Disney Count Down #42: The Black Cauldron (1985)

 Ah, and here we are at The Black Cauldron.

I have mixed feelings about this movie, and I think the rest of the audiences in 1985 felt the same way. It’s considered Disney’s greatest failure, grossing only a measly $21 million dollars in North American theatres and costing the studio $25 million to make.

The history of what it was that happened to make this movie such a head case is long and convoluted. In 1983, Ron Miller, an employee of Disney’s film division and Walt Disney Productions president since 1980, was promoted to chief executive officer. He was the replacement for Card Walker who, during his reign, spent most of his time letting the film division of Disney fend for itself and focused his efforts on the new Disney World theme park that opened in 1971. While there wasn’t much indication that the company was having financial troubles, especially since Disney World was such a success, the general consensus of the outside world was that of a theme park first and the—mostly unsuccessful—creation of films second.

With the Star Wars franchise sucking box office dollars from most other films at the time, Disney realized that the new target demographic that needed to be reached was the teenage male crowd—the ones that were spending their money on things like Star Wars rather than cartoons and would rather attend their grandmother's Bingo night than be caught dead watching a Disney movie. With this in mind, the material presented in The Black Cauldron makes a lot of sense. There would be darker themes, more violence, no music, and the story headed by a teenage boy. At this time, new technology called APT replaced xerography that had been used since the late 50’s and allowed for a broader range of color manipulation and well as more lines and styles. It would also be shot using Cinerama, which hadn’t been used since Sleeping Beauty and has yet to appear since. In a word, this film was expensive.

When Ron Miller was eventually kicked out of his position (as it was clear that not many people seemed to like him), he was replaced by Michael Eisner who brought with him Jeffery Katzenberg. Katzenberg was put in charge of cleaning up the stagnant, festering puddle of mediocrity that had become the film division, weighed down by the costly movie they were supposed to be putting together. Katzenberg arrived to find The Black Cauldron in a complete and utter state of disaster. The film had been created by two separate divisions that didn’t have much contact with each other, resulting in a convoluted and nonsensical plot as well as left many famous animators—including Glen Keane, Tim Burton, Ron Clements, and John Musker—either running from the project or almost taken off because of the bickering. Katzenberg ordered that fully-animated scenes be cut from the movie, something that had never been done up until that point, after realizing that what he had was something unmarketable in its present state. Producer Joe Hale objected, so Katzenberg took the film into an edit bay and carved parts out of it himself. The rest of the development was hustled along to completion until its release in July of 1985.

While it would be easy to disregard this movie as something that was just a big flop on Disney’s part, it’s not a complete waste. The ideas and mythology behind the film are interesting, namely because they come from borrowed material. In this case, it’s Lloyd Alexander’s novels entitled The Chronicles of Pyrdain. The film pieces together the events of the first two books in the series about a young boy named Taran who is put in charge of watching over a pig named Hen Wen who has the ability to see the future when her snout is dipped into water. Through a series of events, Hen Wen is captured by the Horned King who wishes to use her seeing abilities to find the Black Cauldron, a magical device that will allow him to take over the world with an army of undead soldiers. Taran goes on an adventure to rescue her, meeting a combination of friends along the way.

The biggest problem that I have with this movie is the characters, which I think can be credited to the fact that the story itself is a bit of a mess. Despite the simplified explanation I gave above, everything that happens within the 80-minute run time is so poorly-paced and confusing that it’s impossible to even have time for proper characterization. Instead, we’re left with a bunch of questions. Taran desperately wants to be a great warrior, but doesn’t seem to have a motivation to do so. Were his parents killed in a village raid? Did his dad fight in the army? Were any members of his family involved in fighting in SOME WAY? We don’t know. The only thing we’re given is that he ended up with this old man and pig and now wants to be a hero. How are we supposed to root for him? There’s nothing there for us to grab onto.

Then you’ve got Princess Eilonwy, who, bless her heart, is so incredibly useless that you know the only reason she was in the movie in the first place was to cater to the female demographic. She spends the entirety of the film just looking pretty and being nice, never picking up a sword or a shield, or heck, even a rock to help Taran as he’s getting his butt kicked by the Horned King’s henchmen. The only time she does anything serviceable is when she patches up the Luter’s pants. Then, when Taran criticizes her for being a girl and not knowing anything about swords, she blows a tantrum and then proceeds to go cry under a tree. Not to mention the fact that she was also taken prisoner by the Horned King, and yet no one is looking for her. She’s a princess—wouldn’t it make sense for there to be an entire army hunting her down? The girl is gone for possibly weeks and yet makes no mention of home, her family, or the fact that somebody has got to give a damn that she’s missing.

The side characters, Luter and Gurgi. Gurgi looks like the bastard child of Einstein and Geppedo after being injected with dog DNA:

...and sounds like someone punched him in the throat, henceforth severing his vocal chords and producing a sound that makes me choke just listening to it. The Luter is also meant to be comic relief, but in a more subtle and sensible way. He isn’t nearly as rage-inducing as Gurgi, but he doesn’t do anything, either. There’s no real reason for him to be present. At all. He’s just another body Taran has to cart around with him.

And of course you have your villain, the Horned King, who is totally a rip off of Maleficent, except male and lacking skin. Even his minions look similar to hers, minus the whole pig thing:

But instead of an eerie, silent crow perched on his shoulder, we get an irritating, borderline psychotic side kick that is regularly strangled because apparently everything that goes wrong is always his fault.

Aside from the characters, the storyline itself is awkward and strangely paced, with much of the action just sort of launched at Taran and his gang without much warning. The ending is very Deus Ex Machina--forced and very weird, bringing back the revival of a character that probably would have been better off staying dead.

The animation as a whole looks fine, but there are moments where the colors are so saturated that it’s hard to not get lost in everything that’s on the screen. And speaking of animation, the influence of a particular man can be seen all over this film: Don Bluth. You might know him through his other more famous movies such as The Secret of Nimh, An American Tail, Thumbelina, and of course, The Land Before Time. He was also the front runner for the popular arcade game, Dragon’s Lair, which included various scenes of graphic deaths of the main character involving fire or acid or being eaten by something (and of which I have many fond memories of playing). But holy dear gracious, does The Black Cauldron feel like one of his movies. Bluth’s philosophy was that kids could handle anything as long as it had a happy ending, something that you can see played out in every single one of those movies I listed above. There’s a large element of darkness in everything he touches, which can be great if used with care. The problem with The Black Cauldron is that…well, the darkness isn’t. It’s dark without really needing to be, swallowing the flimsy characters and making the bleakness almost unbearable.

Perhaps that’s what ultimately ended up killing The Black Cauldron and forcing Disney to pretend that it never existed: It’s the most un-Disney film they could have possibly put out, and for many people, that just doesn’t cut it. I would argue that it’s a great movie to check out if you’re into animation (even though it’s dark and Don Bluth-y, the animation IS still beautiful) or in a particular brooding mood. If you’re looking for a happy, Disney-esque feel-good film, skip this one.

Disney Count Down #48-43: The Package Films

From 1942-1949, Disney released a series of films that are now widely considered "package films." They include:

Saludos Amigos
The Three Caballeros
Make Mine Music
Fun and Fancy Free
Melody Time
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Many of you at this point are probably thinking: "Wait, what are these? I've never heard of them. Those are Disney movies?" And I will say that I was in the exact same boat last year when I began to tackle this 50-something feature cannon.

There are reasons why this is this is the case. In the forties, as many people know, the country was involved in a little thing called World War II. In the year or so before the onset of the war, the government asked Disney animators to take a trip to Latin America with the intention of producing a film that could be shown in the United States, Central and South America. The project was a part of the Good Neighbor Policy, enacted by President F. Roosevelt as an attempt to keep peace between the US and the Latin American countries during the turbulence of WWI and WWII. The government gave loans to the Walt Disney company in order to complete the project, as Disney was struggling after the loss of their European markets to the war and a strike within the company that rose up just as the project began. While in various Latin American countries--including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile-- the animators collected live-action footage of various parts of the continent, including cities with skyscrapers and modern residents. The result of this trip was Saludos Amigos, a combination of live-action and animation not dissimilar to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The Three Caballeros followed in a similar vein, with animation integrated into film footage and intended as another friendly film towards Latin America. It included several different segments all stung together by the plot point of Donald opening birthday gifts. The film also stars José Carioca, the little green cigar-smoking parrot that represents Brazil who debuted in Saludos Amigos and Panchito Pistoles who represents Mexico. It's also probably the best of the package films, in terms of quality, storytelling, and animation. The Donald-opening-gifts backbone is one of the better ways developed to give the shorts coherency in these films and I like the onslaught of color from the three main bird characters and their backgrounds.

The rest of the package films have much less of a coherent theme backing them. With the US becoming involved in WWII, many of the Disney animators were drafted and those that weren't were recruited by the government to make propaganda and training films. As a result, most of what these remaining films include are not much more than segments that had been sitting around the studio. Make Mine Music and Melody Time included some left over pieces from Fantasia, while Fun and Fancy Free contains two segments that were intended to be made into full-length features on their own.

I'm not going to lie: These films hold my interest very little. I'm not a fan of Latin American culture (not that I don't like the people, but the culture itself doesn't engage me as much as some others), and most of the segments in the following films feel lazy and lackluster to me. It was hard to get through them, even though most of the films barely pass the 60-minute mark.

That's not to say there aren't gems to be found in these movies. In fact, many of the well-known shorts trace their origins back to these films, including the "Sleepy Hollow" adaptation, "Mickey and the Beanstalk," and "Peter and the Wolf." There's a really fabulous scene from The Three Caballeros that demonstrates some amazing animation as well as good humor:

It's difficult to judge these films considering their back-story and how many of them have one or two really great parts amongst segments of mediocrity. As I mentioned above, I found most of these hard to get through, (especially Fun and Fancy Free with it's ridiculous means of linking the two totally unrelated segments via a birthday party with some uncomfortable guests) even with moments of awesome animation and the appearance of Donald, Goofy, and Mickey. I don't believe most of these are strong enough to be full-length features, but that doesn't mean certain segments aren't worth seeing. If you're interested in Latin American culture, loved Fantasia, or just want to see every Disney Animated Feature, check them out.

Disney Count Down #49: Dinosaur (2000)

So here’s a name that most people won’t recognize: Secret Lab.

For the average movie-goer, it’s a pretty well-known fact that Disney owns various different studios, even if they aren’t aware of that fact directly: Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar are all studios that the company currently has jurisdiction over. But back in the late 90’s, there was another smaller studio that Disney created after merging Dream Quest Images (an American special effects company) and their animation’s computer graphics group called Secret Lab. Despite the enthusiasm that went along with the creation of this studio, Secret Lab was dismantled in 2002 and disappeared into the abyss of Disney’s history.

It’s this studio that happened to be responsible for creating #49 on this list—Dinosaur.

Dinosaur was to be an experiment of sorts with the new CGI technology that was developing. Disney played up the technological maturity of this film in their advertizing a lot, declaring that the over-$100 million visual effects “make the film an 'instant classic.’” And while I despise this mentality—the idea that a bad script and hackneyed story/characters doesn’t matter as long as you have awesome visuals—there is no denying that the combination of live-action cinematography and CGI dinosaurs wowed audiences and critics when the movie was released. Dinosaur was a mix between live-action footage and CGI characters, something that, up until that point in time, had never been tried on a large scale. And even today, most of the animation still holds up pretty well for something that was operating off of the baby forms of our current technology.

There was a ton of advertising that went into this movie, as Disney expected Dinosaur to be the biggest and greatest thing of 2000. The Countdown to Extinction attraction in Disney World’s Animal Kingdom was re-named and modified to cater to this film, referencing several characters and the storyline from the movie. They released the first several minutes of the film as its trailer (something they also did with The Lion King) which was received across the board with positivity and excitement from critics and fans.

Dinosaur was a big deal.

Originally, the dinosaurs were not intended to talk. The idea was to maintain as realistic a representation as possible (minus the fact that several of the dinos in this film wouldn’t have actually existed together in real life), but it was scrapped in order to make the film more marketable. A similar situation happened with The Land Before Time, a film that came out several years prior and did everything right that Dinosaur got wrong (which is a lot). The result is a strange mix between reality and cartoon that doesn’t bode well for the overall outcome of the movie.

The story goes like this: A young dinosaur named Aladar (D.B. Sweeney) is misplaced from his home while still in his egg and lands in the hands of a lemur family who raises him as their own. When a meteor shower strikes the island that they live on and throws the family into the midst of a herd on their way to their nesting grounds, Aladar makes friends with some of the older members of the group and learns that things are run by an angry, controlling dinosaur named Bruton (Peter Siragusa). Aladar runs into trouble with Bruton when he tries to get him to slow down so that the older dinosaurs can cross safely. When the herd is attacked by a vicious “carnitore,” and separates Aladar and his new friends/family from everyone else, it’s up to the young hero to get them to the nesting grounds on their own and save the herd as well.

When I re-watched this movie several months ago, my initial reaction was that the characters are good and that the story at least made sense. But now, I see that character and story are one of the intense pitfalls of Dinsoaur. It’s very—very—clear that the creative team behind this movie didn’t give a crap about making the story intriguing or the characters interesting. In fact, they have to be some of the worst things that Disney has ever spit out, and I’m including Aurora and the Prince from Cinderella in that mix. Aladar is the most clichéd hero that has ever been put to screen, and while he’s pleasant in the sense that there’s nothing you dislike about him, there’s nothing that captures your attention or imagination, either. The love interest is a generic, useless love interest and the villain is boring. The lemurs are a little more engaging, but the whole “love monkey” nonsense from the one lemur is enough to make me throw up my lunch. The story is predictable and because the characters don’t draw your attention, it makes the movie feel that much worse.

And to be honest, I’m really not that impressed with the dinosaur animation almost fifteen years later. The textures are great, but the way the characters move just looks awkward to me. I’m not that big of a dinosaur aficionado, and so watching a movie made up almost entirely of them is not an automatic win for me, but there’s something very theme park ride to me whenever they move. Maybe it’s the fact that they are working with gigantic animals that are not as familiar to us, but seeing what happened with the new Godzilla movie and how well that dinosaur was realized, it just falls flat in 2014. For all of that, though, the cinematography is fantastic. There are some really great aerial shots of dinosaurs flying across fields, bursting out of bushes, rock-a-lanches, and all kinds of other good stuff.

The film was, to its credit, successful at the box office. It opened at #1 and grossed approx. $350 million internationally, covering its production cost. Critics praised the visuals but condemned the lackluster story and characters. Nowadays, people seem to have a similar take on the film. While nothing about it sticks out as SUPER CRAZY TERRIBLE, there’s also nothing that is particularly spectacular. And that’s ultimately where Dinosaur falls flat: It’s just an hour and twenty minutes of mediocrity.

Fun Facts

The backgrounds in the movie are actually superimposed photos of exotic tropical locations such as Tahiti and Hawaii.

The job of composing the score was offered to Harry Gregson-Williams, but he turned it down Because of his work on Shrek.

One original concept for the dialogue in the film would have seen the characters not moving their lips and beaks to talk but rather as voice-overs, similar to Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.

During production of the film's computer graphic effects, Baylene was referred to by the animators as "The Wall of Meat".

Among the sounds that Url the Ankylosaur makes at some points are chimpanzee vocalizations.

Disney Countdown #50: Chicken Little (2005)

In 2001, Shrek became the movie that everyone and their mother wanted to imitate. With its unprecedented success at the box office, a sort of cult was spawned in which everyone wanted to be as quippy and smart as Shrek had been. This desire to emulate that style continued on for a long time—far longer than it really should have—and Disney was no exception to the rule. So in 2005, they released their first-ever fully CG picture entitled Chicken Little about a chicken who, after an initial embarrassment years prior to the start of the movie in which he is duped into thinking the sky is falling, finds himself a social outcast who only wishes to achieve the approval of his father and find his place in society. It's loosely based off of the fable "The Sky is Falling," but only bears vague resemblance to its predecessor--namely with the idea of the sky falling and the rhyming names, such as Foxy Loxy.

After Disney decided to shut their 2-D doors, solidified by the failure of Home on the Range at the box office, this movie was to be a hip, new, exciting edition to their cannon that would pull them out of the slump of mediocrity and into the spotlight once again.

Well…it pulled them out of mediocrity. Right into abject failure.

While I have to admit that my disdain for Home on the Range is more or less a personal preference, this movie received the same kind of vitriolic hatred that is reserved for things like Dragonball: Evolution, at least from the fans of Disney animation. It was a miserable disappointment in the box office, garnering only $135 million—not even enough to cover its $150 million budget. People seemed to look at this movie—and still do—with a blend of confusion, repulsion, and amazement. How could something that was supposed to be the start of a new era for Disney fall so flat?

There are legitimate reasons for the complaints. As I mentioned above, the itching to imitate Shrek became an ugly force, and with Disney doing a pretty crappy job in the last decade or so of bringing people in to see their movies, they more than likely assumed that a movie chock-full of pop-culture references and bizarre in-jokes would be their ticket to success.

And you know what, I will concede that there are few things in here that are funny and interesting. They did take advantage of the world that they employed, at least in terms of design. They took a lot of new steps in directions that they hadn’t previously gone. The problem is nothing in this movie really jives. The design of the characters, the backgrounds, the script…it all feels so strange and out-of-place that my initial reaction as a twelve year-old was “well…that was weird.”

But looking at this now, holy moly is this film a mess.

First of all, the plot in this movie, while creative on one hand, is convoluted and all over the place on the other. You’ve got Chicken Little who is convinced one day that the sky is falling and makes a complete mockery of himself but running around the town and trying to warn every one of their imminent doom. He eventually moves beyond that and lives a relatively normal life with his dad who seems to forget that his son exists (in typical Disney fashion, the mother is dead). Until, that is, the day it happens again—a piece of the sky falls down to earth and right where Chicken Little lives. Then, it’s up to him and his friends to figure out why, stop it from happening, and consequently save his town.

I say that it’s creative because they had a lot of things they could do with a storyline like this. Unfortunately, the way they chose to take it was a disaster. It’s one of those movies where you go into it thinking it’s one thing and then it ends up being another. Very much like Super 8—you think it’s a movie about a bunch of kids wanting to solve a mystery about a train accident that they caught on tape and then find out that it’s actually about aliens. Except, you know, it actually kind of worked in Super 8.

Here you’ve got a bunch of clichés, boring characters, and plot twists that don’t make any sense.

And speaking of characters, let’s talk about the animation. I really, really don’t like it. I didn’t even care for it at twelve years old. Since this was the first fully-CG feature that Disney worked on solo, I want to cut it some slack…but I just can’t. While the textures are great on some of the animals (mainly the ones with fur), the way they are drawn is just…gross. Everything is so weirdly proportioned, with giant heads that could never be supported by the bodies that carry them, Abby Mallard is one of the most appallingly hideous designs in the history of animation period, and Runt has a strange tendency to look like rubber. The fish out of water gag is kind of clever, but the fish is also the size of Chicken Little, despite the fact that he is a goldfish by design. And these aren’t the result of the computers that constructed the characters—that fault is on the artists and designers who decided “Yeah, let’s make every animal in this movie the exact same proportions even though one could be a dog and the other a sheep.” So I can’t cut it the slack I want to because the problems run far deeper than just the technology used to create the movie.

If you look at the backgrounds, there’s a very distinct cartoony feel to them: the buildings are curved and stylized, there are a lot of saturated earth tones, and you just never get the impression that this world is real. Yet they opted for a more realistic style for the animals that clashes with the backgrounds in a very bad way.

The writing for this movie tries so hard to be Shrek and it just isn’t. All of the pop-culture references, emphasis on Chicken Little’s traditional “nerdiness” is so over-done, and none of the characters are anything more than stock (with maybe exception of CL in a very shallow sense). The plot twist of the aliens is so…gah, just WEIRD. They’re not even very creative, although I guess they do a good job making the baby one look fluffy and…kind of cute.

In the end, I just feel like this movie is underdeveloped and tries too hard to be impressive that we lose any real charm or interest in what’s going on. Unless you really like Disney animation, chickens, or CGI, I’d personally skip this one.

Fun Facts

The original plans were to have the beginning of this film, telling the establishing story of Chicken Little and the acorn, in traditional ("hand-drawn") animation. Don Knotts, who supplied the voice of Turkey Lurkey, the town Mayor, recorded the voice track as the narrator for this sequence. The idea was abandoned and that part of the story was refashioned as a main part of the film and done in computer animation

Holly Hunter was considered for the role of Abby Mallard.

The first fully computer generated feature film produced in-house by Disney.

Editor Dan Molina performed the "voice" of Fish Out of Water by vocalizing through a tube into a water cooler tank full of water.

Michael J. Fox, Matthew Broderick and David Spade were considered for the role of Chicken Little.

Disney Countdown #51: Home on the Range (2004)

And we are kicking off this lovely little list with possibly one of my most hated Disney films if you exclude the abominations that were 99% of the Direct-to-DVD sequels.

First, a bit of history.

Home on the Range initially began as a project entitled Sweating Bullets, a film that was to be directed by Mike Gabriel and Mike Giaimo and set as a Western-style re-telling of the Pied Piper legend.  But after five long years of work on the project with very little decent material to show for it, the two directors were yanked by Disney execs and replaced with Will Finn and John Sanford. They took what material Gabriel and Giaimo had and promptly scrapped most of it, aiming instead for a more comical and light-hearted approach to the story. Originally the plot had consisted of a young bull trying to save his herd from a rustler; in Sanford and Finn’s hands, it turned into a comedy about three cows that chase after a rustler for the reward money in order to save their failing farm. This film was re-named Home on the Range, and after it became clear that all of the re-writing and deconstructing would prevent the film from making its original 2003 release date, it was swapped with Brother Bear and scheduled to come out 2 April, 2004.

This also happened to be the point in Disney history where long-time fans and devoted followers were suppressing their tears and trying to hold out hope for the future: after the relative failure of their 2-D animated films over the past several years, which seemed to only be getting worse since the end of the 90’s Renaissance, as well as the rise of CGI animation that started with Toy Story and led to things like Shrek being the movie to imitate, Disney announced that they would be closing the doors to their 2-D studios and instead focusing on CG films. And while I will argue until the day I die that this fall-out had much less to do with 2-D animation and more with the poorly-executed ideas for movies that were often boring at best and down-right terrible at worst, what’s done is done.

In light of this reality, Home on the Range was to be the last 2-D animated feature that the company would produce. It wasn’t until John Lasseter—who was appointed chief creative officer by CEO Bob Iger after Disney purchased Pixar out-right—took the helm and decided, in 2006, that Disney was not out of the 2-D race, and would be releasing a new film in 2009 that would go back to Disney’s fairytale roots. But we’ll get to that one later.

The unfortunate result of Disney closing up its 2-D studio doors was that this film absolutely reeked of indifference. In many ways, Home on the Range was just one last project that needed to be completed before they locked everything up and stuck a For Sale sign on the door. The release date itself, a spring one that fell in the midst of the semester for school systems across the country, was telling in and of itself. The last time a full-blown animated feature that had been released outside of the summer months or the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season was The Jungle Book in the fall of 1967 (The Many Adventures ofWinnie the Pooh was released in the spring of 1977, but even that was technically a package film consisting of three shorts that had been laying around the studio collecting dust for the past 10+ years). Audiences and critics received this film with the same level of indifference that the studio seemed to exude, and the film garnered only $103 million internationally—not even covering its reported $110 million budget. Less than half of that money came from the United States. Home on the Range became the final nail in the coffin of 2-D animation without even really trying.

I actually remember seeing this film in theatres, albeit vaguely. I was ten or eleven at the time that this came out, either ending my elementary school days or finishing the first round of torture that makes up middle school. I was the target audience for this movie. Even I, as someone who has an unabashed loved for puns and the occasional fart joke, found this film to be more or less forgettable. Nothing about this movie appealed to me, and maybe a lot of my disdain lies in personal preference rather than objective criticism. I’m not a Western fan by any stretch of the imagination, and even the bright colors and interesting backgrounds did very little to pique my interest even re-watching it ten years later.

The storyline itself isn’t that bad, at least on paper, and the creative team behind this movie get points for coming up with something that is so outrageous that it at least catches your attention. A cow named Maggie (Roseanne Barr—I refuse to make a joke about this) and her owner are forced to auction off their cattle ranch after it was robbed and left them with nothing. She is given to another farm, called A Little Piece of Heaven, which also happens to be in debt, owing the bank $750. So Maggie encourages the other two cows from Piece of Heaven, Grace (Judy Dench) and Mrs. Caloway (Jennifer Tilly), to go into town and conjure up some money by winning awards at the county fair. When they get there, however, the sheriff’s horse Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.) tells them that they can’t be given any more time and have three days to get the money or the farm will be auctioned off. They then hear about a wanted criminal, Alameda Slim, whose capture comes with a reward of the most convenient $750. Maggie convinces Grace and Mrs. O to go out and try to capture the criminal, all the while in competition with a less-than-friendly “hero” Rico (Charles Dennis) who wants to snag him and get the reward money for himself.

My biggest problem with this movie is the very obvious lack of trying from almost every angle. That’s not to say this is a poorly drawn or animated movie, or that the voice actors don’t get the job done, but there’s just so much about this that feels like I’m watching nothing more than a high-quality Saturday morning cartoon. The characters are so unbelievably stock and uninteresting, the plot is outrageous but ultimately predictable (without any of the fun), and perhaps the worst sin that this movie commits is that it is clearly meant for children. And that’s where this gets under my skin more than anything else. While there have been flops in the past that express the same kind of laziness in storytelling, on the whole Disney is famous for producing movies that not only kids can enjoy, but also their parents that take them to see it. This has been augmented by their conglomeration with Pixar—who have mastered that art even further—so when you look at this film and realize that this was what was meant to end the 70+ year legacy of 2-D animation, wouldn’t you die a little inside?

When Walt first started the company way back yonder (pun intended), his first and foremost interest, after making good films that he himself would want to see, was to show the world that animation was more than just a kiddy thing—it was an art form. And so his first five movies were all painstakingly crafted to be just that (much to the chagrin of some of his animators who thought going out of the way to make things as realistic as possible was pointless).To me, this doesn’t cut it. When you have lines like this in your movie… 

Grace: You’ll have to excuse her, she’s just a little tense. 

Maggie: Tense. What’s her specialty, sour cream? 

…there’s a serious problem.

And speaking of puns, this movie is loaded with them. Now, I am one of those weirdos who actually think puns are hilarious given the right context. But this movie boasts some of the most unfunny, painful, and down-right asinine puns I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. Initially, there was maybe one or two that got a chuckle out of me, but as the film played out and they kept coming as a poor substitute for creative dialogue and clever humor, I began to feel parts of my soul cracking and falling off into the abyss of despair.

So are there any redeemable qualities to this movie? Well sure, I suppose. The animation DOES look polished, though the angular and flat style isn’t exactly my cup of tea, I do like the character designs of Mrs. O and Grace; their expressions and physical humor are one of the few things I didn’t cringe at when watching this. Alan Menken’s—you know, half of the dynamic duo that wrote music for most of Disney’s masterpieces in the Renaissance alongside Howard Ashman—music here is okay, if still a bit on the bland and childish side. I like the bright color pallet, especially how Jennifer Tilly’s cow pops against most of the purplish backgrounds. I think it says a bit about her character, and that was clever.

There’s also a scene here in which the rustler uses his yodeling skills to herd cattle (which is how he’s been doing it before the plot of the movie begins) and the ensuing scene of unabashed color and playfulness that has a fairly obvious throwback to “Pink Elephants on Parade” from Dumbo would have been interesting to me if I didn’t find the context of what was happening to be outright ludicrous. But the obnoxious color and synchronized movement of the cows is amusing, at least in the sense that you know the animators were having some fun crafting the scene.

At the end of the day, I can say with confidence that I will not be showing my future children this movie, and I am so very glad that Lasseter took the reins and decided to give 2-D animation another shot at success—because this sure as heck isn’t.

Fun Facts  

The final feature film to use Disney's CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) pipeline. The system - more than a simple software application, it encompassed a complex UNIX-based network of workstations and servers handling the creation, editing, storage, and workflow of multiple animated sequences - was dismantled when the animation unit was shuttered.

Alameda Slim is named after Wilf Carter also known as "Montana Slim". Carter was known as a Country Singer and Yodeler.

The second Disney film to star both Jennifer Tilly and Steve Buscemi, the other film being Pixar's Monsters, Inc. (2001).

Mexican singer/songwriter Ely Guerra was the voice of Grace in the dubbed Mexican version.

Batman: Under the Red Hood (And Above Many Other Films)

[Please be advised that the following review has SPOILERS GALORE. I can't talk about everything without them. Sorry in advance, but you have been warned.]

Let me preface this blog post with somewhat of a disclaimer.

My knowledge of comic books, characters, and mythology is appallingly limited. Even after growing up with a dad who read comics as a teenager (and, if my memory is correct, still has many retro ones squirreled away in a closet somewhere) and two brothers who made most of our family entertainment center on "masculine" films and video games, my only real knowledge of any superhero doesn't stem much beyond the films that were made of them. And depending on who you speak to, that might be nothing to sneeze at, either. The only superhero I would pretend to know anything at all about is Spiderman, and that only comes from hearing/reading reviews of the Tobey Maguire films and tuning into a podcast every now and then that explains some of the mythology behind what is supposed to be going on in the movies. Plus, apparently no one likes Tobey Maguire as Spiderman. Oh well.

Perhaps my initial disinterest in comics came from the fact that they follow so closely with their ancient counterpart: Greek Mythology. Now, I personally love learning about Greek Mythology whenever it pops up in my various courses or comes into play in a film or novel or whatever other medium can possibly cram the almost cliched (at this point, at least) characters and stories into their plot. However, GM is incredibly complex--the various Gods and Goddesses are often the authority over various different things, some overlapping, and have innumerable connections to each other that make for one hell of a headache whenever I try to put anything together. Not to mention that certain characters can appear in several different forms and or with different back stories depending on the version you're reading, that it's next to impossible figure to out who the hell is who and why they're important without the aid of an encyclopedia.

Comic books and their ensuing lore function in such a similar fashion that it's exhausting to just think about, never mind trying to read. Even bypassing the comics themselves and reading online synopses doesn't do much to help; everything is still complex and interconnected, which is interesting and engaging if you're a long-time fan, but not so much if you're an ignorant sap off the street such as I.

With that being said, those of you who are rabid and devoted fans of the Batman comics, their characters, and their lore, please keep in mind that everything I'm about to say regarding this piece is strictly from an outsider's perspective and not intended to be offensive or convoluted or whatever else you might feel this comes across. I have done a small amount of research to give myself some background, but that's about all I have the energy to do at the moment.

This happened to be my state of mind when I came across Batman: Under the Red Hood while watching a YouTube countdown list by WatchMojo.com (because I wouldn't be an prime example of today's youth without wasting valuable time reading and watching lists off the Internet). I've long since forgotten which video it was; all I remember was that one of the opening clips happened to be the beginning scene from this movie, in which the Joker takes a crow bar and beats the holy hell out of Robin for apparently no real reason, as that character is apt to do if Nolan's Joker tells me anything.

Frozen: Why It's Not the Miracle Film We're Making It Out to Be

So I’ve wanted to get into a discussion with someone as of late about Disney’s most recent animated film, Frozen. Unfortunately, most normal people don’t find debating about a children’s cartoon to be a fair use of their time, so instead I’ll voice my concerns over the Internet. This isn’t meant to be a review, at least not in a strict sense. I’m more interested in discussing why I don’t think this film is as “AMAZING AND FLAWLESS AND PERFECT” as people seem to think it is.

Let me start by saying that Frozen is, by no means, a bad film. Considering the serious flops that Disney experienced in the early 2000’s (I’m looking at YOU, Home on the Range), it was refreshing to hear that they finally struck a chord with their audiences and fan bases.

While Princess and the Frog seemed to be a small step in the right direction, Tangled burst open the doors to the studio that were beginning to collect dust. Tangled succeeded so well because it returned to the fairytale formula that Disney is best at, thanks to the input and influence of legendary animator Glen Keane, and modernized it for twenty-first century viewers. Frozen, according to many critics and movie-goers, goes one step further than Tangled by producing two strong female leads that, in Layman’s terms, “get shit done.” They aren’t dependent on a man to complete them or to solve their problems. For what they were able to accomplish, Frozen did a great job of establishing strong, three-dimensional characters (literally and figuratively).

But what I do not agree with is the claim that Frozen is the Beauty and the Beast of this generation.

Beauty and the Beast, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of Disney’s potential. Everything about it was perfect, from the music to the story to the pacing to the animation, and it’s going to take a heck of a lot of work and love and dedication on the part of the company to ever produce that kind of excellence again (indeed, I’m skeptical of whether or not that zenith will ever be achieved again). And frankly, Frozen, for all of the positives, is just not even close to that level of perfection.
 
First, I want to discuss what I thought Disney did well with Frozen, starting with the visuals. As usual, Disney maintains their artistic integrity and takes complete advantage of their icy environment that they chose for the setting. Everything visual about this movie is stunning: The backgrounds, the effects, the ice, the characters…it’s one of the most beautiful films they’ve ever animated. I adore the designs of all of the characters, whether it’s their clothes, their hair, or their facial features. I think it’s awesome that Kristoff is not your typical “hot guy” Prince Charming. He falls into the “delightfully cute and quirky,” category, the kind of guy someone would meet in real life. He isn’t out-right gorgeous, but he’s cute. Also, props to Disney for introducing a blonde male lead—the only prince in their cannon to have yellow locks (John Smith doesn’t count). Anna and Elsa are both beautiful and cute; their lovely faces are balanced by also being friendly and inviting. As for Hans…he’s the Gaston character, and they achieve “sexy handsome.” I can’t say much else.

The way they animated the ice and snow is incredible. The entire “Let It Go” sequence is one of the most breathtaking, visually stunning scenes, and definitely the pinnacle of the film. All of the ice, as well as the environment that they set up, is both beautiful and dark—the snow glitters as the sun shines on it, but the harsh winds and dark, black nights bring the winter curse to life. I felt cold just watching it in the theatre.

The characters themselves are some of the best as well. I mentioned above that they’re all multifaceted individuals with personalities and motivation. None of them suffer from the overly simplistic, idealized princesses and princes of the earlier decades. I’m not going to ramble on about each of them because, frankly, I expected nothing less. Disney is getting much better at fleshing out their protagonists and antagonists.
 
Frozen’s music is good. There is a selection of songs that are excellent, but a few of them were borderline silly. Yes, “Let It Go” is catchy. Yes, the “Fixer Upper Song” is stupid.

I also give props to Disney for introducing one of the few sidekick characters in their history that isn’t obnoxious. Olaf was well-written, well-performed, and even though he didn’t have a real significant purpose in the story, he was never in the way.

Disney also stepped up their game with the use of serious internal conflict, something that is rare in their cannon in favor of more simplified storylines and motivation. The character of Beast (a.k.a. Adam) dealt with similar inner turmoil as Elsa does: He is cursed by an outside force beyond his control and forced to cope with the reality of what that means. In doing so, he pushes everyone that cares about him away and gives into the hopelessness and despair that continues to plague him until the arrival of Belle. Elsa’s own curse has placed not only despair and fear in her, but affected the lives of those around her who wished to help. She shuts the world out and loses touch with herself and her sister. While Elsa’s curse can also be viewed as a gift and can never be lifted, it is still a defining aspect of her character, just as with Beast. In this respect, Frozen achieves a level of sophistication that hasn’t been seen in over a decade.

So if there is beautiful imagery, in-depth characterization, and emotional turmoil that creates both internal and external conflict, why do I feel that Frozen is still, in many ways, a huge miss?

Contrary to what many people believe, my qualms with the film have nothing to do with the feminist arguments and the complaints about how Elsa is never given a love interest. I’m sick and tired of people having something to say about Disney’s female characters, anyway. It’s taken far too seriously and, besides that, the same people that complained that Anna was too focused on marrying someone were the ones arguing that Elsa needed a love interest. Come on. We need to stop blaming Disney for the perpetuation of a “male dominated culture.” We can’t even decide what we want to see on the screen. Quit using Disney as the scapegoat for our own disillusions.

Anyway.

My major problem is really one thing: The story. Is the set-up good? Yes. It’s very good, actually. We get a glance at the relationship between Anna and Elsa that is both brief and powerful. There’s also an interesting dynamic between Elsa and her father, who encourages her to hide her powers and is, in a way, responsible for her anxiety. The audience gets the impression that this story is going to center on Elsa and Anna will be the one with less screen time. But, for anyone who paid attention to the trailer, you know that isn’t the case.

And for me, that’s where the story falls flat. Rather than focus on the two sisters, especially Elsa, Disney seems to want to mold three different stories together: a buddy comedy road trip, a love story, and familial conflict. While the first half of the movie is strong, the second half takes a bit of a nose dive for this very reason. They spend an inordinate amount of screen time relaying the events of Anna and Kristoff’s journey for the sake of building a romance between the two, give us a fraction of insight into just what the hell Elsa is doing on the mountain to pass the time (or eat or sleep or function with access to virtually nothing), and establishing the kindness and capability of a character that turns out to be a liar in the end. The one character that the intro sets up as vital to the story—Elsa—is pushed aside for dozens of side stories, other plot points, and comic relief.

The film does redeem itself a bit in the end by offering a twist on the “act of true love” cure for Anna’s curse, but for me, it isn’t enough to make up for the fact that they offer such little time to develop their relationship or even just Elsa’s character. We pity her, but we don’t empathize because there’s hardly anything there to cling to. The act of true love is more powerful for Anna’s character because it reveals the first genuine act of selflessness that she demonstrates in the entire film. But again, why is she the focus? Why isn’t Elsa? Why isn’t Elsa trying to help her sister rather than whine and pity herself? Why the hell did Kristoff battle through the blizzard to get to Anna, only to disappear and end up doing nothing? What was the purpose of the trolls???

To me, these problems all come down to a lack of focus. I think they could have eliminated the character of Hans, allotted more screen time to Elsa and Anna’s relationship, as well as Elsa herself, and increased the role and purpose of Kristoff. I also wanted them to go into more detail about why Elsa had her snow/ice powers: Did it run in the family? Are there others out there like her? Did the power come from another source? I realize it’s just a fairytale, but one of the things that made Tangled’s storyline work so well is that they gave a reason for Rapunzel’s hair to glow by introducing the magic golden flower. They didn’t have to give an elaborate background on it, but they let the audience know that she didn’t just happen to be born with magical hair. I wish they did something like that with Elsa’s powers. If they were given to her through a curse, or an outside force, or some gross flavor of ice cream that the queen ate—I don’t care; but giving that detail builds the background of the characters and adds depth to them. Not to mention the fact that everyone at the coronation ball flips their lid when she accidentally uses the powers, but the writers give the impression that this kind of thing just happens to certain people. Some of the people in this world are born with ice powers. And that’s all fine and well, but then why would the kingdom be so damn freaked out by it? Sure, they can be unsettled, but if you don’t explain why she has these powers and how the rest of the kingdom views the possibility of its existence, it makes their fear and hatred a little hyperbolic.

In the end, I will say this: Frozen is another step in the right direction. Is it Beauty and the Beast? Heck no. Is Disney getting closer to hitting that mark? Yes. Maybe their next film will be just what we’re all looking for.