Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: Howard (2020)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

Howard (2020)

I hate to say it that I had no idea who Howard Ashman was before I watched this documentary.  The fact that he was so integral to the Disney Renaissance and yet was only a part of it for such a small amount of time says a lot about how important he was.  When Disney first announced that the film was coming to Disney+ and I saw it was about a songwriter for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast I figured it would be a good Bonus post but didn’t think it would be that interesting.  Turns out it was very interesting and I learned a lot.  It also makes me sad that he is gone as I would have loved to see what else he would have written.  

So who was Howard Ashman? He was an up and coming songwriter in New York.  Before joining Disney he mostly worked on off Broadway plays.  He became Artistic Director of the WPA theatre in New York where a number of his plays were performed.  It was there he met up with composer Alan Menken who would become his most famous collaborator.  Ashman and Menken would go on to write the off Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors which would later become a movie.  It was after the success (and first Oscar nomination) of Little Shop of Horrors that Jeffrey Katzenberg contacted him to write a song for Oliver and Company.  Katzenberg then asked him to join the production of The Little Mermaid.  It was there that Ashman and Menken would go on to change Disney’s future.  After winning a couple of Oscars for The Little Mermaid they returned to Disney and helped turn Beauty and the Beast into one of the most beloved movie musicals and started working on songs for Aladdin.  

The movie delves into Ashman’s personal stories also.  From his time growing up telling stories with his siblings, to his early career in New York City, to his sometimes tumultuous relationships.  The story takes a tragic turn when he is diagnosed with AIDS.   As a gay man in New York City he had already lost friends to the disease and it was a devastating diagnoses to get as his career was starting to take off.  The disease proceeded quickly while he was working on The Little Mermaid. Fearful that Disney would not want word to get out that they had a gay man writing songs for their animated films aimed a children he tried to keep it a secret.  It wasn’t till after they had won Oscars that he told Alan Menken. When Jeffrey Katzenberg asked him to do Beauty and the Beast he was honest with him and told him he didn’t have the stamina to come to California. Katzenberg then had the animation team bring storyboards and animations to New York for him to review.  No one on the animation team knew the true reason that Ashman wouldn’t fly to California.  Also during this time Ashman and Menken were working on music for Aladdin which was Ashman’s passion project.  Ashman died shortly before the release of Beauty and the Beast.  He won a posthumous Oscar for the title song from the film.  The award was accepted by his long time partner.    

The movie is told in an interesting way.  It uses family, friends, colleagues telling his story but none of them are featured on screen.  Everything on screen is archive footage.  We get to see Ashman and those around him in action.  It’s a story told out of love and appreciation.  It’s not trying to uncover any dark secrets. There are no giant reveals that are meant to show him in a negative light.  At times it can be a bit surface level but it’s really all we need. It’s a story about how people remember him. It has his successes and his faults and that just leaves you feeling sad that we never got to hear all the stories he had to tell.  

Overall: The movie is an insightful look at a person I knew very little about.  I’m glad to have learned about him and how much influence he had on the Disney Renaissance.  Having the people talking over archived footage can seem disjointed at times but for the most part it works. While it’s not a very hard hitting film and I probably would have been underwhelmed if I saw it in the theatre I think it’s worth checking out on Disney+

Random Facts

After launching his career with Howard Ashman Alan Menken would go on to win a total of 8 Oscars over the years and currently holds the record for most wins by a living person. He also achieved EGOT status by also winning an Emmy, Grammy, and Tony.  

Director Don Hahn also directed a film about the beginning of the Disney Renaissance called Waking Sleeping Beauty.  I have not seen it but is now on my must watch list.  

Disney Movie Challenge: The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

 Disney Movie Challenge

The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 58 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Frozen II in 2020.

The first true Disney Sequel. It’s hard to believe that after making movies for over 50 years this is the first time they made a sequel to any of their films.  But of all their films this one makes the most sense for a sequel (would have also liked to see one for The Great Mouse Detective). This is also an oddball film in the Disney Renaissance era. It’s lack of songs and princesses makes it feel more like a leftover from the pre-renaissance era.  

Obviously based on the title the two mice from The Rescuers are headed to Australia. It reunites the two main cast members of the original with Ava Gabor as Miss Bianca and Bob Newhart as Bernard.  The villain McLeach  is voiced by George C. Scott.  This time they have to rescue a kid who was kidnapped by a poacher, McLeach.  McLeach is a poacher with his sights set on his ultimate prize a rare golden eagle. When he finds out that this kid, Cody, knows where it is he kidnaps him and tries to coerce the whereabouts of the eagle from him. Meanwhile Miss Bianca and Bernard team up with a local hopping mouse named Jack to find Cody.

This film isn’t quite as dark as the first one.  Cody isn’t an orphan and he is an adventurous kid and really good at getting in and out of trouble by himself.  While we never meet his parents we learn that they are looking for him and that McLeach has tried to make it look like he was eaten by some crocodiles. The strongest part of this film is George C. Scott as the villain.  He has such a unique voice and totally plays it up in a terrifying way.  You never once got the feeling he had a good side. If you like romance there is a little subplot where Bernard wants to ask Miss Bianca to marry him and how he is jealous of Jack always showing off.

Besides being Disney’s first sequel the importance of this film is that it was the first one made entirely using the CAPS system.  CAPS was developed by Pixar as a way to scan drawings into the computer and gives directors more tools to manipulate the film.  While the film is still hand drawn it no longer needs to be inked and placed on cels. It also doesn’t need to go through the Xerography process to transfer it to films.  I wish I knew more about the process of animating films so I could understand it better, but this was a huge advancement and allowed for the films to be made more quickly.  It also opened up a lot of camera movements that weren’t possible before.  The weird thing is that Disney really kept the process under wraps.  They felt that if people knew they were using computers to make their animated films it would lose some of the mystery.  It wasn’t until 1994 (a year before Toy Story came out) that Disney opened up about the process.  

Overall: It’s a great adventure movie and I love adventures movies so I had a lot of fun with it. It also has one of the most underrated villains as George C. Scott brings a lot of menace to the character. The oddest thing to me was there weren’t that many Australian actors in here besides Jack and a few side characters.

Random Facts: 

John Candy plays Wilbur.  Jim Jordan who played Orville in the original had died before production on the sequel, not wanting to replace him they created a brother Wilbur. Both were named after a Wright Brother.  

I’m pretty sure this is the first Disney Animated Film I saw in the theatres.

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000) and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000)

and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008)

Once again Disney couldn’t leave a classic alone and felt the need to make sequels. Actually it is one sequel and one prequel. 

Return to the Sea picks up soon after the first one. Ariel and Eric have a daughter Melody.  Ursula’s sister, Morgana, wants revenge and tries to kill Melody as an infant. They are able to fight her off but fearing her return they swear never to let Melody go in the ocean and will keep the fact that she is part mermaid a secret from her. Jump to 12 years later and Melody is defying all the rules and swimming in the ocean. Once again Sebastian is tasked with keeping an eye on her but unable to control a teenage girl. Of course Morgana finds out and grants Melody’s wish to be a mermaid and convinces Melody to steal Triton’s trident.  Ariel must turn back into a mermaid to save her daughter before Morgana’s evil plan can come to fruition.  

The premise isn’t bad but it hits pretty much the same plot points as the first one. One of the differences is that in this one Melody is joined by a penguin and a walrus on her journey as two comic relief characters . Unfortunately these two side characters are just annoying and add nothing to the story. It’s interesting to see Ariel in the role her father was in during the first movie although that aspect is not really explored much.  The songs aren’t very good, definitely not as memorable as the songs in the original. 

Ariel’s Beginning is a prequel to the original as the title implies. The movie is pretty much Footloose underwater.  King Triton banned music after his wife died.  His daughters are miserable and miss the happy times when music was a part of their life.   Ariel meets Flounder who is in a band, she learns that Sebastian has a secret club where they play music.  There is also an evil mermaid, Marina Del Ray  who is trying to take over Sebastian’s spot as the King’s advisor.  When Marina finds out that Sebastian is disobeying the King she sees this as an opportunity to take over his role.  Eventually Ariel has to convince her dad to allow music to come back and that Marina is really evil.  

The worst thing about this movie is that there is only like one original song and it’s pretty bad.  They use "Jump in the Line (Shake, Shake, Shake, Señora)” a number of times which makes it feel like they couldn’t come up with their own music.  It’s also a song that brings to mind Beetlejuice, a much better movie so makes the filmmakers seem even more lazy.  Sally Field does the voice of Marina Del Ray which is fine but the song she sings is just really bad.  She also had a sidekick Benjamin that I couldn’t figure out what kind of fish it was supposed to be and assumed it was a blobfish (according to Wikipedia it’s a manatee). The film ends betraying the beginning of the original.  Since in this one  it’s clear that Ariel wants to bring back music and please her father it makes no sense that in the beginning of the original she is skipping singing classes and forgetting about a performance.  But maybe that’s only a problem if you watch the two movies close to each other.  

Overall: Don’t go in expecting too much from these movies and you won’t be disappointed.  Return to the Sea is the better of the two but lacks the magic of the origins.  Ariel’s Beginning just feels lazy and boring. Reading about it on WIkipedia I found out there are 2 original songs in Ariel’s Beginning but I must have fallen asleep for one of them so that’s how exciting that is.  

Random Facts: 

Tara Strong was 26 when she played Ariel’s 12 year old daughter. She also returned for Ariel’s Beginning and voiced one of her sisters. 

Ariel’s Beginning release was delayed due to production on Cinderella III. Neither was very good. 

 

Disney Movie Challenge: The Little Mermaide (1989)

 Disney Movie Challenge

The Little Mermaid (1989)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 58 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Frozen II in 2020.

I made it to the Disney Renaissance and I have been nervous about writing about this one.  It’s a movie everyone knows and is universally loved. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? So while I might not have any earth shattering insight I will give it a go.  

The story itself is pretty straight forward.  Ariel is a teenage mermaid princess who feels like she is being stifled by her overbearing father, King Triton. She is obsessed with the human world and ends up falling in love with a human prince.  When Tritan forbids her to see him, the evil sea witch Ursula tells her she can help her. Ursula promises to turn Ariel into a human and all Arial has to do is give up her voice and make the prince fall in love with her in 3 days.  Ursula’s main plan is to use Arial to get to her father and steal the king's trident.  After she is turned into a human Ariel gets help from her sea friends including Sebastian the crab, Flounder the fish, and Scuttle the seagull. They try to help make her dream come true and prevent Ursula from taking over as ruler of the sea.  

So what makes The Little Mermaid so special? It’s a couple of things.  First the story is a more return to form for Disney.  They hadn’t made a Princess movie since 1959’s Sleeping Beauty. Also while they have made musicals (Oliver & Company came out the year before) the music in this one felt different.  It really had more of a broadway sensibility.  The Little Mermaid was also the last Disney film to use the multiplane system in place since Snow White, the last to use xerography used since 101 Dalmatians, and the first to use a new computer program called CAPS.  

It seems like when Disney needs a hit to get them out of a slump it’s a Princess movie that does it.  Of course their first big hit was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but it was Cinderella that saved the almost bankrupt company after the lean war years.  Unfortunately Sleeping Beauty did the opposite and lost a bunch of money so it made Disney reluctant to head back into the genre.  30 years after Sleeping Beauty it was The Little Mermaid’s turn to reinvigorate Disney.  After a few lean years it seemed like Disney was losing their grip as the animation king.  Bluth studios were turning out hits like An American Tale and The Land Before Time. The Care Bears movie was made super cheap and made almost as much as The Black Cauldron which was very expensive to make.  Having the budgets cut The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver & Company made money but weren’t huge hits.  But the Disney co-produced Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a huge hit and gave Disney the chance to put a bit more money into their animation features.  And Disney must have felt they had a hit on their hands with The Little Mermaid because it was one of the highest budgets in years.  The underwater scenes required a lot of bubble special effects and Disney hired an outside studio to help with those.  

I think the music is what sets this movie apart from prior films and defines the Disney Renaissance films.  After the success of Little Shop of Horrors musical Alan Menkin and Howard Ashman we’re hired to write the music and songs for The Little Mermaid. I’m not sure what made Disney think the guys that wrote a musical about a man eating plant would be perfect for a Disney Princess Movie, but it somehow worked out great for all involved.  Menken and Ashman brought a broadway sensibility to animated films. The main effect of that was having really big musical numbers at the center of the movie.  The effect of doing that obviously would be carried over in other Disney musicals that followed.

Computer images have been slowly finding their way into animated films most notably the final battle scene in The Great Mouse Detective.  With The Little Mermaid a new system was created called CAPS that would make things easier and cheaper to transfer the drawings to film and would do away with animation cels that had been the main way for doing animations since the beginning.  It would also replace Xerography that had been in use since 101 Dalmatians.  CAPS was only used in the last scene in the film but would be the main way Disney Animation films would be made for years to come.  But the filmmakers also took a step back in time.  They used the Multiplane system which hadn't been used in a while and they also used actors as a guide for their animations.  This combining old film techniques and new makes The Little Mermaid a great example of a transition film.  

Overall: I was nervous going in that the film wouldn’t live up to the hype.  I hadn’t watched it in a long time and as a kid I always thought of it as a “girls” movie so never really gave it any notice.  But it still holds up today.  The music is great, the animation looks good, and the story is really timeless. "Kiss the GIrl" is one of my favorite songs in the film but the lyrics always feel kind of icky since it’s seems to be encouraging date rape, but it works really well in the context of the movie.   Ursula is a classic villain that is the perfect blend of smooth talker and sinister.  

Random Facts: 

"A Part of their World" was almost cut from the film because Katzenberg thought it would be too boring for kids. But the directors convinced him that it was pivotal to the plot and was kept in.  

Ursula was partially based on the drag queen Divine and has become a queer icon. 

Since the Mutiplane system hadn’t been used on Disney films in while they had to use one from an outside company.  

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: Who Framed Roger Rabitt (1988)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

1988 was a weird year for Disney.  Their major animated film Oliver & Company was a minor hit but really isn't very good.  On the flip side they released the massively popular (number 2 overall at the box office for the year) and critically praised Who Framed Roger Rabbit the same year.  The two films couldn't be more different.  

Who Framed Roger Rabbit has an interesting production history.  Disney bought the rights to the book Who Censored Roger Rabbit shortly after it was published in the early 80's.  After it started production it became clear that with a combination of live action and animation it was going to have a huge budget so they teamed up with Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment to co-produce the film.  The addition of Spielberg who by then had established himself as a hitmaker brought some prestige to the film.  Robert Zemeckis was circling the film for a while but after the huge success Back to the Future he earned the trust of the producers to take the reins.  The big question for Disney was how to release a film that some might find not so family friendly.  The answer was to release it through their Touchstone Pictures studio.  Touchstone was created as a way for Disney to release more adult themed films without harming the Disney brand.  Previous films released through Touchstone were Splash,  Ruthless People, and Good Morning Vietnam.  Disney's first R rated film Down and Out in Beverly Hills was released through Touchstone. 

The film is a noir that takes place in old Hollywood where cartoon characters live alongside human characters.  Roger Rabbit is a famous cartoon who ends up being framed for the murder of one of the biggest producers of cartoons.  To help clear his name he goes to Eddie Valiant, a private investigator who hates Toons but when he figures out there is a larger plot to take over Toon Land he helps Roger out and discovers the true identity of Judge Doom.  

The post production process on this film took a long time as it was a very painstaking process to draw the toons on the live action footage but the care and meticulousness put into it really shows.  Animation director Richard Williams said from the outset that he wanted to break every rule for making a hybrid animation film.  So he moved the camera a lot, used lots of shadows and crazy lighting, and made the toons interact as much as possible with real world objects.  In one scene there is a light swinging back and forth which created lots of shadows that had to be drawn to make it match the shadows in the live action part.  The term "Bump the Lamp" became a term animators use about going the extra mile to make things look realistic even for something small that the audience might not notice.  I like to keep my Bonus Posts short so I just want to say that if you're interested look up how the movie was made.  There was a lot of innovation and things I couldn't explain if I wanted but truly some mind blowing things going on in this film. 

Besides the cutting edge technical aspects the movie has a lot more going for it.  Namely the script and acting.  Watching this again I realized how great the script really was.  It really brings the world to life and leans heavy into the 40's noir feel.  They brought some real world situations into the film.  Notably the street car subplot is based on an actual situation in LA where automobile makers blocked a street car from expanding so they would sell more cars.  And the club where Valiant first meets Jessica Rabbit is somewhat based on The Cotton Club where some of the biggest black entertainers performed but no black people were allowed to patronize the club. To bring the script to life seems Bob Hoskins was the perfect person to play Valiant.  A lot of actors were considered including Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and Bill Murray.  But Hoskins sold the hard drinking detective while also believably interacting with animated characters he couldn't see.  While the film won Oscars for it's technical achievement I think Hoskins should have been nominated for acting.  Truly an amazing job.  

Overall: I haven't watched this film in a long time and forgot how good it really is.  It's hard to believe that this came out the same year as Oliver & Company.  This animation not only looks great but the film also has a great script, and great acting.  If you haven't seen the film in a while I recommend checking it out.  There hasn't been another film like it.  

RANDOM FACTS:

Spielberg and Zemeckis wanted Bill Murray to play Eddie Valiant but because they could not get in touch with him he was never offered the part. He later says he would have taken it.  

Tim Curry auditioned for the part of Judge Doom but the producers found his performance too terrifying.  

It was a bit surprising to see Warner Brother's characters in the film. But they agreed as long as they got equal screen time as Disney characters.  That's why almost every time they appear in pairs like Daffy Duck and Donald Duck dueling piano scene and Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny appear at the same time.  

There is no question mark in the title because they are considered bad luck.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Oliver & Company (1988)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Oliver & Company (1988)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 58 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Frozen II in 2020.

One of the inspirations for this blog was an article in /Film that ranked every Disney Animated Film. Since I hadn’t seen very many of them I didn’t have too much of an opinion on their list. As I am getting close to the halfway mark it is becoming clear that I often disagree with them. I was curious to see if Oliver & Company really deserves to be in the bottom three worst films.  While I still haven’t seen all the films this is leading contender in my book for worst Disney Animated Film. 

The movie is a retelling of Charles Dicken's Oliver Twist but set in 1980’s New York with a cat and dogs as its main cast. Oliver (Joey Lawrence) is an orphaned kitten who runs into a gang of stray dogs including Dodger (Billy Joel). They teach him about life on the street and their petty theft operations.  Oliver joins the group but on one of their missions a wealthy girl finds him and adopts him. The stray dogs thinking he is in trouble try to rescue him. Of course things go haywire and Fagan (Dom DeLuise), the human leader, of the ragtag group decides to use Oliver as ransom. He needs to get money he owes the evil loan shark Sykes. 

The first thing that stands out is the animation just doesn’t look up to Disney standards.  After the big flop of The Black Cauldron, new CEO of Disney Michael Eisner and new head of Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg cut the budgets of the animation department and demanded they release one animated film every year.  While The Great Mouse Detective proved that you can make a good movie on a limited budget somehow that didn’t work for Oliver & Company.  The movie just looks cheap. 

The other big problem is that the songs are pretty bad.  I don’t have anything against 80’s songs and for the most part songs in 80’s movies were pretty amazing, but the songs in here just don’t work.  It’s weird when you have big name talent like Billy Joel and Bette Middler in your cast and their songs just sound bad.  I grew up in New York and know Billy Joel is a big deal there and I do love his songs.  On paper he should fit perfectly for the role of a smooth talking streetwise dog, but somehow he just feels wrong. 

Finally the story just isn't that engaging.  It’s a pretty boring movie that makes it hard to care for any of the characters.  Maybe there is something about Oliver Twist musicals I don’t like.  When I did my Oscar challenge I hated the 1968 best picture winner Oliver!.  But this one just feels different.  This is a Disney film and it’s weird that we are supposed to feel sympathy for Fagan who is technically a bad guy.   

OVERALL: There really isn’t much going on with this film.  It looks bad, it’s boring, and the songs are lackluster.  There is a good reason this is a mostly forgotten film.  

RANDOM FACTS:

Had 11 minutes of computer enhanced images. 

One of the few Disney Animated films that takes place in modern times. 

One of the first writing credits for future Oscar nominee James Mangold.

Pictures taken from a dog's point of view were taken in NYC to help get the perspective right.  Something similar was done in Lady and the Tramp.  

Came out the same day as The Land Before Time. The Land Before Time opened at number 1 and Oliver & Company placed 4th. Ultimately Oliver & Company would end up grossing more money. For reference the #2 and #3 films that weekend were Child's Play and Ernest Saves Christmas.

Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: Tron (1982)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

Tron (1982)

As I get into the late 80’s with the Disney Movie Challenge we are starting to see the beginnings of CGI in animation.  The Black Cauldron dabbled in it with a few computer generated images and The Great Mouse Detective had a scene that relied heavily on CGI.  With today’s bonus post I wanted to take a step back a few years to examine the movie that was one of the first to really use computers to do special effects.  In 1982 Disney was again at the forefront of technology when they released Tron,  a movie that wasn’t a huge hit but changed the movie landscape.

Tron is about a computer program called the Master Control Program that tries to take over the digital world. When Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) tries to hack into the system the Master Control Program digitlzes Flynn and sucks him into the computer and forces him to compete in the games.  He teams up with Tron a powerful program designed to take down the MCP.  

The movie was at the cutting edge of the computer graphics and was a big showcase to what it could do.  While the effects don’t quite live up to today's standards it still has an amazing look and cool vibe.  The problem with the film is that despite how cutting edge it was it lacked a really strong story.  The story is a bit confusing.  This could be that the knowledge of what computers would go on to be wasn’t as understood and some of the things that happen seem silly.  But I think if it did a better job of explaining the rules of the world we could at least go along with it instead of bringing in our own knowledge.  The film gets a bit slow at parts and some of the scenes that do have action look cool but lack intensity.  The exception is the light cycle scenes which look awesome and are really engaging.  

The acting is a bit subpar.  Not sure if it was just people didn’t know how to act with all the special effects or what it was.  Jeff Bridges does his best and keeps the film from being too bland.  Everyone else just feels flat and not very exciting.  The scene where Tron supposedly dies is really anticlimactic.  

Overall:  Looks great.  Needs better world building.  Feels like a lot of time was put into the effects and design of the film and not enough into the story and actors just didn’t seem to have any idea what they were doing.  

Random Fact: 

The movie was disqualified for Best Visual Effects Oscar because the Academy thought it was cheating to use computers.  

Disney Movie Challenge: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

Disney Movie Challenge

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

WHAT IS THE DISNEY MOVIE CHALLENGE: With Disney+ making available almost all of their films from the vault I thought it was a good time to watch all the theatrically released feature length Disney Studio Animated films. That’s a lot of qualifications so what does it all mean? It must be a film developed and released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios (so no PIXAR or Tim Burton stop motion films). Must have been released in theaters (no direct to video releases). And feature length (no shorts that played prior to the features). Currently there are 58 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Frozen II in 2020.

After taking a trip to the fantasy land Prydain in The Black Cauldron, Disney returned to more familiar territory with The Great Mouse Detective. Based on a book which is based on the Sherlock Holmes stories the story feels familiar and yet done differently enough that it feels fresh.  The addition of Vincent Price as the voice of the villain and Henry Mancini first score for an animated film adds a touch of prestige to the film.  

After her father is kidnapped a young mouse, Olivia, seeks out the famous mouse detective Basil on Baker Street.  With the help of her new friend Dr. Dawson,  they convince Basil to take on the case.  He quickly figures out that his arch nemesis Ratigan is behind the kidnapping and it’s part of a master plan to rule England.  Using his detective skills and pseudo science Basil locates Ratigan’s secret lair.  Then begins the race against time if Basil can stop Ratigan before Ratigan has time to fully implement his secret plan.  

Considering the bad rap the Disney’s 80’s movies get this movie was surprisingly good. It has some good action set pieces.  There is a fight in a toy store and the climactic fight in Big Ben. These scenes work really well and have lots of tension and good animation.  The final battle in Big Ben was one of the first major scenes to use computers to help with the animation and you can’t even tell.  Whie the screenplay doesn’t break any new ground it is certainly written well and better than the other pre-renaissance Disney films from the era.  Two of the directors, Ron Clements and John Musker,  would go on and direct several of the Disney Renaissance films including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules.  So while not part of the Disney Renaissance this is an important film leading up to it.  

I was curious to see how Vincent Price did as a voice actor but he did great.  He has a great menace to his voice that wasn’t too scary but told you he was pure evil.  He also does a pretty good job with the singing.  The rest of the voice cast was spot on.  Everyone did a great job.  Every now and then the voice of the girl's dad sounded like Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales and turns out they are voiced by the same guy.  A few spots it takes you out of it but for the most part it works.   

There are a few odd scenes in the film.  Ratigan singing about drowning orphans and widows and  constantly feeding mice to a cat is a bit disturbing for a kids movie. There is also a scene where Basil and Dr. Dawson go to a bar in disguise.  There they watch a cabaret show where a mouse sings “Let me be good to you”.  The song written by Henry Mancini is actually good but feels like it belongs in a show like Chicago not a Disney film.  Check out the full clip here https://youtu.be/e2IctxaCPqw.  The scene proved controversial in some countries where the film was given a higher rating and children weren’t allowed to see it.  Disney appealed to the MPAA for a G rating saying since the singer was a mouse it wasn’t inappropriate.  But the scene did delay the release of any home video release.  The first time it got released on VHS was in 1992 and some feel that is one of the reasons it tends to be a more forgotten film.   

Overall: A fun movie that deserves more credit than it gets.  Has some good action and the set pieces in the toy store and at the end in Big Ben are great.  I was always a fan of Sherlock Holmes so maybe that's why I feel an affinity to the movie but I enjoyed watching the movie and am surprised it never did get a sequel.  

Random Facts

Credited with saving Disney’s animation department and made the Disney Renaissance possible.  

Released the same year as Don Bluth’s An American Tale which ended up grossing more money than The Great Mouse Detective. An American Tale would be the highest grossing non Disney Animated Film at the time.  

Basil Rathborne who was known for playing Sherlock Holmes (and was the inspiration for the name of the mouse) is heard in the background in one of the scenes.  The clip is taken from a previously recorded reading of “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League”.  The reading was recorded in 1966 prior to the death of Rathborne.  

Newly elected CEO Michael Eisner slashed the budget by half and so while the film didn’t make huge amounts of money at the box office but because it was made much cheaper it was very profitable. 

Eisner and Katzenberg also ordered rewrites because they felt the initial story was too slow.