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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.6 - SEPTEMBER 2000
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Summer's Sleepers and Keepers
Fantasia/2000
(Disney) What they did right: Advanced Walt's original vision sixty years later. Left "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment in the film. Showcased the latest digital technology extant, including the overpowering particle generator. Proved in the outstanding "Rhapsody in Blue" segment that, given fifty years, Disney could finally grasp what UPA had been trying to do. Better musical selections than those of the 1940 film, with no radical alterations needed in the scores. No major embarrassment like the "Pastoral" among its sequences. Benefited from revisionist histories that now judge the original Fantasia to be among animation's greatest masterpieces. What they didn't do right: Weak and distracting host segments. Released it to the general theaters while their other feature Dinosaur was still red-hot. Restricted it to IMAX theaters for far too long; even if this was a test run prior to making a bid for IMAX, the experiment cost Disney considerable profits. Some unconvincing animation in the "Pines of Rome" sequence. "Steadfast Tin Soldier" sequence was not even up to Pixar's standards. Production problems and changes in direction tied this feature up in the studio for over a year past the originally planned release date. What we learned: New entertainment formats may be a major draw in the future. An increased number of theaters using IMAX-type technology may be a major showcase for animation. In this case, the format made a good, if not outstanding, feature a special event.
The Road to El Dorado (DreamWorks SKG) What they did right: Released the feature in late March, avoiding the summer blockbuster/holiday season wars. Used con-artist rapscallions as heroes rather than clean-cuts, and a female lead as sharp and crafty as her male foils. Great chemistry between Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh. Hired proven success from Disney: ex-animators, ex-screenwriters, and the duo of Elton John and Tim Rice for the tunes. What they didn't do right: The idea should have been to compete with Disney, not become them. If Katzenberg wants to raid studios, he might try some of the bigger and more successful entities in Europe, Canada and Asia. Despite the film's sassy attitude, too much of El Dorado is reminiscent of Disney circa 1994. Oh, and didn't an evil master of sorcery also create a climactic set-piece by turning a massive bunch of stone into a savage attacking animal in that other movie? That one with the Russian princess in it? Come on, you know which one I mean... What we learned: Recycling both talent and ideas will only get a studio so far, even if the talent is awesome and the original idea is a sound one. In this case, it got DreamWorks as far as the $50 million mark, but it could have turned out better. Much.
Titan A.E. (Fox) What they did right: Impressive integration of 2D and 3D animation. What they didn't do right: The Titan Project may have had the power to create a planet, but it ended up sinking a studio. Produced while Fox was already considering personnel cutbacks. Chaotic creative changes while in production backed the film up a year. Bluth and Goldman seemed to be just a step behind the times on this one. Publicity could have been better. Too many visual and cinematic references to other sci-fi films. Massive market research missed the mark on teen audiences. What we learned: Nice guys can indeed finish last, and best efforts aren't always rewarded. This film deserved a kinder fate from audiences, but sci-fi animation features (and there haven't been many) may have become obsolete due to VFX breakthroughs in live-action sci-fi films. Besides, one important piece of research was missing: When did sci-fi animated features last score a hit with the moviegoing public? Heavy Metal? Even Bluth's first attempt at something like sci-fi, The Secret of NIMH, only grossed about $10 million.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (Universal) What they did right: Well, at least they didn't animate Piper Perabo. What they didn't do right: Sorry, but only Jay Ward, Bill Scott, Lloyd Turner, Chris Hayward and Allan Burns could have pulled this off. Unique Ward humor difficult to adapt to screen since most of it was verbal and made up for poorly animated visuals in the original series. Original format of "mellerdrama" serial at odds with feature-length film concept. Fans of show tend to be fanatic, detail-oriented and tough to please. Highly topical characters probably played much better in 1960s; updating them posed problems. Director Des McAnuff and scriptwriter Ken Lonergan were not animation people. What we learned: Nostalgia won't always pull them in. Stay true to the original spirit of your source material. When doing revisionist work, check the adaptability of the characters and the series in the first place. Having reviewed these films, we are now ready to produce our own animated blockbuster. A warning to plagiarists: I'm copyrighted this time! Chickasaur Run A.E.: The Road to the First Movie 2000 This imaginative film features a herd of CGI-animated dinosaurs who help a desperate flock of stop-motion chickens escape from an evil cadre of cel-animated mutations called the Pokedrej. The escapees flee Earth, escorted by a school of flying space whales who help them reach the planet New El Dorado. There, the chickens and dinosaurs are nearly fleeced of their meager supplies by two slacker con artists, but they all eventually unite against the pursuing Pokedrej, who all fall to their deaths from a great height at film's end. Or, we could just animate a single white mouse (Stuart Little, $140,015,224....). Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.
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