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Movie Reviews: Fantasia 2000
In 1940, Walt Disney released a new type of movie: a series of short films tied to classical pieces of music. At the time, it was revolutionary and breathtaking. The combination of color, sound and animation thrilled some audiences but took many years to become a commercial success. Now in the year 2000, Disney and has released a sequel of sorts which once again breaks the boundaries of technology and visual art.
Fantasia was originally supposed to be a dynamic work of art; one that would change over time, removing some parts and leaving some sections in as the film progressed throughout the years. Untouched since the its release, Fantasia has finally made it back the really-big screen in IMAX format.
spoiler warning:
At this point I should give a spoiler warning. Now these aren't spoilers per se. The movie is essentially plotless so there really isn't a plot to give away, but many of you may want to simply go see the movie and have it be a complete surprise.
The film consists of eight segments: seven original and one, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," from the original 1940 film. In between each piece there is a brief monologue by modern actors, including Penn and Teller, Steve Martin, James Earl Jones, and Itzhak Perlman. They also kept the original sequence where Mickey shakes hands with Leopold Stokowski. This is the order of the segments as I remember them. (Disney's site isn't much help):
Ludwig Van Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony in C minor, Opus 67". This was probably my favorite piece because it was so abstract that the visuals really blended with the music to create a purely emotional connection with the viewer. There is no logic or story, just rich music.
Ottorino Respighi's "The Pines of Rome". It's got ice and whales and it's breathtaking. To say anything more would ruin the surprise.
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". This segment follows the intertwined lives of disparate people during the Great Depression in New York City. The black and white line animation is very reminiscent of political cartoons from that era.
Dimitri Shostakovich's "Piano Concerto No. 2". This segment has the most plot. It's an adaptation of the "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," by Hans Christian Andersen; a delightful story about a one legged toy tin soldier in love with the clock ballerina and his quest to rescue her from an evil Jack-in-the-box.
Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals". This is a nonsensical piece, similar to Dance of the Hours from the original (the one with the gators and hippos). A bunch of pink flamingos play with a yo-yo.
Paul Dukas' "The Sorceror's Apprentice" starring Mickey Mouse. This is the one everyone remembers. While the photographic quality doesn't compare to the modern sections, it remains one of the most innovative pieces of animation in the history of film.
Sir Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance". This is Donald Duck's first feature since the 50s. He and Daisy work for Noah, helping to herd animals into the Ark before the flood comes. Be sure to look for the ill-fated unicorns and dragons goofing off in the background.
Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird". An tale of death and rebirth featuring a tree sprite as Mother Nature and a "Firebird" as a volcano. This is a nice successor to the "Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria" sequence from the original. It has a fiery intense section in the middle and ends on a calming peaceful note. This chunk is directed by the Brizzi Brothers, who were responsible for a lot of the design of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
What I liked: The music and visuals are amazing to begin with, and seeing it on a four-story screen with 15,000 watts of sound makes it only more so. The choice of pieces helps to round out their survey of western music, and the familiar face of Donald Duck will play well with the children.
What I didn't like: Since the ultimate target of the movie is 35mm and video, it didn't take full advantage of the IMAX format. Only a few of the pieces truly filled the screen with color and motion. (The first and last segments come to mind). Also the actor host parts don't seem to add much. The musical choices are pretty conservative compared to the original. Nothing as daring as the "Rite of Spring" is found here. Plus they are still lacking a piece by Mozart.
Fantasia 2000 is the first IMAX film by a major studio and at 80 minutes doubles the length of the average IMAX film. Because of its long running time and the lack of IMAX capable screens in general, there are only 70 theaters worldwide which can show it. Disney had originally planned to release it on 35 mm in April, but have moved it back to a summer release because the IMAX version has been doing so well.
The original score was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Stokowski at the podium. This time, the score is performed by the Chicago Symphony with Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine. Known for his steadfast interpretations of Wagner's operatic work, Levine brings a special shine to the pieces in Fantasia 2000.
Overall, Fantasia 2000 is an amazing visual work, showing that Disney can still produce an animated film worthy of their legacy. Also, I am glad to see IMAX becoming a more accepted medium. After Everest made $60 million, IMAX started getting mainstream coverage. Then they built 30 more theaters just for Fantasia 2000 and have attracted the attention of several other major studios. Both James Cameron and the Star Trek crew are rumored to be working on IMAX films. Fantasia 2000 is a triumph for both Disney and IMAX. I hope to see more their artistry in the future.
Slashdot Author Emmett Plant contributed to this article.
At least in the Boston area, it'll be hard to catch this movie, as it won't be shown at the Boston Museum of Science. Why (one asks naively)? Money of course. Disney has been a real bitch and set unfavorable demands: a large percentage (can't remember the exact number) of the receipts go to Disney, and no other films can be shown during the complete run of Fantasia. Needless to say, many theaters have balked.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I was honored to be able to see it at the premiere back in early December. My first experience with the original Fantasia was when I was much younger, and didn't really appreciate it.
:)
Disney's original plan was to have Fantasia constantly running, and constantly changing. Every time you went to a theater to see it, they added a new part, and removed an old one. This didn't happen for several reasons, but they took many of the concepts behind Disney's original goals into this.
The more I read/hear about Disney, the more I think the man was just born too early. He had dreams of robots, immersive dynamic content, and thoughts of the future.
If he were alive today, he would definately be a geek I would want to meet.
-- Kevin
Walt Disney Feature Animation does the big releases. They have offices in California, Florida and Paris, but they don't always work on seperate films at seperate locations; the work is often split.
Since Pixar is an independant company, Disney pretty much stays out of there way, production-wise. FA doesn't seem all that reluctant to compete, either; Dinosaur is being released this Labor Day, was done by Feature Animation, and has absolutely stunning cgi.
Just a few thoughts...
F2K was good, could have been a lot better. Mind, you, I've never done the tedious, painstaking work that even mediocre animation demands of you, so I don't have a lot of right to pass judgment, but...
I really wish the animators had taken more advantage of the possibilities of IMAX. Most of it was conventional animation blown up to IMAX, just like Pokemon was TV animation blown up to normal theatrical standards.
If you get the chance, see the IMAX "Old Man And The Sea" that got an Oscar nomination recently. It was playing at the Sony IMAX in New York until F2K premiered (Disney is strong-arming all IMAX venues into not showing any other IMAX movies while they show F2K - This is why in Los Angeles they had to build a TENT to show F2K even though the California Science Center 10 miles away has a new state-of-the-art theater with really nice seats - The tent had sucky seats and was too damn cold, and Disney still wants $20 a pop).
Anyways, back to Old Man And The Sea. This IMAX animated short is a true work of art and puts every short in F2K to shame. If you are a fan of top-drawer animation you MUST see this film. Hopefully it will win the Oscar and then maybe more IMAX venues will be shamed into screening it even though it's never going to be a huge draw.
Now back to F2K. When you take out the live-action interludes and Sorcerer's Apprentice, it's a damn short movie. I doubt the new animated material was more than 40 minutes. And, speaking of Sorcerer's Apprentice, it's a digital transfer/remastering job by Cinesite. IMHO they did a poor job. If you pay close attention you will see digital artifacts in several places.
Now for the stuff I liked. Rhapsody in Blue was quite good. Pines of Rome was good except for the disparity between the CGI whales and hand-drawn backgrounds, and the fact that it was inspired by those stupid "Wyland" posters they used to sell at the mall back in 1992. My favorite was the last one - The Firebird Suite. It was my favorite because I absolutely love Princess Mononoke and this bit was, well, not quite a rip-off but damn close.
It's pretty obvious that whoever thought this up saw Mononoke Hime in Japan in 1997 and was inspired to do this one. It's about a Goddess/Nymph/Female version of the Forest God with Ashitaka's trusty elk as a sidekick. I was tempted to yell out "Yakkuru" every time the elk was on screen, but I knew it would get me thrown out so I didn't.
Bottom line - F2K was pretty good, given that any animation collection, be it Spike & Mike or whatever, is basically a hit-and-miss kind of thing. It didn't have the feeling of being tied together into a creative whole the way the original Fantasia did. In the end, it begs the question of whether ANYTHING that is put out by modern-day Hollywood deserves to be called art in any real sense of the word. IMHO the original Fantasia did, and this one doesn't even come close.
But please see it for yourself so you can have the chance to disagree with me. Just don't see it in LA because that damn tent is too damn cold. And don't see it in a curved IMAX/Omnimax like the San Jose Tech Museum because curved IMAX is an abomination. Also don't forget to catch "Old Man And The Sea" if it ever gets a wide release. Thanks.
... also, while Mickey really messed things up, note that he at least knew to read the manual before getting started.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Here in the Netherlands, it runs in Rotterdam, in the Imax theatre. As far a I know, it runs for another month or so.
From a friend who went to see it last month I understood it's quite impressive. And he usually doesn't like classical music.
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the pun is mightier than the sword
Saw it on Saturday night; it was highly polished and very skilfully done, even if the Disney style isn't my favourite.
The thing that really jumped out at me (and others with me) was that it was aimed squarely at the US market and was at its best when referring to the US; the best piece, IMO, was Rhapsody in Blue.
In contrast, the portrayal of the Firebird was wrong - the Firebird is *never* a bad guy (or girl) in the original stories; powerful, mischievous and capricious, but not evil or vindictive.
And no-one in Europe would think of Pomp & Circumstance #1 as 'a piece played at graduations'.
It's known to most of the world as 'Land of Hope and Glory'; one of the unofficial English national anthems; and is sung every year as the finale to Last Night of the Proms.
(Elgar hated the nationalistic overtones that became attached to it in his lifetime.)
It might seem just a small thing, but it's just about one of the most English pieces of music around; an analogue would be describing Yankee Doodle as an 18th-century folk-song; while correct, it misses all of the cultural overtones that it has.
Therein lies a lot of the minor niggles I had with F2K; it was essentially American, not universal.
Gideon Hallett.
The original Fantasia didn't do very well in the box office initially. The concept was quite foreign, and the artwork (especially Rite of Spring) was controversial. Releasing now, in an IMAX distribution, it's doing well... for an IMAX distribution. It's peanuts compared to the 35mm Dolby or THX screens market.
I watched this on the Paramount Famous Players IMAX screen, in one of the Toronto area "Playdium" theaters. The theater was far from packed, but I enjoyed the show.
I give it a 7, on a [1-10] scale. If I purchased a copy, I'd skip DVD (never accept lossy compression on something as poor as NTSC) and go for laserdisc or whatever HDTV is available then.
The graininess of the 1940s Sorcerer's Apprentice piece on the IMAX screen was quite apparent. I'm quite surprised they didn't work harder on it to clean it up for large screens. Much of the coloration is fairly simple; some pixel filters already do such cleanup quite nicely, without disturbing the line art outlines.
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I was lucky enough to see F2k back on Jan1.
:)
We had a few people in town and I'd been following the release semi-closely since I had loved the orriginal, the result was that we had a group of about 10 people ranging in age from 2-60 of both sexes.
On the whole everyone enjoyed it.
The one piece that had almost universal apeal was "Rhapsody in Blue", followed closely by "Carnival of Animals" easily the shortest piece shown (unfortunately).
The total run for the movie is 70 minutes, and I believe this may have been partially responsible for the exclusion of more of the original pieces, as well as the brevity of those included.
Things to note about the show:
My niece (who had just turned 2) was often scared by some of the pieces, especially "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" and "The Sorceror's Aprentice" (although she did keep going 'Its Micky!':) and "The Firebird". She sat through it all though (and it was her first movie).
F2K had much fewer 'abstract' pieces, in fact the only abstract piece I can think of is the opening, which harkens back very much styalistically to the opening of the original Fantasia (on purpose I'm sure).
The one 'carry over' piece "The Sorcerors Aprentice" was nice to see but stood out glaringly compared to the other pieces. I assume that the grainy-ness and the lack of colour purity was due to the difference in resolution between what it was orriginally designed for and the Imax format, however it truly detracted from the work. I wish Disney had taken the time to either clean it up or had not included it. Of course if they hadn't included it, we would have been complaining about THAT so I guess it was a no win situation for them
As lots of other people have said, the visuals are breathtaking, and the sound is fun. The transitions don't add alot to the whole movie, but I still liked them, espectially the 'bridge' sequence from "Sorceror's Aprentice" to "Pomp and Circumstance" (if you've seen the original Fantasia you'll see what I mean).
Overall everyone who went to see it loved the movie, and several would even consider going back. It seems to be suited for all ages (my niece walked out and had really enjoyed it dispite the fact that she had wanted to leave in the middle earlier because she was scared), but you may have to reasure youngsters, and there are some parts that just might be too scary for them.
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