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It’s less impressive when you realise that “Asia” was just a chunk of Turkey back then.
“Ugh. Is this some kind of joke? I thought you were going to review one of my good films?”
“But…everyone loves Anastasia! It’s one of your most critically beloved movies! It made the most money of all of your films!”
“UGH. Yeah. And google it and see what comes up.”
Ooooh…that’s gotta hoirt.
“Fox asked me to make a Disney princess movie. I was desperate for the cash so I sold out. How was I supposed to make a good movie under those circumstances?”
“UGH.”
The dude with the beard.
“Great idea. Cos there’s nothing going on in Europe that might make it dangerous to travel in 1916!”
“C’mon Dad, lets get you back to the nursing home.”
“Grumble grumble.”
“You know master, that’s really not good for your teeth to be gritting like that.”
So this is a little familiar, no? A royal court is throwing a joyous celebration and then a shadowy magic user with a flying familiar who casts glowing green spells shows up and starts laying curses down because they’re pissed that they didn’t get an invite. I was tempted to bring the “you whore!” joke out of its cosy retirement in the resthome for clapped out running gags but then I remembered that Don Bluth actually worked on Sleeping Beauty, so if anyone has the right to homage Maleficent’s arrival so blatantly it’s probably him. I have….mixed feelings on the movie’s portrayal of Rasputin. I mean, however you slice it, this is pretty much outright slander. This was a real person, after all. And one who, while by no means perfect, genuinely loved the Romanovs and who saved the life of their son many times. But on the other hand, this kinda works. If you think of the movie as a fantastical retelling of the story, this Rasputin is really not so different from what many Russians at the time believed him to be, a cunning sorcerer in league with dark forces who was using the royal family for his own diabolical ends. Did Rasputin really curse the Romanovs and bring about the revolution that ended their lives? Of course not…but he was a major reason why those revolutions occurred. It’s definitely a case of printing the legend, not the truth. But there is some truth to the legend.
“So what I told you was true. From a certain point of view.”
Nicholas tells Rasputin to get out and Rasputin is all “I thought we were cool brah?” and Nicholas calls him a traitor. How he betrayed him is never said. Maybe by begging him not to go to war with Germany because it would mean the end of his 300 year dynasty and the death of his entire family? That monster. Nicholas banishes Rasputin and Rasputin says “No! I banish you!” and then invokes the dreaded power of no backsies.
Rasputin retreats to secret lair where he trades his soul for vast demonic power in a ceremony that involves getting his skin torn off.
Metal. As. Fuck.
Through Marie’s narration, we learn that Rasputin’s spell “fanned the spark of unhappiness in our country into a flame” and soon the palace is being stormed by angry communists.
“And so the tyranny of the Tsars is brought low by the might of the communist revolution!”
“You ever hear of someone called “Kerensky”, Crow?”
“Name does not ring bell.”
Bloody typical. Okay, let’s set this one straight. The communists did not overthrow the Romanovs any more than Jebediah Springfield tamed the legendary buffalo. The Romanovs were already overthrown, the communists simply shot them. It was Russia’s first democratic government which had actually done the hard work of ending the rule of the royal family which was then itself overthrown by Lenin a few months later. Anyway, Anastasia and Marie escape from the palace with the help of a kitchen boy named Dimitri who shows them a hidden exit and they run across a frozen lake. But Rasputin ambushes them from a bridge and tries to grab Anastasia but then the ice breaks and he sinks into the icy water and drowns. Ahem. Excuse me.
COME ON! Are you really going to do an evil wizard fantasy version of Rasputin and not include the most badass part of the real man’s life? Namely, how it ended? If you don’t know, in real life Rasputin was invited to tea by a relative of the Empress who had decided that he was too much of a threat to the royal family’s reputation and proceeded to poison him with enough cyanide to floor Godzilla, shoot him, beat him, chase him out into the snow, shoot him again and then dump his body in a frozen river. Oh, and the autopsy showed that he had water in his lungs, meaning that he was STILL ALIVE when he went into the water. Dude was a beardy terminator. Now, I’ve read that there was an earlier version of the script that had the assassination, and also had Rasputin believing that it was the Tsar who had ordered him killed and therefore cursing the Romanovs which honestly would have been a much stronger story but, anyway, let’s move on.
Later, in Paris.
“Ah but you’re forgetting. People love princesses.”
“But she wasn’t a princess. Russian monarchy doesn’t have princesses.”
“Well not anymore, obviously.”
If you were ever to do such a thing…
No words…should have sent a poet…
“Hmmm…left or right. Socialism, or FREEDOM?”
Sorry, sorry, false alarm.
Dude’s like a beetle Barry White.
“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me.”
“Sigh. Her name was Lola. She was a showgirl.”
Anyway. Anya, Vlad and Dmitri are on a train heading out of Russia when the demons attack and start sabotaging the train. Anya and Dmitri MacGyver their way out of that while engaging in some patented nineties rom-com bickering.
“Well excuuuuuuuuse me Prin…Grand Duchess!”
They escape but the train is wrecked so they have to walk the rest of the way to Germany to get a bus. Yeah, this movie seems to think that Europe is roughly the area of a medium sized car park. We now see a map of Europe with a line showing our heroes’ progress. And considering how much ground they’re covering in mere seconds it would appear that Russian doping has been going on much longer than anyone realized. Also, Anya learns that Dmitri has been lying to her (I know, I’m as shocked as you are) and that before they can even get close enough to the Empress to catch a whiff of old lady smell they’ll have to convince her cousin Sophia that Anya is actually Anastasia. Anya is shocked because she thought she would just have to show up and everything would just be handed to her (truly she is a royal) and now realises she’s actually going to have to convince Sofia that she’s her cousin long thought dead. Which, you know, is an awful, awful thing to do.
We now get our next song, Learn To Do It, where Dmitri and Vlad teach Anya how to act like royalty and basically get her story down. I hate this song so damn much. The rhyming scheme is almost insultingly simple (they rhyme “fat” with “cat” for God’s sake) and the peppy up-tempo song can’t really mask the fact that this is three hardened criminals plotting to defraud a grieving old lady. Sorry, I know it seems like I’m harping on about this but it really bugs me. Also, it’s weird that the birds and other critters just flock to Anya. It’s like she’s so close to being a Disney princess she can even fool forest animals. That’s impressive.
The three board a boat and in the night Rasputin enters Anya’s dreams and shows her a vision of her father, brothers and sisters swimming in a lake. She sleepwalks up on deck and almost leaps off the side but is rescued by Dmitri at the very last minute.
Watching from his lair, Rasputin just loses it and starts choking himself and pushes his head inside his own ribcage and THEN OH GOD OH GOD DO NOT WANT.
Ahem. To clarify. That’s Rasputin’s head. Lying in a pool of blood. In his own ribcage.
There is so, so, so much wrong with this. Why is his ribcage suddenly so cavernous? Where are his lungs? What is his NECK ATTACHED TO?! This is some seriously messed up body horror right here! This is some David Cronenberg shit!
Bartok, who honestly seems like less of an evil minion and more of a court appointed life coach, tries to convince Rasputin to just pack it in and do something constructive with his unlife but Grigory’s having none of it and sets off Paris to just kill Anastasia himself.
Anya, Dmitri and Vlad meet with Sophie (Bernadette Peters) and when Sophie asks Anya how she escaped from the palace and she suddenly remembers a boy helping her through a secret passage way. Suddenly Dmitri realises that he was the one who saved her all those years ago and that maybe he’s not a complete waste of a human being after all. Sophie is convinced that Anya’s the real deal but says that Marie isn’t seeing anymore Anastasias because, you know, it’s killing her inside. But our plucky heroes will find a way!
At a ballet performance, Dmitri crashes Marie’s private box and pleads with her to see Anya for herself. But Marie turns him down cold, saying that she’s heard of him and how he was holding public auditions for Anastasias almost as if that was a really stupid thing to do. Anya is shocked to learn that Dmitri was trying to con Marie out of the reward money (yeeeeeeeah, no, not buying it, you knew what this was) and storms out. So Dmitri takes an…unorthodox approach to the problem, jumping Marie’s chauffeur and kidnapping the Dowager Empress of all the Russias and bringing her back to his place. He shows Marie the music box that he’s kept all these years, thereby convincing her that he really did work in the palace. Marie finally agrees to hear Anya out. Finally realising that this really is her long lost grand-daughter the two tearfully embrace and it’s all good, baby. Marie shows Anastasia a drawing that she made as a child, and Anastasia remembers how Olga said it looked like a pig riding a donkey. Nice little bit of trivia, the drawing they show is an actual drawing done by the real Anastasia. This one here:
You know what? Not bad. Not bad at all.
And her sister Olga really did say it looked like a pig riding a donkey. It’s little bits like this that makes me think that the movie’s historical inaccuracies aren’t simply a case of “they didn’t give a shit” because clearly they did do a lot of research. Another detail that sticks out is Rasputin’s repeated calls for cologne which is based in fact. He never bathed, and so to counter the smell he used to wear a load of cologne and everyone was like “Thanks Grichka, that makes it all better.”
Meanwhile, in Paris, they say, Dmitri’s soul grew two sizes that day and he turns down the reward money when Marie offers it to him, saying that what he wants she has no power to give. He says his goodbyes to Vlad and Anastasia and leaves. That night, Marie throws a ball to celebrate Anastasia’s return and she finds her looking out at the crowd as if searching for someone.
She tells Anastasia that Dmitri isn’t there and that he didn’t take the money. Marie realises that Anastasia is in love with Dmitri and tells her to go to him and to leave behind all this fabulous wealth because…fuck it, it’s love. Whaddyagonna do?
“But…couldn’t I just marry Dmitri and still be Grand Duchess?”
“Ha! Honey, our family includes Ivan the Terrible but even we have standards.”
Awwww…look how happy he looks!
Rasputin uses the reliquary to bring a nearby pegasus statue to life and attack Anastasia but Dmitri arrives in the nick of time to…get knocked unconscious almost immediately so Anastasia gets to actually defeat her own villain she knocks Rasputin on his ass and crushes the reliquary beneath her heel. This causes Rasputin’s friends on the other side to come collecting on their debt and strip him to the bone.
METAL. AS. FUCK.
And so our movie ends with Anastasia and Dmitri going off to together into the sunset to enjoy a life of quiet anonymity, because evidently Marie had everyone at that massive ball murdered because they knew too much. And everyone gets a happy ending. Even Bartok, who did literally nothing.
Here! Have a girl bat! And your own movie! You did nothing but you’re marketable!
***
“See, I told you it was ass.”
“Wow. What a naked attempt to cash in on the Disney princess formula.”
“Exactly!”
“I loved it!”
“Say whaaaaaaaaa…?”
“Dont forget who you’re talking to. I LOVE the Disney princess movies!”
“But you’re a guy…”
“Yes, but I’m also a forest animal. Disney princesses just have that effect on us.”
See, while this movie is clearly aping the Disney princess movie formula, it does it really well. The animation is top notch, the main character is compelling, the songs balance out to be really good. If Disney had released this I think they could have been very proud of it. So yeah, Don. You made a movie that people routinely assume was created by the greatest American animation studio of all time. That’s kind of an achievement in and of itself.
unshavedmouse 
Since the Troll in Central Park review, I got around to watching the rest of the Don Bluth movies I hadn’t seen. But still, the only ones I like are The Secret of NIMH, The Land Before Time and Anastasia. Although I didn’t think Rock-a-Doodle (yes you read that right) and Bartok the Magnificent were terrible.
As for this movie, it is a decent romp overall, but what carries this movie for me is Rasputin as the villain. I fucking LOVE his villain song, and he’s just hilarious in general.
Wow. I thought, judging from a post you made of one of your earlier reviews, that you hated this movie. Guess I was wrong.
I never saw this movie as a historically accurate movie. I believe I read somewhere that the filmmakers (not necessarily from Don Bluth himself) say this movie is a “fantasy based off of historical events” or something like that. If you want to learn about the actual Russian Revolution, don’t watch this movie. Read a book.
As for my thoughts on this movie, I think it was a good crack at the Disney princess formula by Bluth, and there were things I enjoyed, but it’s a movie I wouldn’t watch again and again. That’s just me. There were only two songs that I liked: Journey to the Past (though I felt the lyrics for that song could’ve had a little more flow. That’s just my personal taste) and In The Dark of the Night (why is it the villains usually get the best songs? Maybe it’s because they’re villains and they’re not afraid to go all out with their songs?) The rest are a little meh for me. Not bad, just meh.
Now my two cents on Rasputin. Honestly, I’m a little torn on how he turned out in this movie. I got a menacing, evil, villainy(?) feel from him from his introduction to his sinking into the frozen river, during In The Dark of the Night, and at the very end while confronting Anastasia on the bridge. The rest of the time? It seemed like a 180 on his personality. He seems a little TOO enthusiastic one minute, depressed the next, lacks confidence, and overall a little, for lack of a better word, silly and a LITTLE pathetic. To me, he’s just not very consistent as a villain. And I didn’t care much for his ability to stretch his body around like that. I get that he sold his soul and he’s sorta undead and all, but that’s REALLY pushing it.
Also, during In The Dark of the Night, I would’ve liked to have seen skeletons or ghouls or goblins performing in the song with him instead of, as Nostalgia Critic put it, “prancing, pink bugs”. Also, at the final battle where Anastasia is destroying Rasputin’s reliquary, Rasputin goes up to her and simply says “Give it back!” Um, what? You just tried to kill her! I don’t think she’s just going to be all forgiving and simply give it back to you! You sold your soul for that thing! You know that if it gets destroyed, you get destroyed! Fight for it! You didn’t exactly do that!
Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Look forward to your review of Secret of Nimh! Classic movie!
“Milton writes in fetters when the matter turns to God.” The villains getting the better lines is a very old trope.
If only there were someone out there who loved you. I’m ecstatic. Ring a round the rosie, a pocket full of spears! Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy. Oh I quiver with fear. You’ll all float. You, and your family will die, before the fortnight!
Yeah I’m seeing a pattern to that.
Best Rasputin ever, coming up:
I actually like this movie, but gee, Bartok’s sequel is just so putrid. Worse than Penguin and the Peeble and Thumbellina (I haven’t watched A Troll in Central Park). Far worse than Rock-A-Doodle (which I liked a lot for some reason- then again I also like Home on the Range). Far worse than All Dogs II and American Tail II, and Bluth didn’t even work on those (although it’s still better than Secret of Nimh II, but then all movies without ‘Human Centipede’ in the title are that as well).
I…I…THAT IS SOME MUGEN-ASS SHIT RIGHT THERE!!!
You know, it might just be because I am a huge animation nerd, but I never got why this movie is always mistaken for Disney. It just doesn’t look like Disney animation to me. I can’t exactly pin point the subtle differences, maybe it’s the way the humans are drawn, but it just looks different to me. Maybe that just shows I’ve seen way to much animation in my short life.
The style actually reminds me of Richard Rich’s Swan Princess, but much better animated.
Ah, it’s very “hunchback” era house style.
Then animation did a full 180 and every movie looked like and was Aladdin. Except less good.
As an Alternative Metal lover…Rasputin was so Metal….he was on the cover this Type O Negative album, despite the photo being over 100 years old at the time of it’s release. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKtzn9Arzrg
MetalasfuckdudewasmetalasFUCK!
Definitely have a soft spot for this one. Love Christopher Lloyd’s performance, the songs are really quite good, and I really like Bartok for some reason. Killer animation for the most part too, its delightfully creepy at times, I especially love the little green demons Rasputin commands, the way they move and stuff is just really cool.
Excited for Secret of Nimh, it’s definitely Don Bluth’s best movie IMO. Though I guess that isn’t saying much as I think he only really has three good movies (Nimh, American Tail, and Land Before Time) and then a whole bunch of “not really that great but some people enjoy them and I can totally understand why” and then of course the ones that are “oh god why is this so terrible stop please kill me stop” ones
Meh. Still don’t like this one.
Erm, not to be disgusting but . . . are we quite sure that dark liquid is blood? . . . I mean, rotting corpse and all.
Moving on!
I like this movie a lot. I don’t love it, but the parts it does well it does REALLY well. This is the movie that I think does the best job of showcasing the patented Bluth’s bizarre-and-scary!art. There’s a place and a time for it, and a hellscape is definitely it. (Even in Rats of NIHM it felt a little unnecessary at times.)
The part where Marie narrates that she never saw her granddaughter again, I always figured was the point where she decided she wouldn’t interview any more girls claiming to be Anastasia. Right before Anya shows up. (I’d have to ponder the idea that this whole movie is a her fantasy of rediscovering her lost granddaughter before I accepted it as fan theory.)
And as a total aside, check out those tiaras Marie and Anastasia are wearing to the Parisian ball. Marie’s is reminiscent of the Vladimir Tiara once owned by Marie, Grand-duchess of Russia, that’s now in the collection of Queen Elizabeth II. And Anastasia’s looks a lot like the spiky, kokoshnik-style tiara that belonged to the real Empress Marie.
Awesome review, Mouse, as usual! 😀 I really loved this film when I was a child, now that I think about it, it’s the only Don Bluth film that I ever owned (even if it was just a VHS). Anyways, let’s wait for the top secret post and then for the next amazing review. 🙂
Again, not spamming -but you gotta see this if you haven’t! It could be Bluth’s big return!
Always liked this one. Mostly for Rasputin, but as time went by the songs and animation did it for me as well.
I think you’re right that this is pretty much the best possible “rip-off” of Disney possible, and could pass for the real thing. Hell, Disney’s actual movie that year was Hercules, and this is a much better Disney movie than that.
Hey, Hercules was great!… as a prototypical Dreamworks movie…
Yeah, I more or less wrote the same in the Bluth overview I recently did for Movies and Lyrics. This is the second attempt of him to do a Disney Princess movie (the first was Thumbeline…urgh!!!!), but at least this is a GOOD copy of one. I have some issues with it, but it is fun to watch.
This movie brings back all the nostalgic feelings! My sister and I love this movie. My sister actually did a history project on the Romanovs as well, using this movie to compare the actual history to how it is perceived in culture and media.
I’m looking at those Rasputin skeletons. I’m desperately wanting to think, ‘hell yeah, metal as fuck.’ I’m trying, Mouse, truly.
But for some reason, I can’t shake the impression that they’re screaming, ‘Oh my God! A SALE!’
“20% off? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh!!!!”
Grunkle Stan’s exploiting the zombies again.
The first thing I thought when I saw the skeleton was “I am the Great Papyrus! Nyeh-he-he!”
… I am Undertale trash.
Thank you Mouse for reviewing one of my favourite movies of all time.
One of my favourite scenes in the whole movie is the segment aboard the ship. From the dress Dimitri gives Anya to the dream sequence to the historical accuracy of the bathing suits to the song Vlad sings about love to Dimitri rescuing Anya. It’s all just done so beautifully.
What do you think of Meg Ryan’s voice acting? It just seems out of place.
Secret of the Nimh next, eh? Looking forward to it.
I liked each voice actor for her individually. It worked for the type of rom-com/Disney character they were attempting to portray. But I understand what you mean.
I literally saw Anastasia advertised on Disney Channel once. There was much gaping at their audacity. Even Disney forgets who made Anastasia.
I think they still consider Bluth with them, lol.
Disney’s like the CIA. You don’t leave the agency.
I’m pretty sure they own like 95% of John Goodman.
So is Disneyland the real-life Hotel California? Or maybe “Been to Bahia” is actually a codeword for “has worked for Disney” and that’s why you never return.
This movie is pretty good. But there are several things in it that bother me. A lot of misplaced CGI, the complete falling apart of this movie when they get to France (where ironically they watch Cinderella), and the end of all the good songs. It’s like they forgot they were in a Disney, er, Bluth musical partway through.
I did a lot of research on the last Romanov family out of interest a few years ago and it’s stuck with me. I’m so interested in the lives and characters of the daughters in particular and how as a family they were in rare harmony but as rulers completely incompetent. But I think that even though they didn’t find Alexei’s body straight away, there would have been no way he would have survived anyway
Very unlikely, true. I get really sad looking at their old photos.
I like looking at their photos, I like to see them as people I would know if that makes sense. I’m really glad that they wrote dairies and took so many photos or the family would have never have been documented, considering how they hid themselves away so much
There is a picture of Anastasia taking as selfie.
I’ve seen that one. There is an online album with many of their pictures set up like a diary. It’s been uncompleted for years now but that’s where I found many of their pictures and I saw an Instagram account where someone is posting up rare pictures which I have to say is fascinating. I think they would have loved Instagram
Does anyone else like looking at logos? It really helps to know who made it.
For years I never knew that Prince of Egypt wasn’t a Disney movie. Also ironically, I thought Hunchback was not a Disney movie. You know come to think of it, if you replaced Hunchback in the canon with Anastasia, it would make a lot more sense. Hunchback’s the great outlier of awesome.
I have to re-watch this movie one of these days. I own a VHS copy of it, after all…
Can’t wait for you to review Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue!!
Ha!
Ha.
Ha…
The laughter of the damned
We do not speak of that travesty around here, my good man.
Thanks for the review, Mouse.
About Rasputin’s death: I heard the legend first, of course. More recently, I had been reading around on TvTropes.org (AKA the Dark Wiki of Lost Time) and their article on Rasputin flatly states that the legend is false. I was willing to accept this, until up above you claim to have actually studied the period in question and, no really, it actually happened. Thus betrayed by two sources of information I of course consider gospel, I headed to the poor man’s history of last resort, Wikipedia. According to that illustrious(ly questionable) information source, the actual circumstances of Rasputin’s death is pretty much unknowable…because all the evidence and a good deal of reports were destroyed, and the two main witnesses/murderers kept changing their stories and were in general as reliable as a cardboard bombshelter.
So yeah, I can understand how Bluth & co. might not want to bite off a piece of that. Still a cool legend, though.
So, has everyone seen the fun animation error in “In the Dark of the Night?” Hint: Watch Rasputin’s arms when he’s scrying Anya with his reliquary.
Well it was a long time ago in the pre Internet era. I’m willing to concede TV tropes might be more up to date on its research.
Eh. They oversimplified, I think.
The most I’ve seen of this movie is the “In the Dark of the Night” scene, upon the Nostalgia Critic’s bringing it up in his villain song list. I’ll probably end up seeing the entire movie sometime in the future.
Secret of NIMH, though? Man, do that film and I go back a while. I actually owned it (and unfortunately its sequel) on VHS, so I have some nostalgic memories attached to it. I still love it today regardless of that fact.
Anastasia isn’t a bad copy of the Disney formula but I feel it tries too hard to be a copy of that formula for me to really fall in love with it.
Granted, it’s been years since I’ve seen this film but I’m not sure I would really get into it now as there’s just this “blandness” to it that I can’t help but feel.
Most of the songs are pretty good, (BTW I think you forgot to mention the last song, Paris Holds The Key) In the Dark Of The Night is a fun villain song but it honestly loses its “villainy” the further the song goes on mainly due to the score relying on loud trumpets and constant shouting and not in a sinister way and I also feel it’s trying to be “Be Prepared” in some ways but it’s not too bad.
Honestly, if Disney were the ones who released this I would probably put it in the “Meh, it gets the job done.” category. I don’t know, I just get this feeling of this film being an average sit through and not something I would watch again and again.
Oh, Mouse, did you see that Don Bluth is gonna be on an NC review?
Say whaaaaaaa….?!?
Yeah it was on his Facebook. It’s like when Dante Basco was on. Or Pinky and the Brain. Or… okay he’s had a lot of really cool people on. But this takes the cake.
Holy crap you’re not kidding
Anastasia has such gorgeous animation and great music that you do not care about the other flaws that much (not that there are many). And as a child this is a film that got me interested in history (among few other things) so I do not care about the inaccuracies.
It would have been made more sense if the Rasputin death had been different, never heard of that, I wonder why it was changed.
I think the grandmothers opening narration is supposed to take place when she says it and not at the end of the story.
Ahh, Anastasia. Might not be my most beloved of movies, but it does get the honour of having numbers from its soundtrack be a few of my favourite iPod tracks. I honestly haven’t seen this recently enough to remember if At the Beginning are in the movie itself, but I sure get a good time kicking back to Aliyah whenever it turns up on my shuffle.
Wow, these history books must really be something. I find Shakespeare weird enough to read about what with his time’s funny ideas on nature and all. To read that sort of thing stated completely straight in a history book must be an even more bizarre to encounter. Past world views sure can be funny. And I’m sure someday ours will be funny too. Though I bet someone could read this centuries later with beliefs identical to ours today and still get a huge laugh reading your blog if it survived. At least so long as they kept today’s sense of humour, I guess. This reader at least was in stitches at 1916 Poppa Europe. As for history and movies, something tells me it’d be silly to be harsh on this one just for bad history, seeing as you were really nice to Robin Hood despite its featuring the crusades being started by the work of a power-hungry Prince John’s personal hypnotist, and you even spared Pocahontas a smackdown purely for being an awful history lesson. Besides, do we really want to make Blucatt mad? I don’t think we want to make Blucatt mad, just saying, the inside of his stomach isn’t a pretty picture.
Uh-oh, it’s Comrade!!! I’m so surprised I didn’t see that coming a mile off. Oh man, just when you thought the red was gone from the blog. Though dang, looks like it’s time to eat crow, Comrade, ’cause you got served!!!
……*sighs* I’ll let myself into the stocks…
I honestly doubt this blog will still be comprehensible five years from now.
Awww, why not? You’re so great!
Yeah, but by then the blog will be just one long unending running joke.
And my obituary will very likely have dying laughing when reading it under the “cause of death” section.
Hey, can you really blame Bluth for cutting out the violence? He clearly only did it after you convinced him what with Disney’s coachman shenanigans. And maybe toning it down helped cause people to mistake it for one of Disney’s works, another reason for Don to shake his fist at the guy’s grave, I suppose. And cool, looks like cartoon Hank McCoy’s beast form is a rodent. Guess in the Bluth universe, he’s pretty much the equivalent of Magenta from Sky High. Also, I feel ya, I totally remember mixing up that dog and Gurgi when I was little and mostly just saw trailers of those two movies. Gotta say, I remember enjoying In The Dark of Night last time I saw it (or what little of it I could before a parent decided to cut back to Anastasia so as not to scare my 6-year-old viewing companion) and Journey to the Past was another song that got an esteemed spot on iTunes for me, so that’s cool. That still of the road seems pretty Pocahontas though, I guess Pooka drew more attention in the bad associations department.
I guess I can respect Bluth for actually managing to make his heroine defeat her enemy himself, singlehandedly no less, which is super impressive looking at most of Disney’s dames’ success sheets. I actually remember that moment, it was a pretty badass one for Anya there. As for Bartok, c’mon, bats are marketable as hell, just ask DC. And yeah, this sure is Disney Princess movie-esque. And yeah, forest creatures are a sucker for those (Tulgey Wood creatures, likewise). And apparently now Disney’s acquired the rights to Anastasia, making her an honorary Disney princess… I hope nobody tells Alternate Universe Bluth that, lest he obliterate his entire alternate world in a fit of rage. Then again, I guess a prison-world made by the Horned King is on the expendable side, so eh.
The thing about Disney buying the rights to Anastasia was an April Fools’ joke. But speaking of Anastasia, here’s something that I’m sure never crossed your mind.
Anastasia was actually the SECOND movie Don Bluth made that involved Imperial Russia. The first was. . . An American Tail. And the thing is, the Imperial Russia portrayed in An American Tail is a lot closer to the real deal than in Anastasia–Fievel’s family is fleeing to America to escape a pogrom.
You’ve gotta wonder how Don Bluth was able to rationalize that!
Clearly Rasputin caused those mouse pogroms.
Yeesh, someone must’ve really ran with that April Fools joke, I just saw that posted on Facebook a few days before posting that.
Oh, I think you should give the heroines from the Renaissance more credit.
Ariel managed to save Eric’s life twice.
Belle managed to save Beast by stopping him from falling from the roof.
Esmeralda stopped a mob from humiliating Quasimodo.
Pocahontas saved John Smith and stopped a war.
Megara managed to save Hercules’s life and even sacrificed her life to do so.
And then, there’s Mulan.
Update from the FUTURE!!!
As of July 27, 2018, Anastasia is now in fact a Disney movie. Adjust your “Um, actually…”s accordingly.
As we all know, everything’s chro-uh, Disney in the future!
Even watching as a kid, I recall how arrestingly…weird this film felt relative to its Disney Renaissance contemporaries (admittedly, I didn’t have Hunchback as a kid, but that one’s arguably kind of anomalous within the Disney canon anyway, and structures its distinctions differently to Anastasia). Sure, the primary hallmarks of the Tried N’ True Renaissance Formula are basically all present for duty, but there’s a simultaneous idiosyncratic luridness and darkness to the proceedings that I suspect is Bluth’s personal filmmaking preferences leaking into the template: the outright death of much of Anastasia’s family is handled in a more direct way (and is allowed to linger over much of the film in an uncomfortable and aching manner – just see Rasputin attempting to lure her overboard) than many Disney (or Disney-esque) films of the period, there are no prominent comic relief characters existing to basically spew anachronisms incessantly in a Genie-esque manner to lighten the tone (Bartok barely qualifies, having mostly minimal screentime and being more of a straight man to Rasputin’s Christopher Lloyd-fuelled HAAAAAMMMIINESSSS than an ink-suit avatar for a prominent comedian of the day, such as…god forbid, Devon and Cornwall from “Quest for Camelot”) and scenes such as the train chase focalize a kind of wholehearted, go-for-broke creepiness that feels off-key for a late ’90s Mouse production. Bluth’s house style seems to centre on the construction of lurid, arresting imagery that, much like the traditional fairy tales of Germany or Russia, emphasizes immediate atmosphere and emotional impact rather than conventionally “linear” plot construction or pacing (hence the rambling, headily strange fever dreams into which his worst stuff, such as “Rock-a-Doodle”, often degrades – it’s a series of (overly) vibrant colours without a painting), which arguably operates to his benefit on this film – given that the Disney-ordained formula of the era essentially imposed a basic narrative outline upon him, his main directorial weakness is minimized enough that he can roll through the execution in a stylistically-advantageous way without losing sight of the film’s overall direction. Appropriately enough, the outcome is a strange-but-interesting alternation of Broadway musical and dark Russian folktale (complete with a grotesque villain not entirely out of line with the likes of Baba Yaga (who ironically shows up in this film’s sequel) and eerie, threatening supernatural occurrences).
Even so, I know I prefer Disney over Don Bluth even when he was at his best.
Oh, I think you should give the heroines from the Renaissance more credit.
Ariel managed to save Eric’s life twice.
Belle managed to save Beast by stopping him from falling from the roof.
Esmeralda stopped a mob from humiliating Quasimodo.
Pocahontas saved John Smith and stopped a war.
Megara managed to save Hercules’s life and even sacrificed her life to do so.
And then, there’s Mulan.