Fantasia 2000 «««½
G, 75m. 1999
Hosted by Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, James Levine and Angela Lansbury.
I haven’t seen the original 1940 Disney classic Fantasia on video in its entirety. I did, however, hear it played several times on the television monitors when I worked for the Blockbuster Video stores in Dallas years ago.
What I remembered and enjoyed most about the film was how it opened with composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s hauntingly effective Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and ended with the solemn choral voices of Franz Peter Schubert’s Ave Maria.
Disney’s latest feature, Fantasia 2000, showed me just how much I had been missing by not watching the original. I not only appreciated hearing the classical music but seeing the animation.
Fantasia 2000 features seven newly animated musical segments from renowned composers performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and one from the 1940 film, Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse, and is surprisingly shorter than its predecessor which ran at exactly two hours. The film is the first Disney production to be shown in the IMAX format in limited release and clocks in at an hour and 15 minutes. The picture, however doesn’t seem that short, nor is it as long as drawn out as the original seemed.
Perhaps part of the reason why this new version is shorter, other than the fact movies seen in the IMAX format don’t normally run over an hour, is maybe Disney didn’t want to risk tuning out as many viewers as they did with the original in decade’s past.
Instead of one host introducing each musical segment like in the original, a number of notable stars and performers that include Steve Martin, James Earl Jones, Bette Midler and Penn and Teller announce various selections.
The segments themselves are like watching animated versions of MTV’s music videos. The most memorable, perhaps the most beautifully animated sequences I have seen in a long time, is composer Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome. We see a couple of whales, presumably a mother and father swimming gracefully in the cold blue arctic waters alongside their child who innocently attempts to imitate their movements. Before long, the number of whales doubles to hundreds as the mammals fly towards the heavens.
The second best is composer Sir Edward Algar’s theme that’s familiar to anyone who has walked across the stage in high school and college graduations even if you don’t know the name of the piece, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4. Instead of graduate students walking in single file, it’s a long line of God’s creatures being escorted by Donald Duck into Noah’s Ark shortly before the great flood.
A few of the images remind us of scenes done in other movies. I thought of the whales, George and Gracie, from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) swimming happily in the 24th century and of the German zeppelin Hindenburg during the Pines of Rome sequences.
Watching chaotic hordes of colored flying triangles during the first sequence of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, I thought of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
That’s not to say what the artists and animators have done here isn’t original. Each segment has its own story to tell that’s wrapped up in three to over 12 minutes depending on the length of the musical pieces.
Other innovative works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody of Blue about the hustle and bustle of New York City life and various citizen’s dreams of being somewhere else. A toy soldier with one wooden leg tries to save a ballerina from an evil Jack-in-the-Box during Dimitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102. A playful flamingo outwits his peers using a yo-yo to the tune of Camille Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals. The film concludes with a tale of life, death and rebirth during composer Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite-1919.
Just as the original Fantasia appealed to most kids only when Mickey Mouse arrived on screen to stir up trouble during The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the same happened during Fantasia 2000. The minute the animated character came on screen again, a couple young ones in the audience shouted “Mickey Mouse!!!” What’s great about the makers mixing this segment in with the new ones is it gives one a chance to compare the animation done in 1940 and today.
There is a scene, however, where Bette Midler explains how some musical sequences didn’t go as planned and were dropped from production. Animators planned one sequence in particular where horses would fly to the tune of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkeries.
The piece was played during a battle sequence in director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now. It is too bad the segment was never fully developed. I would have loved to hear that pulse pounding musical score again booming this time through IMAX’s theatrical stereo system.
What was nice about hearing the original Fantasia played on the TV monitors while working at Blockbuster Video was the classical music which I came to appreciate more every time I heard it. Today, I regret not having bought the soundtrack which like the movie itself is no longer available on video and audio.
Perhaps if Disney ever releases the 1940 classic on DVD in years to come in the widescreen format, I’ll get the same enjoyment watching it on a 32-inch TV screen or larger as I did seeing Fantasia 2000 on the big screen.
©1/16/2000
G, 75m. 1999
Hosted by Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, James Levine and Angela Lansbury.
What I remembered and enjoyed most about the film was how it opened with composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s hauntingly effective Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and ended with the solemn choral voices of Franz Peter Schubert’s Ave Maria.
Disney’s latest feature, Fantasia 2000, showed me just how much I had been missing by not watching the original. I not only appreciated hearing the classical music but seeing the animation.
Fantasia 2000 features seven newly animated musical segments from renowned composers performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and one from the 1940 film, Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, starring Mickey Mouse, and is surprisingly shorter than its predecessor which ran at exactly two hours. The film is the first Disney production to be shown in the IMAX format in limited release and clocks in at an hour and 15 minutes. The picture, however doesn’t seem that short, nor is it as long as drawn out as the original seemed.
Perhaps part of the reason why this new version is shorter, other than the fact movies seen in the IMAX format don’t normally run over an hour, is maybe Disney didn’t want to risk tuning out as many viewers as they did with the original in decade’s past.
Instead of one host introducing each musical segment like in the original, a number of notable stars and performers that include Steve Martin, James Earl Jones, Bette Midler and Penn and Teller announce various selections.
The segments themselves are like watching animated versions of MTV’s music videos. The most memorable, perhaps the most beautifully animated sequences I have seen in a long time, is composer Ottorino Respighi’s Pines of Rome. We see a couple of whales, presumably a mother and father swimming gracefully in the cold blue arctic waters alongside their child who innocently attempts to imitate their movements. Before long, the number of whales doubles to hundreds as the mammals fly towards the heavens.
The second best is composer Sir Edward Algar’s theme that’s familiar to anyone who has walked across the stage in high school and college graduations even if you don’t know the name of the piece, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4. Instead of graduate students walking in single file, it’s a long line of God’s creatures being escorted by Donald Duck into Noah’s Ark shortly before the great flood.
A few of the images remind us of scenes done in other movies. I thought of the whales, George and Gracie, from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) swimming happily in the 24th century and of the German zeppelin Hindenburg during the Pines of Rome sequences.
Watching chaotic hordes of colored flying triangles during the first sequence of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, I thought of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
That’s not to say what the artists and animators have done here isn’t original. Each segment has its own story to tell that’s wrapped up in three to over 12 minutes depending on the length of the musical pieces.
Other innovative works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody of Blue about the hustle and bustle of New York City life and various citizen’s dreams of being somewhere else. A toy soldier with one wooden leg tries to save a ballerina from an evil Jack-in-the-Box during Dimitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102. A playful flamingo outwits his peers using a yo-yo to the tune of Camille Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals. The film concludes with a tale of life, death and rebirth during composer Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite-1919.
Just as the original Fantasia appealed to most kids only when Mickey Mouse arrived on screen to stir up trouble during The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the same happened during Fantasia 2000. The minute the animated character came on screen again, a couple young ones in the audience shouted “Mickey Mouse!!!” What’s great about the makers mixing this segment in with the new ones is it gives one a chance to compare the animation done in 1940 and today.
There is a scene, however, where Bette Midler explains how some musical sequences didn’t go as planned and were dropped from production. Animators planned one sequence in particular where horses would fly to the tune of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkeries.
The piece was played during a battle sequence in director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam epic, Apocalypse Now. It is too bad the segment was never fully developed. I would have loved to hear that pulse pounding musical score again booming this time through IMAX’s theatrical stereo system.
What was nice about hearing the original Fantasia played on the TV monitors while working at Blockbuster Video was the classical music which I came to appreciate more every time I heard it. Today, I regret not having bought the soundtrack which like the movie itself is no longer available on video and audio.
Perhaps if Disney ever releases the 1940 classic on DVD in years to come in the widescreen format, I’ll get the same enjoyment watching it on a 32-inch TV screen or larger as I did seeing Fantasia 2000 on the big screen.
©1/16/2000
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