Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: The Wild (2006)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

The Wild

In 2005 Dreamworks released the animated film Madagascar about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa. In 2006 Disneay released The Wild about zoo animals in New York City that escape and go to Africa.  This isn’t the first time Disney has released a movie that was similar to another movie.  The Pixar movie A Bug's Life was released around the same time as the Dreamworks movie Antz.  But the biggest question about this movie (and the reason it’s a Bonus Post) is “is this movie a Disney movie or not?”  When I looked up my list of Disney Studios Animated Films on Wikipedia this one wasn’t listed, and I never gave it another thought.  There are lots of movies that don’t fit the strict definition to be considered official Disney canon.  What makes The Wild a bit different is that it is considered Canon in Europe but not in the U.S. I am a bit confused why there are different lists for different places.  My initial thought was the movie was so bad and felt like such a copy of Madagascar that they erased it from canon. And if a movie is that bad I need to see it. 

Like I said, The Wild is about zoo animals that escape from a zoo in New York City.  The main animal is a lion named Samson (Keifer Sutherland) with his friends Bridget the giraffe (Janeane Garofalo), Benny the squirrel (Jim Belushi), and Nigel the koala (Eddie Izzard), and a snake named Larry (Richard Kind).  After Samson and his son Ryan have a fight Ryan falls asleep in a cargo carrier that is being shipped to Africa.  Samson and his friends set out to rescue him.  

 Trying to find information on the making of this movie and why it’s not considered canon in the U.S. has been near impossible.  Few things I do know is that it was a partnership between Disney and a Canadian company, and it is the only directorial effort by Steve “Spaz” Williams.  One review I saw mentioned that there was corporate espionage going on. While I couldn’t find anything specific he was talking about I assume it has to do with Jeffrey Katzenberg leaving Disney and going to Dreamworks.  If Katzenberg knew The Wild was in development he could have brought the same concept to Dreamworks and rushed it through development.  Anyway it feels like a move Disney doesn’t want people to know about (although it is on Disney+).

I haven’t watched Madagascar in a long time but obviously there are a lot of similarities. But that hasn’t stopped movies from being successful before. So what makes this one so different? The biggest issue for The Wild is that it’s really bad.  Not only does it feel like a rip off of Madagascar but it feels like a really bad rip off.  This would have been Disney’s second fully computer animated film (after Chicken Little) and it looks awful.  Something about the texture on the animal's fur just looks bad and I found it really distracting.  While the story in Madagascar is pretty absurd it’s at least fun.  The Wild is both absurd and tries to take itself too seriously. There is an overuse of slow pop songs (Yellow from Coldplay seems really out of place) to try to give the film more emotional impact.  And the less that is said about the weird love story between a squirrel and giraffe the better.  

The one thing that worked really well in this film was the voice acting.  Keifer Sutherland and Eddie Izzard did a great job with their characters.  Jim Belushi played the annoying squirrel perfectly as I was annoyed by him the whole way through.  I wish they had better dialogue and a better story to show off their talents. 

Overall: Usually when two movies dealing with similar storylines one gets the spotlight while the other fades in the memory.  But when it comes to The Wild it has nothing to do with comparing it to Madagascar and everything to do with how bad it is.  And I guess everyone learned a lesson.  Don’t let a guy nicknamed “Spaz” direct a movie.  

Disney Movie Challenge: Treasure Planet (2002)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Treasure Planet (2002)

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 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.   

Directors Ron Clements and John Musker have had a long career at Disney.  The first film they directed for Disney was The Great Mouse Detective. After that they pitched two films to Disney head Jeffrey Katzenberg The Little Mermaid and Treasure Planet. While both films were initially rejected, The Little Mermaid would end up being a huge success and Clements and Musker would go on to direct Aladdin and Hercules.  But they never gave up on doing Treasure Planet and when the studio wanted them to make Hercules they put in their contract a guarantee that Disney would let them make Treasure Planet.  Eventually in 2002 they got to release the film and it turned out that maybe the studio was right as it became one of Disney’s largest box office flops.  

The movie is a retelling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic “Treasure Island” in space.  I have never read or seen any of the other versions so I don’t know what was changed.  The movie follows Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a teenager with a thirst for adventure.  He loved listening to stories as a kid about pirate adventures and one day he gets his chance to go on his own adventure when a map to treasure planet ends up in his hands.  His friend Doctor Doppler is also intrigued and hires a captain and crew.  Unbeknownst to them the crew they hired is made up of pirates who are trying to get their hands on the map also.  Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson) knows there is something not right with the crew and tells them to hide the map.  Jim is told to work in the Galley with Mr. Silver (Brian Murray).  After a rocky start they seem to form a bond and Jim begins to mature and learn.  When it’s revealed that Mr. Silver is a pirate and leads the mutiny, Jim begins to question everything Mr. Silver taught him.  After they make it to treasure planet a race breaks out who can find the treasure first. 

Treasure Planet is one of the most expensive animated films ever made.  This was because they ended up using multiple kinds of animation to make the film.  They had traditional hand drawn animation, CGI animation, and 3D animation using “Deep Canvas” created for Tarzan.  There are times when all are on screen at the same time. One of the biggest uses of CGI was Mr. Silver’s robotic arm and leg.  To see how CGI would look on top of traditional animation they did a test using Captain Hook from Peter Pan.  Here is a small clip from the tests. Watching the movie you don’t notice anything and everything looks pretty flawless.  The visuals are pretty stunning. 

It’s disappointing that the movie bombed because it’s not a bad movie.  I think it was the weird sci-fi element that didn’t click with people.  I think people found it hard to believe people would just be sailing around space in open boats with no helmets on.  But if you can get past that the story is mostly fun. The voice acting is pretty great.  I loved Emma Thompson as Captain Amelia.  The biggest issue I had was when Martin Short’s character of B.E.N. was introduced.  While I love Martin Short he was a little too much Martin Short. I found the character pretty annoying and it kind of took me out of the film.

 I also think some of the emotional arcs the characters go through just didn’t work right.  It was kind of confusing how we are supposed to feel about Mr. Silver.  We get hints early on that he is a bad guy but then he is a good guy, but then bad guy again and then good guy.  The movie never really gives a good reason why Jim would forgive him at the end.  There is also a weird love story between Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler that just pops up out of nowhere.  I think if they had ironed out some of the characters better maybe the film would have found more of an audience.  

Overall: Not a bad movie.  The animation looked great and integrated all animation aspects pretty brilliantly.  Unfortunately the story  just didn’t resonate with an audience. Not sure if it’s just people don’t like Disney Sci-Fi (Atlantis: The Lost Empire also flopped), or just the characters weren’t interesting enough. Also a random Goo Goo Dolls song pops up and that kind of took me out of the movie also.  

Random Facts

Along with Lilo and Stitch, the first Disney Animated Films to be nominated for Best Animated Features at the Oscars, both lost to Spirited Away.  This was only the second year that category existed.  The first year no Disney Animated films were nominated (Pixar's Monsters Inc. did get a nomination the previous year but lost to Shrek.)

The movie lost over $70 million at the box office. It is one of Disney’s largest financial losses.  

Biggest discussion between my son and I.  Was Morph a good guy or a bad guy? If he was with Mr. Silver all that time he should have known Silver was planning a mutiny. I almost figured when he left with Jim that he was acting as a spy.  

Disney’s third adaption of the book Treasure Island.  The first two were the 1950 movie Treasure Island and the 1996 Muppet Treasure Island

Disney Movie Challenge: Dinosaur (2000)

 

 Disney Movie Challenge

Dinosaur (2000)

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 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

Dinosaur is a project that was long in development.  Originally conceived in 1986 on the set of Robocop between special effects artist Phil Tippett and director Paul Verhoeven.   They originally planned to do a stop motion movie with puppets and miniatures.   The movie was to have no speaking dinosaurs and end with all the dinosaurs dying in a meteor strike.  The development was long and costly. After Disney learned that Jurassic Park would be released using CGI they reassessed their plan. Verhoeven and Tippett eventually left the film and a variety of directors (including David W. Allen who just made Puppet Master II) were brought in to work on it before the movie ultimately ended up going to the animation department to become the first Disney Computer Animated Film.  There were also a lot of changes to avoid being compared to other movies that came before. For example, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, and Armageddon (they scrapped a meteor scene in space because it was too similar to Armageddon).

The plot is kind of bizarre but pretty straight forward.  An orphaned iguanodon, Aladar, is raised by a family of lemurs.  When their island is destroyed by a meteor shower they escape and join a herd of random other dinosaurs as they look for the fertile nesting grounds.  Leading the herd is no-nonsense Kron who takes no interest in anyone who can’t keep up.  Aladar takes sympathy on a few of the slow elderly dinosaurs that Kron leaves behind.  Being chased by carnotaurus’, Aladar and his group seek refuge in a cave. After getting trapped they find a shortcut to the nesting grounds.  Aladar then runs back to Kron to tell him the way he is going is impossible to cross.  Kron reluctant to admit he is wrong fights Aladar but then a carnotaurus shows up and the group must now fight the predator.  

While officially Disney’s first computer animated it felt behind the times.  Pixar had already released Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2, and Dreamworks had released Antz. The one thing that Dinosaur did differently was they superimposed the computer animation on real world photos.  They used tropical locals like Hawaii and Tahiti for the jungle sequences.  Unfortunately I think using real world backgrounds highlights how fake the computer animation looks.  I know that comparing it to current animation is not fair but I really feel like even in 2000 it had already started to age.   

The biggest problem with the movie are the characters.  First thing is it’s hard to get over the initial idea that a pack of lemurs will raise an iguanodon.  Once you get past that mental hurdle the rest of the movie does a poor job of character development.  Aladar is pretty one note. Once we meet him he is already a good guy and always does the right thing.  There is some attempt at a romance with one of the female iguanodons in the herd but that feels forced.  Kron is self centered the whole movie and doesn’t change.  There is one character, Bruton, that does have a small arc and learns that sometimes it’s better to help others, but he doesn’t play a big role in the film.  

The voice cast is pretty good with what they are given to do.  Alfre Woodard and Ossie Davis are great as the parents of the lemurs.  They both give a calm confidence and you really feel the  love they have for other characters.  Samuel Wright, who was the voice of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid, provides the voice of Kron in this one.  He completely nails the role even if it’s just one note.  D.B Sweeney as the voice of Aladar and while nothing spectacular does a fine job as showing his kind and thoughtfulness.  

Overall: A boring film that doesn’t make you care about the characters.  In an effort to avoid similarities to other films they kind of made a bland film.  Animation might have looked passable in 2000 but now doesn’t look good at all. There were some scenes in a cave that were so dark you could hardly make out what was going on. 

Random Facts

Second Disney Animated Film to be rated PG. First was The Black Cauldron.

Said to have the largest number of deaths in any Disney Animated film.  

Originally was going to have a mosasaurus but was removed from the finished film. 

Controversial decisions to have the dinosaurs talk. Iguanodons have duck bills. So when it was decided they would talk they had to change them to lips. 

Wasn't considered Disney Canon till 2008. Still not considered Disney Canon in Europe (The Wild is considered Canon there but not in the U.S.)

First film that James Newton Howard scored for Disney. He would go on to score many of the films in the coming decades.

Disney Movie Challenge: Fantasia 2000 (1999)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Fantasia 2000 (1999)

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 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021.

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. 

 

Disney Movie Challenge: Mulan (1998)

 Disney Movie Challenge

Mulan (1998)

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 59 films. Starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 going to Raya and the Last Dragon in 2021. 

As far as the later half of the Disney Renaissance goes the movie that gets the most talked about is Mulan.  This not a princess “Princess Movie” is actually a fun action movie.  When Disney originally started developing the film it was going to be a more traditional rom-com, but someone at Disney realized it will be better if they make it more closely follow the Chinese legend of Mulan.  

The movie starts with Mulan (Ming-Na Wen) trying to fit in as the typical Chinese girl by learning all the traditional roles in hopes the Matchmaker will match her up with a good man.  But despite all she does everything goes wrong and she is told she is a dishonor to her household.  When the Huns attack China the Emperor (Pat Morita) declares that each family will send one man to fight in the army.  Mulan’s father who was injured in a previous war is the only man in the house and agrees to go to war.  Mulan doesn’t want to see her father go off to war secretly cuts her hair, steals his armor and pretends she is a man to fight in the army.  The ancestors want to send the "Great Stone Dragon" as a protector but instead of waking the dragon Mushu (Eddie Murphy), a small dragon, destroys the Stone Dragon. Mushu decides to go himself to earn the respect of the ancestors.  With Mushu's help Mulan begins training with other soldiers and tries to keep her identity a secret.  Once on the battlefield she proves herself worthy but when the troops find out she is a girl they kick her out of the army.  But when she realizes the Hun army isn’t defeated and still getting ready to attack she heads to the  Imperial City to protect the Emperor.  

For the longest time I didn’t know this was a musical.  While it technically is a music it doesn’t feel like the musicals of the early Renaissance era.  That might be because for the first time in almost 10 years the music wasn’t done by Alan Menken.  In this one the score was done by another legend Jerry Goldsmith known for movies like Patton, The Omen, Alien, and Gremlins.  There were also 5 songs in the movie and they were written by Matthew Wilder (best known for the 80’s song “Break My Stride”) with lyrics by David Zippel.  None of the songs are as memorable as previous Renaissance films, and while the score seemed to have some odd choices overall it was pretty good.  The ending song "True to Your Heart" by 98 Degrees definitely makes the film feel very 90's.

As a fan of action films this movie hit the sweet spot for me.  Great action good story, and who doesn’t love a good underdog movie. Mulan doesn’t start out as a great fighter; she trains with the rest of the recruits and learns how to become a warrior.  She proves herself worthy and we see her struggle for he success. The love story, while thin, somehow works.  My biggest complaint (and unpopular opinion) is that Mushu drags the story down.  While Eddie Murphy's energy works really well for Donkey in Shrek I find the Mushu mostly annoying and an unnecessary distraction to the story.

Overall: A fun action and adventure movie.  I feel the movie would be better without Mushu who is just annoying.  Also confused why they consider this a Princess movie since Mulan is not a princess?

Random Facts:

To help promote the film McDonald’s released a special Szechuan sauce for its Chicken McNuggets.  This became a gag in the cartoon Rick and Morty and the demand for the sauce was so great that McDonald’s released it again.  

Stephen Schwartz was originally hired to write music and songs for the movie, but after Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney for Dreamworks he hired Schwartz to write the music for Prince of Egypt.  Disney then cut ties with him and the 4 songs he wrote for Mulan were discarded.

Mulan was the first ever Disney Film to get released on DVD. The film almost got a PG rating because it used the term cross dresser. Christina Aguilera had her first hit with the song Reflection from the film.