FernGully: The Last Rainforest

For this month, I will be looking at animated movies that focused on saving the environment. I know that I have reviewed some of the movies that focused on saving the environment, like “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” “Pocahontas,” “Princess Mononoke,” and “Dances with Wolves.” Also, I know that those movies weren’t the first ones who had the message of saving the environment, as there are a plethora of those movies out there, but there are a few that I wanted to go over this month. Let’s get started with the 1992 animated musical, “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.”

“FernGully: The Last Rainforest” continues the fiction, so encouraging at times, that the evilest animal is Man. The story involves the rain forest being destroyed by the deforestation people, and its defense by the nymphs and fairies of the forest. Roger Ebert said in his review, “I am in favor of saving the rain forests and I am appalled by their wanton destruction, but is it not true that Man is the only animal to which it has ever occurred that murder is wrong?” Nature is the least romantic of creations. It is shown most accurately in old cartoons that show a school of fish, each one smaller than the next, lined up ready to happily eat one another. It is in the nature of every living thing to eat other living things, in one way or another, in order to survive. Ebert said, “A fern is as ruthless as my cat.”

This animated film was made by humans, not jungle plants and animals, and is thus more romantic about the flora and fauna then they would ever be about us. Ebert compared, “It takes place in the coastal rain forests of Australia, which are seen to be inhabited by little fairies like Crysta (Samantha Mathis), who looks like a Barbie doll, and Pips (Christian Slater), who looks like GI Joe.” Everyone is watched over by a wise old fairy godmother character, Magi Lune, voiced by Grace Zabriskie.

One day Crysta flies up above the trees and sees a threatening cloud of smoke on the distance (just like Pocahontas did). It soon is found out that men are cutting down the forest and carrying away the wood, and Crysta uses a spell to shrink one of the men, Zak, voiced by Jonathan Ward, to fairy size. He then falls in love with Crysta, and begins to understand why it is important to save the rain forest. The story is fleshed out with supporting characters, including a fruit bat named Batty Koda, voiced by the late Robin Williams, who has been so badly tested by human laboratories that he flies into trees all the time. There is also Hexxus, voiced by the late Tim Curry, a creature created from the smoke of the fires of destruction, who, as Ebert described, “looks like an animated surgeon general’s warning.”

The animators did a lot of their drawings on location in the rain forest, and the visuals are very pretty. The story tells an important lesson, the jungle creatures are amusing, and despite the movie not being a masterpiece, it’s nice to watch for its humor and likeability. Kids may like it. Ebert ended his review by admitting, “Every time I see a movie that sentimentalizes the rain forest as a pastoral Eden, however, I remember those fish.”

Currently, you can see this film on YouTube, Tubi, Pluto TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, CW, and PLEX, so you have your options. I first saw Nostalgia Critic and Nostalgia Chick’s joint review of this film, but it took a long time after that review to watch the film. I think this is a nice film and it does have the right message to children, but I don’t know how many people will like this. Sure, this isn’t a great animated movie, but I still think this is watchable and is fine enough. Check it out and see for yourself and judge it based on your own thoughts. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. If you don’t like it, I can understand why. This is still a nice kids film that has the right message that is still relevant today.

I was surprised to find out that this film had a sequel, which I will look at next week in “Animated Environmental Movie Month.”