The Rescuers Down Under is one of four Disney films that I downright loathe (the other three being Pocahontas, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons) for three reasons:
The hospital subplot. The joke about Wilbur throwing his back out carrying Bianca’s tiny suitcases was a lame joke anyway, so why devote several sequences to milking that bad joke all throughout the film?
No songs. The company had just had a massive success the year earlier with Little Mermaid, which was primarily due to the songs. It was clear that TRDU was following the “Mermaid formula” with the inclusion of Frank (who was basically that movie’s version of Flounder, included only to be the ‘cute character’ while not contributing anything to the film other than that), so why not add some songs?
The film has no heart. Even though the original Rescuers was lacking in the animation (which is the only thing I like about TRDU; the animation is STUNNING), it makes me sob every time I watch it and this is due to the relationship that the villains have with the child character in each film. Yeah, McLeach kidnapped Cody and bullied him a little, but at least he didn’t downright emotionally abuse Cody like Medusa did to Penny.
Ouch. Harsh. I actually like that not all the Disney films are not musicals, because it adds diversity. And honestly, some songs are better left out of movies. I think Down Under is onbe of the best, and much better than the original. Why do you hate Meet the Robinsons and Pocahontas, just wondering?
Now, I haven’t seen TRDU in years. So I can’t really argue with Wheezy.
But I will point out that just because it lacks songs doesn’t make it a terrible Disney movie. As Virginia pointed out, it added diversity. I don’t know much about the history of the movie. But If they creators didn’t think it was a story fit for songs, then I’m glad they left songs out, instead of feeling obligated to include them because it’s a Disney picture.
I never really liked the Rescuer films, although I have heard people say that you tend to like either one or the other. I liked the sequel’s animation more, although I think the villain of the first one was more threatening. I found the little girl quite annoying though- as a kid it always seemed to me that they tried too hard to make her adorable. That said, I don’t reeally remember much of the boy in the sequel, so at least the first one made a proper impact on me I guess.
The only sequel I remember really enjoying as a kid was The Lion King 2, but as I haven’t seen it in a while I can’t really say if I’d like it today.
I didn’t mind Mulan 2 either- the first time I saw it I actually quite enjoyed it. After a few rewatches I noticed some of its problems though, like how Mulan is completely shocked that the princesses are entering an arranged marriage… despite the fact that that’s exactly what she was going to do in the first movie. There’s a few other things that annoy me about this film, but on the whole it’s pretty okay.
The animation notwithstanding, everything about Pocahontas is boring. The score is easily Alan Menken’s weakest for Disney (though if I had to pick favorites, they’d probably be Savages and Just Around The Riverbend), the decision to not have the animals talk was a major mis-step, and the fact that Katzenburg encouraged the company to work on it rather than The Lion King was the dumbest thing he ever did during his tenure at the company.
Forgot to mention Meet The Robinsons. My main issue is the character of Goob. His basic personality trait is to be a little quirky, but yet he’s designed to look like he’s severely mentally challenged. I am diagnosed as autistic, but yet I appear, talk, and act like anyone else.
Anyway. I think people usually love Pocahontas, or hate it. As for Goob, I think he is shown as dumb for most of the film. He struggles a lot with ideas and thinking. I think he is a “dumb” character. I love him, but technically speaking, he is probably the film’s weak link. His reveal is not a huge shock, and I feel like they should have resolved him better than him just disappearing like that.
Actually, most of the vetern animatiors CHOOSE to work on Pocahontas. And it makes sense. At the time everyone assumed that Pocahontas would be more successful, as it followed the previous formula that made the Renaissance films so great. The Lion King, with a complete animal cast, was seemed as riskier and not as serious. That left more novice animators working on TLK, and the occasional animator that preferred animating animals over humans (Andreas Deja for example). Weren’t they in for a surprise once TLK came out, and it is to this day one of the most successful animated films, while Pocahontas is pushed to the wayside.
I myself have a love/hate relationship with Pocahontas, and it’s one of my least favorite Disney films. But since it’s not a sequel, I won’t discuss that here.
I was responding to your first post, where in bullet point #2 you complained about it not having no songs. You compared it to it’s predecessor the LM that owed part of it’s success to music. So That’s what I was responding to.
I personally have mixed feelings with Pocahontas myself but then I guess its because I’m still embarrassed that as a kid I thought it was somewhat historically accurate.
But yeah looking back it’s pretty obvious, I mean the horrors Native Americans faced and the problems they still have today was hardly down to just one english dude being greedy.
I remember loving it when I saw small though. Mostly for the songs I think though.
Pocahontas 2 itself I think is weaker but I think it had some interesting small points, like the fact Pocahontas rejected being made more ‘acceptable’ in European eyes ultimately (washing off the powder etc. which made her paler- though it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, for some reason I remember that). I think that can be important for kids somewhat to see in films. It kind of fell flat I think though, even that scene.
Even if Pocahontas 2 makes the original movie look historically faithful in comparison and was weaker I get the impression it was trying and thinking -some- things through anyway. Even if the overall product wasn’t that great.
I just wanted to quickly comment on how I agree that a lot of the Disney films do not require songs. There’s not really any telling in the beginning about how many songs will or won’t be included, but as you go along, you probably figure out what’s best for the film. I can’t picture any songs in The Rescuers Down Under, for example. Usually, the bigger the scope of the film, the less likely it will have songs, perhaps. That’s often replaced by awesome dramatic musical scores!
Now, about the sequels. I think it’s smart how Disney is pairing up a lot of them in 2-movie collections, that way it eliminates the need for some of them to be stand-alone films. I wonder some of them are released by themselves though. I’ve noticed that that has only been the case with the Disney films produced by Walt Disney himself and the 2 3D re-released films. Either way, I think it’s a great way to market them.
Here’s a fun fact about the composer for TRDU: His name was Bruce Broughton and we can all agree that he did a wonderful job scoring the film, but he was originally supposed to score Home Alone but left the film for some reason to score TRDU instead.
Of course, since Home Alone ended up with a classic score by John Williams, and TRDW fared well with Broughton, I think things worked out nicely for everyone.
In fact, since Columbus met Williams in Home Alone, things worked out VERY NICELY. Let’s remember Williams would make one of his nicest works in a future Columbus film, Harry Potter.
So, maybe if not for THAT, they would have never began their work relationship and we wouldn’t have the amazing Potter score we have. Or maybe Williams would do it anyway, since Spielberg was involved in the project at first.
Don’t known, many decisions affect the shape of History everyday!
I like them being being packaged together. But I hate the packaging itself. This is the worst:
What’s up with the terrible 2 movie collection banner at the bottom? And the characters really bad stock images.
It’s convenient because Saludos Amigos is 42 minutes long. That’s really short, so I’m glad they’re paired together. But the box art is so terribly lazy.
The DVD art for the Pocahontas, Mulan, Cinderella, and Rescuers art are a bit better. At least they all match with the mirror effect. But still have the “HEY LOOK 2 MOVIES IN 1 WHOA” banner.
Yeah, it would be more sensible to put a ‘2 movies in 1’ sticker on the packaging instead, so that you don’t have a great ugly banner on the box forever. I mean, once you’ve bought it you don’t really need reminding of what you bought. Looking up these DVDs on Google though it would appear that some versions don’t have the ugly banner at the bottom (although they do say ‘2 movies in 1’).
What I hate about box art is that it usually looks like the characters are marketed, not how they look in the movie. But yeah, I hate it when the advertisements are part of the box.
Yeah, lots of them don’t show the character like they normally look in the film. A lot of the princess films like to show them in whatever fancy dress they wear on all the merchandise, even if that’s not the clothes they wear for most of the film. It annoys me how Aurora, who isn’t even in her movie for very long, is always shown in her pink dress even though they do a whole bit at the end of the film where the fairies keep changing its colour. And she has her black and white dress from earlier.
Going back to the topic of sequels, I didn’t mind Kronk’s New Groove. It used the ‘three short stories’ formula that I don’t really like, but it was okay. It didn’t undo the ending of the first movie or anything. I liked it a lot more than the TV show. I don’t understand why they waited 6 years to do a TV show anyway.
Oh yes, this annoys me the most. I don’t know, a lot of the time the characters look extremely unsettling. To continue off my previous post, and since it’s a sequel, I’ll point this out:
Advertising for the movies use to be so artistic and beautiful! And now we have stuff like this:
And this is true as well. It’s still tacky, but if it was a sticker at least it isn’t permanent! And yes, my copy of the Caballeros Collection doesn’t have the banner. But some do apparently.
I haven’t seen this in it’s entirety. As you probably can tell from the movies I was referencing, I don’t mind Package films. (Except Fun and Fancy Free. That can die). They were made because Disney simply didn’t have the money for another Fantasia or Pinocchio. (Something called WWII and the Disney strike going on at the time). But now adays, since Disney has endless money, there isn’t really any need for package films. Unless it’s something like Kronk’s new Groove, when they know not a lot of people will see it, so a package film is the safest option.
