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LESSONS
FROM FANTASIA 2000 |
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Now
that FANTASIA 2000 has come and gone in IMAX, and come and gone on
regular-sized movie screens, there are some lessons to be learned from
the experience that reveals the state of the art and business of
animation today as perhaps no other contemporary film does.
Most
obvious is the choice of how to show the film. The original FANTASIA,
once it was determined to be a feature film, was planned as a
wide-screen stereophonic feature. This was a phenomenal undertaking
since there had been only sporadic attempts at wide screen projection in
the silent days utilizing differing approaches or techniques. In the
end, costs being what they were, a
wide screen format was abandoned, and Walt Disney would have to wait
another 15 years to release what would become his first feature cartoon
in wide screen, the Cinemascope production LADY AND THE TRAMP.
He did get his second wish, however, and with the help of RCA,
stereophonic sound was first heard in 1940’s FANTASIA. The world would
have to wait another 15 years for someone to make a second stereophonic
film. The new sound system, named Fantasound, was only available in a
few theaters in the largest cities. The others got regular sound prints
and did not have to rewire their theaters.
FANTASIA
was a flop, and within a year the distributor, RKO, edited the film down
in length and released it as the bottom half of a double feature with
some long-forgotten western. Its publicity campaign, “Fantasia will
Amazia” didn’t help. The complete feature was reissued in 1947 to no
great business. When reissued in 1956 and 1964, it came back in “wide
screen” as originally planned. Of course all they could do was in
effect “letterbox” it by cutting off about one third of the top and
bottom parts of the film, then stretching the rest so that the hippos
looked like blimps (as one critic put it.) Not until 1970 did recent
generations see the film as it was originally made.
So
what did the marketing geniuses of FANTASIA 2000 do?
Apparently they did not learn from the distorted showings of the
first FANTASIA over the years and created a new mess for the new film,
which was made in standard 35mm. They
decided to release it in IMAX. It was not made in IMAX, the layouts were
not planned for showing in IMAX, but hey, bigger is better, right?
Wrong. If you saw the film in IMAX you saw what a disaster that decision
was. The action at times was too fast to be seen, much less absorbed in
the IMAX format. At most you could take in and process only a portion of
what was happening onscreen, because you were not placed in a position
to see the entire screen’s action in the number of frames each took to
unfold. Even the slower
sections were only glimpsed, as your eyes darted about to see every part
of the screen then your brain tried to put the sections all together in
a composite scene before it moved onto the next shot. There was no sense
of perspective either as a humpback whale was now the same size as
Donald Duck’s ass.
Of
course not every city has an IMAX theater, so most people couldn’t or
wouldn’t travel to see it. Then
a couple of months ago the film was released to regular theaters, but
only until July 13th we were told. My suspicion is that the
theater chains, in the midst of the biggest movie summer ever, were not
too pleased to take up screen time with what was now used goods. My
guess is that Disney, using its clout dictated that they would have to
take the film, but agreed it would only be for a short time.
The film did not have the benefit of a huge new publicity
campaign. That was done six months earlier. Critics were not going to
review it all over again. There was even some confusion as to what this
new release was. Our paper, in its weekend mini reviews of all the
movies playing said “This is not to be confused with the recent IMAX
version, demonstrating their own confusion, and that of the public. To
the public that knew what it was, this was six-month-old news. It was an
“old” picture that had no buzz left in it, and so it did dismal
business. The take so far is about $60 million, great for the IMAX
Company but a disaster for Disney? Even their animated clunkers usually
earn about double that. Opening both the original and the new FANTASIA
in only a few cities proved an original and repeated disaster. This
should have been obvious; especially today when major films open on over
2,000 screens and the trailers blanket television morning, noon and
night to achieve that all important first weekend gross. Good or bad as
they are, is there anyone not aware of recent films like THE PATRIOT,
CHICKEN RUN or THE PERFECT STORM? When
it eventually comes to video it will likely be a poor seller, with
little anticipation built in or reach beyond the market that buys every
Disney animated video, whatever it is. The saddest figure in all this is, of course, Roy Disney. This was his pet project for the last 15 years or so. The humpback whale sequence was the first completed, almost eight years ago. The film now becomes a footnote, an oddity, in Disney animation, just like the first FANTASIA did at the time of its release. Roy Disney is not the main loser, however. We are. We the audience, we the animation enthusiasts are. This film should have become a landmark film as revolutionary to animation as SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS or WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT and THE LITTLE MERMAID were. The first FANTASIA was truly state of the animation art, in many ways unequalled in the last 60 years. It showed what animation could be and hinted at what it could become. But its failure meant a different track for Disney, or rather a continuation of the past, and after the success of SNOW WHITE, to which FANTASIA was constantly (unfairly) compared, an eventual CINDERELLA, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, PETER PAN and SLEEPING BEAUTY became a no-brainer inevitability. |
A successful FANTASIA 2000 might have meant a shift, even partial, from the standard Disney fare today of vapid animated musicals and predictable and easier 3D animation subjects like toys, dinosaurs and bugs. What, no robots? Above all, it could have made Disney the place to be as an animator, where you could hope to do animation projects worth their effort. Disney would have been on the cutting and leading edge of animation again, the undisputed leader instead of the copycat-catch up-me too studio it has become. JURASSIC PARK? We’ll do DINOSAUR. ROAD TO EL DORADO? We’ll do THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE. ANTS? We’ll do A BUG'S LIFE. In the theme park business Disney used to be so far ahead of everyone else, the theme park business WAS Disney. But a day at a Disney theme park and a day at say, Universal, are not that different an experience—the same technology, the same kind of adventures, the same newest roller coaster. Disney used to define theme parks by being first with new technologies they owned, not bought, that no one else had. Their theme parks are done better than anyone else, yes, but they are no longer unique. And the same is true of their animation today. By not stretching the field, who looks to Disney today to do the unexpected, to decide the animation of the future, to (heaven forbid) take a risk?
Well,
they did FANTASIA 2000 and that’s something comfortable Steven
Spielberg would never even try to do. The biggest lesson of FANTASIA
2000, and its biggest failing point is not that the audiences stayed
away solely because of poor marketing and screening, they stayed away
because of poor word of mouth. The film, sad to say, just wasn’t very
good. The creative people at Disney failed Roy Disney, us, and
animation. The film was sabotaged from within. They had a chance to do
the miraculous (as they did do with the original) and they failed. Here
was their chance to do a pure animation film, state of the art, not
dictated by the marketing department for a change. Roy Disney fought for
this film, and for animation and in the end the best creative people in
animation today let him down.. They were called upon to do battle for
animation’s future and they failed.
FANTASIA
2000 has its strong points, but they are usually moments here and there.
There isn’t one segment that will “amazia”. The overwhelming
feeling watching FANTASIA 2000 is how under whelming it all is. Having
one of the segments from the original film, THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
(and there were to be more old ones coming back originally) gave an
opportunity to compare the two FANTASIAs. I have often argued that the
animators at Disney today are in some ways better than those of the
past. But the one thing this new film lacks is the stuff that made
Disney animation great at its core—imagination and inventiveness. THE
SORCERER’S APPRENTICE is full of imagination and invention. Every
shot, every action is so rich and full, yet flows seamlessly into the
whole for an overall even greater tapestry. There is an excitement to
seeing the animation. The animation of the new film is writ small
because the ideas and their execution are so underdeveloped. The whole
film gives the feeling that first impressions became final choices. You
don’t create a Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a Night on Bald Mountain and
so on with half efforts. These are meticulously crafted animation
pieces, worked on and worked on until sculpted down to a masterpiece of
invention, wit, taste and a passion you can witness in the final work.
The new film looks like it was, by comparison, slapped together without
breaking a sweat. Seeing the original FANTASIA in theaters always
exhausted me by the end. Peter Adamakos is an animation producer and director who founded an animation company 31 years ago. He has also founded the Animation Museum which has sent traveling exhibitions to museums in various countries for many years. He also teaches in animation. Peter can be reached by e-mail at peter@disada.com or by snail mail at: Peter Adamakos |
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It was like looking through a keyhole trying to
take in the whole room inside while only able to see part of the room at
any one time. It was the hippo blimps all over again.
There was so much visual and audible
stimulation that I was drained. There was much to think about
animation-wise for days. A few hours after seeing FANTASIA 2000 I was
thinking of other mundane things. FANTASIA 2000 was a half-effort thrown
together by today’s animation self-proclaimed geniuses. No doubt they
will now continue to decry the kind of animation, the type of crass
marketing-driven subjects they are “forced” to do in the industry.
We have all lost, and this hope for the rebirth of animation was
stillborn.