Parents deal with a great amount of pain that you might think when they watch their children grow up to become adults, leading their own lives without the need to depend on their parents anymore. The outlook of anybody raising children begins innocently enough. They expect the time between birth and graduation will not fly so quickly, and they won’t feel the pain as much when it is time for them to live on their own. However, quicker than they expect, infants crawling in the living room are starting school, getting jobs, handling responsibilities before they, inevitably, move out of home. Those who love their children so much will feel this way regardless of how long childhood years seem to last.
“An Extremely Goofy Movie,” the 2000 direct-to-video sequel, shows Goofy’s (Bill Farmer) son, Max (Jason Marsden), going off on one of life’s final destinations to the journey of being a man: college (David Keyes mentioned, “an interesting approach, in a way, since the character was but a few years old and still believing in Santa Claus in “Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas” from last year”). Goofy falls into deep sadness since the one who he always yearned to be with has moved into one of the campus’s dorms. He gets sidetracked at his job at a local toy assembly line, and breaks the machine, which is the reason why he is let go. Then the employment agency says that he cannot get another job until he gets a college degree. Good news for him: he will be going to the same college Max is attending.
Keyes said, “Unfortunately, this situation is like flies in the buttermilk for Max, who wanted to go to college, in the first place, to get away from his father (not because he didn’t like him; just because he was tired of being treated like a kid).” How will Goofy and Max deal with living and working together at the same college? Easy: they must realize, obviously, that they are now living two completely different lives. They cannot be father and son. They have to be schoolmates.
Keyes admitted, “The arc is not terribly involved, but it provides an amusing dose of comedic twists either way, sometimes involving one goof or both at the same time.” How do you set aside your father/son relationship, for example, when Goofy is forcing Max and his friends (Rob Paulsen and Pauly Shore) to clean up their dorm rooms? Keyes asks, “And how do you avoid being a son when your father sits next to you in class and starts abundantly discussing your personal relations?” Embarrassment has been told to bring the biggest laughs in movies, and Max gets enough of that to survive two more “Goofy Movie” sequels.
However, the plot is really busy than its idea realizes. The idea of father and son trying to put their relations aside would not completely hold a film at the running time of 76 minutes. Naturally, the laughs are given something to do on the side. For example, Max and his best friends are in a contest against the infamous Gamma fraternity (Jeff Bennett and Brad Garret) for the trophy of the X Games, a popular skating event. However, the more funny side story tells of Goofy, a completely clumsy character, falls in love for the college’s own librarian, voiced by Bebe Neuwirth.
Keyes is right when he says, “Very few direct-to-video sequels work, but “An Extremely Goofy Movie” is, thankfully, an exception to this rule. This could be, in fact, linked to the notion that the sequel does not have high standards to live up to.” The first “Goofy Movie,” which was funny, wasn’t really a “Lion King” or “Beauty and the Beast” at the box office. Also, the animation was not up to the quality of Disney’s larger animated movies. Keyes said, “The direct-to-video sequel is executed with the same conviction as its predecessor, and, therefore, does not represent a decline in quality.”
Don’t forget the belief: the film is really funny, but not in a thoughtful or difficult way. The comedic material is completely a surface covered to help engage the plot, if it should go dry or overdone at any time for the audience. We laugh a lot, but many small Disney cartoons, like the first “Goofy Movie,” are not made to simply give the viewer a huge laugh. There are more realistic issues at the core: father/son relationships, dealing with growing up, putting everything into your grades even if it has to interfere with less-important issues, and learning to respect other’s privacy.
When it comes to cartoons, “An Extremely Goofy movie” says that sometimes, which is true, less is more.
For the major summer release of 2000, Walt Disney Pictures released this movie, the second film of the month that year to be set in prehistoric times. John R. McEwen said in his review, “Unlike The Flintsones In Viva Rock Vegas, however, this one is a straight dinosaur story, sans hard-hatted working stiffs, created through a fortuitous marriage of what paleontology geeks know and what computer geeks can do.”As you would expect, it is visually outstanding, using computer animation to join realistic-looking prehistoric dinosaurs in previously shot real-life backgrounds for an astoundingly natural look. Keeping with the usual Disney format, and in little conflict with is high-real look, the main characters of “Dinosaur” talk and interact with each other, leaving the unavoidable life lessons from their journeys together. It is a great experience, visually. On the story side, it’s a little thin.
The most surprising thing to me about the story of Dinosaur, which was written by Thom Enriquez, Walon Green, Ralph Zondag, and several other co-writers, and directed by Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag, are the number of striking similarities it bears to the 1988 Don Bluth cartoon The Land Before Time. I guess, to be fair, that our knowledge of the daily lives of dinosaurs and their problems would limit the number of possible storylines (after you've covered droughts, predators, and natural disasters, there isn't much else to talk about), but I would think the creators of Land would be slightly miffed at the surprising similarity of this story, especially since Bluth and Disney are competitors. But plagiarism issues aside, there are also a number of logical errors which, I think, even children might find hard to swallow. Technique triumphs over content once again.
During an awe-inspiring opening scene where we follow a stolen egg in its travel far from the nest, we are introduced to the animation-against-filmed-background technique McEwen mentioned above. The egg is dropped off into the midst of a family of lemurs, who, after the egg hatches, must decide what do to with it. “Things like that grow up to eat things like us,” says Yar, the father, voiced by Ossie Davis. However, cuteness takes over, and the lemurs adopt the creature and raise him as one of their own. By the time he reaches young adulthood, Aladar (D.B. Sweeney), who, judging from his teeth, turns out to be a herbivore, is as much a family member to Yar and Plio (Alfre Woodard) as their own lemur children, Zini (Max Casella) and Suri (the hot Hayden Panettiere). Their peaceful lifestyle is brought to a sudden end, however, when a meteor strike decreases their tropical paradise to a barren wasteland (this part, by the way, is another incredible use of animation). Soon they must begin the long, hot journey across the desert, searching for more hospitable “mating grounds.”
McEwen mentioned, “Anyone who has seen 1988's Land will not fail to notice the similarity of the storyline: Meek, friendly dino leads inter-species group across desert against overwhelming odds, dodging carnivorous attacks and other hardships, in search of fertile, green pastures and water.” However, there are also some things that don’t make much sense. The creatures are dying of thirst and craving for water, but when it finally rains, they don’t cheer and open their mouths towards the skies, they find shelter in a cave where they can stay warm and dry. Then, after this heavy rainstorm ends, they are suddenly traveling through the dry, hot desert again, begging for water. Also, strangely, the matter of food is never mentioned. They thirst, and eventually they drink, but no dinosaur in the film ever talks about hunger or is seen eating (except the meat-eaters, who do not speak).
McEwen said, “Added to these and other lapses in logic, there are the traditional Disney plot elements: the inter-species fraternization, the protagonist's seemingly unattainable love interest (Julianna Margulies), the theme that hope triumphs over adversity, etc.” Everything’s pretty standard. Without the amazing animation (and the powerful musical score by James Newton Howard, which also deserves credit), “Dinosaur” would be a pretty unremarkable try, still, resting only on those factors it doesn’t do so horribly.
If you want to check this movie out, you may, but I leave the choice up to you. Despite the look of how amazing the film looks, the story is not really engaging, I’m sorry to say.
Check in tomorrow in "Disney Sequel Month," where we look at a sequel to a beloved movie that was complete garbage.
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