Retro Reviews: Fantasia 2000

Welcome to Retro Reviews, a new column designed to replace From the Vaults. These reviews will deal with films that the Cap'n saw years ago, has seen with some regularity, or simply wanted to review outside of the "current" film scene. Depending on the film, I may attempt reviewing these "older" cinematic offerings by replicating my initial experience, but more than often, I will simply try to review the films as though the Cap'n of today traveled back in time and saw them fresh.

There's no way to speak about Fantasia 2000 delicately: regardless of its role as a labor of love by Roy E. Disney, the 60 years in the making sequel to Fantasia has no reason for being. It is, at best, an inconsequential entry into the Disney oeuvre, a collection of well made, but ultimately underwhelming mash-ups of classical music and contemporary animation and cgi. Despite individual elements which are, at times, amusing, and one knock out piece to close the film out, comparing Fantasia 2000 to its cinematic antecedent is like comparing A Goofy Movie to Lady and the Tramp.

In essence, Fantasia 2000 follows the structure of Fantasia: animators choose well known classical pieces and create a self-contained short film based on some level of inspiration: we have Beethoven's Fifth Symphony hosting an abstract contrast of light and darkness, digital whales swimming amongst the clouds set to Resphighi's "Pines of Rome," the Al Hirschfeld inspired 1930s New York alongside Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 providing the backdrop for an adaptation of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," Camille Saint-Saëns "Carnival of the Animals" hosts a yo-yo flinging Flamingo, the return of Sukas' "The Sorcerers Apprentice," Donald and Daisy Duck presenting Noah's ark to Elgar's first four "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, and close out with Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" (1919 Version) as the spirit of Earth experiences the destructive nature of a volcano.

Where to begin? Perhaps the superfluous, unnecessary "celebrity" introductions that seem to miss the point of Fantasia's interstitial segments: in Fantasia, the in-between moments feature an orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski, primarily in silhouette, with an appearance by Mickey Mouse. In Fantasia 2000, this concept is adapted to over lit, awkwardly staged "bits" featuring Steve Martin, Angela Lansbury, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, and Penn and Teller, doing a variation of their "magic is fake" routine later popularized in a broader form in Bullshit. That they dispel all forms of magic, save for Mickey Mouse as a way to introduce "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," the only holdover from Fantasia, is a curious beat in the film.

Incidentally, the argument for including "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" goes back to Walt Disney's conception of Fantasia as an ongoing project: the film would be re-released every few years, with new pieces included, older ones removed and re-instated over time. However, only including "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" raises two key problems with Fantasia 2000: the strong similarities between segments in 2000 and the original and its almost pitifully short running time of 74 minutes.

Looking at the "new" pieces in Fantasia 2000, one cannot help but notice a trend of artistic repetition: "Carnival of the Animals" is a Flamingo-centric redo of "Dance of the Hours," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" cannot help but face comparisons to "The Nutcracker Suite," if only because of the connotations of one's music to the other's story. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony plays host to an animated piece very similar to the Toccata in Fugue that opened Fantasia, and the "Pomp and Circumstance" segment with Donald aboard Noah's ark is even presented as a companion piece to "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Even the film's arguably most creative piece, the striking "Firebird Suite" borrows imagery directly from "A Night on Bald Mountain" when representing the volcano.

When not directly borrowing from their cinematic ancestors - a potentially unavoidable position for animators to be in when asked to create a sequel to Fantasia - the segments tend to fall flat due to an over-reliance on cgi - at the time, a highly favored new "gimmick" animated features were struggling to integrate (Disney would later, for a time, abandon their traditional hand animated films to go a strictly digital route). The flying whales, while somewhat expressive, are overused by the end of "Pines of Rome," blurring together into a pack of semi-cell shaded blobs. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" fares a little better, but it still feels a step behind Toy Story, a film five years its junior. Only "Rhapsody in Blue" truly fares well, in part because it loosely resembles Hirschfeld's caricatures and captures the spirit of Depression-era big cities.

Take away all of the "host segments," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and the opening and closing titles (all set against a green screen), and Fantasia 2000 would barely scrape an hour's length. Fantasia, by comparison, runs 125 minutes in its restored "road show" format, with minimal celebrity distractions. One could, if they so desired, combine the better musical segments of Fantasia 2000 into the original film and create a mega-Fantasia, one that combines the best of the original and the admirable attempts to replicate the experience of its sequel.

I do not blame Roy Disney or the animators for such a "lightweight" end result in Fantasia 2000: their goal was admirable, and they did the best they could in the midst of an increasingly corporate Disney structure, one that would make demands for special "guest hosts" to draw in audiences. Fantasia was, after all, a failure for Walt Disney in 1940, and in order to safeguard against similar box office collapse, the producers and executives made certain "audience friendly" choices, ones the ultimately undermine the Fantasia experience. Not only does Fantasia 2000 not feel like a genuine continuation of Walt's concept, but as its own film I must return to my first descriptor: inconsequential. Before the credits finish rolling, one tends to forget what one experienced, the sign of a film with little lasting impact.