Fantasia 2000

After the worldwide praise that was given to “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the first full-length animated movie, Walt Disney’s imagination flew. Roger Ebert noted, “He had been assured by no less than the great Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein that "Snow White" was the greatest film ever made, and he saw no boundaries for the infant art of feature animation. In 1940 Disney produced "Fantasia," a marriage of animation and classical music, and insisted it be shown only in his new process Fantasound, which used an assembly of 64 speakers that gave audiences their first experience of what is now familiar as "surround sound." The experiment was a disaster. Most exhibitors refused to install the speakers. Audiences, distracted by the gathering clouds of World War II, were not in a fanciful mood. And critics who praised Disney's earlier effort as art, now slapped him down to earth again, accusing him of being too pretentious. The critic Ernest Rister writes that Disney was personally embittered by the reception given his brainchild and determined to stick to more commercial projects in the future. He remained fascinated by technical innovations (Rister points out that Disney shot the TV show "Davy Crockett" in color even when TV was all black and white because he knew color was inevitable). But after "Fantasia," he never again crawled out so far on an artistic limb. His original plan for "Fantasia" was to constantly renew the film, adding fresh segments, warehousing old ones, showing it in Fantasound as a sort of classical repertory for moviegoers.” Then was “Fantasia 2000,” released in 1999, produced by Disney’s nephew Roy, to continue that story more than 30 years after Walt’s death. Walt the player, who made sound systems and movie cameras and got personally involved in making the sights and sounds of the attractions at Disneyland, would have loved his nephew’s bravery in making the film in the IMAX high-resolution, giant-screen process.

IMAX has way more than Walt’s 64 speakers and a five-story screen that exactly covers the audience in the experience. Ebert noted, “Mind-expanding audiences in 1968 went to the revival of "Fantasia" and sat in the front row (or even stretched out on the floor in front of the screen). Now the whole audience gets the same total immersion, in the images and the music by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by James Levine. Movies like this renew my faith that the future of the cinema lies not in the compromises of digital projection, but by leaping over the limitations of digital into the next generation of film technology.”

“Fantasia 2000” as a film is not the same of the original “Fantasia,” maybe because it targets a little lower, for wider demand. Some of the animation is powerful, including a closing part with a theme of environmental healing. Ebert mentioned, “Other sections, including the opening abstraction of abstract triangles, dancing to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, seem a little pedestrian. Computer-animated experiments such as those shown on "The Mind's Eye" videos are more daring than anything in "Fantasia/2000."” Still, as exactly what it is, “Fantasia 2000” is fine entertainment, and the IMAX system is an incredible co-star. Ebert said, “My favorite sequence is the closing one, in which Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" is illustrated by a blasted landscape that slowly renews itself. I also admired animator Eric Goldberg's interlocking New York stories that accompanied Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." The artistic inspiration for this section is said to be the great caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, but, curiously, I thought the style owed more to Ludwig Bemelmans and his "Madeleine" drawings.” Definitely it has a different look than anything previously made by the Disney studios, which has always mastered the “clear line” style.

Ebert mentioned, “One section suited to the towering IMAX screen is Ottorino Respighi's "The Pines of Rome," illustrated by Hendel Butoy as a fantasy involving whales who gambol in the sea, in the sky and eventually even in space. One effective sequence shows them moving through vast underwater ice caverns; I was reminded of the IMAX film "Antarctica," with its footage of scuba divers inside glacial caverns.”

Ebert goes on to say, “Butoy's animation in the segment devoted to Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 plays wonderfully as a self-contained film. Based on Hans Christian Andersen's fable "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," it's a three-way struggle in which a broken toy soldier with only one leg falls in love with a toy ballerina and protects her from a jack-in-the-box with evil designs.”

Mickey Mouse’s famous “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” story, everyone’s favorite from the 1940 film, is the only part revived here. Even though it’s been carefully repaired and focused to a “degraining” process to help it look better in IMAX, it’s not as visually great as the rest of the film. That’s not a criticism of the source material but a show of how incredibly detailed the IMAX movie is. The previous film gives a retro look appropriate to a segment almost 60 years old, and then Mickey’s best friend Donald Duck jumps onscreen in the next segment, helping Noah on his ark to Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” Ebert noted, “One animal missed by Noah turns up in Goldberg's animation for Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals." It's a yo-yo-ing flamingo.”

The cartoons are separated by guest hosts whose involvements seem somewhat difficult. We see Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Itzhak Perlman, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, Quincy Jones and Penn & Teller. The original film used Deems Taylor, a famous radio commentator, to add an important and a little ironic tone. The new approach guesses an audience that needs a laugh break after each tiring attack into the scholar.

IMAX films are usually shortened to 45 minutes because of the huge size of the film reels. Ebert noted, “(the projection booth looks like the Starship Enterprise). Only "Fantasia/2000" and the Rolling Stones documentary "At the Max" have exceeded that length.” “Fantasy 2000” played in IMAX until April of 1999, was released in 35mm that summer, and of course went to home video. However, IMAX was the way to see it – not just as a film, but as an event.

Seeing how this film was another sequel that was theatrically released and not direct-to-video, I would say check this film out, especially if you loved “Fantasia.” I know that it’s not as good as “Fantasia,” but it’s still a good film that you will feel happy checking out.

Tomorrow I will be looking at a Disney character that had a theatrical movie about him and his son which got a direct-to-video sequel. Stay tuned to find out what I thought about it.