I done seen about everything

[austin_dern]

Dumbo's airing again this week, none too soon for me. Classic Disney cartoon movies have a tendency to become a wonderful sequence of set pieces, each lovely, but so loosely plotted that one could chop up the movies (as was done, to make shorts) and reassemble them in nearly any order. Consider Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan, in which the sequence of sketches doesn't matter. Sometimes they grind to a halt; Snow White And The Seven Dwarves is marvelous, but it's all padding with a random jolt an hour in. Modern Disney cartoon movies tend to overplot; Lilo and Stitch for example is a wonderful movie, but it is packed tight. (It's packed to the point of distraction: I keep thinking Cobra Bubbles' assignment as social worker has to be wild good luck, but the movie's otherwise tightly written enough I think it's not supposed to be chance.) Dumbo hits that wonderful sweet spot of being a string of lovely little sketches that still follow in one sensible order, and which don't need any pushing to get through the story.

Pocahontas and Hunchback of Notre Dame also ran recently, and I think I'm getting a better idea of why they ultimately fall apart. Bigotry and racism are essential parts of the plots they try to develop, and the writers don't sympathize with the characters' feelings. The characters sound like ordinary everyday mid-90s people who once a scene drop out of character to talk about savages. So what should be a climactic battle between strong personalities washes out because the characters don't have the conviction of their roles. (Note how much stronger and more interesting Judge Frollo is when he's obsessed with sex than with the other aspects of gypsy life.) And I'm left wondering why the Pocahontas animators couldn't just pick one incorrect flag for the English and stick with that. And show more Meeko.

Trivia: United States Vice-President Garret Augustus Hobart (1844-1899) was known to his friends as ``Gus''. Source: Jerseyana: The Underside of New Jersey History, Marc Mappen.

Currently Reading: Under the Black Flag: Expoits of the Most Notorious Pirates, Don C. Seitz.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Lilo and Stitch is one of my favorite movies ever, so I really hate to point this out -- but according to an interview I read somewhere, the whole Cobra Bubbles-as-ex-CIA thing was thrown in at the last minute because they'd written themselves into a corner and was not part of the original conception of his character. I've just tried and failed to find a reference for that; I may have read it in Animation Magazine.

Pocahontas, for me, is a collection of some very good musical set pieces filled out with the world's dullest plot. I used to be in the habit of just going through and fast-forwarding to the songs. "Colors of the Wind" contains some of the most beautiful animation in the Disney canon; too bad it's stuck in this movie. Also, I can't stand the character of Grandmother Willow, either in concept or execution.

Hunchback may be the Disney movie about which I am the most ambivalent. ("Ambivalent" in the true sense of the word, not in the irritating neo-usage of "don't care either way" -- how do words end up taking on opposite meanings?) The dramatic scenes are often striking, there is some beautiful animation (check out Frollo's horse!), and the "Hellfire" sequence just knocks my socks off. There are some amazingly adult themes in this film. And then there are the gargoyles. I know it's popular to complain about the gargoyles, but it's popular for a reason. Every time things get good, all of a sudden we have to listen to some wisecracking gargoyles. Not only is the clumsy attempt at comic relief unwelcome, but the characters themselves are uninteresting, unlikable, and unfunny. "A Guy Like You" makes me want to burn the negatives. Without those blasted gargoyles, this could have been one of Disney's best.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to have Cobra Bubbles explained then. I thought it might be he was pretending to be ex-CIA while watching the spot where the alien landed ... but given that he's the social worker before Stitch has landed the only way that might happen is if the Galactic Federation called Earth before Stitch landed ... which would make the license scene at the end make no sense and would still not account for the wild stroke of luck that got Stitch to Lilo at all. It's a relief to know that problem can't be solved.

Pocahontas is at its best during the musical segments which, fortunately, fill about 117 of its 83 minute run time. When the camera's on an animal it's doing fine; it's the people who just shouldn't be there.

Hunchback ... I think falls apart. There are good parts to it, and when it fires on all its cylinders -- like the Hellfire sequence -- it's marvelous, but then they try to pretend there's a reason to look at Phoebus. The Gargoyles, yes, are a steady injection of anticomedy at critical moments. The framing device of the bard's singing ``who is the monster and who is the man?'' would work if there were more reason to trust Frollo's humanity and something suggesting Quasimodo as a monster; he's too cute to be repulsive.

I'm also put off by the relentless application of CGI. Sometimes it's the best way to handle an artistic problem, but here (particularly in the crowd scenes, or the swinging bells, or the waterslide ride around the cathedral) it looks like stretching out a little animation, and that never fools my eye. That doesn't really affect the quality of the story, but it does affect the quality of the movie.

[oliver-otter.livejournal.com]

Mostly show more Meeko. And the otters. Lots more otters.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, there's a nifty pair of otters that fly through the water in the ``Colors of the Wind'' song ... I was going to mention them at some point.

I'd also kind of like to know where in eastern Virginia are these 300-foot waterfalls, but that's getting down in the English flag-grade nitpicking ( Pocahontas 2 actually manages to get worse, with a London that may as well include a Tardis and the Millennium Bridge) instead of looking at real problems in story construction, such as that apparently Radcliffe and the colonists have enough time to clear a forest, build a fortress, and get desperate searching for gold in the time it takes John Smith to have one eccentric date. Anything can happen when you're off-camera, though...

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

You know, while watching Pocohontas (With Regina), We both darn near cheered at ever moment of Mekko's adorability on screen. and the rest.. was bland and unexciting. The 'Savages' song to me just felt ridiculously forced, in particular.

I wonder if some of that is, in fact, colored by a Furry Fan perspective.. especially when seeing the movie with someone who plays a raccoon. But I think her comment still stands well:

"That was a great movie about Meeko, but a boring one about Pocohontas."

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't believe it's just furries who'd find Meeko the most interesting part of Pocahontas. He's just the character who does the greatest number of surprising things, or does ordinary things in interesting ways -- look at how he eats hardtack, first by gobbling it up, then scrubbing the crumbs off his face, then picking up the crumbs, then licking his fingers.

To adapt Gene Siskel's standard, of all the characters in that movie, which one would you want to have lunch with? Could you talk to any of the humans for an hour? Granted Meeko wouldn't talk with you, and you wouldn't get much to eat, but you would have an interesting time.