Walt Disney Animation Studios Part 29: Rescuers Down Under

Series Intro: This is Part 29 of a multi-part retrospective of Walt Disney Animation Studios' endeavors.

Official Title: The Rescuers Down Under
Release: November 16, 1990
Running Time: 74 minutes (a bit on the shorter side)
Estimated Cost: n/a
Estimated Revenue: $47.4 million
Overall Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Plot Summary:
Cody, an adventurous Australian boy (though he does lack an Australian accent), saves a giant, golden eagle, Marahute. He has a network of native animals that help him in making sure all the outback animals are safe from poachers. This time however, after a flight on Marahute, he gets caught in a poachers trap. Percival C. McLeach discovers that Cody knows where the golden eagle nests and kidnaps Cody until he reveals the location.

Halfway around the world, the Rescue Aid Society headquarters in New York has heard about this kidnapping and request that Miss Bianca and Bernard (made famous by rescuing Penny in Rescuers) fly directly to Australia to solve this case. Bernard puts his planned engagement on hold as he and Bianca fly on Wilber (Orville seems to have retired) to Australia.

They arrive, worse for the wear, and meet up with Jake who leads them across the outback to McLeach’s hideout, while Wilber is being looked after by a crack-pot mouse doctor.

Cody, trapped at McLeach’s with several animals that McLeach has poached, tries to escape to no avail. That is until McLeach releases Cody, and lies to him, saying the mother eagle was shot and wonders what will become of the eggs. Cody wondered this too, and led McLeach straight to Marahute and her nest. Luckily Bianca, Jake and Bernard had finally caught up with Cody; but Cody, Bianca and Jake were all captured with Marahute. Bernard, again left behind (a running theme where he feels like a third wheel and wonders if Bianca likes Jake more than himself) saves the eggs from being eaten by McLeach’s pet lizard, Joanna. Wilbur rejoined Bernard by accident and is assigned to sit on the eggs.

Bernard followed the truck while on the back of a wild boar, to a crocodile watering hole, where McLeach is going to throw Cody. After some scary moments and some comical relieve Cody, Marahute, Jake, Bianca and Bernard are reunited on Marahute’s back! Bernard finally proposed to Bianca who gives him a resolved “Yes!” And Wilbur remained on the eggs as they hatch.

Songs:

Another movie with no songs, but a wonderful score.

Plot Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

The plot was amazing! It was similar enough to the original, as it put our beloved characters in o situations that we knew they would eventually be able to get out of; yet different enough that it did not feel at all like watching the same movie from thirteen years ago.

The exotic setting of the Australian Outback also gave it a renewed feeling. As hard as it was to believe that there were no other qualified members of RAS closer to Cody, the location really upped the anti and Bianca and Bernard had to rely more on their new friend Jake.

Animation Rating: 3 out of 5

I was very disappointed with the animation of this movie. First off, take a look at the following to pictures. 

The one on top was from Rescuers and the one on the bottom is from Down Under. The characters, although similarly designed, have completely different coloring and do have a much more cartoony feel. It was like watching the mice from Cinderella versus the mice in Rescuers.

This was the first movie to skip ink and painting! The APT process is gone; replaced with CAPS (Computer Animated Production System) which completely digitizes the whole post production process. In CAPS, the animators drawings are scanned into the computer, as are the backgrounds, and are colored digitally. Then (using the techniques from mutlipaning) CAPS artists would layer the characters on backgrounds and move them accordingly. CAPS was also used to create several scenes/props. It is a noteable effect, the CAPS drawn scenes (such as the opening flower bed) and props (McLeach’s truck), have a much darker feel and stand out against the hand drawn art that surrounds it.

The worst example of CAPS comes from the simplistic renderings of the Sydney Opera House. While the flower bed and the truck as least seemed real in the world of the movie, the Opera House stood out like a sore thumb; it honestly looks like they only did the initial renderings and said “hey the building’s white, let’s just leave it like that!”

The Test of Time:

So one of the problems with releasing one film a year is that WDAS doesn’t have the opportunity to learn from the previous film. Down Under was in production while WDAS was also producing Mermaid, Roger Rabbit and probably Oliver. So WDAS couldn’t see that musicals were selling. I’m not saying that this was a bad thing, but might explain why the movie wasn’t a box office smash like Mermaid

As I’ve said before about Rescuers I believe that WDAS doesn’t know what they’ve got. Bianca and Bernard have many more stories to tell, but are ignored by WDAS, Home video, Imagineering and Merchandizing. This holds true to this movie too. I had wanted to be Cody when I was growing up but my wants were ignored. Is this movie ignored because it doesn’t have a princess? Aren’t the suits trying to get away from princesses? Couldn’t Cody become a spokes person against animal cruelty (like Ariel against dumping in the oceans and Balou in support of recycling)?

Through the Modern Lens

Plot wise, the movie doesn’t seem to have any stand out flaws (other than Cody not having an accent). It was a strong movie with not too much to complain about from a social perspective.

Next Up:
Beauty and the Beast

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Walt Disney Animation Studios Part 28: The Little Mermaid

Series Intro: This is Part 28 of a multi-part retrospective of Walt Disney Animation Studios' endeavors. They will mostly be in release date order, save for those that are not available on DVD at Netflix. (Numbers skipped will note missing movies that will be out of order).

Some background information: (compiled from Wikipedia and imdb and my own knowledge of the movie).

Official Title: The Little Mermaid
Release: November 17, 1989 (Let the yearly releases begin!)
Running Time: 85 minutes
Estimated Cost: $40 million
Estimated Revenue: $211.3 million
Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Plot Summary: Expanded
King Triton, king of the merpeople, is holding a musical evening to display both his daughters’ singing talents and Sebastian’s (the crab) musical/conducting talent. The only problem is that Ariel (his youngest daughter) doesn’t show up, despite having the best voice of all her sisters.

Ariel has forgotten about the concert and is instead exploring a sunken ship with her fish friend Flounder. After a narrow escape from a hungry shark, Ariel and Flounder take their finds to Scuttle a bird-brained sea gull.

Triton reprimands Ariel for missing the concert, and more importantly, going to land where a human could see her. Ariel mopes in her hidden trove, where she has hidden her human finds and sings about longing to be part of the human world. Sebastian, having been assigned to watch over Ariel, breaks into the cavern and tries to convince Ariel that the human world is bad. However, a ship passes by during Sebastian’s big number and Ariel swims away. She sees the gorgeous Prince Eric as he captains his vessel for a birthday outing, when suddenly a storm tosses him overboard.

Ariel rescues him and sings to him on land, he catches a glimpse of her as she swims away and is enamored. Meanwhile Ursula, the sea witch, decides that Ariel will be her next prey, and convinces Ariel to trade her voice for legs, so she can get together with Eric. The caveat begin, that if Eric doesn’t kiss her by the sun set of the third day, Ariel will belong to Ursula!

Eric has trouble believing that Ariel is his mysterious singing savior, but treats this mute girl with respect. They spend her first two days exploring his kingdom. Ursula sends her pet eels to ruin what could have been Ariel and Eric’s kiss, where Sebastian has really set the mood. Ursula takes matters more into her own hands and uses Ariel’s voice and a powerful spell to deceive Eric into thinking that she is his savior! He agrees to marry the disguised Ursula and comes close, but Ariel’s friends step up again and prevent the marriage. However, they are too late, Eric and Ariel kiss after the sun sets and Ariel is turned back into a mermaid.

Ursula steals Ariel back to her lair, but before she completely transformed into one of the undead unfortunate souls, Triton takes Ariel’s place and Ursula becomes ruler of the sea! Eric, refusing to loose Ariel again, destroys Ursula, who in her expansion of power, becomes several hundred feet high.

As the last act closes, Ariel, in the sea, sees Eric laying on the shore and Triton says to Sebastian and Flounder that there is only one more problem… how much he will miss Ariel. Triton turns Ariel into a human and she and Eric proceed to get married. Ariel says good-bye to Triton and her sea friends as he sails off into the sunset with her love.

Songs:
* "Fathoms Below"
* "Daughters of Triton"
* "Part of Your World"
* "Part of Your World (Reprise)"
* "Under the Sea"
* "Poor Unfortunate Souls"
* "Les Poissons"
* "Kiss the Girl"
* "Vanessa's Song"
* "Part of Your World (Finale)"

What can I say about the greatness of these songs. “Part of Your World” is possibly the best Disney song!

Plot Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Alan Menken and Howard Ashman bring to life the Han Christian Andersen story of the little mermaid in this all singing, all dancing Broadway like musical. Taking it’s cues from the success of Oliver WDAS brought on Menken and Ashman to add music to Mermaid since they just wrote the hot Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors

This story told about a girl who didn’t actually belong and was longing to find the right place. I will comment more on the plot in “Modern Lense”

Animation Rating: 5 out of 5

Mermaid would be the last film to hand paint each cell (actual it would be the last one to use cells!) The animation of this movie was amazing. Taking cues from Oliver stray lines have completely disappeared, and not since Sleeping Beauty have we seen such amazing back ground art.

If I had to complain about anything, it would be all those bubbles. WDAS continues to tout that were over a million bubbles in the movie, (so many so that bubbles were outsourced from the two production studios: Burbank and Orlando’s Disney/MGM Studios). Look at any nature doc and tell me if when underwater animals are swimming if they make bubbles? Where is the air coming from?

The Test of Time:

Who hasn’t pretended they were Ariel longing to be part of the human world? Ariel and Mermaid revitalized the industry of animation (and sadly brought in the Princess genre).

Having just past the 20th anniversary of this hit, it still has the staying power it had then. Little children watch this movie and long to have the happy ending it shows. Ariel has no ride [yet] in a park, but has meet and greets and has one of the longest running shows at WDW: The Voyage of the Little Mermaid (playing at Hollywood Studios since early 1992).

Mermaid received many award nominations and won many also.

Mermaid also had a short run of Broadway (with the addition of several songs). I saw this show the second night! (Opening sold out before I could get tickets.)

P.S. I saw this movie twice in the theatres... I was 5/6!

Through the Modern Lens

Here’s the biggest problem with Ariel as a princess, most of the other princesses have little or no family that truly loves them, so when they leave their former lives to live with the prince, they aren’t leaving much behind. But Ariel has to leave everything! Everything! She gives up all that she is for Eric (someone she’s known for less than a week). How anti-feministic is that? I just don’t think that could happen today without the internet being up in arms about it.

Sorry for such a long post, but Mermaid is my absolute favorite WDAS movie!

Next Up:
The Rescuers Down Under

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WDAS 27 and a Half: Roger Rabbit

Official Title: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Release: June 22, 1988
Estimated Cost: $70 million
Estimated Revenue: $329 million
Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Detective Eddie Valiant lives in the real world, but in this fictional Hollywood of the 1940s cartoons are real! They live in their own community called “Toontown.” Valiant is hired by a studio exec to prove to Roger Rabbit (an anthropomorphic, cartoon rabbit) that his long time wife, Jessica Rabbit (a cartoon pin-up girl) is cheating on him.

Valiant gets wrapped up in Roger’s world as he tries to discover who wants to knock down Toontown so badly that they would kill! Valiant has to put his differences with toons aside as he works to solve the case. Only when he lets go and behaves like a toon, does he successfully take down the judge (a toon in a human costume) and save Toontown.

Toontown is populated by every toon drawn of the time and even places Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny on the same screen twice!

Plot Rating: 3 stars out of 5


Animation Rating: 2.5 out of 5

It was very interesting watching the behind the scenes on how they had animated the characters and how they used robots to give the live actors something to look at. However, I found the animation a bit off, and all of my favorite childhood characters looked just a bit weird.

The Test of Time:

Why include this Torchstone movie in my WDAS retrospective? Well, Torchstone is just a subsidiary of Disney and Rabbit was drawn by Disney animators. I also have to include this movie because it simply fast tracked the Disney Renaissance. Although Oliver did much better than the previous films, I believe that Rabbit truly set the stage for successful animated movies. This film reminded the execs that there was money to be made in animation.

Thank you Roger for setting the stage for the future of WDAS!

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Walt Disney Animation Studios Part 27: Oliver and Company

Series Intro: This is Part 27 of a multi-part retrospective of Walt Disney Animation Studios' endeavors. They will mostly be in release date order, save for those that are not available on DVD at Netflix. (Numbers skipped will note missing movies that will be out of order).

Some background information: (compiled from Wikipedia and imdb and my own knowledge of the movie).

Official Title: Oliver and Company
Release: November 18, 1988 (another one just over a year from the last one! We’ve truly begun the one movie a year that will last from ’85 until the present – save two years. The schedule from WDAS will change in the future as they alternate releases with Pixar).
Running Time: 73 minutes
Estimated Cost: ??
Estimated Revenue: $74.2 million
Overall Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

Plot Summary:
Welcome to the first honest WDAS musical. This movie opens with a young cat, Oliver, being sold with the other kittens in his litter. But by the end of the day, he’s left alone. Oliver meets the artful Dodger (a stray mutt) who introduces Oliver to life on the street through a well placed song that moved the plot along.

Oliver follows Dodger back to his home and meets the rag tag team of strays Fagin has assembled to help him steal. Times are tough for Fagin as he owes a huge sum of money to Sykes.

So Oliver and company help Dodger in his plan to steal a car to help pay Fagin’s debt. However, things go wrong and Oliver is cat-napped (or so the dogs all think). In actuality he is adopted by Jenny a rich child that treats Oliver with class. Jenny also has a poodle (who’s a vain as she looks) named Georgette (who also sings a great musical style number).

Sykes finds out about Oliver and the girl, and decides to kidnap her for the ransom. The dogs all work together to help save Oliver and Jenny. However, after a great computer generated chase scene, Skye’s car is driven into oncoming traffic and is presumed dead.

Songs:
1. Once Upon a Time in New York City
2. Why Should I Worry
3. Streets of Gold
4. Perfect Isn't Easy
5. Good Company
6. Why Should I Worry Reprise

Wow! “Why Should I Worry?” is a great song. It should be part of the Disney cannon of songs, but since it is more about defying authority rather than wishing and hoping, it hasn’t made it.

Plot Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Dogs doing complex choreography! I was truly impressed. I think the plot once again was motivated by both characters and circumstance! I love that the music truly helped moved the plot.

Animation Rating: 3.5 out of 5

So APT only has one more movie and I honestly hope the next film process is as great as this one has been. Gone are the stray lines that were left from the artists drawing. However, this movie had the most computer generated images (CGI) to date in an animated movie. Unlike the simple CGI backgrounds in Cauldron and the more complicated Big Ben scene in Mouse Detective WDAS used computers to make all the backgrounds, the cars, the subway trains and many other effects.

Most noticeably were the two scenes when the camera would do a whole 360 or more! (When Georgette is walking down the long stair case, and when Jenny is in her bedroom near the middle of the Oliver/Jenny montage.) I couldn’t believe the way the new technology had advanced so much. No longer were characters mimicking proscenium theatre (where there is just one front), they lived in a 360 degree world.

I also find that this is the first movie to have honest choreography (although there were some simple dance sequences in early movies, they just weren’t as impressive).

The Test of Time:

Why hasn’t this movie permeated our culture as much as some of the other domestic animal films? Everyone has a connection to Lady or 101. This movie is much better than its predecessors are (and hundreds of times better than Aristocats).

As a note, this was the first Disney movie I saw in theatre. This started a long run - of nearly 15 years - of my yearly pilgrimage to the movies to see Disney, Pixar and Disney/Pixar films.

Through the Modern Lens

This movie acted like a primer for Charles Dickens’ Oliver and introduced many familiar names and characters to young audiences that might never actually read the book. But watching stray dogs steal and lie? I’m not sure that would fly with Disney execs now.

Next Up:
The Little Mermaid

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Walt Disney Animation Studios Part 26: The Great Mouse Detective

Series Intro: Series Intro: This is Part 26 of a multi-part retrospective of Walt Disney Animation Studios' endeavors. They will mostly be in release date order, save for those that are not available on DVD at Netflix. (Numbers skipped will note missing movies that will be out of order).

Some background information: (compiled from Wikipedia and imdb and my own knowledge of the movie).

Official   Title: The Great Mouse Detective

Release: July 2, 1986 (Just under a year between releases… already seeing “Renaissance” time table)

Running   Time: 74 minutes 

Estimated  Cost: $14 million (half the price of Black Cauldron

Estimated  Revenue: $38.6 million

Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Plot  Summary:

Professor Ratican wants to rule over great Britian and kidnaps a toy maker, Hiram; forces him to create a life-sized toy of the mouse queen.

In the mean time, Hiram’s daughter, Olivia, has met up with Dr. Dawson and the two travel to the mouse detective, Basil. Basil takes on the case and allows Olivia and Dr. Dawson to join.

They are lead to Ratican, via his lacky Fidget (a bat). During the final show down, Toby is thrown from a rodent sized blimp into a river. Ratican and Basil fight in Big Ben and after a harrowing escape, Basil knocks Ratican down and is presumed dead.

Olivia and her father are reunited and Dr. Dawson becomes Basil permanent assistant.

Songs:   

* "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind”

* "Let Me Be Good To You"

* "Goodbye So Soon"

It’s interesting that the only song in the movie that actually moves the plot along is a villain song (Greatest Criminal Mind)!

Plot Rating: 4 stars  out of 5

This movie truly melded the worlds of character driven plot and action driven plot. I cares a lot about the characters and there was a lot of action to keep the story moving.

However, the plot seemed tired. And I only believe Don Bluth is to blame. Don left Disney during the early production stages of Fox and Hound to form his own animation company. American Tail would be the Bluth film that was released the same year of Mouse Detective and has the villain in a similar situation at Ratican; in Mouse Ratican is a rat pretending to be a mouse in order to fit in, while in Tail Warren T. Rat is a cat pretending to be a rat! Now, I’m not saying Bluth stole from Disney or visa versa, but I think it’s more than a coincidence that two rival studios release rodent films just months apart from each other.

In the same vein though, I think Disney has had a lot of success with their rodent films. I loved Rescusers and was excited to see WDAS choose another mouse flick (remember it all started with a mouse!)

Animation Rating: 4 out of 5

The APT process was unnoticeable in this film, the animation harkened back to the heydays of WDAS. That being said, the use of computer-animated backgrounds was a bit more apparent in this film, particularly in Big Ben.

This movie truly marks the integration of computers into the world of animation (Cauldron used it, but seeing the WDAS seems to completely ignore this movie, Mouse Is given the credit.

The  Test of Time:

The movie has had some re-releases and I believe Basil occasionally makes appearances at WDW’s Epcot at the United Kingdom pavilion. I think Disney marketing could start branding Disney rodents in a similar way as they’ve done with Disney Princesses (or the failed Disney Hero line). Just like with Princesses, we’d have to ignore that the movies take place miles and years apart, but I’d love to see more mentioning of their animal films!

Through  the Modern Lens

Seems fine here.

Next  Up:

Oliver and Company

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