animal that has to struggle and fight to stay alive. The song concludes with the Once-Ler singing feverously about how he will not stop increasing the size of his company, and that if the product is successful and he is continuously lying to the press while evading legal action, that he does not care if the ecosystem is destroyed. His final line in the song and the entire soundtrack has him stating he doesn't want to hear anyone crying about what he is doing and that he find this all to be extremely gratifying.
Mitigating Factors[]
So the first and easier potential mitigating factor to breakdown is whether or not he's comedic since some of the songs are, such as "The Once-Ler's Traveling Madness". Well, these songs do have parts that are meant to make you laugh but they aren't purely, they also exist to progress the story, the aforementioned song is about the Once-Ler's troubles as he ventures to find the trees needed to make his product. And while some of the songs have comedic elements, "Thneedville (Original Demo) and "Biggering" play things completely straight, his crimes are absolutely taken seriously and a big point that the songs are trying to capture is that he seems like a funny affable guy at first but his greed and desire quickly overwhelm him. "I Love Nature" is a good example of my point, that song does have some comedic elements, but is also has him talking about how he's going to use the Truffula trees to create Thneeds, giving it a sinister undertone. Even "Nobody Needs A Thneed" which seems funny at first, is basically just him complaining about his product not succeeding, and it's immediately followed by "Biggering" which shows that once he did find some success he quickly stopped caring about ethics altogether. So all of these comedic elements of the songs underline something more sinister up until "Biggering" where things become completely serious.
Now onto the second point, the question of whether he felt any regrets, any unsubverted redeeming qualities, or had any redemption. Well, to start his family is not mentioned a single time in the soundtrack, so they're not applicable to this version. Melvin his pet mule is mentioned a single time in "The Once-Ler's Traveling Madness" where he is complaining about being bored and playing his guitar in weird ways, but there's no further interactions beyond that where he displays care for Melvin. And considering Melvin is never mentioned again, and the Once-Ler is fine with making the environment completely unlivable for animals, it's safe there's no proof he really still cares about Melvin by the end of "Biggering". While he does seem to like nature in "I Love Nature" again if you listen to the song it's clear he really just is happy he found something he can use to make a profit. And even if you do think he genuinely cared about it, it's thoroughly subverted by the events of "Biggering" where he even admits that he was originally content to knit the Thneeds in peace, but after seeing the success he decided that he needed to continue growing his company regardless of the damage to the environment. He does not display regret a single time throughout the entire song, his final line in the soundtrack is literally "this is all so gratifying".
Ok, so what about his redemption? In the original novel and the finalized film he does try to redeem himself after the Lorax leaves by giving the final Truffula seed away to a little boy (named Ted in the final film) so it can be planted, but this doesn't happen in the soundtrack demo. We don't know if the boy came to see him in this version of the story since all we get from the boy is that he's shallow, selfish, and just wants things he doesn't have, like everyone else in Thneedville. We don't even know if the boy was named Ted in this version like he was in the final film since it's never stated. Yes, there is an alternate version of "Let It Grow" in the demo soundtrack with a gospel choir but that doesn't tell us that he gave the seed away, like I said because this demo is so different from the other versions of the story you can't fill in the gaps between songs using information from them. You have to imagine you're listening to this without having ever seen other adaptations since it doesn't exist in the same universe, and without that, we have no proof the Once-Ler had any kind of redemption. If the songs were mostly a one to one adaptation of the book then maybe you could make those assumptions, but this soundtrack's story is massively different from both the book and the final film. With that in mind we can't claim events happened here just because they do in other versions. You can make assumptions based on the events in the songs, but not based on information from media that isn't canon to this version of the story. Objectively, the last event related to the Once-Ler in this soundtrack is him saying he finds destroying everything to be gratifying, he is never portrayed receiving any kind of redemption.
Heinous Standards[]
This isn't that difficult, he basically is the heinous standards for the soundtrack. The only other villainous character is O'Hare who appears briefly in "Thneedville (Original Demo)" and basically just admits to ripping everyone off, but beyond that has no crimes. The Once-Ler runs a company with a factory that creates the Thneeds which massively pollutes the environment. As I've already established this version of the Once-Ler is aware of what he did and simply doesn't care. But if it's just a song, doesn't that mean what he did isn't explicitly shown? Well that might be true for "Biggering", "Thneedville (Original Demo)" gives us a direct explanation of the consequences his actions had. Thneedville is a city where everything is made of plastic or steel, a consumerist society where they can't see the sun due to how much smog is in the sky but are completely fine with that fact, and O'Hare is scamming everyone by selling them air that they should get for free. And to make matter worse, in this demo version everyone in the town is selfish and materialistic, even the boy who sings at the end has no care for learning about trees like he did in the original book, meaning that the Once-Ler didn't just massively damage the environment to the point that nobody can see the sky due to smog and there's no nature, he also damaged society by creating a civilization of people who only care about their possessions and pay no mind to aiding the environment. He basically ruined all of civilization.
Final Verdict[]
A surprising yes to the demo soundtrack version of the Once-Ler, due to it being unfinished we don't get to see any potential redemption for the character and the version of him presented in the songs from the beginning all the way to "Biggering" shows him to be completely aware that he is destroying the ecosystem but does not care and has no redeeming qualities.