A Brief History of the Animated Horse
Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991) again puts forward a strong hoof in re-imagining the horse as an important and meaningful character within the film. Philippe is full-bodied, willful, uniquely designed and emotionally expressive.
Disney's Hercules (1997) introduces us to Pegasus, again ... for the first time. Here, the flying horse continues the tradition of combining a stylized design with a strong personality. Through aerial acrobatics, bouncing around, head-butting, wrestling and high-fives to Hercules, we see a relationship reminiscent of the one between Pecos Bill and Widowmaker. The jealousy of Pegasus toward Hercules' encroaching love interest, Megara, is also echoed through the horse's playful and mischievous taunting of her. During one comical moment, Pegasus even blows out a flaming wisp of Hades' hair — and yet, despite all of this, he also contributes heroically to the story. Pegasus is not merely a prop, but an integral full-fledged character.
Philippe from Beauty and the Beast (1991) said more with his ears and facial expressions than some people do all day. © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.
Pegasus from Hercules (1997), a unique half-bird, horse hybrid. © Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.
Disney's Mulan (1998) brings more of the same, with an elegant, angled design for the main black horse, Khan. Again, he contributes memorably to the story — for example, spitting and stomping on Mushu the ancestor dragon on a couple of occasions. While the horses for the invading Huns were vicious and functional in their design, but not emotive, the stampede of the Hun army down the snowy mountainside is remarkable for being the first large-scale computer generated horse scene.
Pixar's Toy Story 2 (1999) takes the computer generated horse in a completely different direction, hearkening back to the earliest days of cartoon personality, with Bullseye having some of the characteristics (e.g., loyalty and slobbering enthusiasm) of an affable dog. By now it is well established that horse characters often can and do play a role in the heroism of the film, and in helping to rescue Woody and Jessie from the airport runway, Bullseye certainly does his small part to "save the day."
Printer-friendly version
by no means an exhaustive survey of the horses of animated films, but merely a brief recapitulation from "then" until "now."
when the writer delves into clever explanations of theoretical biology, and fails to connect the themes to the narrative of the horses. Also, the narrative left out the many animated horses that were not part of feature length films, including entire shows where horses or ponies are central characters.kids with autism
Post new comment