Lazario wrote:It's basically because no one knows who Don Bluth is except animation-conscious people, like the people here at this site.
I'm sorry, but if something like Pinchcliffe (whatever the heck that is) can be released in a huge boxset, then I can't see why the Don Bluth films can be released in a series, similar to the way the Ghibli films are released.
I'm just pissed off because his films are really good, and deserve a good re-release. It pains me to watch LBT and SON in all it's dark and grainy glory.
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Lazario wrote:It's basically because no one knows who Don Bluth is except animation-conscious people, like the people here at this site.
I'm sorry, but if something like Pinchcliffe (whatever the heck that is) can be released in a huge boxset, then I can't see why the Don Bluth films can be released in a series, similar to the way the Ghibli films are released.
I'm just pissed off because his films are really good, and deserve a good re-release. It pains me to watch LBT and SON in all it's dark and grainy glory.
I think his movies are really ugly. I think each production suffers from being too ambitious for the artists involved. I like some of them, but in the overall cannon of world animation, none of them rank very high for me.
The Top 10 Films of 2005:
1) Brokeback Mountain 2) The Squid and the Whale 3) Me And You And Everyone We Know 4) The New World 5) A History of Violence 6) Match Point 7) Munich 8.) Crash 9) Wallace and Gromit 10) Pride & Prejudice
i love that scene when littlefoot asks his mom is shed ever seen the great valley and her head comes around then suddenly disapears (cause her neck is so long) and reappears by littlefoot
i bet it doesnt disapear in the widescreen version
GO WIDE SCREEN AND SEE THE WHOLE MOVIE THE WAY IT WAS INTENDED
Prince Eric wrote:I think his movies are really ugly. I think each production suffers from being too ambitious for the artists involved. I like some of them, but in the overall cannon of world animation, none of them rank very high for me.
I definitely think his earlier films (NIMH, American Tail, and, admittedly, Land Before Time even though it's not one that I like all that much) are much better than his later ones.
For instance, I just got to thinking the other day about how truly irritating Pebble and the Penguin is. I mean, let's look at the evidence: girl penguin MUST mate otherwise she will be banished and then starve. I don't know why I never noticed it before, but that's kind of a sexist plot point. Add in an underwhelming performance by Martin Short (who I'm not a huge fan of but he doesn't even get the chance to be funny), and songs by Barry Manilow and you can color me disinterested. About the only real bright spot is Jim Belushi as Rocko, but he's not quite enough to leaven out the rest.
I will admit that Anastasia was a major step in the right direction, though, but a couple of years after it came out, it seemed as if a lot of studios started giving up 2D en masse, so Anastasia's contributions were too little, too late I suppose. What a shame.
I remember seeing an American Tale when I was younger, and I liked it.
Now I haven't seen it for ages and I've forgotten it.
Recently I read Roger Ebert's review of the film and he gave it 0 STARS ON 4. Yes, you read right... 0/4...zero...z-e-r-o.
He said it's mediocre and depressing and blah blah blah....
Here's the review:
An American Tail
US (1986): Musical/Children's/Animated
Roger Ebert Review: 0.0 stars out of 4
80 min, Rated G, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
Don Bluth already has addressed the obvious objection to his AN AMERICAN TAIL, which is that so depressing a story could hardly entertain children. He believes that kids can handle bad times for a movie's hero, as long as the film ends happily. The lesson is that we can survive setbacks with pluck and courage.
That may be so, but the hero of AN AMERICAN TAIL, a young mouse named Fievel, is made to undergo such hardships in this movie that the children in the audience may despair long before the happy ending.
Fievel is the youngest member of the Mousekewitz family, which lives in a mousehole beneath the human Moskowitz family in Russia in the 19th century. One day the czar's mounted troops ride by and burn down both homes, and then Papa Mousekewitz leads his family on a long odyssey to the promised land, while they sing "In America There Are No Cats."
There also are no pogroms, the lyricists might have added, except that the movie never makes it clear just why the czar's men burned down the houses. One of the central curiosities of AN AMERICAN TAIL is that it tells a specifically Jewish experience but does not attempt to inform its young viewers that the characters are Jewish or that the house burning was anti-Semitic. I suppose that would be a downer for the little tykes in the theater, but what do they think while watching the present version? That houses are likely to be burned down at random?
This bleak view of a cold and heartless universe is enforced onboard the ship to America, where little Fievel amuses himself by staring at barrels full of pickled herring with much the same delight that a modern mouse child might tune in Pee-wee Herman's Saturday morning show. One day a fearsome storm blows up and, despite the frenzied protestations of his parents, little Fievel ventures up on deck to see the flying fish and is sucked away by the gale.
We now enter the long central passage of the movie, in which the bereft Mousekewitzes arrive heartbroken in New York, while little Fievel, miraculously deposited in a bottle, washes up on the same shores. While the family mourns its loss, Fievel the orphan wanders through the heartless streets of the metropolis, looking for his parents. Instead, he meets some slick criminal types and has some thrilling adventures before he is finally reunited with his family in the last reel.
AN AMERICAN TAIL is the second movie (after THE SECRET OF NIMH) to be directed by Bluth and his associates since they jumped ship at Disney and set out to rediscover the magic of such classic Disney features as SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO, of which Fievel's story is heavily derivative. The film's animation is full and detailed, enhanced by computers and an improvement on so much recent animation that cuts corners (the characters have shadows, for example). But the artistic vision is clearly inspired by the animal humanoids of the original Disney artists, and where did they get this story?
From Steven Spielberg, I'm afraid. Spielberg is credited as the film's executive producer, and he was the person who brought the saga of Fievel to Bluth's workshop. Perhaps he felt some deep-seated urge to tell a Jewish parable in a movie and thought that animation would sugar-coat it for general audiences. The movie has such vague ethnic grounds, however, that only a few children will understand or care that the Mousekewitzes are Jewish. And few of those are likely to be entertained by such a tragic, gloomy story.
AN AMERICAN TAIL is like Disney's 1985 RETURN TO OZ, which opened with Dorothy strapped to a table receiving electroshock therapy: It has been written by people who want to prepare kids for the worst. I forgot to mention that the first thing Fievel discovers after his bottle washes ashore is that, in America, there are cats.
P.S. This is interesting. See what Roger Ebert has to say on Oliver and Co. in the meantime comparing it to An American Tale (Tail?)
Oliver & Co.
US (1988): Musical/Children's/Animated
Roger Ebert Review: 3.0 stars out of 4
72 min, Rated G, Color, Available on videocassette and laserdisc
Walt Disney's OLIVER & CO. is a safer version of AN AMERICAN TAIL, with a kitten instead of a mouse trying to survive in the overwhelming streets of New York City. If children were disturbed, in AN AMERICAN TAIL, by the hero's enforced separation from its parents, they may be relieved this time, since Oliver apparently has no parents and is on his own from a very early age. We see him for the first time in a cardboard box marked "Kittens $5," and later that night he is still there, even after having been marked down to "Free." The kitten is swept out of its box by a torrential rainstorm, chased by savage dogs, finds refuge beneath the huge wheels of a truck, and is befriended the next day by a street-wise dog named Dodger (get it?). Together, they work a scam to steal some hot dogs from a vendor, but then the dog tries to make off with all of the wienies, and the kitten follows him back to a ramshackle houseboat where several dogs live with their owner, Fagin.
Fagin is a human who trains dogs to steal, just as the original Fagin in the Dickens story trained children to be pickpockets. That connection is about as close as OLIVER & CO. gets to Oliver Twist, but since the connection is not insisted on and most smaller children will (alas) never have heard of Oliver Twist, I suppose it makes no difference.
The movie is filled with rousing action and chase scenes, and a properly menacing set of villains (the evil juice-loan vendor Sykes and his killer Dobermans). The animation, augmented by computers to do the detail work, is full-bodied and efficient, and if the street scenes still lack the kind of loving background detail and movement they had in the classic Disney movies, at least they contain an extraordinary number of subliminal plugs for Coca-Cola. Some of the action moments may be a little strong for younger kids (I'm not sure it was wise to demonstrate to them how a person can be strangled by being trapped by an automated car window). But the story is robust and muscular, the sentiments are not overdone, and the kitten is cute.
juliancarter wrote:I remember seeing an American Tale when I was younger, and I liked it.
Now I haven't seen it for ages and I've forgotten it.
Recently I read Roger Ebert's review of the film and he gave it 0 STARS ON 4. Yes, you read right... 0/4...zero...z-e-r-o.
He said it's mediocre and depressing and blah blah blah....
Meh. Sometimes I just can't figure out what goes on in Ebert's head. If I recall correctly, he used to not like My Neighbor Totoro either, the admiration of which the word "beloved" doesn't even begin to describe (especially in Japan). Fortunately, he wised up with that one, so perhaps (probably) he wrote off An American Tail too quickly.
What I like about AAT is probably what Ebert thought he didn't like...even though all the main characters are anthropomorphic mice, the settings and situations are pretty realistic for a kid's movie. A great deal of the picture is based on what immigrants to the US in the 1880s really went through, so if you find that sort of thing depressing, well...sorry, that's history.
I wonder what he would think about Grave of the Fireflies...that makes An American Tail look like a Care Bears movie.
EDIT: oh, and I just re-read Ebert's "review"...he says that there was no attempt made to establish that Fievel's family is Jewish. HUH?! Uhhh, Roger, they're celebrating CHANUKAH at the beginning, remember? That's how Fievel gets his father's hat in the first place, it's a holiday gift. It don't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a family named Mousekewitz celebrating Chanukah is maybe perhaps Jewish. Geez, now I KNOW he wasn't really watching
Do you think any of Don's films will ever see better treatment?
The Secret of Nimh is one of my all time favorate cartoons! I can't believe it hasen't been restored? Why? The current dvd seems grainy and faded! Plus, it's full screen? Wasn't it originally released in a widescreen format? Also, I'd like to see some bonus features! I thought by now they would have something in the works? I guess there's just not much demand for this film to be worked over?
<b>All Dogs Go to Heaven</b> is in dire need of a proper widescreen DVD release. Restoration and bonus features is probably a bit too much to ask of the folks at MGM, so I'm not holding my breath. They should at least keep the original poster art for the cover and get rid of those ugly menus...they look as if a community college student with only a semester's worth of Photoshop experience did them.
I have some films made by Don Bluth, "The Secret of NIMH", "An American Tail", "Anastasia" and "All Dogs Go to Heaven 1 & 2".
Don Bluth has been with Disney since the late 70's with "Pete Dragon" where he animated Elliot the Dragon. It was mixed with live action sequences. I know "Pete's Dragon" was a live action film with just the animated dragon. He also animated "The Small One", a half-hour featurette about a little boy in Bethlehem was hanging out with the donkey until Joseph buys a donkey where he travels to Bethlehem where Jesus was born. After that, Don Bluth left Disney to do other projects including the animated sequence in "Xanadu" with Olivia Newton-John. Many of the Don Bluth films were good outside of Disney animation. But it's not bad.
I had no idea Don Bluth was involved with Anastasia! That's cool. I love that movie.
I would also love to see restorations on DOn Bluth films. Especially Thumbelina. The music and animation on all his films are great.
There are, however, recent DVD releases of some Bluth films:
Anastasia Family Fun Edition
Land Before Time Anniversary Edition
Swan Princess Special Edition
I like Don Bluth's work, but I think it's a far cry from Disney quality. However, I really love some of the work he did AT Disney. After he left, I'd say the best things he did were Anastasia and Secret of NIMH (and probably An American Tail, but I have never seen that one yet, believe it or not). Of course, I would still love to see some restoration work and better editions done for his films. I think the only one I have on DVD is "Secret of NIMH," and it's not even widescreen! I have several others on VHS.
Don Bluth? Suddenly, I think I feel my skin crawling...
Hey, I don't mean to be stepping on anyone's toes here. But try as he may, I just don't feel that Bluth was ever able to replicate the Disney magic, or even rival it. It's why I always get slightly irritated whenever people mistakenly assume that his films are Disney. I do think there is quite a strong qualitative distinction between the two, when you look at them.
To be fair, I might have liked the Secret of NIMH a little more if I hadn't loved the original novel so dearly as a child. I understand that filmic adaptations are always going to change a few things here and there, but I could never quite get my head around the truly massive deviations which Bluth suddenly started making in the second half...on the plus side, the animation is nice, as is the music (at least the characters don't burst into song, which is my forefront gripe with An American Tail - I really hope I'm not the only one who felt that the transition between regular narrative and song just felt totally off in that film). The least said about Thumbelina, the better...
Of all his films, I guess I found Anastasia the most interesting, if not perfect (I'm a little iffy about the role Rasputin was assigned...the whole historical debate aside, with enough thought they probably could have developed the story without the need for a supernatural villain to move events). I haven't seen it since its initial release period, but I imagine that one day I'll be willing to give it a revisit.
In conclusion, I personally wouldn't be too fussed either way. The last I heard, Bluth was putting all his resources into funding a new animated Dragons Lair movie, or something. Well, so long as he's determined to help keep 2D animation alive, I guess I can't complain.
Well as far as Don Bluth is concerned I have to say I find all of his films bar two to be amateurish and lacking any merit, I mean films like Thumbelina just seem so weak.
However the two that I find are Anastasia, which I'm not wild about but I think is a strong and entertaining film, and The Secret of NIMH which is in my opinion a masterpiece, and is IMO leagues ahead of anything Disney did during the 80s (Yes, even the almighty fish-woman ) and is in desperate need of a 2 Disc revisit, hopefully really in depth and not kiddie based, unlike the Anastasia 2 Disc fluff, but that's probably what we'd get.
DEREKG wrote:Why? The current dvd seems grainy and faded! Plus, it's full screen? Wasn't it originally released in a widescreen format?
You know I have a feeling that like Robin Hood NIMH is an "either/or" in terms of aspect ratio. It would almost certainly have been exhibited as widescreen theatrically, but I think it could have been animated 4:3. The reason being that the UK DVD of NIMH is in widescreen, and it does appear to be missing some picture from the full frame trailer on the disc.
Anyone care to post screencaps from the R1 full frame DVD, and we can compare them to the widescreen R2 DVD and see if we can come to some sort of enlightenment?
I really liked alot of these films as a child. I work at a daycare and we constantly watch The Land Before Time movies. I find that they get less and less quality in animation and rely more on CGI, but they're still entertaining. Nothing beats the first one though, that movie was just brilliant and totally made me cry when Little Foot finds his dead mother.
Personally I think the crowning acheivement of the Don Bluth films would be Anastatcia, I think it could rival most of Disney's big "Princess" movies. The music and the animation are beautiful and the film was just wonderful.
I really need to get the new edition release since I only have the VHS copy from years ago.
I watched a few Don Bluth films when I was a kid (Land Before Time, Rock-A-Doodle, All Dogs go to Heaven) and I agree that they are not really up to the level of Disney looking back at them now.
Love It.
) and is in desperate need of a 2 Disc revisit, hopefully really in depth and not kiddie based, unlike the Anastasia 2 Disc fluff, but that's probably what we'd get.