Being a hardcord “Fantasia” junkie (by the time I was in Jr. High, I had read entire books about how it was made), I remember being decidedly underwhelmed by “Fantasia 2000” when it was released (though I did like the “Rhapsody in Blue” sequence… it was definitely the sequence that stuck with me most from the sequel. I’m still going to pick this up on BluRay, though as I am an animation junkie and it should look pretty cool (and Costco has a coupon).

Also: my favorite Greydanus line of the week, “Did we really need an origin story for flying whales?”, reminds me of a comment John Landis makes on the extended “Blues Brothers” commentary track: in order to explain the car’s remarkable abilities, Dan Ackroyd had written entire scenes where Elwood Blues parks the Bluesmobile next to an old electrical power station (which is how the car gets the ability to fly, apparently). Utlimately Landis cut those scenes from the final theatrical cut telling Ackroyd: “We don’t need any explanation for why it can fly: it’s a magic car!”

The inspired dancing mushroom sequence deserves to be called out from the Nutcracker Suite and given individual attention. All those Chinese mushrooms bowing to each other in formal ballroom formations, and that little one that keeps getting out of line…hilarious. The original could get more humor and charm out of mushrooms, for crying out loud, then the sequel could out of a whole flock of bright pink flamingoes.

I admit that the dancing mushroom sequence SEEMS impressive, but only until you realize that the Disney animators were just rotoscoping from footage of real mushrooms dancing.

Pachyderminator: The mushrooms get an individual shout-out in my full review of Fantasia. :-)
 
Victor: Actually, that’s a common misconception. For rotoscoping purposes, the dancing flowers stood in for the mushrooms. The animators used the movements, but the anatomy had to be completely redrawn. It was much more involved than many people think.

The chief effect of this article is to make me want to watch both of these again as soon as possible, though I don’t have the time at the present (rather late) hour.  Still, a couple of things:

1. This marks another instance of you unfavourably commenting upon The Lion King.  Fine, I guess - we’ll always differ on that, it seems - but I would really love a formal review so that I’d at least have specific points to attempt to rebut.  You know you want to, anyway; what better way to live up to the spirit of Advent than by giving some guy on the internet reasons to argue with you?

2.I also seem to hold Fantasia 2000 in somewhat higher esteem than you do, though I freely concede every one of your criticisms of it.  The flamingo sequence really is atrocious, and the excessive narrativization of certain sequences does prove distracting.  Still, I think there’s much there to admire even in the sequences that aren’t up to the sweeping, aimlessly epic standards of the original.  Had “the concert feature” really evolved as it was intended, I have no doubt whatever that we might have seen things like the Gershwin or Shostakovich sequences added without any reservations at all even in the 1940s; their inclusion, that is, is not just the mark of some deficiency in our own age.  The “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence suffers from the same problems, being too heavily focused on a cutesy story involving one of Disney’s mainstream characters (I must confess that I’ve never enjoyed it for those very reasons), but it remains deservedly iconic of the whole experience.

3. The lack of any mention of the “Rites of Spring” sequence in the original Fantasia perplexes me.  It’s at least as daring as the Chernobog sequence, and somewhat longer to boot.  It also marks the only composer carryover (Stravinsky) from the original to the sequel that I can recall, and it’s worth noting, in light of that, that the two sequences’ respective perspectives on Judeo-Christian etceterania are equally limited.  The “Rites of Spring” sequence fairly wallows in its materialist creation narrative, and wrings a great deal of deserved pathos out of the ultimate futility of the Great Race that were the dinosaurs.  The first time I saw that long, sad line of them marching off into the desert wastes was a moment of high existential significance for me, and it has never yet entirely receded.

4. That said, although the Princess Mononoke vibe of the “Firebird Suite” section is incredibly distinct, I think there’s much there that’s not exactly pagan, per se, but rather simply mythological in the way that something like certain Arthurian or Heliandy or Middle-Earthy things are.  The Great Stag has at times been a useful natural imagistic stand-in for either Jesus or the Father, and the fact that he (the Stag) brings the world to life with his breath in the sequence - even after it is seemingly destroyed in fire (he, conspicuously, does NOT perish) - is hardly insignificant.  The woodland spirit relies wholly upon the Stag for her existence and initial agency - almost as if she, uh, proceeds from him.

Anyway, I’m mostly just glad to see these films fall under your judicious and attentive eye.  Thanks for the article!

Which is to say, the “Rite of Spring” sequence.  Somehow I’m never able to remember that singular over the assumed plural.

@Nick Milne:
 

“The chief effect of this article is to make me want to watch both of these again as soon as possible, though I don’t have the time at the present (rather late) hour.”

 
That’s awesome. Thanks for that.
 

“This marks another instance of you unfavourably commenting upon The Lion King.”

 
[wahlberg]What? No![/wahlberg] This time I’m saying something nice about The Lion King! I’ve always been a big fan of the Lion King prologue. The first time I saw it, as a trailer to the film, my first reaction was “Wow,” and my second reaction was a sinking feeling that the rest of the film was highly unlikely to live up to that prologue. Watching the film for the first time was mostly that sinking feeling extended to feature length.
 
But the prologue remains amazing. It’s a better example of following in Fantasia‘s footsteps than practically anything in F2K. You could practically drop it anywhere into F2K and it would be a better film.
 

“Had ‘the concert feature’ really evolved as it was intended, I have no doubt whatever that we might have seen things like the Gershwin or Shostakovich sequences added without any reservations at all even in the 1940s; their inclusion, that is, is not just the mark of some deficiency in our own age.

 
I agree, in principle. And in the 1940s or even the 1950s you could have gotten away with it. The problem is that the film was left alone for 60 years, and became a classic. Doing renovations on the Sistine Chapel (or building a new wing, say) is one thing in the 16th century; at the turn of the 21st century it’s something quite different. Your responsibility as a curator looms larger over time, and your obligation to try to match the original limits your ability to depart in radically different directions.
 

“The lack of any mention of the ‘Rites of Spring’ sequence in the original Fantasia perplexes me.”

 
It’s not significant—especially. I talked about “The Rite of Spring” in my full review of the original; this piece is more about F2K, and pieces from the original tend to come in as points of comparison/contrast. “The Rite of Spring” isn’t one of my favorite sequences from the original, though. I didn’t mean to subconsciously diss it here. I appreciate your comments on it.
 

“That said, although the Princess Mononoke vibe of the “Firebird Suite” section is incredibly distinct, I think there’s much there that’s not exactly pagan, per se, but rather simply mythological in the way that something like certain Arthurian or Heliandy or Middle-Earthy things are.”

 
I think it’s hard to avoid considering the Spring Sprite a goddess and the Firebird a god, and perhaps even the Stag a god, as you seem to suggest. That makes it pagan (i.e., polytheistic). (“Nutcracker Suite” gets away with not being pagan because fairies are too small to be gods.) That doesn’t make it bad; with Lewis I consider paganism to be eminently receptive to Christianity. Paganism at its best is human religious imagination at its best. Spirited Away, one of my all-time favorite films, is a work of pagan imagination. So is Homer. Again, good thoughts re. the Sprite and the Stag.

I think both more and less highly of the films than most who have commented. More highly, in that I find the original Fntasia to be a little unbearable at it’s length and meandering non-narrativeness. The Rite of Spring and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony both drag on far too long, without ever making the viewer care. I don’t blame people for not supporting Disney’s original vision when that involves a two and a half hour exhibition of artistical self-gratification: sure, they do that at classical concerts, too, and that’s a significant reason more people don’t attend classical concerts. There’s only so much Impressionism you can put up with before it gets old.

Oddly, no one seems to mention Fantasia 2000’s biggest weaknesses:

(1) Its target audience. While the original targeted adults, there isn’t a single moment where the sequel doesn’t remind you that it’s targeting children. The skits between musical pieces are insulting; the Steve Martin bit is especially painful since I LIKE Steve Martin. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is whittled down to it’s first movement only, which is appalling in light of the fact that, unlike the Pastoral, it actually holds up under its own weight for four movements. I LIKED the dancing pink flamingoes and the Rhapsody in Blue, but I admit I might have liked them more thad they been used to punctuate higher-minded pieces, rather than thrown in with a buck of other shorts target the 50-IQ demographic.

(2) At only about an hour, it’s too short. Long enough to fill all the music onto one CD, though: marketing was undoubtedly pleased.

Great review and very interesting comments on the Fantasias. On the original I loved the ‘Hall of the Mountain King’. To see it again I inadvertantly bought the newer Fantasia. It’s Photoshop world of artificial colors and dark brooding scenes struck me as evil. I didn’t finish it. However I kept my eye opened for the original which I now own.

@Jack Perry: Many people feel the same as you about Fantasia‘s length. The only piece I where I sometimes feel the length wearing on me is “The Rite of Spring.” I totally disagree about the “Pastoral Symphony”; I love every frame and wouldn’t part with any of it!
 
Of course I don’t blame 1940s audiences or anyone else for not sharing my passion—what would be the point?—and it’s true that the audience for classical concerts is limited. But Fantasia is an absolutely unique concert experience—there is nothing like it—and I’m deeply grateful that Disney had the audacity to shoot for the moon in this way.
 
@Daniel J. LaBelle: Thanks for your kind comments! Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King” doesn’t appear on either Fantasia. It’s common in movie trailers and has been used in a few films, but I can’t think of a film that animates it. Are you thinking of another piece from Fantasia?

This is without a doubt the best online discusson of “Fantasia” (and I don’t mean Barrino), that I’ve ever read. I always confuse “Hall of the Mountain King” and “Night on Bald Mountain” in my own mind, so perhaps that’s a common confusion, too. Always a good piece, though. The most recent cultural application of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” was on this past Monday’s episode of “Chuck” in a particularly good sequence.

Hi SDG,

I wrote a bit about these two on A&F, but didn’t get much into the original then. I could say lots about either but I like the focus on the new movie, which I appreciate a great deal.

You don’t discuss the music itself much here, apart from the abstract/program music distinction. The music is one of the two lungs from which both movies breathe, I think, and ironically when many people dislike either movies they do so because they like the music so much they can’t like the animation. In ‘40, the New York Herald-Tribune called Fantasia a “Nazi” work and said it foreshadowed “the collapse of the civilized world”. The NY Times said going a second time would be “masochistic”. The sequence with Beethoven’s Pastoral was the focus of much ire, because Beethoven’s music was thought of as almost sacred, and the cartoons were violating a sacred trust.

I lean towards a lighter version of this for the Dance of the Hours sequence. The dancing hippos and alligators are pretty idiotic and really subtract from the music.

Ironically, some people now view the original movie as… not sacred, but as high art… and use that to critique the new movie. Oppositionally, I’d note that your comment about including the opening of The Lion King in F2K as an improvement is way off. Elton John is so wrong for Fantasia, so very, very wrong.

The sequences where either movie goes wrong are (a) where one simply doesn’t like the music, (b) one simply doesn’t like the animation, or (c) one likes each individually but doesn’t like their combination.

Night on Bald Mountain is an example of (a) for me, that’s just a personal thing but I just don’t like that piece of music at all. Examples of (b) are the Ave Maria sequence in the original and the Saint-Saens in the new. The Beethoven that opens F2K is the clearest example of (c) to me. That animation would work great in its own right, but does not belong to that music in my and many others’ opinions. It’s “too dinky” (as Walt said of famed abstract animator Oskar Fischinger, who was brought in to work the Bach Toccata and Fugue, but then fired soo after).

On the other hand, one can flip those three reasons on their heads, and like a sequence for having great music, great animation, or a great combination. I guess (c) is the ultimate success.

E.g. of (a): I love the sequence in F2K on the Tin Soldier because I love the Shostakovich (and I absolutely drink in Yefim Bronfman’s piano performance in F2K, it’s SO GOOD). The animation is pretty cool, but mostly just doesn’t get in the way. I could watch/listen to the part as the Tin Soldier drifts down the pipe to splash into the sea and be eaten by the fish over and over and over. Heh, I just stopped writing and went to YouTube. :)

E.g. of (c): The Rhapsody in Blue sequence in F2K. I will never listen to the Rhapsody in Blue the same way again, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. The animation is immune to the “dinky” charge because it moves so fluidly and rhythmically, and is of a historical piece with Gershwin’s jazziness. No matter how my opinion of the story being told in that sequence changes, my opinion of the animation/music fusion is that it is superb.

Ultimately, I think that the original is unsurprisingly better because Disney was making better art at that time than it was in ‘99/‘00. But F2K really is surprisingly good. Last thought: Hendel Butoy, director of Pines of Rome and Shostakovich Piano Concerto sequences, was also co-director of “Rescuers Down Under”, which included that marvelous opening sequence with the boy and the giant eagle. There was so much promise in that sequence, and I feel like that promise was being realized better (but not perfectly) in his sequences of F2K.

P.S. I have nothing to add to your analysis of the pagan-ness of the Firebird Suite, well done.

P.P.S. I still remember being 6-7 and my parents turning off the original Fantasia on VHS because the Rite of Spring was “not what we believe” re: evolution. They came around eventually and let us watch. There’s a certain parallel between the Stravinsky selections in each Fantasia—great, very challenging music, paired with animation on a controversial theme that complements the music well.

Elton John is so wrong for Fantasia, so very, very wrong.

 
I think I admire the Lion King opening sequence as much as SDG, but I have to agree with this.

Wow, sorry about the lack of white space in that comment. I tried to put a blank line between each paragraph, but it didn’t show up.

Testing…

David S, thanks for your thoughtful remarks. I agree that the music is as crucial as the pictures. I tend to focus on the pictures because I’m a visual thinker, and because it’s the visual interpretation of the music that interests me and grabs my critical attention.
 
As you point out, the all-classical program of the original makes it difficult 60 years after the fact to add non-classical pieces. I agree that there should be a place in a repertory fantasia for jazz, but “Rhapsody in Blue” is still a little jarring to me, only because there’s no precedent except the original Fantasia.
 
I can also see where the Lion King prologue could be even more jarring in the absence of other precedent, but if the original idea for Fantasia had gone off and there was more precedent for other kinds of music, then I think there would be a place for Elton John, and I would still prefer the Lion King prologue as an entry in a modern-day Fantasia to most of the existing sequences.
 
“Too dinky” is exactly what I was trying to get at in my comments about Fantasia as Sistine Chapel and Hirschfeld not belonging in the Sistine Chapel, etc. Even if you like the “Rhapsody in Blue” piece, I’m confident that Disney would have leveled the “too dinky” charge at most of F2K.
 
P.S. Yes, the combox engine here at NCReg is white-space unfriendly. You have to go above and beyond.

SDG, a couple of side notes:
 
1. This essay ought to be up on Decent Films.
 
2. I appreciate the bolding people’s names in replying; it does make it easier to take in the outline of a post at a glance.

@SDG:

Thanks for the reply.  I had taken your reference to the opening sequence of TLK to be generally disparaging, or at least frustrated, so I beg your pardon for having misunderstood it in that way.  I regret that I cannot watch that sequence without quite literally shedding a tear, frankly (I say this as an otherwise jaded 25-year-old male), given how beautifully it depicts kingship in general and obeisance in particular, so perhaps my excessive sensitivity on that score was leading to an inaccurate understanding of your perspective.

As for Fantasia itself, I don’t necessarily agree that there’s any obligation to “match the original”, particularly.  The original is the Fantasia that the 1930s and 40s occasioned; the sequel is the Fantasia that the 1990s and 2000s occasioned.  It comes as no surprise that music thought to be a novelty in the early years of the century (Elgar, Gershwin) should now be thought of as “classical,” and the fact that the later film’s animation and structure adheres to more modern trends is hardly astounding.  I prefer the older fashion, personally, but new is not irritating.

Fair enough on the omission of “Rite of Spring,” and on your characterization of the polytheistic element of the “Firebird Suite” sequence.

Finally, have you seen the “Claire de Lune” sequence that was cut from the original Fantasia?  It’s quite peaceful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcpamvLB2JU

@Pachyderminator: It’s coming. I have a bit more to write first.
 
@Nick: Let me put it this way. Fantasia seems to me, so to speak, harmonious in a way that F2K doesn’t. The pieces in the original mesh together; there are differing animation styles, as there are differing musical styles, but it’s all classical and it all works together. It also feels to me like the animators are really going above and beyond to deliver the most amazing work possible. I don’t get that from “Rhapsody in Blue.” It doesn’t mesh for me. That’s just me.
 
I have started to watch “Claire de Lune” a number of times but never when I had time to finish it. Thanks for pointing it out again.

Fascinating commentary guys - keep it up!

Disappointed you didn’t like the toy soldier sketch - our favorite of the new film.  I love the full story narratives.  Still my young family’s #1-2 is Beethoven’s Pastoral and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Admittedly, the reasoning may be a bit shallow: pegasus unicorns > faeries > ballerinas > cute mouse > anything else.

The introductions in 2000 are pretty annoying, agreed.

@FILIUSDEXTRIS:
 

“Disappointed you didn’t like the toy soldier sketch - our favorite of the new film.”

 
Hm. I’m not sure I don’t like the toy soldier piece ... it just feels, well, “too dinky” for Fantasia, to me at least. (I see I did call it “imitation Pixar,” which doesn’t sound too flattering, but it’s not necessarily a diss, either. I was mostly getting at the idea that it feels intimate and small rather than grand and sweeping.)
 

“Still my young family’s #1-2 is Beethoven’s Pastoral and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. Admittedly, the reasoning may be a bit shallow: pegasus unicorns > faeries > ballerinas > cute mouse > anything else.”

 
Brilliant! I agree almost completely, at least as regards the items named (not necessarily the “anything else”). Only switch “ballerinas” and “cute mouse” and I’m there.

Article now posted at Decent Films—with product notes.

@SDG

” ‘Too dinky’ is exactly what I was trying to get at in my comments about Fantasia as Sistine Chapel and Hirschfeld not belonging in the Sistine Chapel, etc. Even if you like the “Rhapsody in Blue” piece, I’m confident that Disney would have leveled the “too dinky” charge at most of F2K.”

I thought you might like that phrase.

Since my basic artistic reference point is always music, I tend to measure animation artistry as much, or even more, by the fluidity of its movement, its rhythmic-ness and the strength of its “beats”, and its integration with sound and music. That’s not necessarily the best metric, but it’s worth keeping in mind. I don’t fault the line drawings in the Gershwin sequence because they actually are better suited, in some ways, to animation than more painterly styles!

“@Nick: Let me put it this way. Fantasia seems to me, so to speak, harmonious in a way that F2K doesn’t. The pieces in the original mesh together; there are differing animation styles, as there are differing musical styles, but it’s all classical and it all works together.”

You’ve given me a lot to think about with this comment. Frankly, it’s been a while since I watched either movie all the way through in its integrity, rather than plucking out the segments. Maybe I’ll go back and do so, ‘twould be an interesting experiment.

“I thought you might like that phrase.”

 
I do! I like it so much I may have to revise my essay to account for it.
 

“You’ve given me a lot to think about with this comment. “

 
It was the word “harmonious” that did it, wasn’t it? (Since your basic artistic reference point is always music!)

Yup, it was the word “harmonious”. :)

FYI, the “too dinky” quote comes from Michael Barrier’s “Hollywood Cartoons”, so if you quote it give the man credit where credit’s due.

I thought the “Yo-yo Flamingo” sequence was delightful!  I really don’t get why you think it’s so awful. Far from it in my opinion.  Also, I really like the Noah’s Ark one as well!

My mother brought me to see Fantasia (the original) once when it was re-released to theaters.  I found the film very depressing. No chance on me buying this DVD.

Lmao at the rotoscoped mushrooms bit =D

I personally liked the Rhapsody in Blue segment from the new Fantasia, and I disagree with the idea that it doesn’t fit the Fantasia theme. I don’t see it as a throwback to Hirschfeld as much as a throwback to Fred Moore’s style of animation, particularly the “All the Cats Join In” segment from “Make Mine Music” so it’s about animation history as much as being a modern drawing style to suit a modern orchestral piece.

Also, I’d like to call attention to the title Fantasia as being one of the great movie titles. It’s like when a composer does a fantasia on a theme by J.S. Bach or some older composition, where they rework the original musical theme into a new composition. In jazz you’d call it riffing on the theme. Well the animators were riffing visually on the classical themes they were interpreting, so the name Fantasia really works. It’s not just some fun made up Disney word like imagineering or plussing it.

Although Return of the Jedi still holds the honor of best movie title in my opinion…

I don’t see it as a throwback to Hirschfeld as much as a throwback to Fred Moore’s style of animation, particularly the “All the Cats Join In” segment from “Make Mine Music” so it’s about animation history as much as being a modern drawing style to suit a modern orchestral piece.

 
Which would be fine if Make Mine Music wasn’t boring as heck.

This marks another instance of you unfavorably commenting upon The Lion King.  Fine, I guess - we’ll always differ on that, it seems - but I would really love a formal review so that I’d at least have specific points to attempt to rebut.  You know you want to, anyway; what better way to live up to the spirit of Advent than by giving some guy on the internet reasons to argue with you?