Melody Time

Here at MMR, we love obscure Disney films.  Well, maybe the less heard of ones at least.  Melody Time is one of these.  This would be the 10^th animated feature to pop out of the Disney cannon, in 1948.  It is essentially a mini Fantasia, made up of a series of shorts which are set to music.  Several films of its kind were produced by Disney, with this being the fifth; the others were Saludos Amigos, Make Mine Music, The Three Caballeros and Fun and Fancy Free.  There are seven short segments knitted together to make Melody Time, but they are all very different.

 

The first, Once Upon a Wintertime, was styled by Disney artist Mary Blair.  Her style was very graphic and modern compared to a lot of the other Disney artists, who achieved a more traditional look to their work.  Her work was beautiful, and she did a lot of concept art for Disney films; in the future she would go on to contribute to many features, including Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, as well as being key in the designing of It’s a Small World in Disneyland.  Unfortunately, in Once Upon a Wintertime, you can see that her characters do not translate as well as her still environments do, as their simplicity limits a lot of their personality through movement and facial expressions.  It also seems to lack festive spirit a bit, considering that it is set in winter.  It is about a young couple whose fun on the ice swiftly turns into peril; a nice little story, including quite a few animals.  I really wanted to like it, but I can’t help but think that it would look better static as a print on a wall rather than an animation.  It was later released as a standalone short though, so it must have been loved!

 

Bumble Boogie is the second segment, which is set to the jazzed-up tune of Flight of the Bumblebee.  The style is such that would fit perfectly into Fantasia, with a bumblebee trying to fight off a frenzy of music and musical instruments.  In fact, the music was originally considered to be in Fantasia several years earlier.  This piece is much more fun and a lot less ‘grown-up’ than Once Upon a Wintertime, which makes you think that maybe Mary Blair’s style would have been more suited to Bumble Boogie!  The bee is cute, which helps the audience to feel his frustration in this crazy little number.

 

The third short, Johnny Appleseed, was also styled by Mary Blair.  It is about American legend, John Chapman, who roamed Mid-Western America planting apple trees (hence his nickname).  In comparison to Once Upon a Wintertime, the characters seems to flow much better, and the colours of the backgrounds are rather beautiful, with bright green trees and rosy red apples.  Considering the subject matter, however, maybe a more traditional style could have been used to tell the story.  Johnny is visited early in the short by an angel, who sends him on a mission to plant lots of apple trees.  Johnny does so all of his life, wandering fields and meeting animals, and planting hundreds of trees.  The characters, particularly the angel, are quite humorous; the angel is a no-nonsense type with a pushy attitude, but also has a streak of kindness in him.  The story is quite educational in its own way, and probably one of the best stories in Melody Time.

 

Little Toot, in my opinion, is the first segment in Melody Time that has a style to match its subject.  Little Toot is a tugboat, who wants to be just like Big Toot (presumably his father), but ends up causing chaos instead of helping.  It is based on the story by Hardie Gramatky of the same name, and the music is provided by the Andrews Sisters.  This one is probably aimed more towards children, as it is a story about proving yourself, and putting right your wrongs.

 

Trees.  Trees, trees and more trees.  This one is based on a poem by Alfred Joyce Kilmer, and kind of reminds the audience of Bambi, with the forests and whatnot.  Essentially, it is a very slow paced piece, which also looks like it could have fitted nicely into Fantasia.

 

Things are taken up a notch in this next segment, Blame it on the Samba, which looks like it escaped from The Three Caballeros.  Donald Duck and José Carioca are woken by the Aracuan bird, who introduces them to the joys of samba music.  Ethel Smith plays the organ while Donald and José dance on top of it, so live action and animation is twinned in this piece.  Definitely uplifting compared to Trees, and generally more fun!

 

Now we come to the last short on Melody Time, Pecos Bill.  This also includes live action and animation, but not simultaneously.  Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers tell/sing the story to Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten, who some of you may remember from Song of the South.  Bill fell off a wagon as a baby, and his parents didn’t notice, so he ended up being raised by wolves, almost like Mowgli in The Jungle Book!  The turned out to be the best cowboy that ever lived along with his horse, Widowmaker.  We are told of all his tall tales, but one day he meets a girl named Slue-Foot Sue, who he intends to marry, essentially taming his wild lifestyle…slightly.  She decides that she wants to ride Widowmaker on her wedding day, but Widowmaker does not like Sue, as he is jealous of her relationship with Bill.  It just so happens that on this day, Sue is wearing a mighty big bustle, so when she gets on Widowmaker and he starts trying to buck her off, she goes flying up into the air.  Nobody, not even Bill, can stop her bouncing, and eventually she bounces all the way onto the Moon.  In his depressed state, Bill goes back to live with the wolves, and howls at the moon for his beloved.

The song in Pecos Bill is pretty good, I recommend that everyone goes and listens to it!  Apparently, all scenes of Bill’s cigarette were digitally removed on the NTSC versions of the film, and one scene cut entirely, where Bill rolls a cigarette and smokes it.  The PAL version still includes these scenes.  Also, if anyone has visited Walt Disney World, they will be familiar with the burger restaurant: Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe.  Definitely visit if you can, they do out-of-this-world food, and even have ‘props’ on the wall from the film, including Sue’s white gloves.  This is without a doubt, the best short on Melody Time, so they saved the best until last!

Overall view?  Pretty good.  It is hard to give a rating to something with such a diverse selection of segments.  I think you can judge how much I liked each one by how much I’ve written about it.  Definitely check it out of you get the chance, it is worth it for Pecos Bill alone.

 

Out of the seven shorts, I really liked 3 of them, and the rest I could leave alone.  So for that reason, I give this movie 3 Tinks.

Meet the Robinsons

‘Bake them cookies, Lucille!’  – Grandpa Bud. 

Close your eyes, and think of Disney.  What comes to mind?  Maybe Mickey Mouse, possibly princesses and castles, or maybe Uncle Walt!  What you probably don’t think of are space ships, dinosaurs and singing frogs.  Another of Disney’s less-mentioned movies comes in the form of Meet the Robinsons, which popped up in 2007 after 4 years in production.

Twelve-year-old science-crazy Lewis lives in an orphanage, and is fed up with nobody wanting to adopt him.  He gets the idea into his head that his mother (who we saw leave him as a baby at the start of the film) will want him back now that he is older, so he sets about making a brain-scanner, so that he can try to remember what she looks like.  This is much to the dismay of his long-suffering room-mate, Goob, who, with no sleep due to Lewis’ ‘inventing’ through the night, loses his important baseball game.  Remember that part, it is important later!  Lewis takes his invention to the school science fair where he meets Wilbur Robinson, who claims that he is from the future.  He is looking for a time machine that a man in a bowler hat has stolen.  Sadly, Lewis’ memory scanner falls apart and causes chaos; enough chaos for Bowler Hat Guy and his robotic bowler hat Doris to steal the scanner unnoticed.
Wilbur then finds Lewis on the roof of the orphanage, and tries to persuade him to fix the memory scanner.  Lewis says he will only fix the scanner if Wilbur can prove that he is from the future.  So, Wilbur throws Lewis into his own time machine/spaceship and whisks him off to 2037.  This year is also used in the film The Time Machine, as the year that the world would end.  When Lewis realises that Wilbur really does have a time machine, he refuses to fix the memory scanner, saying that the time machine can take him straight to his mother.  They end up arguing and crash the spaceship, and Wilbur asks Lewis to fix it.  Lewis agrees, but only if Wilbur takes him to see his mother after it is fixed.  Lewis is hidden in the garage, so as Wilbur’s family do not see him.  However, he isn’t there long, before he ends up outside and meets the rest of the Robinson clan.  He comes across Grandpa Bud, who is looking for his teeth and has his clothes on backwards, Uncle Joe who works out, Uncle Art the ‘super hero’ who delivers pizzas (voiced by Adam West…yes, thatAdam West), Aunt Billie and Gaston.  We also briefly meet Lucille, who is in a room that appears to be a disco, and is ‘baking cookies’.  Then Lewis is back outside again, still with Grandpa, where he meets the dog, who is wearing glasses.  One of the wonderful one-liners in this movie:Lewis: ‘Why is your dog wearing glasses?’

Grandpa: ‘Because his insurance won’t pay for contacts.’

Next Lewis meets Uncles Spike and Dimitri, and a large purple octopus called Lefty.  Then we meet the mother of the family, Franny, who is conducting an orchestra of frogs; the singing voice of Frankie the frog is voiced by Jamie Cullum.  Lewis does not meet Wilbur’s Dad, but Wilbur tells him that he looks like Tom Selleck (cue photo of Tom Selleck).  The introduction to this massive and wacky family is probably one of the best sequences in the whole movie.

Are you starting to see what I mean when I said that this is not the traditional Disney film?

I don’t want to spoil the rest of the story, but it does get weirder!

The story is based on the book by William Joyce called ‘A Day with Wilbur Robinson’.  Some of the characters are based upon real relatives that Joyce had, such as his grandpa who had so many artificial bits and pieces such as false teeth and a glass eye (Grandpa Bud), or his uncle who was 7ft tall and claimed that he was from outer space (Uncle Art).

There seems to be more characters in this movie than you would expect there to be in your average film, however, most of them do not play a big part at all, and are there simply to aid some of the many fabulous one-liners that make this film unique.  The whole Robinson family represent freedom, and they do whatever makes them happy; they even celebrate failure, as it means that you will learn from your mistake and move forward!  The main characters such as Lewis and Wilbur are easy to identify with, especially for young children.  Design-wise, the characters are rather similar to the ones that are found in the original book.

The version of the future that we see here is rather similar in many ways to what you would see in Tomorrowland in a Disney theme park.  In fact, you see Lewis and Wilbur fly past ‘Todayland’ in their spaceship, with almost an exact replica of Space Mountain in the background, and the original Rocket Jets.    

As far as music goes, this isn’t one of Disney’s more musical efforts, but the story doesn’t really call for that anyway.  The wonderful Danny Elfman wrote the score, with artists such as Rufus Wainwright, The All-American Rejects and Jamie Cullum contributing to the soundtrack.  On the whole, the music is upbeat and futuristic in a very Disney-esque and charming way, although whenever Lewis’ family is mentioned or we are meant to feel his sense of loneliness, the music does take on much more of an emotional feel.

There is a theme running through this film which comes from the saying ‘keep moving forward’.  Anyone familiar with Walt Disney will recognise this from one of his famous quotes, which is actually tagged onto to the end of the movie.  A nice touch!  In fact, the whole film does share the same values that Walt had about the future and moving forward.  Lewis is actually very similar to Walt, wanting to make the world a better place through technology.  There are a few nods to Walt and the Disney theme parks throughout this film, as the director is also quite a fan of Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

Meet the Robinsons was released in 2007, two years after Chicken Little, which, if you have read my review on that, you will know I’m not a fan of.  That is an understatement.  Most folks tend to think of Pixar when they see a CGI Disney film, though neither of these films had Pixar involved.  This film is actually the first film to be released under the new Walt Disney Animation Studios label, after the Disney/Pixar agreement expired.  In the case of Chicken Little, I actually wish that Pixar had been on hand to…well…to scrap that movie and make a better one.  Where Meet the Robinsons is concerned, Disney did an amazing job all on their own.  Meet the Robinsons was the fourth highest grossing film that year, behind Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, and The Simpsons Movie. (it is streets ahead of Shrek the Third).    

This is definitely an odd film.  In this case though, odd is good.  If you are a fan of the values of Walt Disney, a fan of the theme parks, or a fan of sci-fi in general, this is the Disney film for you!  It is definitely one of the less talked about Disney movies, and it deserves a lot more recognition than it gets.  I would say that teenagers and young adults would probably be the target audience for Meet the Robinsons, as its random and bizarre characters and comical scriptwriting are fantastic, and a lot of the jokes will probably be lost on a very young audience.

I am reviewing from the DVD edition of the film, which isn’t exactly loaded with special features, but there is the expected ‘Backstage Disney’ section which is the best bit.  It includes interviews with the director, some of the voice artists, William Joyce, Danny Elfman and some of the other artists that are included on the soundtrack.  There is an audio commentary which is always fun to listen to, as well as deleted scenes, music videos (sigh) and a game.  This is probably worth picking up on Blu-Ray if you have the option to do so!

I give this movie 4 Tinks.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems 
In a place that perhaps you’ve seen in your dreams 
For the story that you are about to be told 
Began with the holiday worlds of old…

Originally I was planning on reviewing this film for Halloween, however with the film being a crossover of Halloween and Christmas, I decided to aim more for Thanksgiving.

I went to see The Nightmare Before Christmas when it was released in 1993, and although I was about 4 at the time, I still enjoyed it, and have loved watching it ever since.  It was originally released under the Touchstone Pictures banner, since it was thought that it was too dark to be released as a Walt Disney Picture.  The movie is entirely stop motion animated, and took 3 years to complete.  It is based on a poem by Tim Burton.

The title sequence introduces us to an assortment of bizarre and wacky supporting characters who reside in Halloween Town.  The song ‘This is Halloween’ sets the tone for the rest of the film with its upbeat tune and dark lyrics.  We are then introduced to the hero of the story, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town.  The people of the town seem to adore him, and he plays up to their cheers, however, we soon see that Jack is bored with his role of Pumpkin King when he wanders off forlornly into the woods.  Another great song here as Jack sings about his boredom with the ‘same routine’ every year, and how he longs for something different.  Jack walks through the night until he is in a part of the woods he’s never been to before.  It is here that Jack discovers the ‘Holiday Doors’.  There are several trees standing in a circle, and on each tree there is an image representing a different holiday, including; a four-leaf clover for St. Patrick’s Day, a heart for Valentine’s Day, and a turkey for Thanksgiving.  Out of all these doors, Jack is drawn towards the one which has a Christmas tree painted on it.  He opens the door and falls into the tree, which transports him to Christmas Town.

Meanwhile, Jack’s love interest, a rag doll named Sally, is being held against her will by her creator, Dr. Finkelstein, though she often manages to outsmart him so that she can escape his lab.  Sally is concerned for Jack, who has seemed distant and lonely recently.  The love story between Jack and Sally runs very loosely (almost not at all) throughout the whole film.

Christmas Town is in massive contrast to Halloween Town, adorned with lights, awash with brilliantly bright colours, and inhabited by cheery and joyful people.  Another rousing song by Jack at this point illustrates his disbelief at such a different place to what he is used to, as he asks ‘What’s This?’  The lyrics are quite amusing too:

‘There’s children throwing snowballs, instead of throwing heads/they’re busy building toys and absolutely no-one’s dead.’

It is here that Jack gets a glimpse of Santa Claus, though he mistakes him for ‘Sandy Claws’.  He is so taken with the idea of Christmas that he heads back to Halloween Town to tell his fellow townspeople about it.  While Jack was away, the town seems to have descended into a state of chaos, even the Mayor of the town declaring that:

‘I’m only an elected official here; I can’t make decisions by myself!

Jack becomes obsessive over Christmas, trying to learn all he can about it, and this causes him to decide that he will take over Christmas for the year; all with the best intentions of course.  He sets all the people in the town to work making Christmas toys, including a hat made out of a rat and a duck with bleeding gunshot wounds.  At this point it becomes obvious that the people of Halloween Town have not understood the meaning of Christmas.  Jack also goes to the extreme of sending his enemy’s henchmen, Lock, Shock and Barrel to kidnap Sandy Claws.  After making the mistake of trawling back with the Easter Bunny, they return later with Santa in a big sack, and are told by Jack to take care of him while he ‘does’ Christmas.  Sally starts to get more and more concerned for Jack, having visions of his idea going terribly wrong, though he doesn’t listen when she tries to tell him.

Up until this point in the film, we have not been introduced to the villain of the story, though he does make a brief appearance in the opening sequence, only as a shadow.  Oogie Boogie has Santa given to him by Lock, Shock and Barrel, and sets to work torturing the poor soul.  One of the most visually exciting parts of the whole film, Oogie Boogie sings ‘Oogie Boogie’s Song’, which tells of the ways he likes to inflict pain and suffering upon his ‘guests’.  The whole scene is set in Oogie’s dark lair, though all the objects like his roulette wheel and dice are fluorescent colours; even Oogie himself, who is usually a brown colour, is bright green under UV lights.

Meanwhile, Jack has set out to create his own Christmas, with his sidekick ghost dog Zero lighting the way for the sleigh in the fog with his glowing nose.  Nice play on Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Since Jack never really got the idea of Christmas straight in his skull, he starts delivering presents such as severed heads and snakes to several children in the ‘real world’.  After the police are alerted to someone posing as Santa, Jack is unfortunately shot out of the sky, landing in a snow-covered graveyard.  It is at this stage that Jack realises he has made a mess of everything, and vows to put it right by rescuing Santa from Oogie Boogie and getting Christmas back on track.

The styling of the film, especially Halloween Town, reminds me a lot of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its sharp silhouettes and weird perspectives.  Christmas Town has more of a Dr. Seuss feeling about it, and is rather similar to the town in The Grinch.  One of the most iconic images from the film is Spiral Hill, which can be seen on the original movie poster, as well as in the Kingdom Hearts series of games, where the whole of the Nightmare world can be explored.

The voice cast are pretty amazing on this film, though by now we shouldn’t expect anything less from Disney.  Jack is voiced by Chris Sarandon and his singing parts are performed by Danny Elfman.  Catherine O’Hara voices Sally and Shock, and Ken Page voices Oogie Boogie.

The music, as I have mentioned above, is amazing, and possibly one of the best film soundtracks I have ever heard.  The songs were written by Danny Elfman, as well as him lending his singing voice to Jack Skellington.  It is hard to choose a favourite song out of the whole bunch, as the lyrics on each track are fantastic and are performed beautifully by the cast.

The Nightmare Before Christmas saw a revival in 2006 when it was released in Disney Digital 3D.  I was lucky enough to catch it on its 3D release and it looked better than it ever did!  Although I am reviewing from the DVD, I have heard that this film gains a lot by being viewed on Blu-ray.  The special features on the 2 disc DVD are pretty good, though in fact, disc number one holds all of the ‘Making Of’ features, which in my opinion are the best features to watch.  There is also a big section on the Disneyland Haunted Mansion’s Nightmare Before Christmas overlay which is really interesting.  On disc 2 is Tim Burton’s short live-action film Frankenweenie, which is a nice watch, along with his animated short Vincent.

As a side note, Disneyland overlay their Haunted Mansion each year to make it look like Jack Skellington just landed down the chimney and decorated the place.  There is a Spiral Hill in there as well as Oogie Boogie and Jack Skellington with Zero floating by his side.  If you ever get a chance to visit over Christmas time, you really should!

You could be forgiven for thinking that this film has rather a morbid aura about it, however it more than makes up for the gloom with plenty of jokes and quirky characters throughout.  The music also lifts the viewer’s spirits even when the subject matter is a little bit gruesome.  Tim Burton’s direction is as interesting as ever and really does not disappoint.  Hopefully if you have never seen this film before you will give it a fair chance, as it isn’t just for the tween Goths and Emos, it is for anyone who loves Christmas, Halloween and simply being entertained.

I give this movie 5 Tinks.

The Brave Little Toaster

‘ Just ’cause you move around, you think you’re better than I am. I’m not an invalid. I was designed to stick in the wall! I like being stuck in the stupid wall! I can’t help it if the kid was too short to reach my dials… ‘ – Air Conditioner

You may have noticed that a lot of the reviews on my site seem to revolve around Disney movies which are lesser known/loved.  This review is no different, as I have decided to review The Brave Little Toaster.  It was released in 1987, based on a 1980 book of the same name.  I had only seen this movie once before, so I thought I would give it another try, and review it too.

The film starts off quietly and dark, right before sunrise.  We are quickly introduced to the characters, one by one, and are given a taste of their individual personalities.  Kirby the vacuum cleaner (Thurl Ravenscroft, the Haunted Mansion, Tony the Tiger, Country Bear Jamboree), Blanky the electric blanket (Timothy E. Day), Lampy the lamp (Tim Stack), Radio the radio (Jon Lovitz, Saturday Night Live) and Toaster the, erm, toaster(Deanna Oliver).  At the beginning of the film there is also a moody air conditioner (Phil Hartman) that loses his temper with the other characters and explodes.  It is interesting to note that each character is the opposite in personality to the purpose they serve.  For example, the Lamp is rather dim; the electric (security) blanket is insecure, and the vacuum that usually holds things inside has a nervous breakdown.

 It soon becomes apparent that the appliances have been left there by someone, a little boy who they call ‘master’.  On a couple of occasions they are led to believe that their master is coming home, hearing the door or seeing a car coming toward the house.  Of course this is not the case, and we see how deeply saddened the appliances are when their dreams are shattered, especially Blanky who cries and wails as he misses his master so much.  The inside of the house is rather dark, which adds to the overall sadness we witness in the characters.  No doubt children will be especially familiar with the fear of abandonment, particularly by their parents.

When it is obvious that the master is not coming back, the five appliances set out into the world to try to find him.  Cue enlightening song ‘City of Lights’, which actually does seem to brighten the mood.  Their journey continues, encountering frogs, fish, mice and many other strange things along the way.  There are also a couple of slower scenes where they are settling down for the night, which don’t seem to aid the story too much, apart from reinforcing their love for the master.  Oh, and there is a rather scary scene involving a clown trying to murder the toaster with a hose and then dangling him over a full bath.  This is in the toaster’s dream of course, and even though I am personally not scared of clowns, I can’t see children being too fond of it!  This (understandable) fear of water seems to hinder them throughout the film, and at one point four of the characters have fallen down a waterfall, with the vacuum leaping in afterwards to save them.

Not long after their heroics, the appliances end up with a large man called Elmo St.Peters (Joe Ranft) who owns an appliance parts store, of course with many other appliances for the main characters to interact with.  They meet a peculiar hanging lamp, as well as a character called ‘Mish-Mash’ who says it has been created with a can opener, lamp and an electric shaver, and is quite freaky looking.  All of the characters here have bits missing or wrong bits added to them.  The whole place is rather creepy, complete with a strange song ‘It’s a B Movie’ and the five heroes decide that they need to get out of there before the man uses them for parts.

It is soon revealed that the master, who we saw as a young boy at the start of the film in flashbacks, is now a college student.  Clearly the appliances have been missing him for many years.  They arrive at his apartment finding that he has left, and whilst there they meet some more modern appliances.  These appliances convince them that they have outlived their usefulness.  They throw them into a dumpster and they are taken away to be disposed of.  Meanwhile, Rob (the master) has returned to his childhood home and found that the appliances are missing.  He also fixes the air conditioner while he is there.

The junkyard scene is rather depressing.  Singing cars are dragged down a conveyer belt and crushed to death by a giant crusher.  The song is ‘Worthless’, and the cars are singing about their glory days when they were still able to drive, whilst a giant menacing magnet grabs them and tosses them onto the conveyer belt.  I think that this song is probably the best one on the soundtrack, though it does seem a bit odd in a kid’s film to have ‘living’ characters visibly murdered, cars or otherwise.  The appliances are picked up by the huge magnet, from where they can see their master who is also at the junkyard.  They jump off of the moving belt and start to run towards the master; however the magnet is close behind them, chasing them down; though this is not as scary as the clown scene!  The master finds them, but the magnet snatches them away from him, the sky turning dark pinks and browns as the master almost ends up under the crusher.  In an act of bravery (hence the title of the film) the toaster jumps into the mechanism, causing the crusher to stop, and save the master’s life.

Following this, the appliances move to college with their master, a happy ending!

The DVD I used to review this has a ‘Making Of’ Feature, and that’s it for the special features!  I did come across a 2010 interview with the Director of the film (Jerry Rees) and the voice of the Toaster (Deanna Oliver), which is quite an interesting watch.

Suicides and murders aside, this is a nice little movie, and though its title and the art on the DVD box seem to convey a very bright happy film, it is a touch on the dark side.  Though not dark in the sense of some of the other Disney films which play with adult themes, but a film which toys with childish themes, which in turn affect a broader audience.

In honesty, I struggled to give this film a rating, as it is one of the stranger Disney films I have seen, and after learning more about it, I think I appreciate it a little bit more!

I give this movie 3 Tinks.

Sleeping Beauty

‘Thou sword of truth, fly swift and sure, that evil die and good endure!’ – Flora

Ever since I can remember, I have loved watching Disney movies, be they animated, live-action, or even a mix of the two.  I had watched so many of the films over and over again that I still to this day know them inside-out.  One film however, that I never saw to the end was Sleeping Beauty.  As a child, I was not usually particularly frightened by films or T.V shows, but this seemed different.  Maybe it was Maleficent and her terrifying presence, or maybe it was the aura of the unknown that the film carried, however as soon as Aurora saw that green glow, I would turn the film off.  Sounds crazy, but hence, I never saw to the end of the film.  Fast-forward to 2008 when I bought the deluxe edition DVD (in a beautiful gold box made to look like a book); this would be the first time I saw the ending, and boy did I realise what I had been missing out on!

Nowadays of course, there is a Blu-ray release of the film, which is what I will be drawing this review from.  I have split this review into sections to make it easier to read, as it is considerably longer than my other reviews.

The Production

After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ release in 1937, there was a large gap between fairytale movies at the Disney studio.  The War had led Walt to make several propaganda cartoons, as well as Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, and many more features which were released in the 1940s.  When Cinderella was released in 1950, this marked the return of the classic fairytale animated feature.  Apparently, work had started on the story of Sleeping Beauty in 1951, merely a year after Cinderella’s release.  The story, unlike many other Disney features, remained almost unchanged from the first idea to the finished product, which left more time for the other elements of the film to develop.  It was decided that Sleeping Beauty would be filmed in Super Technirama 70mm, which is twice the size of a regular film.  This was the first film to be shot this way, and the only other Disney film to use it since has been The Black Cauldron.  It was not until the release of DVD and Blu-ray that regular audiences were able to see the film as it was intended, an expanded version of the film which makes the sides of the image visible as they weren’t before.

Sleeping Beauty was ahead of its time, mainly due to one element: its styling.  Breaking tradition from the classic rounded, cartoony style used on the characters and environments of previous films and shorts, this feature took a completely new direction.  Walt Disney had often admired the concept art created for many of his films, intending that certain styles which had been created by the artists would be apparent in the finished product.  However this was not the case.  For example, Mary Blair did numerous paintings for films such as Peter Pan  and Alice in Wonderland, but by the time the film was put into production and was animated, her style had been drastically watered-down, leaving only hints of her unique style visible.  For Sleeping Beauty, Walt decided that this time the studio would find a style and stick with it, making sure that the final film would be very similar to its original sketches and paintings.

The man responsible for the styling of the film turned out to be Eyvind Earle, who had done freelance work on Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and a couple of Disney shorts.  His work was strong, graphic, unusual yet realistic and controlled.  Walt was so impressed with the look of Earle’s work and, against some of the wishes of other workers at the studio; he decided that everything from the backgrounds to the colours, and even the characters should be influenced by his creations.  Earle had the idea that everything in each shot should be in focus and highly visible, rather than having a background slightly blurred, or something far in the background less colourful.  Of course, the point may be argued that a background is exactly that, something which is a backdrop to the action in the foreground.  This idea of the whole frame being in focus at once sailed boldly in the face of the multi-plane camera which had been used so many time before in other Disney films and shorts such as The Old Mill.  The multi-plane had given a depth and reality to the picture, however it had been used several times over the years, and maybe the decision not to use it in Sleeping Beauty was a good one.  To create depth without the multi-plane, the artists still had large objects in the foreground and small ones in the background, but each thing was in focus and coloured equally to the rest, giving a more flat look.  This evenness gave the look of a moving painting, rather like a tapestry due to its medieval subject matter.  Many of the things in the film such as the trees, the castle, crowds, and several of the characters, are all very elongated, as Earle’s work seemed to regularly contain many vertical objects.  The characters in particular were changed from the more realistic and accurate to slightly more angular, with more ‘pointed parts’.  This style of character animation would rear its head again in the production of Hercules decades later.

With the backgrounds being so clear to the audience, many of the character animators were concerned that their characters would get lost on the screen, however this does not come across in the final film.  As the characters were also influenced by Earle’s style, they seem to fit perfectly in their own living painting.

The main thing that Walt was aware of was that the film should not be another Snow White or Cinderella.  He told this to the team working on the film frequently, although he wasn’t around the studio often at this time.  With Disneyland coming to fruition during the production of the film, as well as the Monorail, Matterhorn and Submarine Voyage all opening on June 14^th 1959 (year of Sleeping Beauty release), Walt also had his T.V show and live action films in production at the same time.  It is therefore understandable that much of the work was left to his employees who already had plenty experience working on previous features.   As the fairytale stories that had already been made into films do not differ massively, this is where the style of Sleeping Beauty really freshened up the story.

The environments and character designs are not the only things that changed from the traditional Disney style.  The personality of Aurora in particular is a departure from the former Disney princesses, as she seems smarter; more mature for a 16-year-old, and much less naive.  She has a beautifully strong voice to match her persona, but it is also reserved and delicate.  Mary Costa provided the voice, who was training as an opera singer; therefore she did the voice acting and the singing for Aurora.  For the character, singing is merely an extension of her speech.  The look of Aurora was based on Costa as well as the girl who did the live action reference for the character.

Maleficent is voiced by Eleanor Audley, who also voiced Lady Tremaine in Cinderella and is the voice of Madame Leota in the Haunted Mansion in the Disney Parks.  Audley’s voice is extremely powerful and frightening, perfect for a Disney villain.  Her costume was originally designed to be red and black, however black and purple was ultimately chosen, which perfectly complemented the green fog she creates when she appears.  In a way she is similar to the Wicked Queen from Snow White, as she is rather beautiful, just less human-like and sporting devilish horns on her head and bat wings on her shoulders.  As Maleficent makes a lot of speeches throughout the film, it was decided that when nobody was around, she would need someone or something to address.  This came in the form of a crow, which Disney fans often refer to as ‘Diablo’.  While Diablo does not talk and nor is he a main character, he does serve the purpose of sidekick for Maleficent.  You would certainly not like to meet Maleficent on a dark night!

While the princes in Cinderella and Snow White do not play the most inspiring roles in the film, Prince Philip seems like he possesses more of a personality.  He is charming just like the next prince, but he shows a great deal of courage, particularly when attempting to rescue the princess from her tower, fighting through endless thorns and battling a dragon.  He also seems much more human in his animation and facial expressions, maybe even more than Aurora herself.

While all the characters which have been mentioned already were affected by the styling of Earle, the three fairies do not demonstrate this style quite as much.  They do have pointed elbows and the like, but their overall shapes are rounded and soft, giving them a feel of warmth and friendliness.  Their names are Flora, Fauna and Merryweather.  The three are good-natured, but not the brightest crayons in the box!  Flora is the self-appointed leader of the group; Fauna is the ditzy one of the three, and Merryweather is the opinionated one.  In a scene where the three fairies are trying to make a dress and a cake for the princess, their personalities come to the surface, and provide a humorous insight into their everyday lives.  The magic that the fairies have comes in useful in a couple of instances in the film, particularly when Philip is trying to rescue Aurora.

There are some interesting things happening in Sleeping Beauty which you may or may not notice for yourself.  When you see a large crowd, for example, in the christening scene, they do not move, only the lead characters do.  Also, even though the title of the film is Sleeping Beauty, the leading lady is only on-screen for 18 minutes!  The styling by Eyvind Earle, although gothic, is rather modern in terms of the colours used and the clarity of the lines.  This was the last Disney film to be hand-inked, after this, the Xerox machine was used.

The Story

So as a basic outline of the story for those of you who are not familiar…

King Stefan and the Queen are blessed with a child whom they name Aurora.  Although young, she is betrothed to Prince Philip, son of King Hubert.  At her christening, three fairies bless the child with gifts.  Flora gives her the gift of beauty and Fauna the gift of song, but before Merryweather can bestow her gift upon the princess, she is interrupted by an evil witch named Maleficent.  The witch is angry as she was not invited to the christening, and so curses the princess, telling that before the sun sets on her 16^th birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.  Though the third fairy cannot break the spell, she weakens it, and declares that when Aurora pricks her finger she will simply fall into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by true love’s kiss.

The King orders all of the spinning wheels in the kingdom to be destroyed, but as a precaution, the fairies take Aurora away to live with them in the forest, change her name to Briar Rose, and disguise her as a peasant.  Whilst in the forest one day she accidentally meets Prince Philip, though not knowing who he is, and falls in love with him.  When she tells the fairies she has fallen in love, they reveal the truth about who she is, and that she has to return home to her parents.

As Aurora is taken to the castle in the dead of night, the film begins to take a dark turn.  Aurora is entranced by a mystical green glow which she follows through the fireplace.  The green glow, of course is Maleficent, who is planning to kill the princess, as per her original plan.  The glow leads her to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep.  The unfortunate Prince is captured by Maleficent, but the fairies break the chains which are holding him, and he rides off to rescue Aurora.  Of course Maleficent does not make his journey an easy one, with her henchmen throwing all manner of obstacles in his way.  Some wonderful ideas were put into practice for these scenes, as the boulders thrown are turned into bubbles by the fairies, the arrows to flowers, and what seems to be molten lava is turned into a rainbow.  On reaching the castle he is greeted with a forest of thorns, but swiftly slashes his way through them, much to Maleficent’s dismay.  At this point in the film, a sense of urgency becomes very much apparent, with the music becoming more dramatic, and the pace of the film increasing rapidly.  After the prince has made his way through the thorns, we get to witness one of the most famous scenes in Disney animated history, (the part I missed as a child!) the battle of Prince Philip and the Dragon.

Maleficent cries: 

‘Now shall you deal with me oh prince, and all the powers of Hell!’

Then we witness her elongated body stretch high above the clouds, and as it does, it turns into an overwhelming nightmare; a gigantic black dragon with a purple stomach and glowing green eyes, breathing green fiery flames down upon the prince.  The thorns are set ablaze with this green fire, as Philip relentlessly tries to kill the dragon with his sword, but he quickly ends up teetering on the edge of a cliff, confronted with the huge beast.  With a spell cast upon his sword by Flora, he throws his weapon into Maleficent’s heart, and with a powerful scream, the dragon falls to her death.

Although the battle is relatively short, it is bursting with adrenaline, fabulous staging, effects and use of colours, as well as astounding animation and use of sound.

Another very famous scene of course, similar to that of Snow White, is the scene which gives the audience a happy ending: true love’s kiss.  Suddenly the room turns from blue hues to warm pinks, as Aurora opens up her sparkling eyes and smiles, as though nothing has happened!  The rest of the people in the kingdom also wake from their sleep, which was caused by a spell from the fairies.

The Blu-ray

Since I am reviewing this film from the 50^th Anniversary Blu-ray release, it would be wrong of me to not mention how good the transfer is.  The DVD was wonderful, but this goes beyond that.  It is hard to believe that an animated film could look this amazing after 50 years; you cannot help but admire it.  As the backgrounds are so detailed, you may not have been able to appreciate them as much before, but now you can, and appreciated they should be!  Every stone in the wall, every thorn, every leaf, every thread is in such high quality that it feels like you could reach out and touch Earle’s paintings.

The sound too, is beyond clear!  The music was adapted by George Bruns from the Tchaikovsky ballet.  Upon watching the film, it seems as though the music could have been written for it, since it fits so perfectly.  The most recognisable song from the film has to be ‘Once Upon a Dream’, sung by Aurora and Prince Philip upon meeting each other in the forest.

The special features seem to go on forever, and having watched the majority of them, I have to say that I am very impressed.  Of course I would not expect anything less for such a fantastic movie!

Walt also used Sleeping Beauty in Disneyland, naming and theming the castle around the film, and decades later in 1992, Disneyland Paris would acquire its own version of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, complete with Eyvind Earle’s square trees!

The Verdict

There has never been anything quite like Sleeping Beauty either before or after its release.  Other features such as 101 Dalmatians and Sword in the Stone have shown a similarity in character design since the film, but nothing has ever come close to the elaborate and elegant Sleeping Beauty.

The images in this review are from the DVD, therefore are of a lower quality.

I give this movie 5 Tinks.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

‘It’s not my fault, if in God’s plan, he made the Devil so much stronger than a man’ – Frollo

 

If you have read my review of The Black Cauldron, you may have noticed that I did not give the film a warm reception.  The one thing it did have on its side was that it strayed from the traditional Disney movies by taking on a much darker subject matter.  Another film which is considered to be one of Disney’s ‘darker’ efforts is The Hunchback of Notre Dame which was released in 1996.

The film is based, albeit loosely, on the novel by Victor Hugo which was published in 1831, and is centred on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  It took Hugo six months to write the 200,000 word epic, and he apparently did it with only one bottle of ink!  The Disney team who were working on the film spent a lot of time in and around Notre Dame, exploring it and taking notes to get a feel of what it was like to be there.

At the start of the film we are introduced to Clopin, a jester who is telling the story of Quasimodo to a group of children.  He actually sings the story, as the folks at Disney thought that it would be a nicer introduction to the film rather than having him dryly tell the story.  He tells of how Judge Claude Frollo mistakenly snatched Quasimodo as a baby from his mother’s arms, causing her to fall down dead after hitting her head on the steps of Notre Dame.  The Archdeacon tells Frollo to look after the baby as his own, since he had killed its mother.  After glancing at the baby and seeing it is deformed, Frollo decides to name him ‘Quasimodo’ which means half-formed, and takes him to live in the bell tower, causing the people of the city to know him only as ‘the bell ringer of Notre Dame’.  The story then skips ahead 20 years, where we are introduced to adult Quasimodo.  The audience begins to see what the relationship between Quasi and Frollo is like, with Quasi referring to Frollo as ‘master’, and obeying his every word.   Frollo is determined for Quasimodo to stay up in the bell tower, as he is embarrassed by his hideous form.  In the bell tower we are also introduced to Quasimodo’s ‘friends’, three gargoyles name Victor, Hugo and Laverne.  It is debatable whether these gargoyles really do come to life and speak with Quasi, or if they are simply brought to life by his lonely imagination.  The latter is most likely, as he is the only one in the film who interacts with them properly.We soon find out about Frollo’s strong loathing of the gypsy people who live in the city when he summons Captain Phoebus from the wars to help him drive them out.  As Phoebus arrives, we are also introduced to the leading lady of the story, Esmeralda, who happens to be a gypsy, and her goat (who plays a small part in the film) called Djali.  Esmeralda is a strong-minded woman, with a kind heart, and speaks up for her people as well as Quasimodo.  Phoebus is also a strong character, who does not particularly agree with Frollo’s hatred towards the gypsies, especially after meeting Esmeralda.

Quasimodo longs for freedom, to be allowed out of the bell tower for just one day, and with a little encouragement from the gargoyles he escapes Notre Dame and attends the Feast of Fools for the first time.  The festival calls for the ‘ugliest face in Paris’, and Quasi ends up accidentally taking part and winning.  Realising that, unlike the other contenders, his face is not a mask; the crowd quickly turns on him, ties him down and start torturing him by throwing fruit at him and spinning him around.  Judge Frollo lets the cruelty continue, as a punishment for Quasi leaving the tower against his wishes.  Esmeralda intervenes and frees Quasi, only fuelling Frollo’s hatred of the gypsy people.

I won’t give the rest of the story away for those who have not yet seen it, however, be assured that it does not end the same way that the book does!

While many Victor Hugo fans are quick to mention that the story is simplified and edited a lot compared to the original novel, it has to be noted that in the original story most of the main characters die, and it is understandable that Disney avoided this dismal conclusion to the film in favour of a happy ending.  While it still remains a dark film compared to the likes of Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas for instance, it is still a family film and children love it just as much.

Quasimodo is not as misshapen as in previous adaptations of the story, with his features more rounded and less grotesque.  His hunger for freedom is told through the song ‘Out There’, and his vulnerability shown at the Feast of Fools.  He has strong feelings for Esmeralda, which are not returned in the same form, causing him to despair particularly when he sees her falling for Phoebus.  This same despair is also felt by Frollo when Esmeralda goes missing and cannot be found.  He becomes fixated with her, and Quasi becomes depressed by his lost love; the song ‘Heaven’s Light/Hellfire’ echoes the feelings of these two characters, and the contrast between innocent love and disturbing obsession.  The scene with Frollo singing ‘Hellfire’ is dark, as he stands in front of the fireplace seeing Esmeralda’s form in the flames, surrounded by gigantic faceless figures in hooded red cloaks.

‘Destroy Esmeralda/and let her taste the fires of hell/Or else let her be mine and mine alone’

 This part of the film was met with criticism from many concerned parents as well as religious bodies, (you know it caused a stir when it has its own Wikipedia page!) however, the scene is totally in-keeping with the story and does not, in my opinion, overstep the mark at all.  Frollo believes that what he is doing is right, when it is actually wrong, and his madness swiftly gets out of hand when he orders his men to burn the city to the ground in order to find Esmeralda.

The design of Frollo (Tony Jay) consists of many vertical lines, making him spindly and gothic, yet powerful, much like the architecture of Notre Dame.  This is in huge contrast to the styling of Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), obviously with a hunched back and much smaller than Frollo and consisting of horizontal lines, therefore being overpowered by his cruel master.  Esmeralda (Demi Moore) is sassy and tough due to her life on the streets, no Disney princess!  Her body language is similar to Megara from Hercules, with her no-nonsense hand-on-hip attitude, though she does not show as much vulnerability as Meg, and is very courageous.  Phoebus (Kevin Kline) is the good guy in a bad town, and as well as being an experienced soldier, he is smart and funny, and soon sees through Frollo.  Though his design may make him look gallant and suave, it can soon be seen that by standing up for what he believes in like Esmeralda, he becomes an outcast too.

The backgrounds are stunning, particularly of course, the ones depicting Notre Dame, which is essentially another character in the film.  For the CGI spotters amongst you, you will notice that the bells of Notre Dame are CG, as well as the gypsy caravan which runs into the river, the confetti at the Feast of Fools, and many other elements throughout the story.  For the people out there who like to spot other Disney references in Disney films, you can catch Belle from Beauty and the Beast walking through the street, as well as the Carpet from Aladdin and Pumbaa from The Lion King, all in the same scene!

The music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz are superb, and the songs seem very complex in relation to other Disney films, and of course a lot darker.  As well as deep songs like ‘Heaven’s Light/Hellfire’ and ‘God Help the Outcasts’, there is light relief with the songs ‘Topsy Turvy’ and ‘The Court of Miracles’ sung by Clopin.  The latter are bouncy and energetic, whereas the former are Disney’s darkest and more depressing.  Saying this, I believe it to be one of the best Disney soundtracks ever.

As for the DVD release which I am reviewing from, it could be better.  If you have read my Hercules review, you will remember me hoping for a 2-disc edition of the film.  The same goes here.  Where Pocahontas gets a jam-packed double disc edition DVD and a Musical Masterpiece edition, these two films are left with single disc editions, not containing many special features.  The Hunchback of Notre Dame DVD contains a History of Production, Early Presentation Reel, History of Notre Dame de Paris, Deleted Song ‘Someday’, CGI Demo, Multi-Language Reel and the traditional Disney game.  There are a fair few features there, with the best and most comedic being the CGI Demo, which is a demo of the CGI crowds which were generated for the film.  Highly entertaining!

What is notably missing from the DVD is some of the artwork from the film in a gallery form as seen on other Disney DVDs.  It would be nice to see some of the character and background designs, as they are beautiful.  These can also be seen in The Art of the Hunchback of Notre Dame by Stephen Rebello; if you get a chance to take a look at this book please do, there are some amazing drawings and paintings in it, particularly of Notre Dame.

To conclude, I believe that this film, like many others of its time, is overlooked too much.  However, if you watch it with a deeper knowledge of the story and as less of a cartoon, I believe that you will appreciate it a whole lot more.

I give this movie 4 Tinks.

The Black Cauldron

‘I started with a movie that nobody has ever seen called The Black Cauldron.’

– Andreas Deja, Disney animator, when asked about the Disney movies he has worked on during his career.

So, to be totally honest, I hadn’t heard much about the Black Cauldron until about 2007, when I decided to buy it because I wanted to write about it in a university essay.  I had heard it mentioned on a podcast, and one of the presenters was saying how underrated it was, and that it was actually a good movie.  This being said, I thought that it might be a little like Treasure Planet or Atlantis; sort of a diamond in the rough, however it turned out to be something I did not expect.

The film was released in 1985, and was the first Disney animated feature to be given a PG rating, being suspended from a video release for many years until 1998.  It was, therefore, a questionable choice for Walt Disney World to open a restaurant themed around the film, since it was not in circulation at the time the eatery opened in 1986.  I use the term ‘restaurant’ lightly, as it was a counter service fast food place serving the usual unhealthy theme park food that we all love.  ‘Gurgi’s Munchies and Crunchies’ managed to survive to over six years old, which seems like a long life for a place themed around a film which, we can assume, that a lot of guests may not have known anything about.

Anyway, food aside…Any Tim Burton fans would be interested to learn (if they did not know already) that he worked on the pre-production of the film as a conceptual artist.  Along with Mr. Burton, many of the Disney animators who would become instrumental in the second ‘Golden Age’ of Disney features worked on The Black Cauldron.  The film is based (apparently loosely) on the book called The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander, which is based on Welsh mythology.

The film seems to be aimed more at a male audience, particularly pre-teens, and its dark aura does not lend itself to younger viewers.  It could be argued that most Disney films are more aimed at females, or more specifically little girls, with stories of princesses living happily ever after.  That said, many little boys seem to enjoy those movies too, whereas the same cannot be said about The Black Cauldron.

Enlarge the image to see a hidden Mickey!

The hero of the story is Taran, an assistant pig keeper who has dreams of being a warrior.  It turns out that one of the pigs under Taran’s charge, Hen Wen, is a magical pig, who knows the location of the mystical black cauldron.  Ok so this is the point where I gave the T.V the look of ‘what the heck?’  A magical pig?  It seems a little childish.  However this nonsense was balanced out by one of the most evil and frightening Disney villains I’ve ever seen, and let’s be honest, there are a fair few to choose from.  He is The Horned King, (think Hades meets Skeletor but minus the comedy) and he is trying to locate the cauldron for himself, and unleash an army of invincible undead warriors called ‘The Cauldron Born’.  On Taran’s quest to keep Hen Wen safe, he meets a small, very annoying dog-like creature called Gurgi.  Speaking of annoying, there is one prominent female character who goes by the name of Princess Eilonwy.  She does not appear to be a typical princess compared to characters such as Cinderella, although you can understand that due to the dark subject matter, the animators would want to prohibit her from skipping around amongst forest animals or singing uplifting sugary songs.  There are the usual escapades, running away, being captured, escaping, looking for a magical pig…Then before you know it, out of this dark and strange land we are introduced to the Fairfolk.  They are small fairies, some of which slightly resemble the seven dwarfs, along with a few females.  They are brightly coloured, glowing, and seem to provide a lot of information to our heroes about what to do next to find the black cauldron.  If you look closely you may even see Tinkerbell!

One of the (few) pros about this movie is that it does not take long to get the story started.  The downside of this is that the rest of the film seems to amble along rather slowly, and unlike most Disney films that had gone before, it did not possess any musical numbers to lighten the mood.  Speaking of lightening the mood, I have to say that I did not laugh once during this film, it is rather serious, and any attempted humour seems to fall by the wayside.

Something which seemed to stand out like a sore thumb when I first started watching the film was that there was something strange going on with the lip-sync.  Possibly not even that, but it didn’t sound like the voices were coming from the characters on the screen, it is hard to explain, and needs to be seen to be understood.  Another thing that was very noticeable was the quality of the film, with lots of particles of God-knows-what and fading in and out of colours, the film dated itself about 20 years!  The character animation is good, but there are times when the characters look faded, or lit differently from the rest of the scene.  There is also some CGI used, in particular in one scene for a pink sky where Taran and Gurgi are talking to each other.  Unfortunately, the 2D animation against a 3D background mix about as well as laxatives and sleeping pills, at least in the realms of 1985.

While the production values on this film are by no means awful, they do leave a lot to be desired, as mentioned earlier.  On the up-side, the backgrounds are very nicely drawn, with lots of detail and more moody tones than a 15-year-old.  I realise that the film is old now, but other Disney films from the 1980s and earlier stand up a whole lot better than this one does, quality wise, as well as regarding the subject matter.

There are a few scenes missing from this film, ones which had been completely animated, in fact.  A scene where one of the Cauldron Born mauls a man was famously removed from the final cut, as well as scenes of graphic violence, including a man being graphically dissolved by mist, and the quaint Princess Eilonwy almost showing all she’s got.  We have Jeffery Katzenberg to thank for these changes; however I can honestly say that I doubt that keeping those scenes in would have made the film any more interesting.  When the 25^th anniversary edition DVD was released, many people were half expecting these deleted gems to be included in the special features, however, this special edition turned out to be a single disc which did not boast many more features than the first DVD release.

           Being dissolved by mist, not seen in film.

Who will enjoy this film?  In my opinion, not many people.  At the time not too many people did either, or just didn’t bother going to watch it, because it was a box office bomb.  The folks who grew up watching it as youngsters probably will, as well as children who are young enough to overlook the fading colours and questionable lip-synching.  I have yet to see the 25^th anniversary edition of the DVD, which I gather has been cleaned up a bit compared to the original DVD release.  The only reason I can see for buying another edition of this film, is if they restored the deleted scenes, which I think is never going to happen!  So regarding the special features on the DVD I am reviewing from, which is the 2002 release, well, don’t get too excited…We have a ‘Quest for the Black Cauldron’ game, a still frame gallery, and a ‘Trick or Treat’ Donald Duck short.  The gallery on Disney DVDs is always worth a browse through, and the Donald Duck short provides that Disney hydration you need after being parched from watching the main feature.  On the anniversary edition you will find the same features, plus another game *sigh*and a deleted scene called ‘The Fairfolk’.  The deleted scene that I imagine most Black Cauldron fans were least excited about seeing.

I realise I am probably enraging many Black Cauldron fans out there, but this is just my opinion, and comments are welcome!

I give this movie 1 Tink, simply because I refuse to cut Tink in half.

Pocahontas

‘You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you’ – Pocahontas

In 1995, Walt Disney Feature Animation released Pocahontas.  It was five years in the making, with production beginning the same time as The Lion King.  It was believed by many at the Disney studio that it would actually do a lot better than The Lion King.  However, on imdb.com the film has a rating of 6.1 out of 10, and Rotten Tomatoes gives it only 56%; with many critics slating it.  In fact, Pocahontas was a box office hit, and it also scooped up numerous awards for animation and for its soundtrack.  It also holds the record for the largest movie premiere in history, packing a mammoth 100,000 people into Central Park on June 10^th 1995.  So what went wrong?

I personally think that Pocahontas is simply different, and that may have been the ‘problem’ with it; that it was too unfamiliar to its audience compared to previous Disney movies.  In comparison to many of the earlier Disney movies, its storyline is much slower and quieter in a way, more of a lake than a waterfall.  It is less theatrical and more like reality.  The main difference with Pocahontas in comparison to previous Disney films is that the main character was a real person, who lived around 1595 and died in 1617.  He story is quite interesting, especially considering that her life was very short.  Apparently she was ten years old the first time she met John Smith, though I understand why in today’s society Disney chose to portray her as a fully grown woman rather than a child.

Pocahontas means ‘little mischief’, and although she is not so little in size, she possesses the qualities of a child: freedom, excitement and curiosity, as well as being very smart and cautious at the same time.  Her styling is very angular, though different to the styles used in Hercules and Sleeping Beauty.  Her face is quite flat, and her features are simplified.  Her eyes are more of an arched shaped than they are rounded, and throughout most of the film they are simply black, not showing any colour at all.  Her nose is simplified to the point of only her nostrils showing, and her jaw is much stronger than many of the other Disney heroines.  Her hair symbolizes her free spirit, long, flowing and full of life.

 Even the main character’s two sidekicks do not talk, to allow the dialogue to come totally from the adult figures, and, debatably, taking away the humour that we had come to love from Timon and Pumbaa in The Lion King.  Originally Pocahontas’ sidekick was going to be a turkey, voiced by John Candy, and he had apparently recorded a lot of the lines for it already before his death.  Whether it was the loss of Mr. Candy, or for creative reasons, the turkey got the boot, to make way for the quieter pair of Flit and Meeko.  They are quite amusing and cute, but their lack of speech seems to distance them from being characters the audience can warm to.  The humour is made up however, in the character of Grandmother Willow, who does have a voice.  She is old, wise, and feisty, which is understandable since she is a very large willow tree who has most likely been standing there for hundreds of years; ‘don’t worry…my bark is worse than my bite’.  Governor Ratcliffe is the villain, he is greedy and pompous, hearing that there is gold in Virginia, and not letting anyone or anything stand in his way until he gets it.  He is played by David Ogden Stiers (Beauty and the Beast,The Hunchback of Notre Dame), who also plays Ratcliffe’s manservant, Wiggins.  Ratcliffe is accompanied by his small, white dog named Percy (who is also mute), who seems to validate the saying about dogs looking like their owners and vice versa.  Governor Ratcliffe always refers to the natives as ‘savages’, whereas John Smith uses more respectful words such as ‘Indians’.  

  John Smith (Mel Gibson) is the story’s love interest, and is technically on the side of Ratcliffe, since he came to the new world with him and the ship’s crew looking for riches.  However, he is much kinder and more considerate to the natives and their land.  Pocahontas is the daughter of Chief Powhatan, leader of the Powhatan people, and he is wise like Grandmother Willow, and offers Pocahontas a lot of guidance, trying to send her down the correct path in life.  Christian Bale plays Thomas, John Smith’s bumbling but kind-hearted friend, but he isn’t one of the main characters.  There is also a cameo from Billy Connolly, as one of Ratcliffe’s men.  ‘Alright you howling nutter, get to work’ he snaps at one of his colleagues.

The beginning of the film has a perfect transition between the two separate worlds seen in the film, through the songs ‘Virginia Company’ and ‘Steady as the Beating Drum’.  We are introduced to the landscape of Pocahontas’ home, with lots of earthy colours and trees which reach to the heavens, along with a beautiful pink sky.  This is in contrast to the cold greys and blues we see at the beginning of the film in London, when Ratcliffe and his men are boarding their ship.  We are then introduced to our heroine, and the song ‘Just Around the Riverbend’ tells of her personality, and how she wishes to be free in spirit.

When Pocahontas first sees a ship coming towards her land, she thinks that the ship’s sails are ‘strange clouds’, having never seeing anything like it before.  Smith’s first meeting with Pocahontas is very beautiful, and conveys a sense of feeling, yet not quite understanding, between the two characters.  John Smith puts down his gun, after pointing it at her initially, yet she still runs away.  It isn’t long before the two of them are introducing themselves and getting to know one another.

Cue the song ‘Colours of the Wind’, which apparently set the tone for the film before it went into production.  It is a very powerful song, with great lyrics and wonderfully colourful backgrounds to match.  The song ‘Mine Mine Mine’ is a clever play on words, since Ratcliffe believes that the gold is ‘mine’ whilst he orders his men to ‘mine’ for it.  The song is the traditional Disney theatrical number, with lots of Busby Berkley type imagery of men performing synchronized shovel dancing, and trees being shot down in unison against flaming orange backgrounds.  Another impressive song is ‘Savages’, sung in two parts, with fantastic lyrics and use of staging, with the sky turning redder and redder, almost as though it is on fire.  Ratcliffe and his army of men are similar to the angry villagers in Beauty and the Beast, and here you can find a change of lyrics in the song to what is on the soundtrack.  The change is understandable when listening to the original lyrics:

Original - “Dirty redskin devils, now we sound the drums of war!”

In film – “Dirty shrieking devils, now we sound the drums of war!”

Original – “What can you expect/ from filthy little heathens? / Their whole disgusting race is like a curse!”

In film – “What can you expect/ from filthy little heathens? / Here’s what you get when the races are diverse!”

Overall, the story is a bit different from what you would expect from the ‘average’ Disney film; however it boasts wonderful songs, a good helping of comedy, as well as bags full of charm and maturity.

I have to praise the special features on this one.  It is a two disc set, so it is expected that the features should be good, and they don’t disappoint.  ‘The Making of Pocahontas’ is 27 minutes long, then there are five more sections of goodies:  Production, Design, Music, Abandoned Concepts and The Release.  I have decided not to review all of these because anything I wanted to include has been written about above, and also I urge you to watch them for yourself, as they are a wealth of information!

I give this movie 4 Tinks.

Hercules

‘Who put the ‘glad’ in gladiator?’

…Hercules

Straight off the back of the ‘second golden age’ of Disney films, Hercules followed Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1997.  Although Hercules didn’t enjoy the same success as Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King, it actually received a lot of praise, including winning four awards, amongst them, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, both for Best Original Song for Go the Distance.  The story is a lot less heavy than that of Hunchback, and even Pocahontas, which in comparison is quite a slow moving storyline.  I particularly noticed in Hercules that the story has a very steady pace, and never seems to drag, or move too fast.  This is partly thanks to the five Muses, gospel singers singing soulful songs which help certain parts of the story to progress quickly, in order for the rest of the film to carry on.

Poor Hercules is snatched from his parents as a baby so that Hades’ henchmen Pain and Panic can feed him a potion which will obliterate his God-like strength.  Of course, this is so that Hades can take over the cosmos without anyone trying to stop him.  When they are disturbed by who will become Herc’s adoptive parents, they drop the bottle containing the potion, and a single drop falls to the ground, meaning that our hero still has a trace of his God-like powers within him.

After going throughout his young life and into adulthood feeling a lot different to the rest of his town, he decides that he needs to leave his adoptive parents and find out where he came from.  With a medal displaying the symbol of the Gods which was around his neck when he was found, he makes his way to Mount Olympus, where he encounters his father, Zeus.  Zeus informs Hercules that he must become a true hero before he can retain his place as a God, and tells him to find Philoctetes (Phil), who will train him.  After being trained, Hercules encounters Megara, a damsel in distress.  Little does he know that she is working for Hades, the lord of the Underworld.  Hades sends Megara to con Hercules into thinking that there are two children trapped under a huge rock in a gorge, and when he rushes to rescue them, he is confronted by a 3 headed Hydra.  After numerous attempts, the Hydra is defeated, to Hades’ surprise and dismay.

A furious Hades then sends Megara to find out Hercules’ weakness.  Megara falls in love with Herc, unfortunately displaying to Hades that she is his weakness.  At this point, Phil overhears Hades and Megara talking, and realises that they are working as a team.  He then tells Hercules of the scheme, but his words fall on deaf ears, as Hercules is in turn, in love with Megara.  After Herc delivering a fairly brutal slap around Phil’s face, Phil leaves, understandably.  Hercules is then greeted by Hades, who does not have much time left to complete his takeover.  Hades reveals that he has Megara held hostage, and cons Hercules into giving up his powers to save her.  Our vile villain then delivers another blow to Hercules, informing him that Megara had been working for him the whole time…

     The style of Hercules differs very much from the traditional Disney animated features; however, it is a refreshing change.  The use of colour in Hercules is noticeably different in comparison to its predecessors.  At the start of the film we are presented with a never-ending sky at Mount Olympus, which includes eye-popping shades of pink, and many swirling patterns in the clouds and the sky.  This is in total contrast to the Underworld, which houses very intricate details and conveys a wonderfully morbid atmosphere.  It seems that Hercules is a lot more experimental in styling compared to the traditional Disney formula which created classics such as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.  Much of this is due to the work of British artist Gerald Scarfe, as it was his graphic style that influenced the whole film, with the animators working closely with him to maintain his unique style.  It is clear when looking at Scarfe’s concept art that the animators based their final designs heavily on his original drawings, especially the character of Hades.

Hercules, played by Tate Donovan, is very much a ‘gentle giant’.  He comes across as slightly naive and vulnerable, a distinct difference to the rest of the characters, however he still retains his own subtle comedy.  Megara’s slim ‘where does she put her internal organs?’ design works well in contrast with her sharp facial features and sassy attitude (played perfectly by Susan Egan).  Her styling is very much like that of a Greek column, tall and thin.  Her colouring is a questionable choice, with purpleish brown hair to match her dress, however, it never seems out of place or unusual.  Hades, played by James Woods, is possibly the most entertaining villain to come out of the Disney studios, ever.  His laid back mannerisms and blue flaming hair make him ultra cool, and he becomes even funnier when he gets exasperated and his hair turns fiery oranges and reds.  Hades’ henchmen, Pain and Panic, are two small, strange looking creatures, one fat and purple, the other thin and turquoise.  Their humour is very childlike compared to that of Hades, who delivers a lot of one -liners which would only be understood by adults.

It is plain to see that Phil’s design was inspired by Danny DeVito’s form, short and rounded; though it fits the character well, especially when the bulk of the characters are all rather tall.  His sceptical manner is quite hilarious, opening up to a lot of one liners and physical comedy.  Both Danny DeVito and James Woods provide comedic performances which are almost on par with Robin William’s Genie in Aladdin.  The Muses are all styled similarly to Megara, tall and thin, with the exception of one, and they all wear long flowing dresses which also give the impression of a Greek column.  Pegasus is the only character that does not seem to have been given the Scarfe treatment, although as a horse he is already naturally tall and thin, therefore fits in completely with the other characters.

The choice to use CGI for the Hydra which Hercules battles is quite impressive considering that the rest of the film is hand-drawn; it never distracts the viewer from the action, it just works.  It also allowed the animators to duplicate the heads many times without having to drawn them repeatedly.  CGI is also used for parts of the clouds, when they are seen breaking apart and reforming effortlessly.

The songs in this film are superb, even though they, like the styling, are rather removed from what we expect from Disney.  The Muses are soulful gospel singers, telling the story through song, and the songs belonging to the characters such as Megara’s ‘I Won’t Say I’m in Love’ and Hercules’ ‘Go the Distance’ are just as strong as the songs in many Disney films before, also written by Alan Menken.

There is much more I could write about this film, but the best thing I can suggest is for you to watch it yourself!  It is definitely far too underrated, losing out to previous Disney films possibly because of its decidedly un-Disney styling, making it less familiar to die-hard fans.

I reviewed this film from the DVD release, which has sadly only ever been released as one disc.  It does have a ‘Making Of’ short film, some Greek history feature, an Art Attack feature on how to make a Greek Urn, (I skipped this one), and the unavoidable sing-along section which includes a whopping one song.  Hopefully an eventual Blu-ray release will see this film get some well deserved special features.

I give this movie 4 Tinks.

Chicken Little

Why did the chicken cross the road?

There may be many reasons for this, but I think we can rule out that he might have been going to the movies to see Chicken Little.

Don’t you just hate it when parents try to be ‘down with the kids’?  In the case of Chicken Little, Disney was the parent.  After seeing TV spots and trailers for Chicken Little, I have to say that the desire to run to the cinema to see it did not overcome me.  Type ‘Chicken Little Dance’ into YouTube if you’re curious.

The film is based on the tale of Henny Penny, and in the classroom scene at the start of the film, the register is read out, using names from the book for the children such as Goosey Loosey and Henny Penny.  The original tale had been used by Disney for an animated short during WWII for the U.S government, telling that fear-mongering costs lives, and using the character of Foxy Loxy for the role of Adolf Hitler.

Now, back to 2005’s Chicken Little.  Unfortunately, it seemed to me to be another film which could be grouped into the tidal wave of flops which crashed out of the Disney studios throughout the 2000s.  Granted, there were films such as Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear which were of a higher standard, but the film we see here is very questionable.

The story is, in a way, disheartening.  Chicken Little is a young child looked after by his widowed father, who likes to keep his son out of trouble as to not attract unwanted attention.  Whenever he tries to talk to his father he is ignored, and not supported at all.  After our main character (played by Zach Braff) frightens the life out of the town and causes chaos at the very start of the film by exclaiming that the sky is falling, everyone thinks that he’s crazy after realising that it was only an acorn which fell on him.  The story is set, got it out of the way in one scene, nicely done, nothing too complex.  We are then introduced to the school environment, where it becomes more apparent that it is not only chickens or dogs living in the town, it is all types of animals.  It’s a little odd.  We then have a gym class segment, cue more pop culture to the tune of ‘Everybody Dance Now’, with one of the students break dancing.  To be exact, it is a break dancing fish wearing a diving helmet, which I guess could be construed as slightly amusing…

Along with the fish, Abby Mallard (Joan Cusack) is one of our hero’s best friends, who is very goofy looking, and does have the same aura about her as Dory from Finding Nemo, a bit dippy.  Another friend, Runt, is an extremely large pig, and seems to have quite a strange character design as he is beyond huge compared to the other characters, but I guess it’s just politically correct!

After winning a baseball game and managing to do something right for once, we get (sarcasm voice) treated…to Chicken Little singing some Queen, another one of the countless pop references in this film.  Less than five minutes later, Chicken Little’s best friends are seen to be dancing around to the Spice Girls, and the helmet wearing fish has even been provided with a glowstick.  I remember when Beauty danced with the Beast to music composed for the film, not ten year old pop band music recycled and used as ‘karaoke’ to fill in some screen time.

Before we know it, the sky really is falling, complete with, and wait for it…aliens.  You heard me right.  They may have three eyes, but they are not a patch on the Toy Story phenomenon.  They storm around the town in their flying saucers and War of the Worlds style fighting machines on three legs, wreaking havoc.  Another helping of pop history is served to us through a brief rendition of ‘I Will Survive’ from Runt whilst doing his good deed to help save the town.  It soon becomes apparent that the aliens have left their child in the town, and simply want to get him back, in a Wizard of Oz style scene with only the faces of the aliens showing.

Happy endings all round of course, and I don’t feel bad about ‘spoiling’ what is a predictable storyline with uninteresting and strange looking characters.  Oh, and if by the end you’ve had enough of those pesky pop culture references, you might want to turn off the credits.

All kudos to Zach Braff, because I do love scrubs, and he evidently tried his best to voice this character which should probably have been voiced by a 10 year old, but he just sounds way too old.  It doesn’t look right at all having his voice come out of a tiny chicken; it’s just not cutesy enough.

On the up side, (because every cloud has a silver lining, even though it may only be a small one) the design of the town is quite nice, and not a million miles away from a ‘Toontown’ environment with a hint of 1950 about it.  I actually picked up the Art of Chicken Little book in a £1 store, which I thought was very telling of the film’s success.

If you are lucky enough to have this little gem on DVD like I do, you will also be in possession of some special features.  The only thing of interest to an older audience is probably the ‘Making of’ featurette and possibly the deleted scenes.  Other features are the usual games and a ‘Music and More’ section which includes ‘Shake Your Tail Feather’ by The Cheetah Girls and three versions of ‘One Little Slip’.  Looks like someone was trying to fill the DVD up!

I give this movie 1 Tink.