Disney Movie Challenge
Fantasia 2000 (1999)
When Walt Disney made the first Fantasia in 1941 his goal was to make a new one every year with a rotating list of segments. Unfortunately the technology pushing film lost more money than it made and the idea of a yearly Fantasia was scrapped. Disney did revisit the idea of putting animation to music with Make Mine Music (1946) and Melody Time (1948) but it wasn't until 1999 that they made a true sequel.
Fantasia 2000 consisted of 7 new musical segments and 1 segment from the original film. Similar to the original film the film featured both abstract segments and story segments. The film starts with a shortened version of the Deems Taylor introduction that the first one started with. We quickly move into the first segment of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Each of the next segments are introduced by a celebrity. After Symphony No. 5, Steve Martin and Itzhak Perlman introduce Pines of Rome, Quincy Jones introduces Rhapsody in Blue, Bette Middler introduces Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102, James Earl Jones introduces The Carnival of the Animals, Penn and Teller introduce the one returning segment The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, James Levine (the conductor) introduces Pomp and Circumstance, and lastly Angela Lansbury introduces the Firebird Suite.
The biggest ambition of Fantasia was the Fantasound, which was one of the first surround sound systems. In keeping with Fantasia showing off new technology Fantasia 2000 was made to be shown on IMAX screens. While IMAX had been around for a while in 1999 it was mostly in museums and showed educational films. Fantasia 2000 was one of the first big budget feature films to be shown on IMAX screens. Disney has signed a deal with IMAX that gave IMAX the first run of the film for 4 months as long as IMAX theaters didn’t show any other films. Since many IMAX theaters were in museums, they felt obligated to show some educational films so there were only a limited number of IMAX theaters that agreed to Disney’s demands.
As far as the individual segments for the most part they are fine. I had seen this before and the only one I really remembered and still one of my favorites was Rhapsody in Blue. I wasn’t really familiar with George Gershwin’s music so this was a nice introduction. The segment also had a distinctive look which was based on Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures of the time. It is the most contemporary musical piece and maybe that is why I connected with it more than the others. The Carnival of the Animals was a short fun segment about a flamingo with a yo-yo. While I think it’s the shortest of the segments it really made nice use of musical cues and matching it up with the animation. Pines of Rome is an odd one about a family of humpback whales that fly. Piano Concerto No. 2 told the story of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” through music. Apparently the ending of the short story by Hans Christian Anderson is a bit of a downer and didn’t fit the music so the animators changed it to fit the music better. Not much stands out about the rest. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was a nice throwback to the original. They did a good job restoring the segment and fits right in with the more modern animation.
Overall: As with any anthology movie it’s a mixed bag. For me the best was Rhapsody in Blue as it was a nice change of pace from the more classical music of the other pieces. There really isn’t any segment that is bad but none that are really that memorable either.
Random Facts:
Jeffrey Katzenberg had no interest in producing the film, so the film was made behind his back. Roy E. Disney was the driving force behind the project and he reported directly to Michael Eisner cutting out Katzenberg.
This was one of the first DVD’s I ever bought. My mom was a big fan of Fantasia so got it as a gift for her. Thought the coolest thing was you can just jump to whatever segment you wanted without having to spend time fast forwarding a tape.
No comments:
Post a Comment