Disney's Home on the Range

Home on the Range is Disney's first cowboy movie, except instead of the cowboys, it has cows. Not exactly the same, but Disney was hoping that the movie would do well giving that they've never really done a Western-themed movie. We'll see how that worked out for them soon. The title of the movie comes from the state song of Kansas, and a song that basically everyone attributes with the old west. The movie was originally going to be titled, Sweating Bullets, and star a young calf named Bullets that saves his herd from a gang of ghost cattle rustlers. Not a bad plot, it's just that the name is pretty stupid. The movie was also almost going to be a pied piper story, but Micheal Eisner hated the idea because he thought no parent would want to take their kid to a movie about children getting murdered. The writers came up with this movie instead, but kept a few pieces of the pied piper story-line. Instead, Home on the Range is about three cows who have to save their owners ranch from being foreclosed on. To do this, they decide to capture a cattle rustler named Alameda Slim so they can collect the reward money to save the ranch. Pretty basic story, right? The whole, "We have to collect money for our (fill in the blank) or else it will close" trope is tried and true, and even the unlikely heroes catching a criminal has been done a hundred times. I kind of feel like this movie is a mash-up of Western story-lines, but none of them are very interesting.

Home on the Range marks the end for traditional animation at Disney Studios. Well, at least for five years. At the time Disney thought it was going to be a permanent shift, as all other animation studios were operating almost completely at the computer animated end. With the end of traditional animation, it also ended the CAPS system that was first used in The Rescuers Down Under. So, big changes happening with Disney at this time, including the laying off of animators. This movie has actually been in production for a really long time, since after Pocahontas. It was originally going to be released in 2003 instead of Brother Bear, but the film ran into a few bumps and it had to be released in 2004, and not in the summer or Thanksgiving as had every other Disney film done. It was released in April, which probably led to its dismal return. Oh, did I give something away? You knew this was coming.

Probably the only saving grace of this movie is the voice cast, which it seems Disney went all out on. They all aren't big Hollywood names for the most part, but the cast is still more star-studded than the average Disney film. Voicing the main character, Maggie, is Roseanne Barr. Now, for all you youngin's out there who don't know who Roseanne is, you are pretty lucky. She is most known for her TV show of the same name, and for completely destroying the national anthem at a Padres game in 1990. Dame Judi Dench voices Mrs. Calloway, the leadership crazy cow. Judi Dench is perhaps the complete opposite of Roseanne. Dench is dignified and known for roles in Shakespearean plays. Roseanne is crass and is known for grabbing her crotch. See the difference? The third happy-go-lucky cow, Grace, is voiced by Jennifer Tilly. Tilly has been in a bunch of stuff, but is more known for her voice acting, as she has a very unique voice. Most notably she does the voice of Bonnie Swanson in Family Guy, and voiced Celia Mae, Mike's girlfriend, in Monsters Inc. Cuba Gooding, Jr. voices the selfish horse named Buck. Cuba has really not been in anything recently, but is most known for his role as Rod Tidwell i n Jerry Macguire and for his role in the kids movie Daddy Day Care. Other stars filling out the roles include, Randy Quaid as the cattle rustler Alameda Slim, Steve Buscemi as Wesley, and Patrick Warburton as...Patrick.

Home on the Range came out in April 2004 and did not do so well in the box office. In all it grossed a combined $103 million, which doesn't sound that bad. That is, until you find out that the movie cost $110 million to make. It's not as big of a bust as Treasure Planet was, so Disney has that to think about. I blame the lousy returns on a few things. First off, making a Disney movie come out any other time than Thanksgiving or Summer is unforgivable. Why would you break tradition? I know the time of year shouldn't matter, but it does. People see more movies in the summer and around holidays. Another factor was the material. Westerns have not been "in" since the 70's and have only made brief successful returns such as Pale Rider, Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, 3:10 to Yuma, and the remake of True Grit. You may think that's a lot, but that's a span from 1985 to present, and a lot of movies come out in a year. Westerns just aren't that popular anymore. Disney apparently didn't get the memo and hoped that kids just wouldn't care and would just want to see the barn animals. It didn't work apparently. Another factor, though very small, is the PG rating. This film received it for a "boob joke" in the guise of an utter joke. Only a few other films have received a PG rating in the Disney canon, and not all have been bombs, so I would say this didn't deter viewers as much as the first two points. Critics weren't kind to this movie, calling it unoriginal and badly animated. It currently holds a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and is one of the lowest rated. Something needs to go right for Disney. Will it be their next film, Chicken Little?

Disney's Brother Bear

Disney loves to tell tales of transformation; a wooden puppet turns into a real boy, a poor little cinder girl becomes a princess, and a beast becomes a man. This tale is all about a man who turns into a bear. An Inuit man to be precise. The main character, Kenai, is transformed by the Spirits after he kills a bear for revenge for killing his older brother, Sitka. Kenai must learn how to walk in others shoes...er paws and learn how to love properly if he ever wants to become a man again. They may sound unfair, being turned into a bear because you killed the bear that killed your brother. But that's not the point the story is trying to make. Kenai is transformed by the Spirit, who being an eagle is most likely Sitka, because he kills the bear out of hate and revenge, not for food or anything good. Kenai has pure hatred in his heart for bears even before this and bemoans that it is the spirit animal to which he is assigned on his totem. Anyway, while he is a bear he meets a young bear named Koda, who acts as his bear guide. After learning the ropes and meeting new animals friends, including two goofy moose, he comes to the realization that he killed Koda's mother. Denahi, Kenai's brother, who has thought the whole time that the bear form of Kenai killed Sitka has been hunting him the whole film. Denahi finds and corners Kenai, but Koda comes to his rescue and vice-versa as the fight progresses. For his act of love in saving Koda, Sitka, who is represented by the eagle spirit, turns Kenai back into a man, though Kenai asks to be turned back so he can stay with Koda. I'd want to be a bear too. You got fur to keep you warm, awesome claws, and you can go to the bathroom anywhere! This is a win-win situation for Kenai!

This will be a common theme for some of these newer movies, but there isn't much about the production of this movie. I do know however that the movie had the tentative title of Bears for awhile. Not sure which one I like better, but I guess the newer one makes more sense. This was the last film to be produced completely at the MGM studios animation department inside of Disney World in Orlando. The studio completely shut down in 2004 thanks to their short sighted decision to go completely with computer animated films. I've been to that animation studio! It was awesome! I remember they were working on The Emperor's New Groove at the time and they showed us how they animated the whole bridge scene. Thanks a lot computer animation! Something I found very interesting about the movie, which apparently it's the first animated film to do this, is it changed aspect ratio right in the middle of the movie. When Kenai gets turned into a bear, the ratio goes from 1.75:1 to Cinemascope 2.35:1. This was apparently to make the film look more like it was from the perspective of an animal, giving it a wider look. Plus, the colors in the film are brighter and more vibrant. The shift in perspective reminds me of Lady and the Tramp, how they used the lower angle to give it more of a "dog's eye view."

There were a few changes in the film, namely the title. At some point, Disney decided to drive the brother thing home by putting it into the title of the movie. On top of the title change, Disney decided to change a few characters around. Denahi was at first meant to be Kenai's father, not his other older brother. I think they wanted to sho w more of a conflict between brothers in the film, so they scrapped the father idea. Koda wasn't even in the film at first, as they almost went for an older bear guide named Grizz (creative, right?).

The movie has a few big names connected to it, though not as many as some previous ones. Joaquin Pheonix voices Kenai the main character and youngest of the three brothers. Joaquin is probably most recognized for his roles as Commodus in Gladiator, and Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Jeremy Suarez voices Koda ,the young and playful bear that befriends the bewildered Kenai. Suarez has been in plenty of movies, but is most known for his role of Jordan in The Bernie Mac Show. And perhaps the only reason I really enjoy parts of this movie is the casting of these two Canadian gentlemen a s the moose Rutt and Tuke, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. Moranis has been in countless comedies, mostly in the 80's, including Ghostbusters, Spaceballs, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Thomas on the other hand, has stayed mostly to TV spots, though what they are most known for by the Canadian crowd is their roles as Bob and Doug McKenzie on SCTV. The two are comedy gold together, and I think that Disney's decision to get them to voice the moose is probably one of best decisions they ever made. Watch some of their old sketches, or at least see the movie Strange Brew. Dear God, I love that movie. Rutt and Tuke are basically just the McKenzie Brothers in moose form. Sadly, this is Rick Moranis' last movie. No, he didn't die, he retired from acting. It's a really sad story. Read it some time.

Brother Bear received mixed reviews when it was released in 2003. Most critics found it to be un-original, and a retread of The Lion King and Ice Age (funny enough, this movie went into production before Ice Age). Others were gentler, and praised the aspect ratio switch and classical animation. The movie went on to gross around $85 million domestically with $167 million coming from overseas. Combined making around $250 million, it was one of the only financially successful movies of the 2000's. It even did extremely well on DVD, selling $5 million copies in the month of April alone. The movie was eventually nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, but lost out to Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo. That's a no brainer. I haven't watched this movie in awhile, so I'll have to wait to pass further judgment on it, but I remember being all sorts of meh about it. Of course, I was in high school at the time and numerous things were all sorts of meh to me. I do remember loving the moose though, so if you take anything away from this post, it should be that.

Disney's Treasure Planet

I didn't pay attention to Treasure Planet for a very long time. I think I was in college by the time I actually watched it for the first time, and wasn't that impressed with it. I'm not sure why, but I just didn't get it. Something changed though, maybe it was reading the actual novel itself, or maybe I just admitted to myself that nothing would ever be better than Muppet Treasure Island, but I started to really like this movie. In fact, it's probably my favorite of the decade besides The Emperor's New Groove. The story, though in space, was pretty close to the original novel, and on top of that, it had an amazing combination of traditional and computer generated animation. I just really like the story of Treasure Island. I find Long John Silver to be an incredibly interesting character. You are led to like the man during most of the book, then he turns out to be the main villain, though he still serves as sort of a mentor and father figure to protagonist Jim Hawkins. I've seen a few different versions of Treasure Island now: Treasure Planet, the before mentioned Muppet Treasure Island, and the 1950 Disney version of Treasure Island. All were fine and good, but I honestly prefer the book, which I usually do in the case of books made into movies. All the movie versions are unique and their own way, and Treasure Planet can probably be called the most unique just for the space setting.

"Treasure Island in Space," as it was pitched in 1985 by Ron Clements and John Musker at a meeting wasn't picked up right away. Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was chief at Walt Disney Studios at the time just wasn't that interested in the idea and instead they went with some movie about a mermaid. It's probably better that the movie was put off, as they wanted to move the camera around a lot like Spielberg and James Cameron, but the technology just wasn't there in terms of animation. Musker and Clements finally got to do their "Treasure Island in Space" in 1997, and production started soon after. It took them four and a half years to complete the movie, with the brunt of the work starting in 2000. The movie started with 350 crew member, and by 2002 it had over 1,000 crew members credited for the movie. You can already tell that Disney had a lot of money invested in this movie judging by the amount of time and effort spent.

The crew attempted to make the movie as warm and inviting as possible, not cold, blue, and dark as most outer space movies looked. Outer space is almost always portrayed as a dark place where you can die at any minute due to all manner of things, but Disney tried to make it appear much more beautiful and hospitable. Fearing that it would look too hokey if the characters all wore space suits, Disney concocted a breathable space called Etherium, a sort of atmosphere around all planets. Disney did away with any big metal ships usually seen in sci-fi and stuck with old fashioned looking wood ships. You may be asking yourself by now: Why the heck did they put Treasure Island in space?! Well, to make it more accessible to the younger crowd. Musker and Clements figured that no kid would actually want to watch Treasure Island. They had to make it more modern. Along with the obvious changes that come with putting a classic novel in space, the crew also had to do a little re-tooling on the characters themselves. Jim Hawkins is a smart and capable kid in the novel, but the crew wanted to make him more relate-able, so they turned him into a bad-boy of sorts. Someone who is not quite sure who they really are, or how they fit into things. You know, teenagers. Dr. Doppler is a composite of Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney from the book, one more serious, the other kind of a goof, respectively. The crew also found that the father-son dynamic between Hawkins and Silver was somewhat present in the book, but they wanted to emphasis it more in the movie.

The overall look of the film was under the "70/30 law" as the crew put it. 70 percent traditional look, and 30 percent sci-fi. The crew wanted to go with a classic storybook illustration look for the film, and based much of it off of the picture "One more step, Mr. Hands," which can be seen on the left. To get the unique look of the film, they used an animation concept that they were going to use for Tarzan, but apparently never got around to doing. Called Virtual Sets, the animators would create a 360 degree set before they began staging the scenes. They combined this process with traditionally-drawn characters in order to achieve a "painted image with depth perception" and enabled the crew to place the camera anywhere in the set and maneuver it as they would maneuver a camera for a live-action film. The animators weren't sure how it would look for the traditionally animated Silver to have a computer animated cyborg arm so they tested it out on Captain Hook, giving him a cyborg arm instead. The crew also attempted to purge their minds of stereotypes when coming up with the character designs by not looking at previous incarnations of the book Treasure Island. One of the supervising animators, Glen Keane, did admit to getting some inspiration for how Silver talked from actor Wallace Beery, who had played Silver himself. Keane liked how Beery talked out of the side of his mouth for the Silver role and used it for Treasure Planet. For the characterization and design of Hawkins, they went with the ultimate in troubled bad-boy: James Dean. Animator John Ripa decided to use Dean as a model because "there was this whole attitude, a posture" wherein "you felt his pain and the youthful innocence." To help keep the design of the characters from straying, the crew used maquettes, or small statues of the characters from the film. The first film to use maquettes was Pinocchio, and since then there has been a whole department created to make the small figures.

The "70/30 law" was used also for sound effects and music. The crew didn't want Silver to be "too slick or sci-fi," so they went to junk yards and dug up old antique wind up toys and mechanisms to create the sound effects for Silver's movements. The crew even attempted to use a more mechanical sound for the voices of some characters, especially the character of B.E.N. voiced by Martin Short. They found that by adding the extra effects, it took away from the comedy of Short's delivery, so they vouched to scrap the idea. The music for the film was mainly orchestral, but it did feature some pop songs, namely "I'm Still Here" by John Rzeznik, the front man of The Goo Goo Dolls, and "Always Know You Are There" by British pop-rock group BBMak. The score has been described as a mixture of modern music in the spirit of Star Wars and Celtic music. Never thought I'd hear those words in the same sentence.

The film has an all-star cast, starting with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Hawkins. Gordon-Levitt has been in a lot of things recently, like Inception, 500 days of Summer, and will be in the new Batman movie, but was only in some indie films for awhile after his well known role in Third Rock from the Sun. Brian Murray, the voice of Long John Silver, is perhaps the only non-star of the group, being known more for directing than anything else. Dr. Doppler was written with David Hyde Pierce in mind, and the crew sent him the script along with some preliminary drawings of the characters and landscapes. He apparently liked it enough and signed on. Pierce is best known for his role as Niles Crane in Frasier. Captain Amelia was also written with someone in mind, namely Emma Thompson. Thompson jumped at the opportunity, since it would be her first action film. Last in the main cast is Martin Short, who voiced the robot B.E.N. This is honestly the last thing I remember Short being in. Short, for all you younger folk reading this, was big in the 80's and 90's. His best films are The Three Amigos, Innerspace, and the Father of the Bride movies. It's really too bad he's not in more things these days, as he is really funny.

Treasure Planet had a lot of promotional tie-ins before the movie was released: Kellogg's, Dreyer's, McDonald's, Hasbro, and Pepsi. That didn't stop the movie from completely tanking. It's seriously an official box office bomb. It cost $140 million to make, and it made $38 million domestically. It made some of it up by making a little over $70 million overseas, but the domestic gross was extremely bad for a Disney movie in the 2000's. Treasure Planet is the biggest loser for Disney, by far. Even with it opening also in IMAX, it didn't make that much. A good side of the story is that when it came out, it remained on the top of the DVD sales list for two weeks, earning Disney $64 million in a three month span. If this is factored into the gross, the movie really didn't do that bad. Critics liked the film for the most part, giving the film a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave it 2.5 out of 5, saying he liked it, but felt it would have been better if it was "less gimmicky." Other critics also felt the same way about the space aspect of the classic swashbuckling story, finding it unnecessary or annoying. But, for the most part, critics praised the characters, story, and the spectacular animation.

I'm not going into the original text that inspired the movie, because most everyone has seen a Treasure Island movie, or had to read the book at some point. If you haven't, well that's your loss. It's one of those books I took for granted, and picked up much later in life only to find that I really liked it. Besides, it's basically the same story. Except the space thing.

Disney's Lilo and Stitch

My sister likes to compare me to Stitch from this movie. Or at least my younger self. I was pretty out of control, and you didn't want to give me large amounts of caffeine. When my parents let me have a cappuccino for the first time I ran around the house so much they forced me to get on the treadmill until I calmed down. But I was nothing compared to everyone's favorite little blue alien. I definitely didn't eat as much, and no one let me have a laser blaster. Though Lilo has her name in the title too, most people remember good old Stitch. Disney had made several big budget movies in the 90's that luckily made their money back and then some. That wasn't the case so much for the early 2000's. Their last four movies didn't really do that well compared to their 90's entries, so Disney decided to take things down a few notches. They wanted to make a more economically-made movie like they had done before with Dumbo, which was Disney's cheap response to big budget projects Bambi and Fantasia. Chris Sanders, who was the head storyboard artist at the time, was asked to pitch some ideas. It just so happens that Sanders had the perfect idea. He had created the character of Stitch for a children's book in 1985, but was unable to gain any support for it. He then decided that one day he'd turn it into a movie, about an out of control alien that runs amok in rural Kansas. Kansas being chosen because it would limit the amount of havoc Stitch could inflict on the infrastructure since the state is kind of desolate and out of the way. When it was brought up by Sanders for consideration, Disney decided to change the location to the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i, somewhere still isolated, but a more interesting setting. This movie would, of course, be the first Disney movie set in Hawaii. It's also one of the few that are set in the present time.

Like in any animated film based off a real life place, the crew went to the island of Kaua'i to get some ideas for the landscape animation and culture that would be an integral part of bringing the story alive. Something that really hit the crew as they were getting tours of the island was their tour guide's explanation of the word 'ohana. The guide detailed how it doesn't just mean family in the sense of your immediate family members, but extended members and friends. "No matter where we went, our tour guide seemed to know somebody. He was really the one who explained to us the Hawaiian concept of 'ohana, a sense of family that extends far beyond immediate relatives. That idea so influenced the story that it became the foundational theme, the thing that causes Stitch to evolve despite what he was created to do, which was destroy," explains writer Dean DeBlois. The Disney animators faced the daunting task of meshing the film's plot, which showed the impoverished and dysfunctional life that many Hawaiians lived during the then-recent economic downturn, with the island's serene beauty. To help authenticity further, Disney received help from the voices of Nani and David, who both either lived in Hawaii, or had grown up there, to get the proper colloquial dialect and slang for the Hawaiians in the film.

The background animation for Lilo and Stitch is something that we haven't seen in a long time. Instead of using the typical gouache technique for backgrounds, the animators instead went with watercolors, something they hadn't done since the early years of Disney animated films. Chris Sanders preferred the look of watercolor though, as it would give the movie a much brighter look and allow it to follow the art direction of Dumbo. On top of that, the characters weren't designed to look like the usual Disney house style, but were modeled directly off of Chris Sanders' drawings. This is one of the many things I enjoy about Disney; their ability to change up their animation a little bit and not get too stuck into one single one. This is more apparent in the more recent films, as the older ones just seemed to be evolving into more sophisticated animation. This film looks completely different from Atlantis, and Atlantis looks different than Pocahontas or Hercules. Each film, for the most part, has its own animation style and that's what keeps people coming back. I love Bluth films, but they all look the same for the most part. I think that is part of the reason his movies petered out in the early 90's. That, and he couldn't replicate the success he had story-wise in the 80's. But that's a story for another day. Disney has taken risks, and some haven't worked out, and some have. Luckily, Lilo and Stitch was one of the gambles that paid off for Disney.

Several things were changed about Lilo and Stitch before it made it to theaters. Stitch was originally supposed to be part of an intergalactic gang, and Jumba was one of his former cronies that was sent after Stitch by the Intergalactic Council to capture him. Test audiences apparently didn't like the feel of that plot so Disney changed the relationship between the two to being creator (Jumba) and created (Stitch). Another big change was near the end of the movie when Stitch flies a 747 into downtown Honolulu to save Lilo. After 9/11 though, they felt this would be a might disrespectful so they changed the plane to a spaceship. I really don't think we'll see a movie with any sort of plane or air born apparatus flying into anything for a long time.

Lilo and Stitch was released on June 21st, 2002 to rave reviews, one of only a few in the 2000's to be critically lauded, the others being The Emperor's New Groove, The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, and Bolt. Praises were given to the story, Stitch, and of course the beautiful animation. Peter M. Nichols even stated that through the character of Nani and her struggles the film appeals to older children much more than some of the other Disney movies that attempted to do the same thing, namely The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Treasure Planet. The film proved to be a success in the box office too, ending up with a worldwide gross of over $273 million. Given that the film was made with an $80 million budget, $40 million less than Atlantis, it's easy to see that this film made Disney quite a profit. The film proved to be popular enough to spawn two direct-to-video sequels and a television series. Lilo and Stitch is one of my favorites of the decade, but not my most favorite. That was Emperor's New Groove. My other favorite is coming up in the next post.

Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire

This one took a while to get to just for the fact that I hadn't watched said movie in over ten years. Going into this post I was basically going to low ball this movie like I've done with Dinosaur, but decided to watch it again to get some perspective. I wanted to see if it was as blah as I remember. What perspective did I gain from this recent viewing? Still blah. I didn't see this one in theaters in 2001 when it came out, probably because I was about to be in high school, and it's not cool to like Disney movies in high school. What helped was the fact that most of the movies that came out during my high school tenure were pretty bad, save for Lilo and Stitch, another movie which I've only seen once, and therefore need to watch again in order to accurately describe it. Don't get me wrong, Atlantis isn't a terrible movie, it's just a mediocre one. It pales in comparison to the Disney films from the 90's. Sadly, Disney put a ton of work into this movie, so to know that it didn't pan out is sort of depressing.

Let's go back to a simpler time: 1996. Producer Don Hahn and Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise were sitting at a restaurant with Writer Tab Murphy after finishing The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was agreed that the four of them should stick together and work on another film, one with an Adventureland setting. The idea came to them for a movie about the lost city of Atlantis, an idea inspired by Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth. In their treatment of the Atlantis story, they also decided to incorporate the clairvoyant readings of Edgar Cayce, a psychic who claimed to be able to shed light on subjects such as healing and Atlantis. They incorporated some of his ideas-notably that of the mother-crystal, which provides power, healing, and longevity to the Atlanteans-into the story. To add to the realism, the crew went through countless museums to scope out early 20th century technology, and even went as far as to visit the Carlsbad Caverns to get landscape ideas for the underground animation. The filmmakers knew of the usual depiction of Atlantis as a crumbling Greek city, and wanted to create something uniqu e instead. What the movie ends up with is a combination of Mayan, Southeast Asian, Indian, and Tibetan inspired architecture. Atlantis was also to be different from other Disney films, as it would be a straight action film with no songs whatsoever. The crew even wore shirts that said "ATLANTIS-Fewer Songs, more explosions."

The filmmakers knew that besides redesigning what people thought of when they picture Atlantis, they had to create a distinct language for the Atlanteans. Marc Okrand, a linguist who created the Klingon language for Star Trek, was hired to create a unique Atlanean language. Guided by the directors' initial concept of a mother language, Okrand employed an Indo-European word stock with its own grammatical structure. John Emerson designed the written portion of the language, writing out a bunch of random shapes and along with the directors, picking out which ones best fit the Atlantean race. The A in Atlantean was meant to serve as a treasure map to the heart of Atlantis, as evidenced in the film.

The screenplay went through a ton o f rewrites. Joss Whedon, who you may know from several shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and a little movie called The Avengers, was the first writer to contribute to the film, but unfortunately left early in the production. The original treatment was over 120 pages, 30 pages over the average number for Disney screenplays. To shorten it up, characters were erased and the story shifted to be more about Milo, the hero of the story. There was even meant to be trials in the caverns to keep outsiders away, but they had to be scrapped because they felt it slowed the movie way down. Milo was going to be a descendant of Blackbeard the Pirate, AKA Edward Teach-a connection that would have made Milo realize his natural gift as an explorer-but that was dropped. Moliere was supposed to be a professor-like character, but was inst ead turned into a crazy, mole-like man with extending eyeballs and weird headgear. The beginning of the film was going to have a Viking party using the Shepard's Journal to find Atlantis, only to be annihilated by the Leviathan.

To this day, Atlantis: The Lost Empire has a cult following, probably one of the few Disney animated films to have one, and it's all because of one thing: the animation. Well that's weird, you may be saying to yourself. Why would the animation give this movie a cult following? Well, the animation, besides being breathtaking, is based off of the work of Mike Mignola. Mignola, for those who are not familiar with him, is the comic book artist who gave us Hellboy. Mignola has a very distinct look to his drawings and Disney apparently liked it so much that they wanted to use it for their film. Mignola was hired on as one of the four production designers. The movie may be a traditionally animated film, but it had the most use of CGI than any other Disney movie at that time (Dinosaur was all CGI so that doesn't count). This movie has quite a few things going against it, but animation is not one of them. It is a really good looking movie, especially the landscapes and architecture.

If the characters are memorable at all, it is because of their voice actors. Milo may be annoying, but he is brought to life by the great Michael J. Fox. Fox had the choice between doing this movie or Titan A.E. and chose Atlantis due to his son's request to do so. Cree Summer is Kida, the Princess of Atlantis. Summer has been in a bunch of stuff, but is most recognizable, at least to me, as the voice of Susie Carmichael on Rugrats, and Elmyra on Tiny Toons. James Garner voices Commander Rourke, the leader of the mission to find Atlantis and the movie's antagonist. Garner is most known for his title roles in Maverick and The Rockford Files. Sadly, this film marked the last animated film for Jim Varney, who played Cookie. Varney is legend, so you better know who he is. Last is Leonard Nimoy as the King of Atlantis. Nimoy was in some space show in the 60's that I can't remember at the moment. I'm sure you've never heard of it anyway.

Atlantis had its premiere at El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on June 3rd, 2001. The movie went on to gross over $186 million in all in its initial run, $86 million of that coming from domestic returns. With the production costing upwards of $120 million, the film was considered a dissapointment. Sure they made a little profit, but Disney is used to making ungodly amounts of money on expensive productions. Because of the mediocre return, a sequel and TV show spin-0ff were cancelled outright. Many blame Shrek for Atlantis' money woes. It turns out people want to see CGI films, and good ones at that. Shrek was just a better movie and a better one at attracting people. I know I saw Shrek in theaters. The reviews for the movie were also not good news for Disney. They had been so used to knocking it out of the park, that when Atlantis got really mixed reviews, it was kind of a shock.

Most critics noted the lack of character develo pment and uneven plot as the worst offenses. On the flip side, most loved the animation and the last battle scene. Now, I don't usually agree with critics, but they did peg this movie correctly. The plot is kind of disjointed and you really don't g et to know the characters very well. Sure you know them, but you don't really care about them. I didn't care about Milo. I thought he was annoying. Sorry. That being said, the animation is superb and unique, and the last battle is pretty epic. I mean, the villain turns into crystal and then shatters into pieces when he stands up into a running propeller.

A few things I found interesting abo ut this film, though. I like how they based the Atlanteans off the Egyptians in the sense that they had forgotten about their own culture. When Napoleon marched into Egypt, he noticed that the Egyptians had all these relics, but had no idea of their past or their time as a great civilization. The same thing is mirrored in Atlantis. They can't even read their own language. This film is not only different because of the lack of songs, but because of its violence. Warning to all you wanting to show your kids this movie someday. Wait till they are older. A ton of people die in this movie. Sure you don't see most of them die, but it's all very assumed. It's an action adventure story so what do you expect? The themes of the movie are good ones though, if not a little forced. The villain of the movie is Commander Rourke, a man who will stop at nothing for riches, even if it means letting a whole civilization die, or even the men in his expedition. Rourke= Extreme Capitalist Greed. The film also drips with anti-imperialism, as we all see the consequences of trying to take something that belongs to another people by invading them. I would compare it to the old world explorers traveling to the new world in search of gold. They didn't care about who they hurt, they just wanted to fill their pockets. Granted, the whole expedition is in it for the money except Milo.

They all turn their back on him, though they all come back to support him in the end, save for Rourke. And our hatred is basically only for him, as even the people that stay with him are without faces. They wear gas masks ala WWI soldiers and serve as the expendable stormtroopers. Not only does it make them look more sinister, but it makes it less tragic when they get blown up in the end.

Atlantis has some redeeming qualities as I've pointed out, and some interesting themes, but it's too laden with odd plot points and forgettable characters to be anything more than a mediocre Disney film.

Disney's The Emperor's New Groove

Last but definitely not least of the 2000 movies is The Emperor's New Groove. This is my third favorite Disney movie behind Hercules and Aladdin, mostly because of the humor. It's not very dramatic or serious, but it makes up for it in being probably the funniest Disney movie ever. I'm dead serious. This movie never gets old for me. It's fun for the kids and it has enough adult humor that parents won't mind watching it. If the title sounds vaguely familiar it's because it's a reference to the Hans Christian Anderson tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. That being said, there is no similarities between the two so I won't go into that story at all. This movie went through probably the most drastic change in Disney history, going from a serious epic named Empire of the Sun, to a straight up comedy called The Emperor's New Groove. Let's see what happened.

Production on the movie started around 1994 with the purpose of making another Lion King type epic. The plan was to have a movie based around Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, where an greedy and selfish Inca Emperor who finds a peasant that looks just like him. He decides to switch places with the man on a lark. The evil witch Yzma decides that she is going to summon a dark spirit to capture the sun so she can stay young forever, and in the process finds out about the switch between the Emperor and the peasant. She turns the real Emperor into a llama and threatens to reveal the truth of the switch unless the peasant does whatever she says. The Emperor-llama learns humility in his new form and even falls in love with a lady llama-herder. Together, the girl and the llama set out to undue the witches plan. The movie was to be called Empire of the Sun, but was later changed to Empire in the Sun. You can see where this is going. With production under way, Roger Allers becomes the director while Randy Fullmer acts as the producer. Unfortunately, production faltered when they tried to make the plot a little more original and not so much like The Prince and the Pauper. Disney had just released a Mickey Mouse short on the subject a few years earlier in fact. Test screenings did not go well and upper management was not happy with the films lack of direction. So, Disney decided to hire Mark Dindal, director of Cats Don't Dance. Here's where things get really interesting.

With Dindal now on as another director, the film was basically split in two; Dindal doing a more comedic version, and Allers creating a more dramatic version. Things were not going well and the Disney execs still saw the film as uneven. They hesitated to intervene at first because of Allers' success with The Lion King, which also suffered some production speed bumps. By 1998 however, it was painfully obvious that the film would not be complete in time for a Summer 2000 release. A Disney exec stormed into producer Fullmer's office and informed him that they were very close to shutting down the whole production. When Fullmer went to Allers about the problem, Allers asked for another six month extension. Fullmer declined and Allers left. Eisner came in and told Fullmer that he had two weeks to salvage the film or else. Stopping production for six months, Fullmer and Dindal completely overhauled the story. What came out of that was the story we have today with the new name of The Emperor's New Gro ove. It turned into a buddy movie, with Yzma becoming a mad scientist sort of villain and the Emperor losing a love interest in the movie. Eisner was a little hesitant about the movie because he saw similarities between it and Hercules, a movie that was well received but didn't do phenomenal at the box office. The crew assured him that this had a much smaller supporting cast so people would be much more invested in the characters. The overhaul had one last drawback however, as it made animator Andreas Deja quit the production and start working on Lilo and Stitch. Why is that so bad? Well, on top of being in charge of the animation of Yzma, Deja also was in charge of the parts of the film that included the songs done by singer Sting. Sting had already recorded the songs and everything, but with Deja gone, his parts in the film were eliminated. Sting had done all that work for nothing. And he was pissed. There's even a documentary about Sting's efforts in the film called The Sweatbox. Good luck finding a copy, as Disney owns the rights and likely won't let it out for quite a while. Sting's songs can still be found on the official soundtrack however if you're curious. One of his songs "My Funny Friend and Me" was even nominated for an Academy Award. If you liked the ending, you can thank Sting for that. The original ending had Kuzco building his resort on a neighboring hill, which Sting thought was dumb since it showed that Kuzco hadn't learned his lesson. Thus, at the end, Kuzco has his own little hut instead.

The setting of the film is based off the Peruvian Inca Empire. Along with the architecture, roads, intricate waterworks, sun worship, and llamas as domesticated beasts, Kuzco's name is similar to Cusco, the Peruvian city considered the capital of the Inca Empire, and Pacha's name is drawn from Pachacuti, considered the most important ruler of the Inca Empire, and a historical figure. That being said, there are plenty of incongruities and anachronisms throughout the film, some for comedic effect and some just because they didn't care about being too historically accurate. And, while the crew did take a trip down to Peru for inspiration, the setting is not specifically based off of any particular area of Peru. What makes this movie even more unusual is the fact that it has almost no musical numbers, save for the beginning and end song and Kronk's impromptu theme music.

Part of what makes this movie so great is the voice actors. I don't think this film would have worked had it not been for David Spade and John Goodman. Spade is absolutely perfect for the selfish and conceited Kuzco, while Goodman shines as the foil to Kuzco's bombastic personality. It's funny too because Spade has been in a bunch of different movies where he plays the shrimpy whiny character next to the portly comic relief (Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, Lost and Found), and this film is no different. I can't picture anyone doing the voice of Yzma other than Eartha Kitt. It just fits her perfectly. And of course Patrick Warburton, who usually plays the dumb oaf is one of the funniest characters as Kronk. Funny story: Disney made Warburton sign the rights away for Kronk's "theme song," something that was ad-libbed by Warburton. Wendie Malick plays Pacha's wife, Chicha, who you may recall from Just Shoot Me!, a show in which she shared the screen with David Spade. And last we have Tom Jones as the Theme Song Guy. The film's team originally wanted Sting to do the opening theme song, but they considered him too old. So they got Tom Jones who is eleven years older than Sting. Good job!

The film opened on December 15th 2000 to mostly glowing reviews. Critics found that the pace and humor overshadowed any minor flaws the movie had. However, Eisner was right that it would turn out like Hercules. The movie only grossed a measly $90 million domestically and another $80 million worldwide. This was well below the standards of the 90's Disney films. In fact, the only films in the rest of the decade would sustain losses for Disney except for Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear. Yikes.

I really can't say enough about why this movie is so great. It's got a good story, a solid funny cast, plenty of sight gags, adult humor, and references everywhere. I can't even tell you what part is my favorite because there are too many to choose from. Most of them involve Krunk, though. Please watch this movie again if you haven't in awhile. You'll be glad you did. And you may have to watch it more than once, just so you don't miss anything. This is probably the most cartoony film you'll see from Disney, as you have all the typical Looney Tunes type antics happening. From delayed falls, to purposeful incongruities, to lack of death, to tons of slapstick, this movie is the closest thing you'll get to a Saturday morning cartoon.

Disney's Dinosaur

I'm sorry, but I would consider this to be the first mediocre movie since the Renaissance era of Disney animation. I have only seen this movie twice and didn't find it that enjoyable to be honest. I'd rather watch Land Before Time any day. Not the million sequels, just the first one. Dinosaur is the second of three movies to come out in 2000, an odd year for Disney. For the most part they've kept their movies a year or two apart, so the fact that three movies found their way onto the screen in one year is astounding. While the plot is mediocre and seems like a ripoff of a certain movie I mentioned earlier, it's still beautifully animated. This was Disney's first completely CGI movie and in terms of animation I think it looks pretty good. Not as good as movies today, mind you, but still pretty good for the time.

This may be a short post since there isn't a lot about this movie and it's not based off of anything. I'll tell you what I can though. Dinosaur was originally going to be a non-speaking film, precisely for the fact that it was too much like Land Before Time. Micheal Eisner would have none of that however and insisted the film have dialogue so it would be more "commercially viable." You can't really blame him. No one wants to watch a bunch of silent dinosaurs trudging through a wasteland for an hour and a half. Direction of the movie changed hands from the Oliver and Company director, George Scribner, to Ralph Zondag. Though Scribner left to be part of Disney Imagineering, most of his story is still intact. The film itself had CGI animation superimposed on real life backgrounds, namely those from Canaima National Park in Venezuela, and Angel Falls. Several ideas were thrown out during production, namely that the voices would not come from moving lips, but instead be voice-overs like in Homeward Bound. They were going to have a shot of the meteor going through space, but that sort of shot was in Armageddon so they got rid of it. Armageddon wasn't the only movie to ruin Dinosaur's fun, as The Lost World depicted the tyrannosaurus as having more a motherly side to it, so having a tyrannosaurus as the main villain was tossed out the window in favor of a Carnoaurus. BORING! Last change was the raptors, who the animators wanted to have feathers around their neck so it would look more like Indians attacking a stagecoach in the scene where the raptors go after the herd. The feathers proved too hard to animate so they were taken out.

Dinosaur was not a cheap film to make. In fact, it was the most expensive movie released in 2000 with a total price tag of $130 million. Disney really needed this to go well. Their gamble paid off, as the film ended up making almost $350 million worldwide. Not only that, but it was not hated by everyone either. Critics gave it generally good reviews, though some critics like Roger Ebert thought they shouldn't have had the dinosaurs talk, as it took away from the realistic effort Disney had put forth. Generally though, the movie was seen as a visual treat and though it seemed like a rehash of Land Before Time, it could stand on its own legs. I haven't seen this movie in a while so maybe I'll give it another chance. I'm sure some of you out there have some fond memories of this movie. And it's not even close to the worst movie of the decade. I'll get to that soon.