Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #41: Atlantis: The Lost Empire

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material. New to the blog? Start at the start with Snow White.)

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So you may have noticed that I’ve been doing a little housekeeping around here.

Anything to avoid doing a little housekeeping around here.

Since we’re now pushing fifty reviews I’ve finally organised the reviews by era and decade so you can more easily browse them. Longtime readers of the blog will know that I’ve got my own idiosyncratic way of organising the canon Disney movies; The Tar and Sugar Movies of the late thirties and early forties, the Never Heard of ‘Ems of the war years, the fifties Restoration, the sixties and seventies Scratchy Era, the Mourning Era of the eighties and the Renaissance of the nineties. I then had to come up with a name for this weird post-millenial chunk of movies between Fantasia 2000 and The Princess and the Frog and this had me stumped for a good while. I hear “The Dark Age” trotted out a lot as a description for this era but that just doesn’t sit well with me for two reasons; firstly I try to use a name that suits the overall style and tone of the movies and the movies of this period are not particularly “dark”. Then of course, “The Dark Age” implies that all these films are somehow inferior and you can tell me that The Emperor’s New Groove and Lilo and Stitch are bad movies or you can keep your limbs intact but you cannot do both. Finally, I settled on “The Lost Era” because this era, like the Mourning Era, was an experimental time where Disney was trying to answer the question “What kind of movies do we make?” The most sustained periods of success in Disney’s history have always been times when the company found a formula that worked. When they knew what they were about. In the fifties, it was fairytales and adaptations of classic children’s literature. In the sixties, it was jazzy Sherman Brothers musicals, in the nineties it was all about Broadway. The origins of Atlantis: The Lost Empire began in a Mexican restaurant when directors Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise and producer Don Hahn sat down to a big bowl of nachos and tried to figure out the future of Disney. These three men were the creative heads behind my personal favorite Disney movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and this meeting was born largely out of a desire to keep the band together, so to speak. Trousdale, Wise and Hahn realised that they had put together an absolutely phenomenal team for Hunchback and were anxious not to see this incredibly talented group of people separated and put on other projects. The solution was obvious: Make another movie. But what kind of movie? It was clear by now that the Broadway Disney musical had been done. And done again. And then, why not, done a couple more times. And while those movies had been hugely (HUGELY) successful, it was clear that enough was enough. When you’ve got a formula that’s familiar enough for this kind of parody to work…

…it’s time to try something new. This was the paradox Disney faced in the early 21st century. They knew what worked, but they couldn’t do it anymore. For a while, Tarzan had seemed to offer a way forward, a pseudo-musical with all the songs sung by a big name musical talent instead of the characters. But then that had come a rather massive cropper with the Kingdom of the Sun/Emperor’s New Groove debacle. Yeah, yeah, I know. You love the movie, I love the movie. That’s because it didn’t cost us $100 Million. More importantly perhaps, Trousdale, Wise and Hahn did not want to make another animated musical. As the nacho cheese flowed like wine, the three men began talking about the movies they had loved growing up, and specifically, the Disney movies they had loved growing up. Now, hold onto your hats people because I am about to blow your freaking minds. Did you know that Disney also made live action, non-animated, human-acted with actual human beings movies?

I warned you.

My paw to God, it’s true. In fact, my good buddy Animation Commendation even has a blog devoted to Disney’s live action efforts which I’ve been meaning to link to for ever. You should check it out. The germ for the idea that would become Atlantis began with a desire to do an animated version of the old Disney live action adventure movies. You know, Davy Crockett, Treasure Island and by far it’s most obvious influence, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Atlantis represented a huge, daring creative gamble for Disney, an attempt to break out of the admittedly lucrative formula that had begun to stifle the studio creatively. This was going to be something new. There would be no funny animal sidekicks. The movie’s unofficial motto during production was “less singing, more explosions”. Comic book creator Mike Mignola was brought in to give the movie a new distinctive visual look. This thing would have a PG rating by God!

I’m frightened.

One thing that really comes across watching this movie and the bonus material that comes with it is just how much everybody cared about this film. Seriously, you can tell, they worked their asses off on this. Did it pay off?

Well…read the review! You think I’m just going to tell you up front?

Nerve of some people…

Let’s take a look at the movie.

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Video Reviews #2: Pinocchio

Video Reviews #1: Snow White

So now, not only do we have Erik Copper doing the audio versions of my reviews, Mauricio Guarua is doing video versions of Erik’s audio versions of my reviews. At this rate by next week we’ll have turned this thing into an all singing, all dancing musical and will be coming soon to a theatre near you. In the meantime though, please enjoy Mauricio’s/Erik’s/My review of Snow White:

League of Volunteers now available for online purchase!

Right, so you may remember that back in August I mentioned that I was writing a three issue arc for superhero comic, League of Volunteers and that the first issue would be on sale soon. Okay, so I may have stretched the definition of the word “soon” to the point where it could now probably play in the NBA but I am delighted to announce that League of Volunteers: Return of the King #1 is now on sale at the Atomic Diner Website for €5 (’bout seven dollars). If you like superheroes, and you like this blog…you see where I’m going with this right?

If so inclined, you can buy the comic here. Ah go on.

LISTEN UP!

Say, do you like reviews of Disney movies that are more surrealist stream of consciousness with a heavy seasoning of cuss words but don’t hold with all that fancy book reading? Well, starting from today we’ve got you covered. Erik Copper, a fan of the blog, has taken it upon himself to record audio versions of the reviews which I’ll be linking to and uploading as they become available. Now, at last, you’ll be able to enjoy Unshaved Mouse while driving, operating heavy machinery or making love to your spouse. What’s more, since I’m not reading them myself you can enjoy the reviews without being distracted by my impenetrable Irish brogue.

“Ah muise and begob sure ’tis a fine Disney movie to be sure, to be sure, to be sure.”

At the moment we have Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi
and Saludos Amigos. Erik’s done an awesome job and really should check them out.

All the best,

Mouse

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #40: The Emperor’s New Groove

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So let me tell you a little story about the worst movie Disney never made. It was called Kingdom of the Sun, an epic retelling of the story of the Prince and the Pauper set in the Incan Empire. Roger Allers, director of the Lion King was at the helm, Owen Wilson was cast as the Pauper, David Spade was the Prince, Eartha Kitt was playing the villainous sorceress Yzma who was to be animated by the legendary Andreas Deja. Oh, and the score was to be provided by legendary rocker Sting. Sounds pretty awesome, right? So what happened? Well, the movie making business is a huge, complex and labyrinthine affair and the reasons why certain movies fail and others succeed is never clear cut but if I had to guess I’d have to say it was because it sucked balls. Test audiences hated the movie, which was a problem because half the damn thing was already completed. So Mark Dindal, director of Cats Don’t Dance, was brought in to make the movie a bit more light hearted and audience friendly. Dindal and Allers pretty soon found themselves at odds to the point where each director was essentially making a different movie. The Disney execs had been willing to give Allers a lot of leeway because…y’know…fucking Lion King…but it was becoming increasingly apparent that Kingdom of the Sun wasn’t going to make it’s 2000 release date. And this was a problem because Disney had signed merchandising deals with McDonald’s and Coke who probably had Michael Eisner’s daughter as collateral or something. Allers asked for a six month extension to get his shit together. And so Allers left and it fell to Dindal to pull off one of the most amazing salvage jobs in modern movie history. Out of the ashes of Kingdom of the Sun, came Emperor’s New Groove, which I have now rewatched and feel confident in saying is the single greatest comedy in the entire Disney canon. Funnier than Robin Hood and Jungle Book. It’s hilarious. In fact, it’s so funny that I’m pretty much totally screwed. There is nothing harder to review than a good comedy, especially if you are a quote unquote “comedic” reviewer. I mean, look, I think I can be pretty funny on a good day, but there is no way in hell that I can write a review that will make you laugh more than just watching this thing. But, as long we’re all agreed that this is an exercise in futility, I’m game if you are. Okay, so Dindal basically decided that there was no chance in hell they could do the kind of epic, Lion King-esque movie that Allers had planned in the time left, so they might as well just have fun. Gone was the Prince and the Pauper storyline. Yzma was now a wacky mad scientist. The Emperor, Kuzco, was now an entitled jerk. The tapes for Owen Wilson’s performance were taken and cast out into the wilderness to be feasted on by jackals with a taste for deadpan Texan delivery and John Goodman was brought in to replace him. Everything was now stripped down, small cast, simple plot, no big animated set pieces. Oh, and all but two of the songs Sting wrote were tossed out. Sting would later say: “At first, I was angry and perturbed. Then I wanted some vengeance.” Well, having had to listen to My Funny Friend and Me, I too want some vengeance, Sting.

And here it is.

Let’s take a look at the film.

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Well…that’s that.

Mr Neil Sharpson and the Sunday Independent

The Press Ombudsman has decided that the Sunday Independent made an offer of sufficient remedial action to resolve a complaint by Mr Neil Sharpson that an article published on 25 August 2013, reporting certain claims about alternative technologies, was in breach of Principles 1 (Truth and Accuracy) and 2 (Distinguishing Fact and Comment) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Magazines.

The article reported on what it said was a groundbreaking new Irish technology that “could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough.”

Mr Sharpson complained that the claims made in the article were not justified and that the newspaper had compromised its authority as a source of public information by publishing them. The newspaper responded that the complainant was perfectly entitled to enter into a debate on the merits or otherwise of the claimed breakthrough, and invited him to submit a letter for publication.

The complainant submitted two letters strongly challenging the scientific claims reported in the article and the newspaper’s decision to publish it. Neither of these, however, satisfied the newspaper’s requirements that the response should be a measured one capable of being published in a national newspaper as opposed to on a blog, and left open its offer to consider publishing a more appropriate version of his letter subject to the usual legal and editorial constraints.

It is clear that, in matters of controversy, newspapers provide a service to their readers by making space available to the protagonists of different points of view and this article was, on the face of it, likely to give rise to substantial controversy. At the same time, the newspaper was within its rights in limiting its offer to publish a letter from the complainant to one that would comply with the necessary legal and editorial constraints and, for this reason, the offer constituted an offer of sufficient remedial action to resolve the complaint.

Check this Guy Out!

My brother’s band Feeding Time at the Zoo have released their first EP and you can listen to them here and you should listen, and like and share and download and tweet and cyber…surf (I’m old) because it is seriously awesome.

Really, it’s the shit. Really, really good.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Well, of course he’s going to say it’s good, it’s his brother.”

WRONG!

Because right now, we are embroiled in a bitter inheritance dispute and if I could do anything to hurt him, I would. But I can’t badmouth this track, it’s just too good.

“Ha! Just as I planned, brother! And soon, the plantation shall be mine!”

"Never! Our parents promised that land to the orphanege!"

“Never! Our parents promised that land to the orphanage!”

“Yes! But they “tragically” died in that plane crash, leaving everything to me in the will!”

“You bastard! That will was a forgery and I’ll prove it!”

“No need, Mouse!”

“Doctor Drake Ramoray!”

“Yes! And I have shocking news! Your parents are still alive! AND THEY’RE NOT YOUR PARENTS!”

TO BE CONTINUED?

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #666: The Nightmare Before Christmas

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Hi everyone. So, unfortunately I’ve got some bad news. I know you were all looking forward to my review of Emperor’s New Groove but I’m afraid I just wasn’t able to get it done on time. Sorry. I’ve actually been going through a lot of personal problems recently that’ve been making it hard to write. You all know of course that I recently suffered a severe trauma.

Why God?

But reviewing Dinosaur was just the straw that broke the mouse’s back. I’m just…

I’m tired of this. I’ve reviewed over forty movies now and it’s just getting so hard to come up with new jokes every two weeks. It’s just the same routine over and over again.

And I! Mouse! The Un-shaved king…have grown so tired of the same old thing…

Oh, don’t say that meu amigo. You just need a little break.

Hmm…you seem vaguely familiar. I feel like I know you, but blocked out the memory for some reason. Weird.

I get that a lot. You know what you need? You need to review something a little different. Like this!

The Nightmare Before Christmas? Well, it is a great movie. And it is Halloween. But…no, I couldn’t. It’s not part of the canon!

You’ve reviewed plenty of movies that aren’t in the canon. You even reviewed An American Tail when you were in the Bluthverse.

That’s true…wait, how could you know that?

Let’s just say I’m well informed. Come on Mouse. Review the movie. You know you want to.

No, no. I can’t. All the reviews I do are in strict chronological order. Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993, I’m already into 2000.

And what a great decade that was! You’re right. I’ll leave you to review Brother Bear, Chicken Little, Home on the Range…

Okay! Okay! You’ve talked me into it. I mean, it’ll be fine. So I temporarily forsake my sacred oath to review all the canon Disney classics in order? What’s the worst that could happen?

What indeed?

Okay. So, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Little basic housekeeping out of the way first, this movie was in fact neither written nor directed by Tim Burton.

Yeah, NO idea why you might think that.

You’ll remember from the Fox and the Hound review that Tim Burton was an animator at Disney before leaving to become a big time Hollywood muck-a-muck. He came up with the concept for the film, based on a poem he himself wrote in 1982, and designed most the of the characters but when the time came to actually shoot the thing, Burton was too busy making Batman Returns and handed directing duties off to Henry Selick, and scriptwriting chores to Caroline Thompson and Michael McDowell. However, I don’t want to undersell Burton’s contribution as this is still probably the most “Tim Burtony” film ever made. That’s really down to the fealty with which Selick treated Burton’s designs and ideas. I mean sure, they put Burton’s name over the thing because he was the bigger draw, and that kind of sucks for Selick…but at the same time, it does very much feel like Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. But of course, the clues are there that Burton didn’t actually direct it. Because Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter aren’t in it and Burton never does anything without Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. And I’m not just talking about movies, either. Burton doesn’t go to the bathroom without Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (Depp pulls the fly down, Carter pulls it back up).

Nightmare has two big influences, the old Rankin/Bass stop-motion Christmas specials and even more so, the 1966 animated version of Dr Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Jack Skellington was envisioned by Burton as being a kind of anti-Grinch, a macabre character who adores Christmas instead of loathing it, but whereas the Grinch changes once he comes to understand Christmas, Jack never does and the movie implies that really that’s okay. Christmas is not for everyone.

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Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #39: Dinosaur

“All that remained of his herd were his mother, grandmother and his grandfather. He knew them by sight, by sound and by their love.”

The Land Before Time, 1988

“That, children, is what’s known as a jerkasaurous.”

Dinosaur, 2000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the classic Disney movies are a lot like hardcore porn, and I’m not just saying that because putting the words “dinosaur” and “porn” in a blog post is my best chance of scamming a few page views before this “dino-erotica” news fad runs its course.

I’d say “don’t judge me”, but honestly I’d think less of you if you didn’t.

What I mean is, it’s hard to exactly define what makes a Disney classic, but you know it when you see it. Like porn. Even dinosaur porn. Read my blog, perverts. Take for example, Sleeping Beauty and The Avengers. They’re both technically Disney movies in that they were released by Walt Disney studios, but one is considered part of the canon classics and the other isn’t. Why is that? It’s not because Sleeping Beauty is wholly animated, because there are plenty of movies in the canon that are partially or even mostly live action (Saludos Amigos for example.) It’s really more just a question of looking at a movie and saying “Yes…this fits.” Today’s movie did not clear that barrier when it was first released. Disney did not consider Dinosaur part of the canon classics, which means that by rights I should have skipped over it and should be pissing my pants right now watching the side-splitting awesomeness of The Emperor’s New Groove. But no, Dinosaur has since been retroactively shoe-horned into the canon and it’s all thanks to one person.

You are fucking DEAD blondie.

Sigh. Look, Rapunzel? I’m glad you now get to call yourself the fiftieth canon Disney movie. Good on you. You earned it, what with being the beloved fairytale princess character who rescued the flagging fortunes of the Disney studio.

In Disney’s defence, it’s only the fourth time that’s happened.

I just have one question, Rapunzel. Did you have to ruin my life to do it?

See, I hate this movie. Like a lot. Like, “congratulations Black Cauldron, you no longer live at the bottom” hate it.

Dinosaur was in the works for a long time, originally pitched to Disney as a stop-motion film by none other than Paul Verhoeven. Because, when I think of creators and studios who were made for each other…I do not think of Paul Verhoeven and Disney. At all. Like, not even a little. Verhoeven’s original pitch was for a silent, almost nature documentary film which would be extremely violent and end with the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. And yeah, Paul? Did you just get high and walk into the wrong studio? Disney instead decided to sit on the idea until computer effects technology had advanced enough to create realistic animated dinosaurs and that is your problem right there. People who like this movie always mention the visuals. The whole advertising campaign was just showing the first few wordless minutes of the movie to showcase the animation. The damn tagline is “Like nothing you’ve ever seen”. This was a movie made to showcase special effects technology, not because anyone involved had a story to tell. Which is why everything outside the animation is rote, tacked-on, hacky and mediocre. And even the animation isn’t that great. I mean, I suppose it’s impressive considering it was Disney’s first fully computer animated feature.

Actually Mouse, since it uses live action backgrounds it’s only partially computer animated…

NIT, SHUT UP I AM IN NO MOOD FOR PEDANTRY!

Deep breath.

Okay, I always try to be positive so let me tell you the two things I like about this movie:

1) I like that they avoid the usual T-Rex/Triceratops/Stegosaurus/Diplodocus clichés and actually use some more obscure dinosaur species.

2) There is the kernel of an interesting debate here about a society’s obligation to look after its most vulnerable members versus the greater good of the strongest and fittest. Kind of…the Obamacare debate with dinosaurs.

Aaaaand…

That’s it. Nothing left but to unhinge my jaw like a python and let the bile gush forward.

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