Turkey Day Cinema – Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Finding the Perfect Thanksgiving Movie

The fall season brings a festive atmosphere to our culture at large, and it is something reflected also in the movies that we watch this time of year.  This is no doubt due to the fact that two of the most cinematic holidays are found in this final home stretch of the calendar year.  They are of course, Christmas and Halloween.  No other holidays lend themselves better to the cinematic language, with the numerous traditions, folklore, and iconography that each holiday represents.  Though Christmas has long been present in the history of film, even going back to the silent era, Halloween has more recently asserted itself on the big screen, with horror films becoming a major driver of the holiday tradition.  There’s even movies that bridge the two, like Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and campy horror films with a Christmas twist like Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) and Krampus (2015).  But, with these two holidays becoming the dynamic forces they are in our culture, there’s one thing that sadly gets overlooked in the process and that’s the holiday that falls in between.  Thanksgiving Day is a cherished tradition in American culture, commemorating the first successful harvest of the pilgrims that settled the Plymouth colony in 1620; a founding moment in American history.  And though it still observed with importance to this day, one cannot overlook the fact that it’s impact on the culture is somewhat diminished, possibly due to the fact that the Christmas season continues to expand further out now, to the point that it begins the moment Halloween ends.  Thanksgiving is now just a thin layer of cream inside the cookie that is the Halloween/Christmas super holiday.  And there is a reason why that may be; there just aren’t that many noteworthy Thanksgiving movies.

There are movies that have Thanksgiving Day moments in them, but you can rarely point out a movie that specific evokes the meaning of the holiday itself.  One thing that may be the problem is that Thanksgiving and Christmas share so many traditions, that they often become interchangeable.  Both holidays center around the gathering of family and also around the tradition of feasting.  Turkey dinners are often central to both holidays, or at least they have been with my own family.  And they are both holidays defined by a warm, welcome setting within a period of cold weather.  Really, the biggest difference is that Thanksgiving is all about the food, while Christmas is all about the presents.  But because of the many different similarities, most movies that center around family gatherings and feasting often associate more with the Christmas holiday, just because it’s the more celebrated of the two.  And most of the time, a movie that does feature a Thanksgiving feast of some kind just ends up getting lumped in with the Christmas season, or has no connection to the holiday at all in the long run.  So, is Thanksgiving just by default an un-cinematic holiday.  What I think has become the issue is that very few filmmakers have ever actually tackled the idea of the Thanksgiving holiday as a theme for their movie in general.  We all know the traditions of Thanksgiving, but is there a movie that actually clearly represents the way we feel during the holiday, in the same way that Christmas and Halloween do.  It may not have the iconography of it’s bigger brothers, nor the same kind of lore, but what Thanksgiving does have is a very definable sense of humanity at it’s core, the thing that we want to bring out of ourselves as we congregate together in order to have a merry feast.  That’s something that can lend itself to cinematic treatment, and one movie in particular captures that sense of what the holiday is all about.

John Hughes’ Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987) is widely considered by many to be the quintessential Thanksgiving movie, and that’s probably because it dramatizes and mocks one of the most universal aspects of the holiday that everyone can identify with; the anxiety of travelling.  After a decade of working with teenage angst as a central theme of his work, Hughes pivoted to this more adult centered comedy, showing the follies of two men who must band together in order to arrive home in time for Thanksgiving.  We all have dealt with making plans for Thanksgiving travel, and for many, it becomes a burden, especially if you’re travelling companion is less than ideal.  But, it’s all about getting to that special destination of a hearty meal with the ones you love that drive us to endure the pressures of holiday travel, and that’s ultimately what’s at the heart of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Hughes perfectly crafts a screwball comedy around every possible thing that could go wrong during a trip back home for the Thanksgiving holiday, something that is hilariously personified in the character of Neal Page, played by Steve Martin at the top of his game.  What makes Martin’s performance in the movie so hilarious is the slow burn way that he grows more and more frustrated by all the roadblocks thrown his way; igniting a fuse in his normally mild mannered demeanor that eventually leads to some amazing eruptions, including a famous “f-bomb” laden tirade with the rental car service.  And his rigid everyman character is balanced perfectly as well by the jovial persona of Del Griffith, played by a pitch perfect John Candy in what may have been his best role.  These polar opposites are forced through circumstances to having to travel together, and at certain points share accommodations, and while it does lead to hilarious situations of misfortune, ultimately the two bond over the course of the movie.  And this leads to a finale that may be one of the most touching, humane moments ever put on film, which really understates what it means to give thanks.  And as a result, people have found this to be the movie that defines the meaning of Thanksgiving better than any other out there.

John Hughes was himself a native of the area of the United States we commonly know as the “Rust Belt.”  Born in Michigan, but raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, Hughes was deeply influenced by this region of the country, and has used it as the setting for most of his films; especially Chicago.  And one thing that really defines the Mid-Western states that make up the Rust Belt are the very cold, frigid fall and winter seasons; conditions that make travelling home for the holidays a bit more perilous.  No doubt that’s what was on his mind when he wrote Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, because it’s a situation that he probably had encountered during his upbringing.  Of course, most of it is played for laughs, but the fact that so many obstacles are put in the characters way as they try to inch their way closer to home is something that wouldn’t be too foreign to many Midwesterners.  Airport delays and closures are a common reality for many travelers out East, as they receive heavier amounts of snow and sleet in the winter.  It’s certainly different than my holiday travel experiences here on the West coast, which usually were conflict free going back and forth between Oregon and California, both of which have milder winters.  Hughes is also familiar with the common sight of cheap motels becoming a last option, or suddenly being stranded in Podunk towns in the middle of nowhere.  Also being a busy filmmaker, he would’ve known about the stress of having to deal with the time crunch of important meetings in New York City, and having to make it back to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving.  Though it’s all screwball insanity most of the time, there is a definitive relatability found in this movie that no doubt came from Hughes own experiences.  We understand how important Thanksgiving means as a festivity, because it’s clear how important it was for John Hughes.  Through his characters, we see how someone would risk health and sanity just to be there for their family on this important Holiday.

So, why is it that only Planes, Trains, and Automobiles seems to have become so identified with the holiday of Thanksgiving.  I believe that most other movies that use Thanksgiving as a part of their narrative, only do so with a passing glance.  Indeed, one thing that I often see used as a barometer for judging a movie as a Thanksgiving film is the presence of a big feast at the heart of the movie, centered around family and friends gathering together to celebrate together.  Some of the movies that usually get lumped into this camp, especially if you do a Google search, are movies like Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill (1983) or Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).  Sure, these are movies about family and friends coming together to feast and celebrate, but in neither case does Thanksgiving play a role in the narrative.  They are just movies that evoke the holiday spirit of Thanksgiving, but what we see could just as well be part of a Christmas celebration.  This is why it’s so hard to define a Thanksgiving movie so definitively, because it shares so much in common with Christmas, and it certainly doesn’t have the same weight as the latter.  Of course, neither movie I mentioned even states that it’s taking place on either holiday.  The Big Chill in fact is about a gathering of friends who are brought back together after the death of someone close to each of them, and it just so happens to have a memorable dinner scene at it’s center, along with an iconic oldies soundtrack.  It seems counterproductive to label every movie that has a festive dinner at it’s center as a Thanksgiving movie, because it just spreads that label to a whole variety of movies that have nothing to do with Thanksgiving.  Certainly the sharing of a meal with loved ones is a popular centerpiece for most movies, but there’s nothing to tie those moments to Thanksgiving specifically.  It’s just that a lot of filmmakers like using food as a common bridge to bring people together within a story.

What is interesting is the fact that very few movies actually dramatize the core historical basis for the Thanksgiving holiday itself.  The legend behind the holiday is that the pilgrims who sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower celebrated their first ever successful harvest in the Plymouth colony by inviting the Native Americans who aided them through the harsh winter to a feast in a sign of unity that would come to define the new nation that would spring up in the years to come.  I think that why the legend of the First Thanksgiving has rarely been given a big screen treatment is because it’s been widely recognized over the years that the story is based on a myth.  Though the pilgrims were aided by the native tribes in the harsh first winter of the Plymouth colony, the history between the settlers and the natives was anything but peaceful ever since.  Years of conflict followed, and the Native Americans were pushed out of their ancestral land as more colonists began expanding their reach.  So, if there was a first Thanksgiving, it might not have been as harmonious as the legend tells us.  It also doesn’t work as a founding legend of America, as Plymouth was nowhere near the first colony in the New World, as Jamestown in Virginia was already a bustling port for fourteen years before the pilgrims arrived.  As the mystique of the Thanksgiving myth has worn off over time, the focus has become more centered on the unity of family in modern days, and that’s what more movies focus on now with regards to the holiday.  That hasn’t stopped Hollywood however with trying to tie Native American narratives the holiday season.  I see some places label movies like Pocahontas (1995), The New World (2005), and Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale (1994) as Thanksgiving movies, even though they carry no connection with the holiday or with the legend behind the Mayflower landing at Plymouth rock.  It’s just a misguided attempt to sharpen the Native American connection to the holiday, which I think many modern day native tribes would take offense to.

The one other metric that I have seen people use to define what they see as a Thanksgiving movie, and that’s atmosphere.  It in a way goes back to what John Hughes captured in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and that’s the feeling of what the holiday season feels like.  It’s the contrast of the warmth of the household where the family has gathered together to feast against the frigid cold of the world outside.  This is something that has become the case for what many are recently claiming as the newest entry into the argument for the definitive Thanksgiving movie; Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019).  Upon it’s fortuitous Thanksgiving weekend release last year, Knives Out certainly as all the hallmarks of what we could identify as a movie centered around the holiday, and that mostly has to do with the atmosphere.  The movie definitely takes place in the frigid late autumn months, in a manor house settled in the mist covered Appalachian Mountains, where a large family of eccentrics have gathered together for a celebration.  But, even though Knives Out certainly looks like a Thanksgiving movie, it’s hard to place that label on it.  The festivity is actually a birthday celebration for the wealthy patriarch of the central Thrombey family (played by Christopher Plummer) before he is found murdered the following morning.  From that point, it becomes an Agatha Christie style whodunit, with Daniel Craig hamming it up hilariously as the central sleuth on the case, Benoit Blanc.  As you can see, though it evokes the atmosphere, there is little about the movie that actually connects with Thanksgiving.  If we were going by the atmosphere alone, there are so many movies that could honestly be mischaracterized as a Thanksgiving movie.  A lot of movies use the gloomy, late fall atmosphere to give flavor to their movie, sometimes to evoke darker themes.  This is typical in something as dreary as Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997) or Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991).  Again, very little connection to Thanksgiving, though the former does take place during a Thanksgiving weekend.  It’s just another sign that it’s very hard to pin down exactly what a Thanksgiving movie should represent.

And honestly, I wish more movies did take on Thanksgiving as a central point of it’s story.  The gathering of family and friends for the holiday is ripe for dramatization, and there are so many interesting narratives that can rise from that.  But, so far, the one and only movie that is unmistakably tied to this often overlooked holiday is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and thankfully it’s a movie that reflects all the great things that makes the holiday stand out.  It perfectly captures the pressure of trying to make it back to family on time, the simple joys of a hearty meal, and the deep contrast of the warmth of the home against the coldness of the outdoors.  Though I believe John Hughes intention was to make a slap-sticky road comedy, but it came from a universal understanding drawn from his own upbringing that we can all recognize in our own experiences of celebrating Thanksgiving.  Hughes brought his familiarity of the insanity we all go through every year preparing for this one holiday, and perfectly encapsulated it in this single adventure.  Whether it’s by planes, trains or automobiles, or all of the above, we will find a way to get together and share this special day with our loved ones, even if it drives us to the edge.  But what is special about Hughes’ story is that by the end, the journey actually makes us more humane and humble, and we see that in the bond that Steve Martin and John Candy’s characters build.  What started out with the “between the pillows” mishap builds to Martin inviting Candy to his home to celebrate Thanksgiving together, especially after learning that it’s the only celebration he’ll have that year.  It’s that humanity that really, above all else, creates the ideal of what Thanksgiving should be, and cements Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as the definitive Thanksgiving storyline.  Hopefully, more filmmakers find a way to center their stories in that same kind of ideal when it comes to the holiday.  Thanksgiving certainly has only a fraction of the same kind of attention that the holidays on either side of it get, but at least it can boast of one beloved movie that does in fact find the true meaning of what Thanksgiving is all about.

Wolfwalkers – Review

What are some of the benefits that may come from the shift to online streaming as the dominant form of content distribution in the film industry?  The pandemic year of 2020 has given Hollywood a reckoning with where it’s future will lie.  There is no doubt that the closure of theaters has put streaming into a more central role, though it’s still too early to say if that is sustainable.  Even still, it has given the industry itself pause as to what it needs to do to return to a sense of normalcy, and it probably involves changing their way of thinking about what kind of movies that need to be made and what is the best way to bring those movies to a wide audience.  That’s something that the world of streaming has shown us, even before the pandemic hit.  The last decade saw a glut of big budget blockbuster movies dominating the screens, and while these movies were successful in bringing people out of their homes and into a theater, it also lead to a significant lack of variety in the kinds of movies that were being made.  Meanwhile, the kinds of movies that used to be found regularly on the big screen, but had over time disappeared (rom coms, screwball comedies, intimate thrillers), but were now suddenly thriving on places like Netflix and Amazon Prime.  With big budget movies left waiting due to the pandemic, it’s these often forgotten movies that are having their day in the sun right now thanks to streaming, and it’s making the studios reconsider suddenly where their priorities are.  In many ways, part of the story of 2020 is the revival of these often neglected sub genres, which are helping to fill the void left by the absence of the silver screen.  And this includes a renewed appreciation for things that have often been treated as not commercially viable enough anymore, like animated movies that are sticking to traditional hand drawn styles instead of jumping on the CGI bandwagon.

One of the areas that streaming has thankfully been able to do is give more creative freedom to independent producers who operate outside of the shadow of Hollywood.  After all, places like Netflix and Amazon want to distinguish themselves from the “big five” Hollywood studios, so they are eagerly seeking out production companies that are themselves unique and original.  This has been especially fortuitous for animation companies, especially those who are not working with computer animation, which has been the dominant format in the last 20 years.  One such studio that has carved out it’s own niche has been the Kilkenny, Ireland based studio Cartoon Saloon.  The studio, co-founded by animators Tomm Moore, Paul Young, and Nora Twomey, began as a small animation farm outfit that provided services for clients such as Nickelodeon, The Disney Channel, and the BBC for various cartoon series on the networks.  But in the late 2000’s, Cartoon Saloon decided to expand their reach as a production company by embarking on their first full length feature.  What they planned to do was to create movies with a distinctive Irish character to them, drawn from the national folklore and ancient Celtic mythology, helping to put their country on the map cinematically in the field of animation. Their first film was The Secret of Kells (2009), a fictionalized telling of the creation of the legendary Book of Kells; an illuminated manuscript printing of the Bible that is one of Ireland’s most sacred national treasures.  The film was a modest success, and it led to more well received animated features, including Song of the Sea (2014) and The Breadwinner (2017).  Though not yet achieving the same kind of success as big studios like Disney and Dreamworks yet, each of their three movies so far have been Oscar nominated for Best Animated feature, and Cartoon has been affectionately dubbed by many in the film and animation industry as the Studio Ghibli of Ireland.  Now, with the aid of a streaming giant backer (Apple in this case), Cartoon Saloon is releasing what may be their most ambitious feature yet, and one that may hopefully propel them further into the mainstream; their epic scale adventure, Wolfwalkers (2020).

In the late 17th century, the town of Kilkenny has been put under the thumb of the occupying army of English invaders.  The Lord Protector (Simon McBurney) has squashed all rebellion in the area, and means to tame the resistant Irish population to bend to his rule.  He does so by stoking fear amongst the citizens of Kilkenny of a dangerous pack of wolves that live on the outskirts of the town, and that only he and his army are the ones that can protect the village.  He enlists his chief wolf hunter, Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean) to set traps around the town.  Goodfellowe is loyal to his master’s commands, but he also has to balance being a devoted father to his restless daughter Robyn (Honor Kneafsey) who desperately wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a fearless wolf hunter herself.  Despite her father’s demands to stay home, Robyn sneaks out of the town and follow after him.  She carelessly ends up being caught in one of her father’s traps, and soon encounters a young wolf cub who helps her out of the trap.  Robyn, confused by the nature of this unusual wolf cub, ends up following after her and discovers a secret den where there is a human mother and daughter sleeping.  It turns out, the wolf cub is actually the little girl named Mebh (Eva Whittaker) who can assume a wolf form while she is asleep.  She helps Robyn return safely to her village, while also convincing her that the wolves are not a threat and are merely just trying to survive the loss of their forest due to the expansion of the Lord Protector’s plans for more farming.  Robyn returns to her home and hopes to convince her father of what she discovered, but her father doesn’t believe the story.  Meanwhile, while having to serve as a scullery maid in the Lord Protector’s manor, she makes the horrifying discovery that the Lord is holding Mebh’s mother Moll (Maria Doyle Kennedy) captive.  What follows is an attempt by the two girls to free the captive wolf mother, which leads to many magical twists and turns, which ends up defining what it really means to be a Wolfwalker.

You can see very clearly that this is a movie deeply infused with an Irish identity.  Not only does it touch upon Irish folklore and myth with the idea of the Wolfwalkers themselves, but it also draws upon real Irish history, with the conquest of the Ireland under the brutal tyranny of Oliver Cromwell as it’s backdrop.  But the pleasing thing is that you don’t have to be a scholar in Irish society and tradition in order to have a good time watching this movie, because it is just an all around triumph of storytelling.  The movie, directed by studio founder Tomm Moore and Cartoon Saloon newcomer Ross Stewart (who came from an equally beloved independent animation studio called Laika), definitely feels like a big step forward for the burgeoning studio.  Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea, and The Breadwinner were all modest productions, despite featuring some truly breathtaking and imaginative imagery.  Wolfwalkers strives to be bigger and grander in every way, in both scale and story, and it definitely succeeds at that.  To me, this movie had the feel of Disney at their height in the Renaissance period, minus the musical numbers.  Though the main characters are still an intimate and uncrowded number, they are surrounded by a supporting cast of thousands and a much larger canvas overall.  The settings of this movie, from the town of Kilkenny to the enchanted forest dwelling of the wolves just feels grander than anything we’ve seen from Cartoon Saloon before, and yet it still maintains their very distinct style.  Director Tomm Moore has said in interviews that Wolfwalkers is their attempt to do everything they could do but haven’t been able to so far due to either budget restraints or it not servicing the story.  With Apple’s deep pockets helping to back them this time, they are finally able to make a movie with more ambition to it, but with the same kind of care and detail that they devoted to their more modest films.

One thing that will really take your breath away while watching the movie is just the stunning beauty of the film all around.  This is definitely one of those “every frame is a painting” kind of movies, reminiscent of films like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1959).  Cartoon Saloon has worked with this very Celtic inspired motif through many of their films before, but they turn it up to 11 with Wolfwalkers.  Pretty much every single scene features a new creative idea that you didn’t expect, and it keeps you captivated from beginning to the end.  At the same time, it doesn’t overwhelm the rest of the movie either, as the story is still able to find it’s way.  I was amazed just how well the visuals of the movie doesn’t distract from the story-telling, but rather elevates it, in the way that the best animated movies do.  In many ways, this is something that has been lacking in animation for a while, as Computer Animation has in many way homogenized the industry.  While there are still many good CGI animated movies out there, the sheer dominance of the format has unfortunately made so many of the movies look the same; to the point where you can’t tell one studio’s style from the other.  The same cannot be said about hand drawn animation.  Every studio has their unique in-house style, even if some try to copycat the likes of Disney.  This is also true of international animation, with Japan defining it’s identity through their creation of the Anime style.  That’s what’s so pleasing about what Cartoon Saloon is doing.  Their animation style is all their own, and it is unapologetically Irish.  I especially love the lushness of the woods, which intertwines and loops around in a way that evokes Celtic design in a very strong way.  The rigidness of Kilkenny in the movie also has it’s own story-book like feel; something that only hand drawn animation can capture.  It is possible to make Computer Animation capture this same feel, as Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) brilliantly illustrated, but what Wolfwalkers really exposes is the fact that very few animated movies today really take full advantage of what the medium is capable of because of all that homogeny, and that it is essential for movies like it to remind us of what we are missing.

One of the things that I think really helps to carry the movie through is the wonderful cast of colorful characters in the film.  Robyn Goodfellowe certainly follows in a long line of strong independent female heroines in animated movies, but the animators and voice actress Honor Kneafsey do a great job of making her more than one note.  She is a character that actually goes through a lot of growth in the movie, both naturally and supernaturally.  She also manages to balance well off the performance of Eva Whittaker as Mebh, who is just as wild and unpredictable as her character should be.  I especially like the design of the character Mebh, whose billowing red hair becomes almost a character in her own right.  She also has these wild looking, massive eyes that really connects her to her Wolf persona.  Whether she’s in fur or in human skin, she is easily identifiable.  The characters also make a really good balance between being cartoonishly funny and heartbreakingly sincere, which is a real testament to the talents of the animators.  I also like the way they portray the stoicism of Bill Goodfellowe, making him strong but also sympathetic, helping to define the divisions and the connections that he shares with his daughter.  Certainly animating to Sean Bean’s voice can’t be easy, due to his often understated acting style, but they make it work.  I was also especially pleased that this is an animated movie with a very strong villain at it’s center.  The Lord Protector, though not specifically stated to be based on Oliver Cromwell, certainly borrows many visual connections to the notorious dictator, and like most animated villains, he is visualized as dark and shadowy.  He’s a nice throwback to the classic Disney villains of the Renaissance period, specifically reminding me of Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and actor Simon McBurney does a great job of bringing effective menace to the character.

I should point out that Wolfwalkers only invokes the same feeling that we get from the classic Disney animated films, and is not just a copycat.  This is an animated movie that really carves out it’s own identity.  What worked for Disney so well during it’s Renaissance period was the fact that they were embracing what they were capable of in their medium and using it to tell stories that appealed to a wide audience.  But, at the same time, they too began to fall back on playing it safe and making each movie just like the one before it.  This has been true of an industry that over time has favored marketability over artistry.  The era of Computer Animation has held a firm grip on what kinds of animated movies get greenlit, because for the most part, they are the ones that can reliably bring people back to the theaters week in and week out.  Disney tried to revive hand drawn animation briefly with The Princess and the Frog (2009), but it’s modest returns were not enough to turn the tide.  The 2020 pandemic may however be the thing that gives the studios pause.  We are already seeing a variety of different animated films popping up on Netflix, mostly as acquired assets though a few other have been spear-headed by the streamer directly.  Cartoon Saloon’s next film in fact, My Father’s Dragon (2021) will be a Netflix exclusive.  Disney has also been forced by the conditions of the pandemic to premiere their new Pixar film, Soul (2020) exclusively on their streaming platform Disney+.  We are seeing playing out right now a real test of what the future of animation will be like.  Can computer animation survive without the movie theaters, or will more independent fare like Wolfwalkers become more of what we see in the years ahead.  Certainly, the fact that everyone is tuning in to streaming platforms instead of going out to the movies is putting a spotlight on movies like Wolfwalkers that it otherwise wouldn’t have had, and that may be something that really ends up being a game changer in the end.  AppleTV+ certainly isn’t in the realm of Netflix, Amazon, or even Disney+ yet, but with a quality must see film like Wolfwalkers made exclusively for it, it certainly will draw more positive attention their way.

Regardless of how we are able to watch it, I strongly recommend that you check out Wolfwalkers if you can.  Thus far, it is the best animated movie that I have seen this year, and that includes a film released in the Spring from Pixar (Onward).  Just the fact that it shows that there is still life in the medium of hand drawn animation, and that the market has been desperately lacking such a movie within the mainstream for a long time,  is enough to make any of you interested in seeing it.  It has the ambition and grandeur of Disney at their best, while at the same time maintaining it’s distinctive Irish character.  Cartoon Saloon has a bright future ahead of it if they continue to make movies of this caliber.  Though all of their movies thus far have been exceptional, this one takes it to the next level and really shows what they are capable of.  I highly expect that they are going to be 4-4 in Oscar nominations when Awards season kicks into gear next spring, and they may have their best case yet for taking home Oscar gold finally.  Right now the movie is having a limited theatrical run in the United States, which may be even more limited now because of the increased lock downs across the country that are re-shutting down many movie theaters.  If it’s important for you to see something like this on the big screen, I highly recommend it, but with the caveat that you should only go if you can do so safely.  I lucked out in seeing it at a local Drive-In, so there’s that option if available.  Starting December 11, it will then be available for AppleTV+ subscribers, as well as available to buy exclusively on iTunes.  Like all the best animated movies, it is perfect for audiences of all ages, although I do commend the filmmakers for not shying away from darker themes, which really serves the movie well and earn it a PG rating.  Time will tell if these are the kinds of movie that change animation in this period of flux.  Will Wolfwalkers create a new Renaissance of hand drawn animation, or is it just a fleeting but nevertheless worthwhile reminder of what animation used to be like?

Rating: 9/10

Kingdom Come – How The Emperor’s New Groove Went From Nearly Cancelled to Cult Hit Over 20 Years

It is hard to keep a streak of success running non-stop in the film industry.  As I discussed in may critique of Disney’s Chicken Little (2005) last week, you often see once mighty power players within the business like Disney Animation come crashing back to Earth unexpectedly, even at points where it seemed like the sky is the limit.  In fact, it really is something that more often than not happens very frequently in the field of animation.  Because an animated movie takes so long to produce (on average about 4-5 years), it becomes extremely hard to course correct once the market has shifted all of a sudden, and what seemed like a sure thing at the start of production might end up being out of sync upon completion.  That was certainly the dilemma that Disney Animation faced at the turn of the millennium in the year 2000.  What started out as a massive era of growth and success under the Disney Renaissance, with massive hits like Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994) all building on top of each other, began to wane by the end of the decade, with lower box office returns not being able to offset the growing costs.  Disney in many ways became too successful too quickly, and were unable to sustain the empire that they had manage to build up.  And with the growing competition from new rival Dreamworks, and the market being led more towards Computer Animation thanks to their partnership with Pixar, Disney quickly had to rethink their priorities.  This would involve making the hard choice of having to either halt, revise or completely scrap movies already long in development in order to reorganize for the coming years ahead.  This was the condition that encircled what was to be the next big Disney epic that was follow in the line of the past Renaissance era classics; the South American set Kingdom of the Sun.

Kingdom of the Sun began development in 1994, right off the heels of The Lion King’s record shattering success.  Like the other movies given the greenlight during the decade, Kingdom was developed to spotlight a different cultural texture that had not yet been explored in animation, much like what The Lion King did for Africa, and what the upcoming Pocahontas (1995) and Mulan (1998) were going to do for Native American and Chinese cultures respectively.  Kingdom of the Sun was to be set in ancient Incan society, with much of the animation taking inspiration from various Paleo-American influences.  But, despite the cultural influence, the story that Disney was planning to tell, was not all that unfamiliar to American audiences.  The plot was in fact going to be a reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper.  There have been many versions of this story told over the years, and in fact Disney had done one themselves only 5 years prior; a half-hour short starring Mickey Mouse that was played in front of The Rescuers Down Under (1990) in theaters.  This version in Kingdom of the Sun would, however, involve a magical twist, with an evil sorceress named Yzma switching the Emperor with his llama herder lookalike, and having the Emperor be turned into a llama himself, so that no one would recognize him.  It of course wouldn’t be a Disney movie if there wasn’t magic involved somehow in the plot.  What became a major selling point for the production was the aspect of it’s South American setting.  Disney sent it’s team of artists to places like Macchu Picchu and the Incan capital of Kuzco to study the architecture and art of this lost society, and have it inform the look of the movie.  The movie moved along at full steam ahead, with voice actors like David Spade, Owen Wilson, Eartha Kitt, and Harvey Fierstein all lined up to play the leads, and a team of Disney’s top animators all working hard to bring the movie to life.  However, as the returns for Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Hercules (1997) all disappointed at the box office, the Disney executives began to scrutinize the still in development projects a bit harder, and the hard truth became apparent; Kingdom of the Sun was just not working.

A major part of the problem was the fact that there was insurmountable division in the role of the directors.  Roger Allers, who had previously helmed The Lion King alongside co-director Rob Minkoff, had begun Kingdom of the Sun as his own pet project, initially going solo in the director’s chair.  But, as mounting costs and slow production began to plague the film, Disney executives enlisted another director to take some of the burden of Allers shoulders and also a bit more humor into the movie.  Mark Dindal, a one-time effects animator who left Disney briefly to direct the movie Cats Don’t Dance (1997) at Warner Brothers, brought a more Looney Tunes-esque sensibility to his style of directing animation, and it was apparent very quickly that this clashed with Allers more epic grandeur sense of direction.  Pairing up directors on a project had long been a norm in Animation, with most of the Disney Renaissance classics being made by the iconic teams of John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin) and Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale (Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame).  Allers of course had worked well with Rob Minkoff on Lion King, but Minkoff had already left Disney at this point to direct the live action Stuart Little (1999), and Mark Dindal was just not the same kind of collaborator.  And not only that, but Disney was now threatening to tighten up the budget even more and demand more changes.  So, amidst insurmountable creative differences, Allers left the production, with rough animation almost 70% complete and finished animation almost at 20%.  There was no doubt about it, Disney had already poured a lot of money and resources into a movie that was not working and had just lost it’s primary driving force.  So this was the crossroads point; either move ahead and complete the movie, or cut the losses and cancel the whole thing.

Strangely enough, Mark Dindal, who came into the project late in development, was adamant about salvaging this troubled film.  He also received back up from the film’s producer Randy Fullmer.  Together they appealed Disney for a stay of execution so that they could rework the movie into something they could finish on time and on budget.  Disney, who were initially inclined to scrapping the film, were swayed by Dindal and Fullmer’s appeal, but on this one condition; that they have their new pitch ready in only 6 weeks.  That’s an extremely short amount of time to create a new story from scratch, no matter what medium of film you work in, and the two poor filmmakers had to make it happen in the notoriously slow moving process that is animation.  But, Dindal and Fullmer spent those next few weeks going through the remains of Kingdom of the Sun to find anything that they could to salvage.  Gone was the Prince and the Pauper storyline and the more epic scale grandeur of the setting.  Most of the cast of characters were either scrapped or reworked, with only the David Spade’s Emperor and Earth Kitt’s Yzma making the cut intact.  Perhaps the most painful revision made to the movie was the removal of the musical numbers written by famed recording artist Sting.  Sting was the next in line of pop artists like Elton John and Phil Collins who was going to have his chance to orchestrate a full musical score for a Disney movie.  In fact, he was so excited to work on the film, that he had his romantic partner Trudie Styler document his creative process for an upcoming documentary to coincide with the movie’s release.  Unfortunately, in the midst of the film’s shake-up, all but two of the songs Sting wrote were scrapped, leaving him decidedly upset.  Sting obliged with his contractual duties through the rest of the film’s production, but ever since, he’s remained at arms length with anything Disney related.  It was hard, difficult surgery, but Dindal and Fullmer managed to get their pitch completed in a record amount of time, and to everyone’s surprise, Disney granted them the chance to finish the film.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Disney decided to move forward was because Mark Dindal and Randy Fullmer pitched them a film that was very much streamlined.  Instead of a grandiose, epic musical, this new film would be much more of a screwball comedy, in line with Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges.  Normally this would have been off brand for Disney, but given that it came at a time of belt-tightening at the studio, the production benefitted from a different set of priorities, especially after $50 million had already been spent.  So, where to go after that.  Given that the movie was taking a more screwball approach to the comedy, it meant that they needed to put more emphasis on the characters themselves, making them the driving force of the movie’s humor.  The once epic movie cast was dwindled down to just a main cast of four.  The Emperor, now named Kuzco, was reworked to better reflect the persona of the actor playing him; comedian David Spade.  Spade had survived the culling of the original film, retaining his role intact, but this new direction in a way was better suited for his talents.  Spade’s career has largely been shaped around performing as a smarmy, take no prisoners social observer, often with biting put downs of famous targets.  He’s played this kind of self-absorbed character in various Saturday Night Live sketches and in movies, and it matched the persona they needed for the Emperor Kuzco perfectly.  Though the filmmakers leaned more into Spade’s persona for the character, they completely overhauled the film’s other lead into something completely different.  The poor llama herder, Pacha, was changed from Kuzco’s lookalike to a middle aged, broad shouldered man who is saddled with having to save the smug, selfish ruler once Kuzco is transformed into a llama (another carry over from the original film).  Owen Wilson was dropped out and replaced with John Goodman, whose gruff, wholesome delivery honestly balances off of Spade’s snark much better than Wilson’s performance would’ve.

The character least impacted by the change in the movie was the villain Yzma.  Though her machinations changed a bit throughout the reorganization, there was little change to her as an asset to the movie, and her character design also remained constant throughout.  Earth Kitt was saddened that she didn’t get her chance to sing in the finished film, with her Sting written villain song “Snuff out the Light” being one of the notable highlights in scrapped soundtrack.  However, the more comical take on the film revealed something unexpected about Ms. Kitt’s talents, which is her surprising knack for comedy.  Yzma is easily one of the funniest villains Disney ever written, and Eartha Kitt holds her own even in a cast of comedy heavy weights.  The way she delivers hilariously dry lines like, “It’s called a cruel irony, like my dependence on you,” just shows you how masterfully she is able to balance salty menace with complete absurdity.  It’s hard to know how much more impactful her performance might have been had the movie not changed, but she nevertheless made Yzma a worthy addition to the rogues gallery of iconic Disney villains.  But what also worked well to the movie’s advantage, and honestly what possibly saved the movie as a whole, was the creation of an entirely new character named Kronk.  Initially, in Kingdom of the Sun, no such villain sidekick existed.  But, during an audition for a throwaway guardsman character, the filmmakers came across a small time character actor named Patrick Warburton, who at that time was best known for a recurring role as Elaine’s dim-witted boyfriend on Seinfeld.  Warburton’s hilarious vocal performance delighted the filmmakers so much that they crafted this new character just for him, and it made a huge difference for the film.  Warburton’s Kronk steals every moment he is on screen, whether he’s delighting in his culinary talents, conversing with squirrels, or consulting his “shoulder angel,” he’s hilariously on point, and the movie is far funnier because of it.  The cool thing is, the was Patrick Warburton’s first ever role in animation, and in the 20 years since, he’s become one of the most sought after voice actors in the business, no doubt as a result of his stand out work here.

Throughout all the changes, it became clear that what Director Mark Dindal and Producer Randy Fullmer were working on was no longer the movie that it started out as, and this became apparent to everyone in Hollywood the moment the movie changed it’s name.  Kingdom of the Sun unexpectedly was retitled The Emperor’s New Groove just a mere year left until it’s release.  People were puzzled by this, because it was extremely off brand for Disney to give their movies a pun-filled title.  Kingdom of the Sun invoked grandeur in the same way that The Lion King and The Hunchback of Notre Dame had before.  The Emperor’s New Groove sounded like a joke.  Indeed, it looked like Disney had lost it’s mind at this point, and the outlook for the movie was not good.  It was shoved off to mid-December, as opposed to the traditional mid-June or Thanksgiving weekends that had benefitted Disney in the past.  In a way, it almost looked like Disney was trying to bury the movie, believing it would turn into a major embarrassment like The Black Cauldron (1985).  Initially, it looked like that would be the case.  It opened to mild box office, grossing $10 million opening weekend, which was a quarter of what Tarzan (1999) had made in it’s opening a year prior.  But, the movie managed to stick around through the holiday season, not dropping out of the top ten for nearly two months, and in the end, it earned a respectable $95 million domestic.  It’s still low box office, but not an embarrassment either.  However, The Emperor’s New Groove‘s released was fortuitously timed for a different kind of market that would help it even more.  In late 2000 and early 2001, Disney released their first batch of releases in the new home video format known as DVD.  Along with some established classics, The Emperor’s New Groove was released as part of this new format, and was the newest film in the library as well, piquing interest among Disney fans who might have missed the movie the first time in theaters.  To Disney’s surprise, Groove not only sold well, it became their top seller in the DVD market in it’s first year, ranking higher than classics like Pinocchio (1940) and Dumbo (1941).  And the movie would continue to perform strong several year later.  To everyone’s surprise, The Emperor’s New Groove became an underground hit.

No where else in the Disney canon will you find another movie that had a more unexpected outcome.  The Emperor’s New Groove went from six weeks of near cancellation to becoming a cult favorite that endures to this day.  There are a surprisingly large amount of people who even consider Groove to be among their favorite Disney movies overall, and some even put it at the top.  I can’t say for sure what it is about the movie that connected so strongly with audiences.  Perhaps it’s the uncharacteristic level of humor that makes it stand out among other Disney movies.  The fact that it is irreverent, and is free of the many Disney clichés that people find refreshing.  Who knows?  20 years later, I think that the story of how this movie rose from the ashes and managed to carve out it’s own road to success is it’s own fascinating story.  Disney has been ruthless when it comes to scrapping troubled productions even after having fully announced them (see the history of the cancelled film Gigantic for example), so the fact that Emperor’s New Groove not only survived but thrived is something pretty special in the history of the company.  The Emperor’s New Groove still lives on, spawning a direct-to-video sequel and a Saturday Morning cartoon spinoff.  It also proves that there’s no such thing as a sure thing in Hollywood.  Sometimes sure things are doomed to fail, while potential disasters can manage to become a surprise success.  Take it from this pandemic year, where we saw a Christopher Nolan film bomb while Sonic the Hedgehog became a box office hit.  Movies have a way of surprising people, especially in the long run, and The Emperor’s New Groove is proof of that.  It’s worth exploring the tumultuous history of this film more.  Trudie Styler did compile all her footage together into a documentary called The Sweatbox (2002) and it chronicles first hand how Kingdom of the Sun fell apart behind the scenes.  What’s most fascinating in her documentary is that it also features rough animation from the original film, the only parts that have managed to escape out of the Disney vaults.  My hope is that a rough workprint of Kingdom of the Sun does see the light of day eventually, just so that we can all see what might have been.  Even still, the fact that The Emperor’s New Groove managed to survive at all and become a long term success is something pretty miraculous in the world of animation.  Perhaps, as a means of preserving their future, a “new groove” is exactly what Disney needed.

What the Hell Was That? – Chicken Little (2005)

My whole life I have been pretty devoted to the long, diverse legacy of The Walt Disney Company.  Since childhood, Disney was the gateway to all cinema, helping me to form a strong sense of the artform and business from an early age.  And it was a good time to grow up as a Disney fan.  My formative years fell within the height of the Disney Renaissance, from The Little Mermaid (1989) to The Lion King (1994).  I would obsessively pour over all the new information I could get about what Disney was working on next, and discovering more and more of the deeper titles within the decades long Disney library.  Even before I had entered high school, I could boast that I had seen nearly every Disney animated film that had been made up to that point; The Black Cauldron (1985) being the notable holdout because of it’s lack of availability at the time.  To this day, even though my interest in cinema has expanded far beyond walls of a single studio, I still hold a special place in my heart for most things Disney, so you can still say that I am a fan.  At the same time, I would also say that I am not a member of any Disney cult either.  Like any other big corporation, the House of Mouse does it’s own share of questionable activities in order to keep their profits going strong, and if it does cross the line, I will call them out on it.  Their labor disputes with workers in their vast company over the years have reflected badly on them, even in Walt Disney’s time.  More recently, their cozy arrangements with the Chinese Government has raised some eyebrows, especially with claims of forced labor behind things like product supply lines and the production of the recent Mulan remake.  Those are serious questions for a different time, but I also point out that there are creative failures from the company as well that have left me questioning the judgment of those working at Disney.  And that’s something that I find right at the heart of what may be my least favorite Disney film of all time; 2005’s Chicken Little.

Chicken Little came out in theaters at a very turbulent time for the Walt Disney company.  The later part of the Disney Renaissance post-The Lion King did not see the same kind of success that the earlier films had.  Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Hercules (1997) all underperformed and received mixed reception, while Mulan (1998) and Tarzan (1999) saw only modest success.  At the same time, Pixar began to rise in prominence, with the Toy Story movies leading the way to even bigger hits like Monsters Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003).  This diminishing of returns for hand drawn animation coinciding with the rise of computer animation began to seriously challenge the notion within the industry about what kind of future the traditional form had left.  Then came two pivotal moments.  One was the release of the movie Shrek (2001) from newly formed rival studio Dreamworks, which saw record box office and critical praise, earning the first ever Oscar for Best Animated Feature.  A year later, Disney’s Treasure Planet (2002) became the biggest money loser in the company’s history.  The writing was on the wall; hand drawn was out and computer animation was in.  Now, Disney already had their partnership with Pixar to guide them into this next era, but it was a limited contract, and Pixar was itching to go solo.  Disney CEO at the time, Michael Eisner, was not happy with what Pixar was demanding as a part of the renewal offer, so he set out to shift Disney’s fledgling animation department to be a Pixar competitor, focused entirely on CGI animation.  However, by the time the first of these new CGI Disney films were about to enter production, Eisner’s tenure was ended in a shareholder revolt, and soon after Bob Iger was left in charge of the company.  Iger not only soothed over tensions with Pixar, he negotiated a full purchase of the studio altogether, making them officially a part of the Disney company.  Though the duel with Pixar was ended before it even started, Eisner’s final push to bring computer animation to the legendary animation department still continued on.

Though a number of projects received a green-light at the same time, it was Chicken Little that was fast-tracked to be the first of this new breed of Disney movie.  Put in charge of the project were Director Mark Dindal and Producer Randy Fullmer, fresh off their surprise success with the sleeper hit The Emperor’s New Groove (2000).  Many of the animation team were also Disney vets from the Renaissance period that had to quickly re-train themselves in order to work in this new field of computer animation.  Also notable was the fact that the movie was going to deviate from the traditional Disney formula; it would not be a musical, aside from licensed songs and new pop tunes scattered throughout the score, it would be taking the classic nursery rhyme story and giving it a “modern” twist, and it would be banking on irreverent humor as a base for it’s entertainment.  The movie came out the year after the last of Disney’s hand drawn animated films, Home on the Range (2004) and ironically only a few short months after Eisner’s ouster and Iger’s purchase of Pixar, casting something of a shadow over the movie upon it’s release.  While there was anticipation over what Disney might deliver with their first CGI feature, there was also worry.  Chicken Little did perform modestly well at the box office, banking $150 million domestic for Disney, but critically it was a different story.  The movie was seen as too generic and lacking an identity.  And that really is the thing that characterizes the failure of Chicken Little the most as an entry in the Disney canon; the fact that it doesn’t feel like a true Disney film.  More than anything, it feels like Disney was trying to answer the competition of Dreamworks and Pixar with more of the same formula, and it backfired.  For the first time in it’s storied history, it looked like Disney were the ones playing catch-up.

The story of Disney’s Chicken Little, for lack of a better word, is weak. Pretty much every underdog cliché you can think of is thrown at you with regards to Little’s character development.  He’s ostracized for having been responsible for mayhem due to his assertion that the sky was falling and has to build his reputation back up, which is only compounded by the fact that he is a small statured little chicken.  They also throw in a cliched parental issues with his father, Buck Cluck (voiced by the late Garry Marshall), which of course is something that has been done to death in countless other Disney films.  Even with these tired tropes at it’s heart, the movie can’t even focus on this the whole way through, as later on, the movie turns into an alien invasion plot which comes straight out of nowhere, and makes the second half feel like a whole other film.  There is no heart or drive to the movie.  It just hits the points when it needs to and then moves onto the next point.  Pretty good case in point is when the town that the characters live in begins to be completely invaded by aliens, Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff) and his father are holed up in a theater for safety, and as the tension of the moment begins to rise, Little just stops the scene to finally speak his mind to his emotionally distant father.  Had the movie been able to build up a more contentious relationship with Little and his dad, this moment might have landed better, but here, it just stops the movie cold so that script can scratch one more thing off it’s list.  That’s emblematic of the movie as a whole, it just forces it’s moments through without letting it flow naturally.  It’s yet another sign of the filmmakers looking at other movies, like those from Dreamworks and Pixar, and just cutting and pasting what they saw.  For a storied studio like Disney to resort to this, it shows a shocking bit of desperation.

I should also point out that none of the characters are likeable at all.  Maybe with the possible exception of Buck Cluck, based on the charm of Garry Marshall’s vocal performance alone, all the characters are either too flashy and “hip” to be believable, too obnoxious, or too generic to leave an impression.  Chicken Little is easily the most underwhelming protagonist of any Disney movie, and that’s mainly because he changes little (no pun intended) throughout the film.  It was clear that Disney wanted actor Zach Braff’s vocal performance to drive the personality of the character, but he’s left with nothing but his own persona to guide him through that process.  Like many of Zach Braff’s other characters throughout the years, Chicken Little is nerdy, neurotic, and put down by society, and by the end of the movie he is still nerdy, neurotic but only less put down by society.  It’s not Chicken Little who changes, but all those around him that dealt him a bad hand.  It’s just not the hero’s journey that you expect from a Disney protagonist, who in some way or fashion have to struggle with some of their own shortcomings in order to become the hero.  It doesn’t help that the sidekick characters that follow him along are also devoid of interesting personalities.  There’s the ugly duckling, Abby Mallard, who like Braff’s Chicken Little is more defined by who voices her (Joan Cusack) than anything else as a character.  There’s voiceless Fish Out of Water, who is just there to deliver visual gags.  And then there’s Runt of the Litter (voiced by Steve Zahn) who may be the most insufferable comedic character ever put into any animated movie.  He’s just there to be the butt of fat jokes and to break into pop music tunes, because Disney’s trying way too hard to be culture savvy.  Coming off of the glory days of the Disney Renaissance, which gave us classic original characters like Sebastian the Crab, Mrs. Potts, the Genie, Pumbaa, and many more, this bland cast of characters really feel out of place, because there clearly was no care in making them stand out in the way that the other had.

I should also note that the movie is visually uninspired as well.  Now, to be fair, none of the computer animated movies of that era particularly look great over fifteen years later.  Computer animation was fairly new and still experimenting with a lot of techniques with each successive film.  But, most people don’t pay attention to the dated look of early CGI when the story and the characters are engaging enough to carry the rest of the movie.  That is why Toy Story has endured a quarter of a century after it’s original release.  With a story and characters that are less than engaging, people are bound to take notice of the shortcomings of early computer animation even more, and it is painfully obvious how lackluster Chicken Little looks.  The movie just has this obvious low texture look to it, like all the characters and the environments are made from plastic.  The village that the movie takes place, called Oakey Oaks (*eyeroll*) also has this strange visual style to it, where it’s supposed to look cartoony, but the blockiness of early CGI doesn’t completely smooth out the edges, so it becomes this weird mish-mash of painfully simplistic environmental design.  The only interesting visual idea in the whole movie is the way that the sky is made up of hexagonal plates that sit on the bottom of the space ships that are stealthily hovering over the town, and when the ships pull apart, it maintains that pattern.  The false sky element leads to some of the only visual gags that work as well, but sadly it doesn’t get nearly enough time on screen.  I almost think that a large part of what drove the visual look of this movie was probably coming from Disney’s consumer product line, who were possibly pushing the filmmakers to create character and structural designs that would appeal better as potential toys to sell in conjunction with the movie’s release.  It wouldn’t have been the first movie at Disney to have given consideration to the marketability, but with so little else that stands out in the film, it just further illustrates how this movie was made as more of a product and less as a work of art.

It’s interesting that Disney would attempt to devote a feature film to the story of Chicken Little at all and do so without giving any importance to the ultimate message behind the story.  The story of Chicken Little, which goes back to early European Folklore, is a cautionary tale about hysteria, and the dangers of giving into one’s fears.  Disney in fact had tackled the story before in the 1940’s in a short cartoon.  The short is noteworthy by the fact that it ends on a decidedly dark ending, with Chicken Little being tricked by the evil Foxy Loxy into convincing the other chickens on the farm to believe his belief that the sky is falling.  They all follow Chicken Little into a cave where they think they will all be safe, but to their tragic mistake, Foxy Loxy is there waiting.  The last we see is rows of chicken bones laid out like tombstones on the cave floor.  Pretty dark right.  It was originally supposed to be even darker, because Disney started out making the short as a wartime propaganda piece, explicitly connecting the hysteria spread by Chicken Little as the seeds of dangerous ideologies like Fascism and Communism.  Though cut out of the original short, Foxy Loxy was shown getting his ideas from reading passages out of Mein Kamph, Hitler’s notorious manifesto that became the backbone of Nazism.  Disney later changed it to a “psychology” text book, though some of the passages are still from the same source.  Though 2005’s Chicken Little didn’t need to be that explicit in it’s message, it nevertheless missed a prime opportunity to have a meaningful lesson at it’s core that stems from the original story.  Instead, the movie plays it safe.  It reminds me of how starkly it contrasts with another film about animals who live in a human like society that is way, way better in it’s execution; Zootopia (2016).  Not only was Zootopia far better looking and had more interesting characters, but it was also not afraid to lean more into a sharp social critique that you otherwise wouldn’t have expected.  The fundamental success of Zootopia just illustrates even more how squandered the entire Chicken Little experiment was, and what it could have been had it been brave enough to have an identity.

There are worse animated movies out there, but for a studio like Disney that has raised the bar so high for the artform, Chicken Little is definitely the bottom of the rung of the ladder.  It looks cheap, it’s derivative of too many other features, and it lacks an identity.  And the most sad thing of all, it just reeks of desperation.  It’s scary to think that this is what Michael Eisner was ready to herald as the touchstone for a new era in Disney animation.  Thankfully, once he was on the way out and the Pixar deal was reached, the weight of what Chicken Little was supposed to carry was somewhat lightened.  Thankfully, Disney animation only improved from there, and has remarkably not fallen under the shadow of Pixar but has instead thrived alongside of it.  A new regime now was in charge of the Burbank based animation studio, with former Pixar chief John Lasseter taking the reins.  The follow-up to Chicken Little was 2007’s Meet the Robinsons.  While not an all time classic, Robinsons was nevertheless an improvement as it had more likable characters and an emotional core at it’s heart.  Disney even briefly tried to reboot their hand drawn animation division with The Princess and the Frog (2009) though limited success led to a renewed focus on CGI, and that eventually led to mega successes like Tangled (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013), Zootopia and Moana (2016).  That’s the best thing I can say about Chicken Little is that it’s embarrassment didn’t reflect badly on Disney in the long run.  It’s a good thing too, because had it become a bigger success, I think it would’ve creatively bankrupted the studio for a long time.  Disney has long been an industry leader, being the gold standard by which all other studios strive to reach harder towards in order to match or even surpass them.  With the Dreamworks wannabe that was Chicken Little, it would have been the point where Disney ceded the crown to another studio, and let them be the drivers of the artform.  Thankfully, Disney chose a different direction, and reclaimed their dominance in the following decade, making some of the greatest animated films ever in the process.  Chicken Little only remains as a reminder of the dark path that they could’ve taken, and a sits alone as sad relic of the point where Disney was just ready to give up and choose commerce over art.