Disney in Review

[terminoob]

Hey so I'm watching all 52 "official" Disney animated movies (none of that Direct-to-VHS/DVD ratchet garbage) over break and I'm gonna review them. All of them. In order. Because I'm the end-all-be-all regarding knowledge to animation and harshness.

Snow White and Pinocchio will be the first up to the slaughter.

[Wumbo]

Cool! I'll be excited to see your opinions.

[Elastic Dawg]

Watch Fantasia on acid and get your roomie to type up a transcript.

[I'M A TRASH CAN]

I'm Excited to see All of Disney's Movie Reviews Terminoob

[terminoob]

We all know the story because it's suddenly a pop culture trend for some reason. It's the basis for Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman, and it's the focal point of Once Upon a Time. We all love it and we all can't get enough of it according to Hollywood.

Yes, Walt Disney's first feature length movie. Up til now, he and Ub Iwerks and the whole Disney crew were doing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse cartoons (also released in theaters, mind you), but they decided to throw caution to the wind and do this. It kickstarted the franchise, and whether you like it or not, Disney got big, and it all started with this. Originally released in 1937, it was a feat for sure. Full length hand animation? Preposterous, they said! But Disney knew what he was going. Or, uh, at least he thought he did, because this kind of isn't that good.

Let's just get right into this: I like princess movies. There, I said it. I like the characters, I like the music, I like the story. I overlook all the character traits when I watch them because I know they're idealizing the best traits in women (ie: beauty) and I know it's all going to be "happily ever after" with no rhyme or reason, and I can accept that because I'm not a jackass or a girl who doesn't like the morals it tries to teach because real life girls don't have princes lining up to marry them on the spot. But I'm throwing that side of me away for these reviews because if I didn't then the princess movies would be me saying "HEY GUYS THIS IS REALLY GOOD OKAY".

The movie starts out in the obvious atypical fashion. Character introduction and plot exposition! Snow White's evil step-mother (what is it with step-mothers being evil? How'd they end up being step-mothers anyway? Are they so evil that they killed the first mother and seduced the father? Did they become evil after the marriage? Is the father evil so he only used his first wife to birth a child and then killed her and got him some hot young strange? These are the questions, people) the Evil Queen struts on up to her mirror and asks the age-old question "Who's the fairest one of all?" She's so sure it's gonna be her, but the mirror just shuts her and her old ass down and tells her that the "fairest one of all" (I'm going to assume that "fairest" is the '30s way of saying "downright sexy" because, personally, I'd be more upset if I wasn't sexy than if I wasn't "the fairest") is actually the princess, Snow White. The Evil Queen is having none of that crap and decides she has to kill Snow White. Not exercise and work off that holiday weight; nope, she's gonna kill her. Because that's what happens when someone's hotter than you. You kill 'em.

Cue Snow White. She's doing chores outside and decides to enlist the help of animals (next best thing to slaves/Chinese children). A song comes in here, but I'll get to the songs later; for now, let's focus on this prince. Prince Charming decides he has a lot of confidence and tries to charm the pants off Snow White, and he can do that with just his sultry bedroom eyes because he's Prince effing Charming. Now, if I were my normal self, I'd shrug the blossoming love off and chalk it up to Disney being Disney, because that's what this is. For a first attempt, it's great. They can't just meet and fall in love and that be the end of it; hell, the Prince isn't even in the movie for most of it. But... that's where it falters, and it's my first point of criticism. He's not there. He and Snow can't get to know each other. This is the stereotypical "meet, fall in love, marry" movie; it's what started it all, and it doesn't pretend to be anything more, because it's a fairytale. And for a fairytale, it does it better than most, because the Prince isn't around and they do fall in love at first sight, and they do get married in the end (SPOILER ALERT). From a storytelling standpoint, it's pretty bad. Though the movie is about Snow White and her interactions with the dwarves (I'll get to them in a second), the Prince is an afterthought besides a few mentions here and there. I don't buy it. They definitely have it worked out, though; even as early as The Little Mermaid (though that's the tail-end of the 80s, they didn't have many princess movies; just this, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty, with Sleeping Beauty coming out 30 years before The Little Mermaid), and I do give them leeway for it being their first full length movie and their first princess movie and all that. It's just personal opinion that it wasn't done well, because after their little musical number the Prince is absent until the last five minutes of the movie. Anyway, let's move on because I got rant about their relationship for a while.

After almost getting killed in the forest, Snow White ends up at a cottage. With the help of her woodland friends (read: confidants, cohorts, accessories), she decides she wants to live there and just barges in; kind of like what the Europeans did when they first came to America. She not-so cleverly deduces that seven children live in the home and because it's so messy that they must not have a mom so she takes it upon herself to clean everything up so it's hospitable; kind of like what the Europeans did when they first came to America.

Now I'm going to talk about the music, because another musical number comes in here and it bugs me. Unfortunately, this was composed prior to Alan Menken being born, so all the music is kind of terrible. Well; it's not terrible, because the singers are amazing, but it's... operatic. I appreciate opera, but it's not something I'd put on my iPod. It works in the movie, but it's not something I want to listen to and when the music hits, I kind of want to just skip it entirely; actually, that's not true; the dwarves have some of the better numbers, but it's still not iPod music. The music shifts when The Little Mermaid hits theaters in '89, but that review is a ways off. Just know that I'm not going to be kind to the music up until that point.

Okay, so after Snow White cleans up the house she decides to go to sleep; I don't know if she can do this because the laws were really lenient back then or because if she's a princess, but regardless I wish I could do that. Maybe I can if I find a house with exclusively midgets; I'm 6' 1", they can't do anything!

Now, here enters the second part of the title; The Dwarves. The introduction to them is my favorite part of the movie; it's the movie. If you haven't realized yet, this is a movie-within-a-movie. It's the Inception of movies. Disney didn't want to just introduce these characters; he wanted to introduce them. And yes there's a difference, because one's italicized. Now, how do you introduce seven very important and very different characters? You do the three-act set-up. It's clever, it's good writing, and it needs to be done more often because this was so spectacularly executed that I can't believe there are movies out there that don't take note of this. We're introduced to the dwarves before Snow White is, because we need to get to know these characters; seven different characters with seven different personalities is hard; we can't just see them with Snow White and get to know them, because there wouldn't be enough time to get to know each of them. Or maybe Disney just had no idea what to do for this chunk of time and was just like "Hey guys, movie within a movie; it'll be hilarious". Whatever the reason, we're brought to Act 1 of this mini-movie, which is the rising action. The working song. Showcasing each of the dwarves through singing is a musical done right; I can live with this song because it's needed, and they aren't operatic.

Once we get back to the cottage, we get to Act 2: The Climax. There's something in the house. We know they're going to meet Snow White; we just need to see them do it. This is done well, because it's not just Doc giving orders and the dwarves following; they actually talk to each other. Talking is key here. It lets us get to know them.

And of course, when they discover Snow White, we get Act 3: The Resolution. They get named. They don't come out and say their names, because that's bad writing. They have Snow White guess, and then they have Happy say his name because he's, well, happy; it's his character. He says Dopey too because Dopey doesn't know if he can talk because "he's never tried". I don't have any sassy comments for that because that's a pretty lame reason.

Unfortunately, for such a great introduction, the dwarves aren't that well remembered. Besides Grumpy and Dopey, maybe Doc, who do you actually care about? Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, and Happy don't really... do much, which is a shame. I'd also like to point out that two of the dwarves have the same color hat, and they all have more or less the same look; Dopey and Grumpy are the two "standouts", which is more reason to why they're more popular/prominent. It's a shame because I thought Happy was really fun, and Doc's a great character with his word fumbling. Sneezy, Bashful, and Sleepy really don't have anything to their credit other than their respective quirks; they really don't have much plot to them aside from just being there.

Aaaaaaand let's go back to the queen, because she's still a plot point in this movie. Like I said before, she decides to kill Snow White because why not. What happens if the queen still isn't the sexiest chick in the land? Will she kill again? Because crazy isn't hot. Well it is in bed. So yeah I guess she will be the sexiest girl in the land. Anyway, after the mirror tells her that Huntsman didn't kill Snow White (did I not mention the Huntsman? Sorry; he wasn't as important as he should be. He tried to kill Snow White earlier on but pussied out at the last second because he suuuuuuucks) she decides to do the good ol' "dunk the apple in poison" gambit; my favorite gambit! And to top it off, she goes with the always classic "change your appearance to an old lady" switcheroo. There's not much to say with this part aside from the amazing animation, and the animation will get its own section at the end, so I have nothing to say about this part. It's clear cut and pretty iconic.

Now even though Snow White is going to get assassinated and she knows it, she decides to live a little and... uh... dances with dwarves. I guess that's what you do when you don't have wolves. The music is upbeat and fun and dancey and still not Alan Menken so it's not too great. The dance scene is where Dopey breaks away from the other dwarves and gets to be the one to dance with Snow White, and it's also where Grumpy starts to have a change of heart. See? They're more prominent than the other dwarves; no one else has character development in this movie besides Grumpy. No one. Snow White doesn't change, Prince Charming doesn't change, the Evil Queen doesn't change, the other dwarves don't change. I don't know, I'm kind of annoyed about that. I guess no one else really needed to change, because the Prince has no screentime and Snow White's perfect and the Evil Queen is evil, but... still.

The next morning comes along and the dwarves go off to work. Snow White is all alone, so you know what that means folks! Actual plot is going to happen! The Evil Queen comes along in her old lady guise and tries to trick Snow White into eating the apple that'll put her into a sleep-like state that mimics death. Because having "murderer" on your resume isn't a good thing. The animals sense something's up and try to stop it from happening, but they're too late and Snow White takes a bite and "dies". There's a really cool element to this part of the movie (which spans from now until the almost end) with the vultures. Vultures are known for picking apart the dead, so you'd think they'd go straight for Snow White after she kicks the bucket; but they follow the Evil Queen. Why? Well, I'll tell you why.

The animals decide to savagely attack the dwarves because they can't communicate with them to say Snow White is dead because of the Evil Queen, so we get a minute or so of good and much needed comedy, because this movie was starting to drag a bit. And the dwarves finally get to do something that isn't all cheery and merry! They get to kill someone! Woo! Killing! Yeah!

Anyway... the dwarves chase the Evil Queen, who's still being followed by the vultures, up to a cliff. For a few seconds, it looks grim for the dwarves as the Evil Queen tries to push a boulder down on them, but as she's trying that the cliff she's standing on gets struck by lightning and it crumbles because apparently rock is really weak to lightning? But anyway the vultures finally leave us because the Evil Queen falls down the cliff and gets crushed by the boulder she tried to use to crush the dwarves, which is some sort of not-so subtle dramatic irony. I thought that death scene was pretty rushed, and probably not needed. I mean, Snow White's a princess that's been missing for two days; shouldn't someone in the castle have noticed that? And the Evil Queen leaves without saying anything; shouldn't someone have noticed? Like, I don't know, maybe the king? We could've had this all wrapped up nicely with the Evil Queen getting thrown away in jail instead of killed by natural causes and it still would've been a fine ending because Snow White still would've woken up and been with the Prince. I don't know. I can pass it because it's a fairytale, but so were all of the princess movies and they all changed a bit, so... eh, I guess I can't pass it. Disney just did a lot... well, not necessarily wrong, it's just a lot of the movie wasn't the best and it shows. But hey; first animated feature? Pretty solid, considering how much better he and the company got.

It ends with the Prince not being told about the curse and kissing her anyway even though she's dead because he's into that sort of thing. Which is not very charming at all. It's pretty disgusting. If I was Snow White, I'd get away from him because I don't want to be with a dude who was into kissing dead people. I'd've also not gone into the forest and instead told the king or someone in the castle what was happening because it seems like that should've been priority number one. But the predictable happens and they live happily ever after when the Prince has Snow White ride his horse into the sunlight/castle in the sky.

Now, the animation. Man. The animation. It's fantastic. The lines, the proportions, the facial expressions; everything. If you put this side-by-side with one of their later movies... well, it'd be obvious to tell which came first, but it'd be mind-boggling to see how little they actually came in terms of animation because they already had it down to a science. They beefed up the production quality and that was it for the traditionally animated movies that came later in their legacy; and that didn't even happen until maybe Beauty and the Beast. I'm watching all 52 movies in order to see the progression, and to tell the truth, it'll be hard to see progression until the turn of the century; if anything, there'll be regression because of that awkward period where everyone left and people hated working there and they just churned out movies not caring about quality... but, I'll get to that.

Story wise? Not the best Disney has to offer. There's definitely kinks they had to work out, but once they did the princess movies got that much better; I know this was the final product, but I can't help but see it as a first draft for future princess movies.

Music wise? Beautiful, but not the music we've been spoiled with in post-Little Mermaid movies. Talk to me when Menken's on the scene.

Animation wise? Phenomenal. It surpasses Pinocchio by a country mile (and don't worry; I'll get to Pinocchio soon, because I've got a lot to say about that).

Overall? Four out of seven dwarves.

[I'M A TRASH CAN]

[terminoob]

Time for this... thing.

The second animated full length feature by Disney, coming out in 1940, is the story of a wooden puppet who just wants to be a real boy. It deals with all the lessons parents try to teach children, but really... uh... extremify them. Yeah, extremify. I said it. It's a word now.

Now, I had never seen Pinocchio before, so I didn't know what to expect. I played Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, though! So I know he... uh... turned into a donkey at some point? And there's a whale involved? And... he... lies? A lot? Oh, he doesn't lie that much? And the whale isn't as an important plot point as I thought? And the donkey bit was a play on the word jackass? Okay. I really didn't know what to expect with this movie because all I knew was the whole "oh he lies so his nose grows" and I thought him getting over lying would be the big plot of the movie but it wasn't and I'm not glad because the real plot was really stupid.

So as a hobo Jiminy Cricket hides away in the home of Gepetto, master craftsman. He takes note of all the wonderful toys and clocks, all hand-carved and painted out of wood, and then notices a marionette. Now, I don't know if Jiminy was talking to himself or breaking the fourth wall, but it's kind of annoying because I just want to step on him all the time. Is that bad? He's just kind of annoying and he doesn't help Pinocchio all that much. He seems to only be in it for the medal he gets maybe promised by the blue fairy a little later in the story.

After putting the finishing touches on Pinocchio, we get a really annoying clock scene where the clocks all strike 9 at the exact same time and all of their alarms go off at once and it's really annoying especially because Gepetto checks his watch to see what time it is. And then apparently everyone gets tired at 9pm? What is this? Full House? No one gets tired at 9pm. But I digress because that's a stupid thing to hate on. Once the cutest cat in the entire universe, Figaro, opens the window, Gepetto notices a "wishing star" and wishes that Pinocchio could become a real boy. Apparently he's never met the guy that runs Pleasure Island, because there are other ways to get real boys. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The blue fairy, who is so aptly named because she's in a blue dress, comes down and answers Gepetto's wish by turning Pinocchio into some sort of freak marionette who doesn't need strings and can talk. It's pretty creepy. Why is it that when The Twilight Zone does an episode about a talking doll it's creepy but when Disney does a movie about a marionette that can talk and walk it's cute and not creepy at all and none of the characters question it? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the doll from The Twilight Zone was really malicious and ended up killing someone and Pinocchio... uh... isn't. But he could be! It's not like he listens to Jiminy anyway. He could go on such a killing spree. It'd be great.

The blue fairy tells Pinocchio that becoming a real boy is "up to him", but it really isn't because Pinocchio can't transform himself into a real boy by himself because that's ridiculous. He's not magic. He needs the blue fairy. If she just transformed him into a real boy in the first place none of what's about to take place would've happened! Seriously. I'm going to prove that to you right now.

Once Pinocchio is a real... thing... he goes off to school with Jiminy because he has to learn how to act like a real boy. It's not out of the ordinary for a puppet to go to school, no, it's fine; none of the kids are gonna freak out over a talking doll or anything. Everything's gonna be a-okay. Nope. He doesn't even make it to school before "Honest John", a talking fox, comes along.

Okay, Disney, let me stop you right there. Jiminy is a cricket. He talks. Honest John is a fox. He talks. He has a sidekick who can walk on two legs who can't talk. Gepetto has a cat that's just a cat. What? Does anyone else see something wrong here? Is not every animal in this universe anthropomorphic? Can only some of them talk? Are the ones that aren't anthropomorphic mentally handicapped because they're just regular animals? If magic exists in this universe and no one's scared of a talking puppet, why aren't animals walking and talking too? Why do normal boys turn into regular donkeys? Shouldn't they be anthropomorphic donkeys?

Ugh. Moving on. Honest John is a pretty funny character. I like him. He's the only one I like. He discourages Pinocchio from going to school and instead pursue the performing arts because back in the '40s apparently that was a better way of living than going to school. Lucky them. Jiminy does nothing to stop Pinocchio from joining Stromboli's puppet show aside from being like "Well maybe this isn't a good idea" and Pinocchio's just like "Hahaha, screw off I'm gonna be famous". If the blue fairy just turned Pinocchio into a boy in the first place he would've gone to school because he wouldn't have been sold to Stromboli.

Cut to Stromboli's circus where Pinocchio does some sort of stupid song and dance number but screws up because he's an idiot who can't walk properly or something. I don't know. Was that supposed to be important? Because it seemed like it was but it also seemed like it wasn't. After the musical crap Pinocchio finds out that Stromboli isn't going to let him go because he's a goldmine because apparently people aren't freaked out or concerned by inanimate objects coming to life. He locks Pinocchio up in a cage and sets off to tour the world! ...Or maybe just Europe. Because for some reason he just listed European continents when he said "the world".

Jiminy resolves to be helpful and tell Gepetto about Pino- oh, no wait; he's not gonna do that. He's gonna try and save him instead. Which is the stupidest thing ever because he realizes he can't pick the lock and they only get saved because the blue fairy comes down and unlocks them after taking pity on Pinocchio for being an idiot. I mean, he lied his ass off and she's just like "Yeah don't do that" and she fixes the situation. She's more of a conscience than Jiminy since Pinocchio actually listens to her. If the blue fairy just turned Pinocchio into a boy in the first place he wouldn't have been locked away and Gepetto wouldn't have to go looking for him and end up in a WHALE.

I'm skipping ahead, because I'm getting to that crap now. Really? A WHALE? How does one get swallowed BY A WHALE? It's A WHALE. You can't miss it, because it's the size OF A WHALE. And why would Pinocchio be in the ocean, anyway? He's made of wood! The last place he'd want to go would be the ocean! Unless this whale is actually anthropomorphic by day and a regular whale by night and walked to the shore and swallowed Gepe- no, you know what? That'd make less sense, because then we have A WHALE walking around what I assume is Italy, and I think people would notice that and be hopefully slightly concerned.

Before this whole "whale" incident, Honest John meets up with this old guy. He, and I kid you not, "buys stupid little boys" then "takes them to Pleasure Island" and when they return "they aren't boys anymore". My mind isn't in the gutter, is it? That's really creepy and sexual, right? I mean, I know that they're extremifying the fables of stranger danger and all that stuff; like, I'm sure someone was like "Hey, let's put all the temptations that someone could offer a boy in one place and call it Pleasure Island", and that's a fine idea. It makes sense. But it's just so creepy. I don't like it.

Honest John goes and meets up with Pinocchio again and tells him about Pleasure Island in exchange for a huge sack of coins (I like how this is the only proper way to carry ambiguous gold coins; really poorly made sacks tied up with twine). He meets this fella named Lampwick (seriously? That's the name we're going with here? Lampwick?) who also isn't creeped out by Pinocchio being a puppet that can talk and walk because everyone's really desensitized in this town. At Pleasure Island all the boys can do whatever they want! Like... drink beer and... smoke... cigars and... fight...

...Really? That's Pleasure Island? My "Pleasure Island" as a kid was a place filled with endless amounts of candy and ice cream and cookies and swingsets and radios blasting the Backstreet B-... never mind. I'm digressing.

At the pool hall, because apparently indulging in the second best sport ever (second only to poker; I know, I'm so getting turned into a donkey) is bad, Pinocchio meets up with Jiminy again who says they have to get out of there because the boys are turning into donkeys! Yup. Boys. Into donkeys. Apparently some of them can "still talk" so they get thrown into a pen because talking animals are bad, which I still don't get. Why can't all of them talk? They're boys turning into animals, right? Shouldn't all of them retain their ability to talk if some of them can?

See, I don't get how there's apparently magic accessible to people but it's ambiguous as to where it comes from and no one seems to care about it. How did this dude rig his Pleasure Island to be magical? Is it dark magic? Is it something he wished for? Was it the blue fairy? And they never turn back into boys, by the way. The man is never captured either. Pleasure Island is still going on. Boys are still being turned into donkeys and being sold to salt mines. That's still a thing. No justice for the villains at all in this movie. Honest John gets rich, Stromboli gets money once, and this douche is running an underground Boyz II Donkeys island to get super rich. Now, I get that the blue fairy may not have been able to prevent Pinocchio from being sold because one can assume he'd still bump into Honest John and possibly be sold, but still- if the blue fairy turned Pinocchio into a boy in the first place he wouldn't have been sold and turned into a half-donkey half-marionette freak.

Pinocchio, still rocking donkey ears, runs to Gepetto's house with Jiminy to see if he's home, but apparently he's closed up shop and... well... I already told you what happened. The blue fairy sends down a letter (even though she told Pinocchio she wouldn't be helping him anymore), telling him that Gepetto is... well... you know.

At the bottom of the sea, Pinocchio somehow doesn't swell up and splinter so he's able to get inside the whale, Monstro, relatively easily. He reunites with Gepetto and everyone's happy! ...Until they realize they're in a whale. Pinocchio comes up with the brilliant idea of starting a fire (I think I forgot to mention that Gepetto's workshop got swallowed too... yeah, sucks to suck), and the smoke caused by the fire is enough to get Monstro to sneeze out Gepetto and Pinocchio and Jiminy... because they couldn't have gone out either end. For some reason Monstro goes bat shit insane and tries to kill them. See, now this begs the question: If Monstro's hellbent on killing everyone in sight because he's so bloodthirsty, how did he swallow Gepetto? How did he not just kill him? And why are they so scared they'll die? They got swallowed before and lived; they should be fine now.

I don't like this movie.

Gepetto tries to be selfless by telling Pinocchio to save himself by swimming to shore, but Pinocchio doesn't listen (the hell is up with this kid and not listening to anyone?) and saves Gepetto by swimming him to shore. Unfortunately, Pinocchio... uh... dies? I don't know how that works. He was a puppet, so he'd just go back to... well... being a puppet. No one was scared of a marionette that was alive, because apparently that's normal, so a dead one should be fine because they're all supposed to be dead anyway.

At Pinocchio's bedside, Gepetto's crying because he lost his "son" even though he wasn't real to begin with, but the blue fairy decides to finally turn him into a real boy. Christ lady. Did I mention she could've just done that from the start to avoid all of this turmoil from happening? She was the one that caused all this! She made Gepetto be swallowed BY A WHALE! Well, maybe not directly, but still! Actually, yeah, she probably was the one that made him be swallowed by a whale because IT'S A FUCKING WHALE HOW DO YOU GET SWALLOWED BY THAT. I THINK IF YOU SAW A WHALE YOU'D SAY "OH, A WHALE? LET ME SWIM AWAY SO IT DOESN'T SWALLOW ME".

And then everyone lives happily ever after because fuck all, why not. And I mean everyone. Okay maybe not Stromboli because he lost his closing act, but still; the dude made at least 300 ambiguous gold coins in one night, I'd say he's pretty happy.

Story wise? Yeah it sends good morals; don't talk to strangers, don't accept temptations; don't get swallowed by whales.

Music wise? Uh, not much music here actually. There's a couple numbers and they don't really bug me too much, but they're nothing great.

Animation wise? Not so hot. It's really... weird. It's not smooth like Snow White; there's no interesting angles or facial expressions or any risks taken. Monstro's just a blob of paint that sometimes moves. The ocean's pretty nicely animated, though that's all that is.

Overall? One hundred out of three hundred ambiguous gold coins.

[Webizoid]

You should be the next Nostalgia Critic!

[Wumbo]

This is absolutely stellar so far.

[terminoob]

You should be the next Nostalgia Critic!

I, uh, wouldn't go that far.

So after Pinocchio, Disney decided to go balls to walls. No dialogue in a movie was something that had been done before, and a movie directed entirely by music had been done before; but an animated one? That was ballsy. It had to be absolutely beautiful for it to be a hit. And guess what?

It totally was! Fun anecdote: I had a friend who didn't know this movie existed and thought it was called Anastasia and thought this wasn't made by Disney. I kept trying to tell her it was Disney, but she was still adamant against it and still believed that this movie was called Anastasia and that it wasn't made by Disney and that the actual Anastasia movie didn't exist.

Okay, did I lose all four of you that read this? Good. Because this review is going to be really kiss-assy and nice because I have nothing bad to say about this masterpiece.

I'm going to review this in its respective parts, because they're all technically separate movies.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

The opening to the masterpiece is... underwhelming? I don't know, nothing is bad in this movie, but when you have sections like Sorcerer's Apprentice other things just seem to be... not as spectacular. It starts with a live-action orchestra playing Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in really cool lighting; they definitely went all out and made everything about this movie scream "ART!". After a few minutes, it transitions to animation. The animation is beautiful, no doubt, but it's really kind of boring. It's dancing lights and stuff. C'mon Disney, I expect better. Not much else happens in this section besides lines jumping around, and I don't have the heart to tear this movie limb from limb because it's so good.

Nutcracker Suite

You may be scratching your head. The Nutcracker Suite? Like the Tom and Jerry movie? Yes, like the Tom and Jerry movie. This section of Fantasia is guided by The Nutcracker Suite music, but it doesn't follow the plot of the ballet. In fact it doesn't really follow any plot at all. I guess that works in its favor? I mean, we can see all the animation techniques, and they're all great, but after Toccata I'm kind of yearning after plot. We see fairies fluttering and mushrooms dancing and flowers coming to life. So it's like a bad trip. Next time you have a bad trip, play The Nutcracker Suite soundtrack and see how alike it is to this part of Fantasia; probably not too far off. Anyway, the animation is great. Everything moves perfectly with the music and the colors and lights and shadows are phenomenal. Not much else to say.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Starring Nic Cage as Yensid and that awkward guy from Undeclared as Mickey Mou- uh, no wait. I can't make any of those jokes. They're too expected. Ugh. I hate not being witty. Anyway, we finally get the ball rolling with this movie! After two parts of plotless dancing, we get action and substance! Contrary to popular belief, this is not the entire movie, nor is this an important part of the movie. Well, okay, it might be because it has Yensid and Mickey, but still. It's not as important as people make it out to be, it's just really well recognized. And for good reason. It's spectacular. The first time I saw it, I was like "Yeah that's pretty good", and then I started getting into animation and I was like "Oh... wow..." and now I'm really into animation and I just want to give up now because there's no way I could ever do this even with a team of animators. It'd be ridiculous. For the first two parts, they're kind of at the limits of hand animation; they aren't taking risks, they're just making things dance. But now. Good God now. It's mind-boggling.

We start off with Mickey, as the sorcerer's apprentice, emptying buckets of water into a bigger bucket of water. Because hey; even with magic you still need manual labor, and even with buckets you need bigger buckets. After a stellar scene with Yensid practicing his magic, he takes his hat off and goes upstairs, leaving the young and brash Mickey free to do whatever he wants because he's a punk. Mickey puts the hat on and starts doing what Yensid should've done and makes the brooms do work; hey, if Yensid did that in the first place he wouldn't have needed Mickey and it would've been fine. But nooo. Don't make magic do manual labor they said; it's cruel they said. Whatever. Once the brooms start working Mickey decides he's too fabulous for Earth and shoots his way on up to a cliff that pops out of nowhere and starts messing around with the cosmos. Making stars and meteors go every which way. He also likes to make the water his bitch by showing it who's boss. But wait! All this is just a dream sequence and we flash back to real time where the brooms are completely incompetent of emptying a bucket of water into a bigger bucket of water because they need a bigger bucket of water to empty the water into. If you didn't catch all that, then you're a broom. We then get a really... uh... violent scene where Mickey murders a broom in cold blood by chopping it with an ax. He thinks that's the end of it until he hears music coming from the room next door, because apparently this music is audible to everyone in that universe, and realizes he has a gozillion brooms he has to deal with that are all dumping water out and flooding the entire castle. Luckily, Yensid comes back and Moses the shit out of that water and is about to Abraham the shit out of Mickey before the G rating comes in and "Angel of God's" Yensid. Yeah, Bible references in a review of a Disney movie. Because I read.

The Rite of Spring

Hey, whaddya know! The creation of the universe! What a coinky-dink that I referenced the Bible before this. Man, I bet Christians were pissed when they saw this. Since this a segment on the creation of the universe, it starts out... uh... slow, to say the least. Like really slow. I mean, it's great and everything, but... it's creation. It's boring. Oh hey, lava. That's new. Oh, it's cooling? Ooooooo. It's not very entertaining to watch. And it's... TWENTY-TWO MINUTES LONG? Man this really isn't gonna be entertaining to wa- oh, life! That's me kind of! Yeah, life happens pretty late in this part, and it's not even exciting life. It's stupid protozoa life. Man I wish I could squish that life. Not much happens after this point, since life was kind of the end-all-be-all of... well... life.

The protozoa evolves into a fish and then evolves into a reptile (??????) and then evolves into a DINOSAUR OH YEAH INTERESTING MOVIE TIME oh never mind they're all Littlefoot. Man I wish I could squish that Littlefoot. After all that rigamarole of evolution we get a really early version of either The Land Before Time or Jurassic Park minus the humans because when you think about it a humanless Jurassic Park would just be The Land Before Time. Once all this happy stuff gets out of the way, we finally hit the action: the Tyrannosaurus Rex! Which... was... apparently alive really early on! I thought they didn't come in until later. Eh. Oh well. He goes on a killing spree and beats the crap out of a stegosaurus. After he feasts, the sun comes up and either a new age has dawned or they all walked to Egypt because there's a lot of sand here. The dinosaurs can't find any food so they all follow a Mosesaurus and Jewish themselves on out of there, but unfortunately for them they all die.

The Intermission

After that long ass creation of the universe, there's an intermission. With dialogue! And live action! I didn't expect much from this part, to be honest, because it's the intermission, but wow; it's beautiful. The way they can animate a single line to get different movements for each sound is fantastic. There's not much to say about this part; it's just the soundtrack showing off its fabulousness.

The Pastrol Symphony

This part is also 22 minutes long and features the cast of My Little Pony. I don't know what to say about this one. It's weird. It's mythical, which I love, but it's lacking in any substantial substance, which I don't love. It's just things frolicking around, which we've already seen in The Nutcracker Suite. Except this time it's 22 minutes long. 22 minutes of frolicking. I can't even frolic for 22 seconds!

Seriously. What am I supposed to review? There's uh... minotaurs and cherubs... and they're... falling in love? And it's good music and good animation? And... yeah I got nothing. There's a great part where Dionysus is actually fat and gets a unicorn drunk and tries to bang his way through the colonnade, but that's it. The part where Zeus decides to cockblock him is pretty cool too, because he throws lightning bolts at everyone like a goofball.

Dance of the Hours

Do you know how hard it is to review something where no one talks? Do you? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF MY CREDIBILITY DEPENDS ON MAKING SNARKY COMMENTS ABOUT WHAT CHARACTERS SAY? IT'S A LOT OF IT OKAY.

Dance of the Hours is pretty much what it says it is. Dancing of the hours! It starts off with ostriches trying to seduce the viewers with bedroom eyes and deepthroats and it quickly moves onto hippos in tutus. You heard me right. Hippos in tutus. We then get elephants dancing with bubbles because apparently that's a thing that happens. After that we get alligators in capes because fuck it why not, it's Disney they can do what they want. It ends with all of the animals chasing each other but then they decide to dance instead. Now why can't that happen in real life? You know how fun wars would be if we danced instead of shot each other?

Anyway, I really like this part. The proportions of the animals are all really accurate; they didn't really try to cartoonize them, they just wanted to bring them into a cartoon world, and they did it brilliantly. I really wish I was there when the animators were learning how to draw animals because Disney brought in animals from the local zoo and just put them up like models and had the animators draw them and learn the anatomy inside and out and it's just so cool and you can tell it really paid off.

Night on Bald Mountain and Ave Maria

Here we go. The final part. Fantasia's going out and it's going out with a bang as it brings out the character to end all characters: The Devil. That's right, the Devil appears in a Disney movie. Man, what they could get away with in the '40s. And just because the Devil isn't enough for good ol' Disney, they throw in a few topless women for good measure. Sure they're ghosts but boobs are boobs.

This entire segment is more or less a satanic ritual as demons and ghouls dance around a pit of fire and hail Satan. It's really... dark. And great. It's refreshing to see this in animation, and it's great to know that once upon a time this was allowed in theaters and was shown to children. I don't really know how to react to any of this piece besides... wow. They knocked it out of the park with this one. Good job Disney.

Story wise? I'm not sure how to critique this. They all had their strengths and most had their weaknesses; they were all great, but some (The Rite of Spring, The Pastoral Symphony) were lacking in the greatness that others (Sorcerer's Apprentice and Bald Mountain) had.

Music wise? Phenomenal. Hats off to the orchestra, because they were great. I'd have this music on my iPod. Well some of it anyway.

Animation wise? The cream of the crop; it's the best animation Disney has ever done and ever will do. It's too good.

Overall? Five out of six parts. Good on ya, Disney; this set the bar pretty high, and judging by what's coming up... it's not gonna get topped for a while.

[Elastic Dawg]

You had me at "that awkward guy from Undeclared."

[Pinky]

You do well detailed reviews!

[dragiiin123]

When is Your Review of Dog For A Blog Coming Out?

[terminoob]

And so, the Disney legacy begins to crumble with its fourth movie. But I'll get to that.

Now it's time for discrimination, racism, and pink elephants at their finest!

The movie starts out normally: storks bringing babies down from heaven. Um... wait. Something's wrong with that picture. I was always bothered by the stork thing. How does it even work? Do you get pregnant and then the fetus just magically disappears and appears next to a stork? I'd like to guess that that wasn't the case, but when the stork asks the elephants if any of them are "expecting" they all seem disgusted. So that would imply that you do need to get pregnant, otherwise the elephants wouldn't have been so offended.

It only gets weirder from here, trust me.

As we see the storks bring baby animals to all the now-parent animals, we get to see the process of... uh... childbirth. After a short sequence, we get to the stork that's carrying that adorable little pachyderm with the great big ears. He drops down into the elephant pen, and as I explained above, he asks which of them is expecting a child. All the sassy elephants go into full-on sass mode and tell the stork that the one expecting is Mrs. Jumbo. As the stork plays the happy birthday song, which apparently isn't PD (or it is and all the proceeds from this movie went straight to royalties), he gets stumped because he doesn't know the little elephant's name, so he asks Mrs. Jumbo what she'd like to call her new baby. Her response? Jumbo. Jumbo Jr.

That's right, she just named her baby Jumbo Jumbo Jr.

After the stork leaves, all the other elephants marvel at how cute "Jumbo" is... until he sneezes and his ears grow to ten times their normal size. I really hope that's not a medical condition we should be worried about, because spontaneous ear-growth would be hella embarrassing. Anyway, after "Jumbo" reveals his elephant sized elephant ears, the other elephants make fun of him and nickname him "Dumbo".

That's right everyone. If you haven't seen this movie, you now know that Dumbo is a nickname very rudely placed upon him, and everyone calls him that from then on. That's pretty terrible, in my opinion.

When the what-appears-to-be-sentient train comes to a halt, all the animals get out and help set up the big attraction: a giant tent. Since animals are cheaper labor than anything else, it's pretty much just them doing everything with some humans helping out a bit. This whole sequence takes a while, and there's not much to say. It's pretty cool, I guess? The song makes it eerily haunting, though. Just the beat and the tone of it, though; it almost seems like an unwritten rule that the lyrics to a song about putting up a circus can't be haunting or creepy.

Once the circus is set up, we start the show! The elephant exhibit is widely popular with the kids for some reason, and once they're there they immediately notice little Dumbo and his ears. Of course, what should happen? The only logical thing, which is teasing a baby elephant until his mom goes absolutely insane and starts beating the shit out of everything in sight. Seriously, I think she killed a few people too. The workers are somehow able to tie her down and then shove her in a cell on wheels, and who should take delight in this juicy bit of gossip but the sassy elephants. No matter how mean they are, they're pretty great characters. At least to me. I like sassy characters. Don't judge.

During the gossip, we meet a mouse named Timothy. Overhearing the elephants talking, he decides that they're being way too mean and steps in. Literally. He steps in the middle of them and scares them halfway up the bigtop. Are elephants actually scared of mice, or is that just a thing people came up with because it was funny? This is the second time I've witnessed this fear be exploited. The first was in one of the Putt-Putt games.

As the elephants are on their way to kingdom-come, Timothy tries to tell Dumbo that his ears are beautiful and he's not a freak, but Dumbo is too scared of Timothy to do anything. Until he gets a peanut. Does this reverse the fear of mice in elephants? If so, we should probably tell people about this so they can calm elephants down after they get scared by mice. Is that even a problem in modern day society? I feel like we'd be seeing more of that on the news.

But I digress.

Timothy and Dumbo overhear the ringmaster talk about a grand trick he's going to make the elephants do, but he just needs a climax; something to push it over the edge. Oh, the trick is he's going to make all the elephants form a pyramid on top of a small rubber ball. Yeah. He doesn't know much about physics. Or elephant biology.

Late at night, Timothy sneaks away into the ringmaster's bed and tells him about the perfect climax: Make Dumbo do the craziest shit imaginable. I'm paraphrasing. But the ringmaster loves it and decides he shouldn't even practice the trick; he goes ahead with it the next day at the circus. Much to the disapproval of the elephants, they obey the ringmaster and one-by-one get into pyramid formation... on a rubber ball that's extremely indestructible because it's not breaking under the pressure of seventeen elephants. That's literally a bazillion tons. Luckily physics comes in and puts a stop to the madness and the ball starts rolling and the elephants start going everywhere, eventually leading to the collapse of the bigtop. One elephant comments about how it's all Dumbo's fault and how he should get a beating. Ouch.

After the mishap, Dumbo is demoted from "elephant" to "clown". The skit he has to withstand is a rather humiliating one; in face make-up and a diaper, Dumbo has to be stuck up a 20ft tall building that's on fire while clowns try and fail to put it out by using the water for everything but putting out the fire. It all culminates with Dumbo falling out of the window and into a pool of foam. Or cream. Probably foam because cream would be delicious. I mean hell, I'd get pushed out of a 20ft tall building if it meant I could land in a pool of cream.

Remember how I said this was "the end of Disney"? Yeah, so during production, a bunch of artists went on strike because of how low the pay was. Eventually half the staff walked out of the studio. On the fourth movie. Not off to a good start, Disney. Some (or maybe all, I'm not really sure) of the clowns are caricaturized versions of the workers that left. Ah, revenge of the sweetest kind: Bitchy. Seriously, Disney decided to make those workers live on in shame for the rest of eternity by placing them in a movie that can never be changed. Way to go.

We now get a scene with the clowns congratulating themselves on a successful act, and decide to go all out and make Dumbo jump out of an even higher building; because to them "twice the height, twice the laughs!" After settling on a staggering 1000ft building, they all leave to talk to the ringmaster so they can get a raise (I'm pretty sure this part is a verbatim conversation the workers at Disney had). But, whoops, one of the clowns knocks a bottle of alcohol into Dumbo's water bucket (s/o to fantasia~). Timothy, who doesn't know about the spiked water, tells Dumbo to take a drink. And so he does. And then we get this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944cPciN-kw

This is even weirder than the mushrooms dancing in the second part of Fantasia. I'm at a loss for words, honestly, so I'll just move on.

The morning after, Dumbo and Timothy are up a tree (Dumbo and Timothy up a tree, k-i-s-s-i-s-i-n-s-s-i-p-p-i), and are spotted by the best characters of the film: the crows. Now I don't care that they're "allegedly" Disney's view on "black" people, because they're enjoyable. This is the '40s, guys, Disney's gonna have a skewed vision on these things because BET wasn't available back then. He can't educate himself on racism if he can't watch The Bernie Mac Show or listen to Chris Rock!

Dumbo, because he's an elephant, falls to the ground, and begins to get mocked by the crows because Timothy believes he flew up to the tree and the crows don't buy it at all. They think it's so ridiculous they sing about it. There needs to be more of that in society; I'd love to just break into song during a bum critique and then fly out of the room. After being berated by Timothy, the crows change their views and want to help Dumbo fly again; this time, with the use of psychology and a "magic feather". Dumbo's tricked into believing he can fly because of the feather, so he... uh... does. He flies over the city and the crows remark how the people in the city will be amazed at the sight of an elephant flying.

See, now why is an elephant flying weird but a puppet coming to life isn't?

During the performance, Dumbo is high atop a building because the ringmaster took the advice of the clowns and decided to put Dumbo's life in jeopardy. He gets pushed out and loses the magic feather, but because it's a children's movie, he learns he can fly on his own and flies straight to freedom! Er... kind of. He just gets revenge on everyone that made fun of him. Because the moral here, kids, is that if you're different, then you should exploit that and turn it into a way to seek revenge. Because revenge is good! ...I think.

The movie ends with a montage of happy things, like Dumbo setting an altitude record and getting a Hollywood contract and having his own team of bombers; you know, the usual stuff that happens when you're famous.

Personally, I liked this movie. The songs were pretty good; especially the one the crow's sing because it's jazzy and something you wouldn't expect to hear in a Disney movie. Dumbo's the only main character of a Disney movie to not say anything, and that's fine because he's a baby. Besides, he didn't have to talk with Timothy around. I could go on and on about the symbolisms of discrimination and racism in this movie and argue back and forth about the pros of it and the cons of it, but I won't because that'd take too long and it'd force me to look into things way too hard and talk about a subject that's way too touchy for a lot of people, so I'll leave it up to your interpretation.

Story wise? I rather not get into the underlying themes and tones of the story, but the surface is pretty good. Acceptance is always a fun moral to teach, especially if it's forced acceptance because of revenge.

Music wise? There aren't that many, but they're still great. Brian Wilson did a great cover of Baby Mine, which I personally enjoy a lot better than the one that's sung while the parents are lulling their children to sleep. The crow song was great, and Pink Elephants on Parade was... weird, but in a good way. Could've done without the circus song, though, just because of how creepy the tone of it was.

Animation wise? It's pretty standard Disney animation. Pink Elephants on Parade was probably one of the riskiest things they could've decided to do, and it worked really well; the animation all flowed seamlessly. Aside from that, though, this seems to when Disney gets into the groove with animated full-length movies. It's not too over the top like Fantasia, and it's not too underwhelming like Pinocchio; and obviously the "real life" animation is strictly for princess movies, so I won't bother comparing it to Snow White.

Overall? Three out of five crows.

[Dragonball Z]

I always thought "Bambi" came out BEFORE "Dumbo," not the other way around, but these are still pretty good reviews. Are you going to review "Song of the South" by any chance? That would be one HARD movie to review for, IMHO.

[terminoob]

I always thought "Bambi" came out BEFORE "Dumbo," not the other way around, but these are still pretty good reviews. Are you going to review "Song of the South" by any chance? That would be one HARD movie to review for, IMHO.

If I had to skirt around the racist implications of Dumbo, I don't think I could even touch Song of the South. Lucky for me it's not considered one of the 52 animated movies, so I don't have to worry about it.

[Wumbo]

Man, Dumbo really freaked me out as a tot. Never watched it since.

[terminoob]

Remember that thing I said about how Disney got live animals to come to the studio?

That helped out a lot with this movie.

The last whole full-length movie for a little bit (the next ones are all in parts), Bambi was released in 1942; just a year after Dumbo's release. For a place short on staff, Disney sure knows how to churn out movies. The story, based on the book of the same name, for this is so iconic that I'm betting everyone and their mother knows.

What? Too soon?

There's not much going on in this movie, really. It's about the life/sex life of a deer, and that's not... uh... interesting. Unless you're into that sort of thing. In which case I'm judging you forever and I hate you.

We open to some animals in the woods rushing over to see baby Bambi, the new "Prince of the Forest". We're also introduced to the Tootsie Pop Owl and Thumper in this scene. One of them I like. One of them I want to shoot and eat because I hear rabbit is delicious.

Bambi is shown to have trouble walking at first, to which Thumper replies "SEEMS A LITTLE WOBBLY". Oh, and heads up: Whenever I quote Thumper, I'm using all caps because I need to convey the ear-bleeding tone he uses and all caps seems to do a good job at that. Seriously, I want to rip his vocal chords out because he's the most annoyingly obnoxious prick I have ever seen in a movie. Even more than Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph, and I can't stand Sarah Silverman so that's saying a lot.

Once Bambi finally learns how to walk, probably so he can shut Thumper up, he encounters some birds. He tries to speak, but he can only say "bir", which is cute. Thumper doesn't think so, though, and tells him "BIR-D" over and over again until Bambi gets it right. I assume he does so Thumper will stop speaking. Immediately after, a butterfly flies over and Bambi chases it into a flower patch, and incorrectly says "bird!", which is, again, cute. Thumper corrects him and Bambi is able to say "butterfly". Bambi runs into the flowers and shouts "butterfly!" Thumper laughs because he's a jackass and tells him "NO THAT'S A FLOWER". Bambi goes off and starts calling things flowers, eventually running into a skunk that he inadvertently nicknames "Flower". Thumper laughs his ass off because he's an annoying twatbucket and tells Bambi "NO THAT'S NOT A FLOWER". Flower, however, doesn't mind because he's not annoying and tells Bambi that he likes being called Flower. Did you not know Flower was a guy? Because I didn't until the third act.

We then get a sweet little music number about showering in April or something, and that takes up a good chunk of time. The next day Bambi and his mom go into the open field, because apparently the constant threat of being shot is relaxing or something? I dunno; it's probably because Thumper isn't th- oh for the love of Christ, Thumper's there. And he's eating flowers. But just the bulbs. Even though his dad tells him to eat all of the flower, he doesn't listen because he's a twerp. Bambi, like the smart little deer he is, leaves Thumper all alone and instead decides to chase some tail because he finally meets Faline; the only female deer in the movie that's Bambi's age. And you know what that means. He's a'gonna twitterpate.

Faline likes to tease Bambi, which is an obvious sign of love and affection if The Lion King has taught us anything. Actually, this is a lot like The Lion King anyway. It's like Shakespeare decided to steal from Disney and then Disney decided to steal back. I mean, there's a dangerous place, there's a prince, there's some girl the prince is gonna bang, the prince has two friends and a guide, a parent gets killed, the prince gets into some fights...

...Screw it, it's The Lion King.

After Scar a hunter is spotted and starts shooting, Mufasa the Great Prince of the Forest (not Bambi, which is confusing) has all the lions deer run away and hide in their forest. This is the scene where Simba Bambi is "introduced" to his dad, I guess. It almost seemed like his dad didn't know who he was, and it seemed like Bambi's mom didn't know that the Prince was Bambi's dad. Just a drunken one night stand, surely. At least that's the impression I got. The Prince kinda looked at Bambi with a "well shit" look.

Once the hunt is over, the scenery changes and it suddenly becomes winter. If Spring is rebirth, then Winter is death, so you know what that means! Spoiler alert: Death. Bambi and Thumper go on a little adventure through the snow and Thumper ridicules Bambi for not being able to slide on ice because he's stupid or something; I don't know. I always try to tune Thumper out. Disney used actual people for models for this scene, one of them being an ice skater, which I thought really brought it alive, but I'm an animation geek so I appreciate the things no one cares about. Bambi and Thumper run into Flower and rudely disturb him during his hibernation period because they don't understand why someone would want to sleep until Spring. Are you kidding? Sleeping until Spring would be great. I would always do that if I could. Hell I'd sleep from Winter to Winter. Or I'd just always sleep all the time because that sounds fantastic.

Anyway, we finally get to part everyone's been dying to see. Get it? Dying? It's because Bambi's mother gets pushed off a cliffside shot, people. Try to work with me here. Once Bambi's mother gets shot he gets taken in by his dad, probably because he needs some testosterone in his life because let's face it; Thumper and Flower aren't exactly the best sources of manliness. And while Bambi is gone, he grows up. A lot. You know why?

Puberty

Yes, Disney deals with puberty and it's great. Everyone gets hit with it like a sack of bricks, and their voices are priceless. And you know what's even better? Rafiki Friend Owl telling them "Everyone's getting laid".

I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty much what "twitterpated" means. I thought "twitterpated" meant you couldn't think of anything to say on Twitter, but then I realized this came out in the '40s. So yeah, third act of Bambi: lots of implied sex.

Unfortunately, it's easy for everyone but Bambi. Bambi had to choose the finest piece of tail in the forest, so he has to fight another deer for her. It's very much like an early version of Simba fighting Scar, what with the dramatic lighting and Bambi throwing the other deer off a small cliff. But I know what you're thinking "Where are the hyenas?!" Well the hyenas dogs go after Faline, so Bambi has to fight them all off at once like a boss. Seriously, he's getting so much action after this. Hell I'd have s-... actually, let's not go there. That's a weird place.

The movie ends with everyone having families, because apparently wildlife repopulates quickly (seriously; they all get laid within a year of being born? Lucky them). All the newborn animals and their parents go over to Faline, who has just given birth to two fawns. Bambi and his dad overlook the forest very dramatically and then it fades to black with some annoyingly sung song playing in the background (which was apparently nominated for an Academy Award????)

Story wise? Total rip-off of The Lion King

Song wise? I liked "Drip Drip Drop" well enough, but the others weren't that great.

Animation wise? This is where the movie excelled. The use of live animals as models allowed the movie to move past "cartoon" while still being a cartoon. The animation was much more lifelike than previous movies (again, excluding Snow White because princess movies get special treatment) and at points, at least for me, it even seemed weird to think this was a cartoon because I'd be so immersed in the animation that I'd begin to think it's real and then I'd imagine real life animals talking and it was really weird. So... uh... good job, Disney.

Overall? Five out of eight birs

[terminoob]

I don't speak Spanish.

I don't understand a word of this and I'm gonna review it anyway because I said I'd review all of them and dammit I'm going to review all of them. I also wanna see how racist I can get.

I apologize in advanced to people offended by the truth my "jokes".

Released in 1942, this movie is the first in a series of movies that are separated into parts. They're like regular cartoons; they each have "episodes", you could say. This one is in Spanish. Or maybe just my version is in Spanish. I hope it's just my version, because I don't know why Disney would release a movie entirely in Spanish.

Lake Titicaca

The first "episode" starts off with a familiar face: Donald Duck. If you thought it was hard to understand Donald before, boy it's difficult now. A narrator starts saying things in Spanish and it sounds vaguely like a cashier reading back my order at Dunkin' Donuts. He starts saying things that maybe pertain to Donald? I don't know, because I don't speak Spanish. Donald ends up having some sort of stroke/heart attack combination, probably because the food must've been way too spicy for him to handle, and from my point of view it seems like the narrator is narrating Donald's death.

Because I don't speak Spanish.

Donald tries to use a boat, but it's in Spanish so it doesn't work properly and sort of jettisons him without him actually doing anything. He's about to, sure, but the boat just becomes really sentient and flies off into the distance. But see, the thing that confused me here wasn't the Spanish; it was the fact that Donald, a duck, was using a boat. To get across water. Way to drop the ball, Disney. Just because he's anthropomorphic doesn't mean he isn't also a duck.

The boat takes him to... uh... some Spanish place, I'm guessing. Let's say Mexico because that fits nicely into the stereotypes I'm trying to convey. We see the people in their natural habitat, interacting with animals and food. Not much else is really going on, but apparently the Spanish version of a snakecharmer is a llamacharmer. I'm not kidding, that's actually a character in this thing. He's exactly like a snakecharmer, and the llama acts like a snake would in that situation. He plays a melody and the llama starts dancing. Like a snake would if it were to be charmed.

Llamacharmer.

Donald tries his hand at llamacharming but somehow fails, even though the llama dances pretty vigorously. When I say "vigorously", I obviously mean "provocatively because he's shaking everything he's got like there's no tomorrow and all the lady llamas wanna see him twerk it".

Besides Donald almost dying like five times on the same bridge, nothing else happens. It's just him seducing a llama with music. I think.

Pedro

It's time for Thomas the Tank Engine in Spanish in the air. This "episode" revolves around an anthropomorphic plane named Pedro who has a gasoline addiction because he guzzles that stuff down way too fast. He also goes to school. Because planes don't pilot themselves. I can't be the only one curious about the whole "machines can reproduce" thing, right? Because that's just weird to me.

Anyway, little baby plane Pedro has to learn to fly sooner or later and his mom is too lazy to teach him and his dad is too cracked out on drugs so he teaches himself. How? By flying straight into what is apparently the most dangerous mountain region in the area. Seriously, they showed this mountain with an evil face and it could shoot lightning and everything. It was scary.

Pedro, while not able to fly at first, gets to the skies relatively quickly and heads on over to the mountain when suddenly his education gives out and he drops out of the sky because his teachers haven't taught him how to not do that. But then at the last second he remembers he's a plane and is able to fly out of the situation and safely onto a snowy mountaintop.

The scary mountain reappears again and Pedro gets so scared that he hides behind a cloud or something, because apparently clouds are really protective in Spanish speaking countries. Is that a new stereotype? Because I'm totally gonna start it. However, at the last second he remembers it's a friggin' mountain and flies by it anyway. After getting past Facemountain, Pedro is able to pick up what I assume is his lunch, and begins to fly back. However, his flight is cut short by a goofball of a vulture. The vulture leads him back to FacemountainSub-Zerofinalbossmode, and Pedro has to face his fears! ...For some reason. I mean he's a plane. I didn't even know planes had fears. Is his fear his inability to realize that this is a mountain? But unfortunately for Pedro, a storm hits and sends him flying! ...As if he wasn't doing that before!

The lunch gets knocked out of his wing and he desperately tries to save it as the narrator yells something like "SOUP SOUP". So I assume there's soup in there, in which case I don't understand Pedro's need to almost kill himself for it. I mean soup is just leftover crap in dishwater; why would anyone risk their lives for soup? Pedro, the plane with a future working at McDonalds as a children's toy, that's who. He saves the soup and makes it home, but he almost actually dies in the process.

El Gaucho Goofy

We start off with Goofy trying to wrangle an ostrich because the horse he's on isn't fast enough, I think. After he catches it we get to watch it again in Matrix ultra slow-mo... until he messes up this time and digs his spurs into his ass. Apparently in Spanish speaking countries, and Home Depot, you always mess things up. Even if you get it right the first time. This time he ends up wrangling himself, the ostrich, and his horse, because that's obviously the punchline to some sort of joke I haven't heard of before.

Night hits and Goofy pulls out a guitar and starts singing some sort of song that I can't understand a word of and I'm not even sure it's actually Goofy singing because it's way too angelic. He must've hired the ostrich. Soon enough his horse gets in a dress and starts playing the piano and he starts dancing with the ostrich as his lower half, then the ostrich leaves and it's just Goofy and the horse dancing. However, Goofy gets set on fire and launches out and into the sky like a Mexican firecracker.

We then get what I believe is my version of the movie playing the first part after the second part, but I'll go with it. Goofy is now in Texas and is suddenly flung into South America, where he gets dressed up to look like an illegal immigrant. I assume this is what they show people down south so they know what they're looking for. Once he's dressed up he and his horse get their picture taken and his horse kind of comes onto him... or something. Is this the movie where Max is born? I bet it is. That's probably the twist ending. We see Goofy try to pack everything onto the horse - and I mean everything, he even puts mattresses on it - only for it to backfire on him because the horse flips over and crushes Goofy to almost near-death. However, it seems as though Goofy gets his revenge in the next scene because he's surrounded by meat, so I'm going to assume he killed and cooked his horse/mother of his only son. In a shocking turn of events, we actually see Goofy eat the horse like a madma- oh, never mind, that was just someone else's horse because his horse is fine in the next scene. Or maybe the horse he has with him is a new and obedient horse. I guess we'll never know.

Aquarela de Brasil

Donald Duck closes out the movie for us in the last "episode". However, before we get to that, we see the hand of Spanish Bob Ross paint Brazil on a canvas. It's pretty stunning. I wish Spanish Bob Ross would paint Brazil on me. Spanish Bob Ross also seems to be the grandfather of the main villain in Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, because everything he paints comes to life and it's really creepy. Disney should probably call the Teen Titans and have them fight this guy or something.

We finally get a confused-as-shit Donald Duck about two minutes in, and he's.. uh... confused as shit, especially when a dancing parrot in a hat shows up and gives him a business card. Donald gives his card in exchange, and the parrot is apparently a huge fan and starts geeking out that he's talking to the Donald Duck.

After a dancing session, the parrot and Donald end up at a restaurant and start drinking some sort of strong alcohol because Donald feels it right away. He starts hiccuping in time and everything. It's like some sort of magic juice. We end the movie with Donald dancing the samba, most likely drunk, in a room full of women. The actual end of the movie is obviously up for interpretation.

Um... so...

Story wise: ?????????????

Song wise: ?????????????

Animation wise: Okay??????

Overall: ??????/?????????

[terminoob]

Aaaaaaand I'm back. Let's get back to English speaking mov-

Never mind. This one looks like it'll be in Spanish again. Disney made this because he wanted to appreciate South America... or something. I'm not too sure on the specifics. But, uh, let's jump right in.

The Cold-Blooded Penguin

If you thought what I thought, then prepare to be letdown because this is not a segment about a murderous penguin; it's about a penguin who wants to live in South America. Because why not. Donald starts us off by playing a home movie sent to him by his friends in South America; presumably the llama-charmer and that weird parrot that helped get him laid probably. When the movie within a movie starts (oh, we're back to this now), a female narrator tells us the story of Pablo the penguin. I didn't know penguins had ethnic names because I thought penguins were of the penguin variety; I wasn't aware that penguins could be South American.

Pablo the penguin is special. No, not that type of special, because that type of special penguin is already in this movie as one of the background penguins. Seriously. Watch it and you'll know what I'm talking about. Pablo's special in that he needs to be warm; he can't thrive in the South Pole like all the other penguins, so he spends all of his time with his oven. That he somehow acquired. ...Anyway, Pablo wants to live in South America; it'll always be hot there and he'll never have to worry about being cold ever again. Except... there's one problem; he's kind of an idiot. His attempts at leaving his igloo all result in him being turned into a block of ice. But, just when everyone has given up hope that our little special hero could do anything of note, the Disney movie magic kicks in and he succeeds! After sawing through some ice, he creates a boat that he can use to sail to South America. Now I'm not aware if he knows how long that'd take, but he didn't pack any food for this trip. I'll just let that one sink in.

After literally no conflict whatsoever, he makes it to South America! But then something happens! Plot! Conflict! DANGER! His boat starts to melt, because it's MADE OF FRIGGIN' ICE. So what does Pablo do? He panics. Yup. He doesn't realize "Hey, I'm a penguin, maybe I can just swim", which bugs me because if he didn't pack food then he's obviously been eating so he's obviously been swimming. Why can't he just swim now?! Ugh. Regardless, Pablo ends up salvaging his bathtub and uses it as a speedboat to hit shore. Yeah, you read that sentence correctly. But, we learn that he might be homesick. Even though his only friend was his oven. According to our narrator, however, "that's human nature, even for penguins".

Even for penguins it's human nature.

The Flying Gauchito

We open with Spanish-Disney-Woody the Woodpecker being... uh... hyperactive, to say the least. However, our narrator cuts it short by asking Donald if he knew that some birds were skilling craftsman. I mean yeah, that makes sense; Pablo had a tub and an oven, so he must've been kind of skilled considering he lived in the middle of ice. After some classic Woodpecker shenanigans, the story finally moves itself along when the narration switches; now we're in the hands of a "gaucho". I don't know what that is, but it sounds like a nacho/guacamole combination of delicious and I want one really badly right now. Oh never mind, it's just a dude. Now I don't want one.

He begins to narrate himself as a child going out to hunt, which makes me think that parents didn't start to exist until like 20 years ago because this kid is hunting condors by himself. I mean damn, my parents didn't even let me answer the phone until I was like 8 because I'd always try and sell people things. But I digress. The younger version of the narrator soon comes face-to-wingspan with a giant cond- uh... flying... donkey...

...Yeah... this just got weird.

The flying donkey proves himself to be a... worthy adversary... because he's able to free himself from the bolos the kid threw at him. He's not mad, though; he wants to play instead, and he teases the kid so much that the kid almost falls off the mountain. ...I'm not sure what's going on here. I mean this is a donkey with wings. The kid naturally decides to tie the donkey to a string and fly him like a kite and wants to train the donkey to race so he can get lots of money. I don't even know anymore. Is Disney teaching kids exploitation or something?

When the race starts, obviously everyone laughs at the kid and his donkey because they look absolutely ridiculous. They're sort of just walking the track while everyone else is running it, and once they're far behind the others the kid decides it's time to let the donkey (named Burrito, by the way, as if they weren't stereotyping enough in these movies) fly. Literally. He flies down and around the track, passing everyone at the last minute and winning the race! It's fool-proof. Except that it's obviously cheating and the kid doesn't win the money. Instead he and Burrito fly off into the sunset, never to be seen again. Remember how this is being narrated by the older version of the kid? Yeah.

wat

Baia

Party parrot's back! Except he's super short this time for some reason! And he's... uh... singing! Yay? That takes up a good chunk of time. After he's done, he asks Donald for the third time if he's been to Baia, except now he's singing it. Once that's over, Donald and the parrot hop into a pop-up book and travel by train to Baia. Because hell, it's cheaper than flying and you don't have to deal with security. They hit Baia and jump into the page in the pop-up book; okay, if you're lost, then think of it as Jumper except with pop-up books and no romance other than lust and better acting. And... here's where this movie lost me.

It's live-action.

The backgrounds are animated, and Donald and the parrot are animated, but the people are live-action. I don't like it. It's not done well enough to warrant it being done. It's decades before Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and I'll give it credit, but... I dunno. It should've been full-animation, because it instantly becomes flatter once the people enter. But I'll look past all this because I have to watch it all.

Donald and the parrot get caught up in a dance/celebration type thing, and... uh... yeah, that's actually it. Nothing else happens once they hit Baia. They just meet this girl named Yaya who sells cookies and then everyone starts singing and dancing. Donald kinda trips out at the end though, so that's always fun.

Three Happy Chappies

So I don't know if this is a new segment or not, but I'll say it is. Once Donald and the parrot come back from Baia (they were still in the pop-up book, if you forgot) Donald realizes he's a midget. Somehow that didn't strike him when he first became a midget to get into the book. The parrot does some black magic voodoo, which ends with him blowing into one of his fingers and making himself bigger. I wish that worked in real life; I'd love to just blow into my finger and grow to a size at which I could crush my enemies with ease. When Donald tries, however, he blows into the wrong finger and we get some comedy filler where he's just going through different stages of being a balloon animal. If you don't know what that means, then don't worry because I don't know what was going on. When Donald finally grows back to his normal height, he opens a box that says "MEXICO" on it that unleashes a wave of music and changes the background.

Damn Mexico and their drugs.

Somehow they enter Mexico through that box and a bird welcomes them and immediately befriends them, saying it's nice to see such fine gentlemen in Mexico. At this point I don't know if this is an appreciation for South America or a passive agressive stab at them. Singing starts once again, and the bird calls the three of them (the bird, Donald, and the parrot) "three gay cabelleros" and I know it's supposed to be "three happy cabelleros" but with all the bright colors and singing and... yeah. I'm terrible.

Donald eventually comes across a pinata, and, not knowing what it is, doesn't inquire about it because all he wants to do is hit it and quit it. He doesn't want a Bible teaching. Which is exactly what the bird gives him. Yay, made-up stories!... After explaining the tradition of the pinata, the bird and the parrot decide to screw with Donald and make his experience miserable by moving the pinata all over the place, which I appreciate because that's totally something I would do in that situation. Eventually though, Donald is able to hit the pinata and all the goodies fly out.

Mexico: Patzcuaro, Veracruz, and Acapulco

We get more history lessons here, which I don't particularly care for to be honest. I just want to watch a movie, I don't want to learn. After the history lesson, they catapult themselves into live-action Mexico and fly around on a magic carpet. For, uh, some reason. Honestly, I lost interest in this movie so I don't really know what's going on. Singing? Birds? Something? I don't know anymore, man. I just want it to be over at this point.

The three of them start dancing along with some people, because they have nothing better to do I suppose. Afterward, they fly over to Veracruz and... uh... dance more.

Okay, Mexico can't be this happy. Why in the world is everyone dancing? Seriously? Is Mexico just happy funtimes every day? Does no one work? Is it just dancing all the time? Because that's the impression I'm getting. Dancing and singing. Must be great to live in Mexico and not have any problems.

Donald starts to lust after some Mexican women on the beach, which is weird because he's a duck and they're actual humans, but whatever. Cartoons always have animals go after humans and for some reason it's not weird at all, except when you think about it it should be very weird. Donald gets blindfolded on the beach and all the women start to run away from him because he's a duck and they are human.

You Belong to My Heart

This is literally just a woman singing and Donald falling in love.

Donald's Surreal Reverie

Disney's back on acid. It's not as weird as Pink Elephants on Parade, but it's pretty friggin' weird. I don't think anything I can say will do it justice because I really just want this movie to end, so I'll let you experience the weird for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Khf0uPpUs

If this is what I'm supposed to feel when I get kissed, then I should probably break up with my girlfriend because I don't feel anything close to that.

And we're finally at the end of this movie! That seemed to go on forever.

Story wise? Yeah. I don't care about South American history or folklore. The flying donkey was kinda cool, but other than that, I couldn't care less about anything else that was happening.

Song wise? Um, okay? I think? They had actual singers for the live-action women that Donald was attracted to, and they were pretty good, but I don't really care for any of the songs.

Animation wise? Sure, it's pretty good. For the time it probably seemed amazing. Live-action and animation? That would've been so cool to experience. Unfortunately, if we're taking that into account, it seemed like this was more about showing off a fancy new technique than actually telling a story, because everything seemed to shout "HEY LOOK AT THIS SCENE". As I already implied a while back, the animation/live-action mesh didn't age that well so now we just have this pretty terrible movie with some so-so animation.

Overall? I don't have anything clever to grade this out of, but let's just say it was pretty terrible.

How many more of these "package" movies do I have to deal with before real movies start again? What? FOUR MORE? Christ.