26th Apr 202427th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#50 Tangled (2010)

BACKGROUND

After the disappointing box-office results of The Princess and the Frog, hailed as the Disney Studios’ return to traditional hand-drawn animation, Disney Animation did a complete turnaround, discarding 2D animation, and decided to only make computer-generated movies from that point on – with one minor exception being Winnie the Pooh (2011).

Luckily, they didn’t do a complete 180 and go off the rails with their story format. Instead, we got another fairy-tale musical, the kind we all know and love, something that the audience would have been expecting.

Tangled is generally considered to be the start of a whole new era for Disney, the “Disney Revival” era. Not only did 2010 begin Disney’s primary use of only CG for their movies, but this was also the point where Disney Animation made some very popular movies, with Tangled starting this all off, and giving people a reason to watch Disney animated movies again.

Tangled was a huge hit with a wide audience, and has made its way into the hearts of many. However, I’m not exactly one of those.

At the time the movie was released in theatres, I loved it. I thought it was amazing, and romantic, and exciting. I particularly liked the soundtrack and the dashing character of Flynn Rider. But that was then, back in 2010.

Sadly, a few years later, I’d fallen out of love with Tangled. I blame myself though, not the film, for just simply over-watching it. For some reason, British television decided to air this movie every festive period for at least five years and I just had enough of it!

Having re-watched it, I discovered that I have never disliked Tangled; it just doesn’t hold up to some of my other favourites. I think I find the journey that Flynn and Rapunzel take on their way to see “the floating lights” is just a bit too long for me and overly action-packed. I’m guessing Disney wanted to show off the capabilities of CGI over hand-drawn animation, by demonstrating how Rapunzel’s extremely strong hair is seemingly able to pull levers, carry people of varying sizes, and act as a rope swing, as well as heal injuries and glow on demand! Once they get to the Kingdom of Corona, I enjoy it more from that point on.

That’s just my opinion though, and I am well aware that Rapunzel and the story of Tangled continue to be very popular and relevant in the wonderful world of Disney today.

PLOT

The plot of Tangled follows the fairy tale of Rapunzel, but Disney’s version of the story. In this film, we start with a full prologue, narrated by Flynn Rider. He tells us that “this is the story of how I died”, quickly adding that actually it’s quite a fun story. Well, that’s alright then.

The prologue starts saying that the Queen of the Kingdom of Corona fell ill while pregnant. The King and the guards went in search of a legendary flower, formed from a drop of sunlight, that could heal any illness. They did not know that an old woman, Mother Gothel, had been hoarding the flower’s power for her own, to make herself young whenever she sang to it. She had hidden the flower to protect it from being taken by others, but one day the King’s guards found it, brought it to the Queen and it healed her. Their daughter Rapunzel was born, with beautiful golden hair. Mother Gothel found the child, and believed that the hair still held the magic powers of the flower. Mother Gothel cut some of the child’s hair, thinking she could take it away with her so that her “anti-aging” spell could be enacted again. However, the cut hair turned brown and lost its magic power. Mother Gothel instead stole the girl from the palace, isolating her in a tower in the middle of the forest so no-one could find her. Despite years of searching, she is not found, and continues to be raised by Mother Gothel, who shields her from the outside world, never letting her leave the tower. To keep hope of finding their daughter again, the King and Queen decided to release lanterns up into the sky every year on her birthday.

The movie skips forward to eighteen years later, when Rapunzel is bored of being isolated in this tower, having to constantly sing for Mother Gothel and pull her up the tower by her incredibly long hair, because obviously it can’t be cut or it would have no powers. The only friend she has is a chameleon called Pascal. Despite years of isolation, Rapunzel has one wish – to see the floating lanterns in person, the ones she always sees every year, only on her birthday out of the tower’s only window. Mother Gothel refuses to take her, telling her that she should do as she’s told and stay inside, as the world is a horrible place, full of cruel, selfish people. Rapunzel realises if she wants to go, she’ll have to find a way herself.

Luckily, a thief called Flynn Rider makes his way into the tower, believing it to be empty as he is escaping the king’s guards after stealing the crown of the lost princess. Boy, did he choose the wrong tower to hide in, because Rapunzel hits the intruder with a frying pan, knocking him out. She ties him up and hides him in a closet. Mother Gothel returns to the tower and announces that she has brought back parsnips to make Rapunzel’s favourite: hazelnut soup. So, hazelnuts aren’t the primary ingredient of this meal? Weird. Rapunzel tries to explain that she has a thief tied up in the closet, but Mother Gothel won’t listen to her, and instead screams that she will never leave this tower – ever. Rapunzel is devastated by her mother’s outburst, so instead asks for a different birthday present, paints made from white shells her mother once brought her. Mother Gothel agrees to go on the three days’ journey to get them for her.

With Mother Gothel gone, this gives Rapunzel an idea. Once Flynn wakes up to find himself tied up – in hair – Rapunzel interrogates Flynn. She hides the crown he has stolen from the palace, and makes a deal that if he takes her to see the lanterns, he can have it back. So, they set off on a mission to fulfil her dream. Initially, Rapunzel is scared about leaving the tower, but she soon finds herself enjoying her new life – and then feels guilty, then is happy again, then guilty; you get the idea. Eventually, Flynn, tired of these mood swings and just wanting his crown, decides to try and get Rapunzel to quit and go home, as she is scared of every strange sound around her.

Flynn takes her to the Snuggly Duckling, a nice-sounding pub. Inside though, Rapunzel finds the pub full of ruffians and thugs. They aren’t interested in her, they want Flynn Rider, because there are “Wanted” posters littered all over the area saying anyone who gives him over to the guards gets a cash reward. As the ruffians fight over him and call for the guards, Rapunzel hits one of them and orders them to give back her guide, asking them to consider the importance of her dream. This causes some emotional shift in the men, and all the ruffians and thugs start to talk about their hopes and dreams and their hobbies, like baking, piano-playing, mime, interior design, and even collecting ceramic unicorns. They agree to leave Flynn alone and let Rapunzel go live her dream.

Except the guards are already here. Using a secret tunnel out of the pub, Flynn and Rapunzel flee the Snuggly Duckling and come to a ravine. Still being pursued, the two head for a small cave, but a dam bursts and the cave becomes flooded. As the two are about to drown, not being able to find a way out of the dark cave, Rapunzel remembers something – her hair can glow when she sings to it; that’s handy! With the light from her hair, Rapunzel and Flynn find some loose rocks and scramble out of the cave. They reach solid ground.

Meanwhile, Mother Gothel encounters a palace horse without its rider and is concerned for Rapunzel’s safety. She discovers Rapunzel has escaped the tower, and finds the stolen crown along with one of Flynn’s “Wanted” posters. She makes her way to the Snuggly Duckling and sees the guards pursuing someone. Mother Gothel makes a deal with two thugs, the Stabbington Brothers, who were double-crossed by Flynn at the start of the story, that she will give them a way to enact revenge on Flynn Rider if they help her.

Back with Flynn and Rapunzel, Rapunzel sees that Flynn’s hand is injured and uses her hair to heal him. Flynn then tells Rapunzel about his childhood, that Eugene Fitzherbert is his real name, but wanting to be worthy of something, he took the name and persona of an action hero from a storybook and began to live the life of a thief. Rapunzel says she much prefers Eugene to Flynn Rider, and that he should just be himself. Mother Gothel then appears when Rapunzel is alone and tries to convince her to come home, saying that all Flynn wants is the crown and once he has it, he’ll leave her in a heartbeat. Rapunzel doesn’t believe that’s true and says she’ll return it to prove Mother Gothel wrong.

The next day, the palace horse that Mother Gothel saw, Maximus, who is dead-set on bringing Flynn back to the palace for punishment, finds Rapunzel and Flynn – or is it Eugene now? I don’t know what to call him, I prefer Flynn and it’s quicker to type so let’s go with that! Rapunzel begs Maximus to leave Flynn just for today, as it is her 18^th birthday. Maximus begrudgingly agrees and goes with them to the Kingdom of Corona for the day, as they await the lantern ceremony that will take place that evening. They have a fun day celebrating this festival within the town and slowly, Flynn and Rapunzel begin to fall in love.

That evening, Flynn takes Rapunzel out on a boat so that she can experience the floating lights. She’s concerned that it won’t be everything she hoped for, and that she’ll then have to find a new dream. But she doesn’t have long to dwell on that as the ceremony begins and the sky fills with amazing lights. Rapunzel is overjoyed that she’s finally got to see them in person. As this is the end of their trip, Rapunzel hands over the crown to Flynn. but he doesn’t care about that anymore, saying that Rapunzel is much more important to him. As they row ashore, Flynn sees the Stabbington Brothers. He goes to give them the crown and offer an apology, not wanting to be in the thieving business anymore.

Rapunzel waits for Flynn but he doesn’t come back. She sees someone approaching her, but it turns out to be the Stabbington Brothers. They tell her that Flynn told them about the girl with the magic hair, and that he has run off with the crown. Rapunzel is crushed by Flynn’s supposed betrayal and flees the two brothers. Luckily, Mother Gothel is there to knock them out and she takes Rapunzel home, telling her they can forget all about this and go back to the way things were. Flynn is arrested, after being knocked out and put on a boat sailing to the palace, and is sentenced to death. However, Maximus and the ruffians, clearly having had a change of heart, rescue Flynn. Flynn goes to find Rapunzel.

Back at the tower, Rapunzel looks over the walls of the tower, sad about being stuck in the tower again. She then looks at the emblem of the Kingdom of Corona on a flag she took home. She sees this sun, and then notices that she has subconsciously incorporated it into all her paintings. The sun, the lanterns on her birthday, it all makes sense; Rapunzel realises she is “the lost princess”. Rapunzel is angry at having been forced to live a lie her whole life and confronts Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel isn’t scared of Rapunzel though and ties her up, not wanting to lose the magic hair, saying they’ll go somewhere else, somewhere far away, where no-one will ever find her.

Flynn makes it to the tower and is brought inside by Rapunzel’s hair. On entering the tower, he is instantly stabbed in the side by Mother Gothel. He sees Rapunzel tied up but is too weak to help her. Rapunzel is dragged away by Mother Gothel but she begs to heal Flynn, and then says she’ll go anywhere with her. Mother Gothel agrees to this, so Rapunzel is allowed to help Flynn. As she begins to wrap her hair around Flynn’s wound, he reaches for a shard of glass and cuts Rapunzel’s hair. It instantly turns brown and loses all of its magical qualities. Mother Gothel ages quickly, as the years she’s forced away with the magic hair come back to haunt her. She trips over Rapunzel’s hair – or I should say, is tripped by Pascal with Rapunzel’s hair – and falls from the tower, turning into dust.

As Flynn slowly dies, having not allowed Rapunzel to heal him first and then quickly cut her hair like he perhaps should have done, they both say how they were going to be each other’s new dream. Rapunzel mourns the loss of Flynn with one of her tears falling on to his body. The tear travels down to the wound, and, still containing the flower’s magic, revives Flynn. The two then travel to Corona to reunite Rapunzel with her parents in a tearful moment. The whole kingdom celebrates, with the ruffians also now becoming good citizens and living out their dreams. The movie ends by saying how Rapunzel and Flynn are engaged to be married and will live happily ever after.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Disney’s Rapunzel is one of the few strong-minded, independent female characters that existed in Disney movies before 2010. Within the 1990s, there were the occasional ones like Mulan and Pocahontas, however, Rapunzel and Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, really set the standard for this new kind of “princess”, and now, Disney are much more current with their characters and their personalities, to fit in with today’s society. A complaint among many was that the previous Disney princesses were meek and timid, with no dreams other than finding love, a complaint I don’t agree with, however, it is good that these characters have more opportunities for adventure than the “traditional princess”. Tiana, for example, has dreams of owning her own business, and Rapunzel’s dream is to go out and see the world, not to stay inside and not live her life.

Although Rapunzel does in fact find love, Disney are clever in how they show this: unlike Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989) for example, who makes it obvious that she is in love with Eric, and we don’t know how he feels about her for a while into the movie, Tangled instead clearly shows Flynn (or Eugene, as he’s later known) falling in love with Rapunzel, in scenes such as when Rapunzel heals the cut on his hand, and they have a heart-to-heart about their lives before they met, and during the floating lanterns/”I See The Light” scene, where he refuses the crown from Rapunzel and wants to enjoy the evening, seeing her live her dream[1]. Although Rapunzel needed to be naïve, they had to show that she was brave enough to leave her tower, and to find her parents, and her true love. She is self-sufficient, and clever to find ways of entertaining herself whilst isolated in the tower: by baking, reading, and painting, which she is especially talented at. She didn’t spend her time sitting around waiting to be saved, or feeling sorry for herself. Disney certainly created the role model with girl power that they were looking for[2].

Rapunzel was made to feel like the “girl-next-door” and to be very down-to-earth. Other actresses like Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell, Reese Witherspoon, and Natalie Portman also auditioned for the part, but Mandy Moore was selected[3]. Moore had appeared in movies like The Princess Diaries (2001) as Lana Thomas; Chasing Liberty (2004) as Anna Foster; and in License to Wed (2007) as Milly Wilder before being cast in Tangled. Also for Disney, Moore voiced the character of Nita in Brother Bear 2 (2006). After Tangled, Moore went on to voice the character of Mara in the television series Tron: Uprising (2012-13). More recently, Moore starred in the critically acclaimed drama series This Is Us (2016-22), where she received a Critics’ Choice Television Award nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2013, a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 2019, and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Series in 2017, as well as being frequently nominated for this role at the People’s Choice Awards. She also continues to reprise the voice role of Rapunzel for Disney projects.

As for Flynn Rider, he is certainly more memorable, and funny, than other prince-types, which was the whole point, and though he comes off at the start as quite arrogant and full of himself, obsessed with using his “smoulder”, which never fails – except on Rapunzel – you can’t help but like him. He’s a lovable rogue. Then as the two spend more time together, you see that Flynn Rider is actually quite vulnerable and uncertain of himself. We find he is an orphan, whose real name is Eugene Fitzherbert. He grew up not thinking he could ever amount to anything, so came up with the persona of Flynn Rider to make himself feel like someone else, someone more worthy. Rapunzel tells him that she much prefers Eugene to Flynn, and calls him by his real name for the rest of the movie – though I don’t because Flynn is a much nicer name to go by, I think. From that point on, you have to root for the two of them to be together and to be happy.

Animator Glen Keane said that there was actually a struggle in designing the rugged, handsome Flynn. The designs came out as either too macho or too “pretty boy”, and he didn’t seem to have anything else about him. In the end, they organised a “Hot Man” meeting with some of the female workers at the Studios so they could review some of the character designs and have their inputs into what Flynn Rider should really look like[4]!

Originally, Disney only wanted British actors for Flynn, or at least actors able to put on a good British accent. Zachary Levi auditioned for the role using an English accent, and got the role. He was later told to just use his natural accent instead when the character background was changed[5]. Levi was nominated for Choice Animated Movie Voice at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards for Flynn Rider, but lost to Johnny Depp for his voice role in Rango (2011). Levi has most recently starred as the title character in Shazam! (2019) and its 2023 sequel, and voiced the character of Rocky, taking over from Mel Gibson, in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023). He also had a recurring role in Seasons 2 and 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-23). Levi also appeared as Fandral in Thor: The Dark World (2013) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017), as well as being cast as Toby Seville in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), his proudest acting achievement, I’m sure. On television, he starred as the lead role of Chuck Bartowski in the action-comedy series Chuck (2007-12), and he won a Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actor: Action in 2010 for this role. Levi also continues to reprise his voice role as Flynn for Disney.

Mother Gothel is a great Disney villain. She’s evil for her own purposes, not because of some sad backstory. She is selfish and vain, wanting Rapunzel only for her hair and the qualities it possesses and how they can help her. At times, at the start of the movie, you can almost believe that Mother Gothel has grown to care for Rapunzel after eighteen years of raising her, but then you realise that Rapunzel has been left alone while Mother Gothel goes about her day-to-day business, and that she makes mean remarks about Rapunzel, like comments on her weight, telling her she’s too weak to cope with the “real world”. In reality, Mother Gothel is just a narcissist, who’s jealous of Rapunzel’s youth and scared of what will happen if Rapunzel finds out who she really is.

It’s quite obvious that the relationship between Mother Gothel and Rapunzel is similar to that of Frollo and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Mother Gothel spends most of her time trying to convince Rapunzel that life outside in the real world would be horrible and too much for her to handle so to just listen to her and stay inside, as Frollo does, under the illusion that they are trying to protect them, when actually they just want to keep them trapped and helpless. Mother Gothel is particularly evil at the end of the movie, as she has Rapunzel tied up in chains, prepared to drag her somewhere else to hide her away again, and stabs Flynn in the side – no wonder this film is a PG, setting a trend for future Disney films. That’s one of the most open acts of violence within a Disney film, similar to Gaston stabbing the Beast in Beauty and the Beast (1991). She’s a good villain anyway, and gets her “just desserts” by falling out of the tower to her death, joining the exclusive club of Disney villains who meet their fate that way – like Gaston.

Donna Murphy voices Mother Gothel. Murphy has starred in numerous musical theatre productions, and won two Tony Awards for her roles as Fosca in Passion from 1994 to 1995, and Anna Leonowens in The King and I from 1996 to 1997. After this, she played The Witch in Into the Woods in 2012, and was cast Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly! from 2017 to 2018, alternating with Bette Midler. In film, Murphy played Scarlett Johansson’s mother in The Nanny Diaries (2007); Rosie Octavius, Doctor Octopus’ wife, in Spider-Man 2 (2004), and appeared as Dita Mandy in The Bourne Legacy (2012). On television, Murphy appeared in the comedy series What About Joan? (2001) with Joan Cusack, and most recently, as Caroline Schermerhorn Astor in The Gilded Age (2022-present). Murphy has also returned to Disney to voice Mother Gothel when required.

Outside of the three main characters, we can mention some of the thugs and thieves. Firstly, the Stabbington Brothers, who are betrayed by Flynn after they help him steal the crown from the palace. He simply leaves them to get captured by the palace guards, so naturally the two brothers want to get back at him. In the end, they just end up working for Mother Gothel though, and don’t come across as particularly scary or evil; they don’t get much screen time really. Only one of the Stabbington Brothers actually speaks, and that voice is provided by Ron Perlman, who has had a long history of voice acting. He is the narrator of the video game Fallout (1997-present), as well as Lord Hood in Halo 2 (2004) and Halo 3 (2007). Perlman has also voiced Optimus Primal for the series Transformers: Power of the Primes (2018) and the film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023). In 2004, Perlman was cast as Hellboy in the film of the same name and its 2008 sequel. In 2022, he also appeared as Podestà in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022). He has reprised the voice role of the Stabbington Brothers for Disney when needed.

For the thugs at the Snuggly Duckling, Brad Garrett’s voice is probably the most recognisable as Hook Hand, the one who dreams of being a concert pianist. Garrett starred as Robert Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2005), alongside Ray Romano, for which he won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor. Known for his distinctive, deep voice, Garrett has voiced many characters for Disney and Pixar, including Dim in A Bug’s Life (1998), Bloat in Finding Nemo (2003), Gusteau in Ratatouille (2007), and Eeyore in Christopher Robin (2018). He also appeared in the movies The Pacifier (2005) with Vin Diesel, as Vice Principal Murney, and Music and Lyrics (2007), with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, as Chris, Hugh Grant’s character’s agent.

Finally, another big-name casting to mention is Jeffrey Tambor, as Big Nose Thug – nice name for a character – whose dream is to find true love. Tambor has had film roles such as Mayor Maywho in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000); Tom Manning in Hellboy (2004) and its 2008 sequel; and Sid Garner in The Hangover trilogy (2009-13). On television, he appeared in the television series Arrested Development (2003-19) in the recurring role of George Bluth Sr. Tambor has also voiced characters for other animated movies, such as King Neptune in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), Carl Murphy in Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), and King Peppy in Trolls (2016).

Other than that, many other characters do not have any dialogue, with some of the thugs like Ulf, who likes mime and obviously can’t talk, not have any lines at all. Only Vlad, voiced by Richard Kiel, and Paul F. Tompkins as Short Thug, have lines out of the rest. There are also the animal sidekicks of palace horse Maximus, who acts more like a dog, sniffing out trails and relentlessly pursuing criminals, and Rapunzel’s little pet chameleon Pascal who isn’t much of a talker! One of the Disney animation artists, Kelly Lewis, had actually bought a chameleon around the time that this new Disney sidekick was being named, and named it Pascal, so Disney did the same. I’m glad Disney decided not to have the animal sidekicks talk for a change, but it might have been nice for Rapunzel’s parents, the King and Queen of Corona. to have had at least some dialogue. Even Aurora’s mother, Queen Leah, got a couple of lines in Sleeping Beauty (1959)!

MUSIC

After The Princess and the Frog (2009), a much-welcomed return to the Disney fairy-tale musical format, Disney Animation continued with this idea, developing Tangled as another Broadway-inspired musical. Once more, Alan Menken was brought in to write the music for this new feature. Menken had huge success composing for the majority of the “Disney Renaissance” films, such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), alongside Howard Ashman, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) with Stephen Schwartz, with the two also writing the music for Enchanted (2007).

For Home on the Range (2004), Disney’s final traditionally hand-drawn animation movie, Menken worked alongside lyricist Glenn Slater. Slater later wrote the lyrics for multiple stage productions, such as Sister Act the Musical, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals School of Rock and Love Never Dies. For Disney, Slater had also written additional lyrics for the stage adaptation of The Little Mermaid (2008). Menken and Slater were asked to work together again for Disney’s Tangled. The two would also collaborate again on the Tangled spin-off series, Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure (2017-20).

The first song we hear is performed by Mandy Moore as Rapunzel, and it appears straight after the prologue, so we get straight into the music, which is something I like to see in movies. It is called “When Will My Life Begin?”, and it details Rapunzel’s life stuck in her tower, trying to find things to do to fill her days. We learn that Rapunzel has a dream to see “floating lights” that appear in the sky every year on her birthday, wanting to get out and see the world, but concerned her mother won’t let her. This song also has two reprises, with the first not appearing in the movie, only on the soundtrack. It sounds very hopeless, with Rapunzel almost accepting her isolation. The second reprise is much more fun, with Rapunzel finally being out of her tower, and feeling very proud of herself. I love how it builds towards the end, as she lists off all the things she can now go and do.

We also get a villain’s song in Tangled, performed by Donna Murphy as Mother Gothel. Perhaps a bit disappointingly, it does not sound scary or threatening, because it’s very theatrical, like Mother Gothel, and quite upbeat, even as she details all the horrible, awful things Rapunzel will experience in the world if she leaves the tower, and lists off Rapunzel’s flaws and weaknesses to her. It’s a funny villain’s song, at least, so I don’t mind it so much. I like the reprise more though, because that is actually more cruel, as Mother Gothel begins to show her true colours to Rapunzel. She tells Rapunzel she has “invented” her romance with Flynn, and that nobody could ever like her. When Rapunzel refuses to go home with her, Mother Gothel gets more and more angry, before storming off.

On a brighter note, there is also “I’ve Got a Dream”, performed by the thugs at the Snuggly Duckling. When you first watch it, it’s hilarious to see these “tough guys” singing about their hopes and dreams in such a sincere, innocent sort of way. But this is now my least favourite song in the movie, I think because the novelty wore off quite quickly; it’s clearly just supposed to be a comic relief moment for the kids, so it’s a bit one-dimensional.

For many, their favourite song in the film is the typical love song “I See the Light”. The scene is beautiful, with all the colourful lanterns. It is a very sweet song, and I did really love it when I first saw the film. Now, I realise that there are other Disney love songs that I personally prefer, but it’s obvious that this is one of the most popular ones that Disney has ever created for one of their animated movies. As more and more of Disney’s films have begun to veer away from romance, I feel like there will be less and less of these. If you think about it, other than the ones in Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), i.e., “Love is an Open Door” and “Lost in the Woods”, there haven’t been any other love songs since Tangled.

“I See the Light” was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 2011, but lost to “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3. I remember really wanting “I See the Light” to win the Oscar and it still irks me to this day that it didn’t. Toy Story 3 was an excellent film, but in my mind, there is no way “We Belong Together” is better than “I See the Light”. The song was also nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes in 2011, but this time it lost to Burlesque’s “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me”. Don’t worry, though; “I See the Light” did get some of the recognition it deserved by winning the Grammy for Best Song Written For Visual Media in 2012.

The last song in the film is the usual End Credits song. This time it’s a soft rock song called “Something That I Want”, written and performed by Grace Potter from the rock band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. It’s not a bad song by any means, and it does match the happy note that the movie ends on, but I’m not a big fan of this song.

Of the score, I have a few instrumental pieces that I particularly like, as is typical for me with an Alan Menken score. I particularly like “Kingdom Dance”, as it has a folk music feel to it, to match the fact it is being performed by the townspeople within the Kingdom of Corona. At this point in the film, Flynn and Rapunzel are looking around the kingdom and are then basically forced to join in with a group dance in the town square! This then leads in to “Waiting for the Lights”, which I really like as well, especially when the lanterns are released by the King and Queen, and the piece becomes hopeful and powerful, like all of the kingdom are praying for the return of their lost princess. Finally, I like the party atmosphere of “Kingdom Celebration”, which plays as we learn that everyone is now happy together in the Kingdom of Corona, finally achieving their dreams. Again, it’s quite folk-like in sound.

PRODUCTION

The idea to make Tangled first came from Disney animator Glen Keane. After a few years of developing the idea, Keane pitched the idea to Disney CEO at the time, Michael Eisner, in 2001, where the project was approved, but only on the agreement that it be computer-animated instead of hand-drawn. In 2003, an announcement came from Disney stating that the movie would be released in 2007 under the title Rapunzel Unbraided. The movie was going to be more like DreamWorks’ 2001 hit Shrek than the traditional Disney fairy-tale. But in 2006, the project was shut down.

Not for long though. When Disney and Pixar merged, John Lasseter took over as Chief Creative Officer of the Disney Studios and insisted that Rapunzel Unbraided go back into production. Unfortunately, in 2009, Glen Keane stepped down as director due to ill health, so Bryon Howard and Nathan Greno took charge instead, with the project now being known as simply Rapunzel, with the final film being very different to Keane’s original idea[6]. Greno had worked as Head of Story on Bolt (2008), with Howard directing the movie.

At some point around 2009 or early 2010, Disney decided to change the name of the movie from Rapunzel to Tangled. This led people to speculate that the title had been changed to give the movie a wider appeal, as one of the reasons that The Princess and the Frog (2009) potentially struggled at the box-office was because having the word “princess” in the movie title may have been off-putting to boys, cutting off half of the market. The directors stated that it was actually because they decided that the film was no longer just about Rapunzel anymore. Their reasoning was that the film had been created for a duo, the movie following both Rapunzel and Flynn Rider, so they needed a title that represented that. Others claim that as the trailer pushed Flynn Rider front and centre that this was further evidence that Disney were trying to market Tangled as a movie for boys as well as girls. Greno and Howard said that the film did not change at all from the first screening, and the idea was always going to follow both Flynn and Rapunzel together[7]. It is quite clear that Disney moved quite far away from the original tale of Rapunzel, so to me, it seems fair to change the name to something snappier and to distance themselves from from the typical fairy-tale format.

The basic idea of Tangled is based on the Brothers Grimm version of Rapunzel, who were in turn inspired by an 11^th century tale from Persia, and a French fairy tale of the 1600s. Other than the general idea of a girl with long hair being locked in a tower and meeting a prince, Disney’s story varies significantly. In the original tale, Rapunzel is not royalty, but the daughter of peasants who give up their daughter to a sorceress in exchange for a healing plant, known as rapunzel. After many years, a prince is drawn to the tower by her singing and climbs up to meet her. The two make a plan to run away together after discovering Rapunzel is pregnant, however, Gothel finds out before they can get away, cuts off Rapunzel’s hair, and banishes her into the wilderness. Gothel then tells the prince when he arrives to take Rapunzel away that he will never see her again. Devasted by this news, he falls from the tower, and though he survives, he falls into a thorn bush and is blinded. Eventually the two find each other in the woods, and her tears cure his blindness. The Sondheim musical Into the Woods more or less uses this original story for their own Rapunzel character, with Disney’s Into the Woods (2014) only making minor changes to it.

Originally, Disney wanted to do a traditional illustrated storybook opening, like they had done for many of their other fairy-tale films, with an invisible female narrator. Much of the information from the prologue was the same as the final film, of the healing flower and Rapunzel being stolen by Mother Gothel, but in the end, it was decided they wanted something different and original for this contemporary take on a fairy tale[8]. Certainly, having someone start a film by saying “This is the story of how I died” gets people’s attention!

Having Tangled be completely computer-generated was an excellent opportunity to experiment with the technology which had been tested on various Disney movies throughout the years, mixing CG with 2D traditional animation. With improvements to the technology when Tangled was in production, it was much easier for the animators to work together with the software, and to be able to move the characters in more realistic ways, and be more daring with the imagery. For example, when Flynn and Rapunzel are being chased by guards through that rocky canyon, this whole sequence looks almost like a computer game, showing just how adventurous Disney could now be with their ideas.

Another important aspect to Tangled was Rapunzel’s hair, a particularly tricky feature. Rapunzel was the first computer-generated Disney princess, but her hair alone is 70ft, or 21m, long. It took three years and a whole new software program to animate it. Glen Keane had done multiple rough model sheets to show how Rapunzel might play with her hair to express her emotions[9]. The animators knew that the hair had to always look beautiful, that it had to swoop and twist as natural hair does, not just sitting in one position. The final image ended up having over 100,000 individual strands of hair! Glen Keane had been no stranger to designing and drawing characters with hair problems. He was determined to draw Ariel for The Little Mermaid (1989) her hair always being like a cloud of red; the Beast had all this fur; and Pocahontas’ hair was being moved by the wind. Even with these characters, the hair helped communicate their personality and their desires. With Ariel’s hair always floating around, it shows her dreamy side, and how she wants to be somewhere else; Pocahontas’ hair with the wind shows her spiritual side. Rapunzel’s hair had to communicate how self-sufficient and strong she is, and that she has a destiny, literally tied to her hair.

For the scenery and backgrounds, they are full of colour for the most part. Rapunzel’s tower is even beautifully decorated and there are many scenes of lush landscaping. Within the Kingdom of Corona, lots of purples, golds, and blues are used to make the town look visually appealing. One of my favourite scenes in Tangled is the montage we see of Flynn and Rapunzel enjoying their day at the kingdom on her birthday, because it’s so bright, and it’s interesting to see all the different styles of architecture within the kingdom’s buildings. The sun setting also shows the buildings in new lights as the day turns to evening. I also especially like the scene when Rapunzel finds out she is the lost princess, and she is looking at all the paintings around her room. She suddenly realises that the sun shape, the crest of Corona, is hidden within all of her paintings, and that’s when she knows that is where she belongs, and her whole life has been a lie. It looks brilliant.

The floating lanterns are particularly impressive too. In that one sequence there are 45,000 lanterns. The Disney team used inspiration from similar ceremonies that are held in the Far East and in Indonesia, where thousands and thousands are released at once. The directors knew something like that would look great in CGI[10].

RECEPTION

Tangled was released in November 2010, just in time for Thanksgiving and the festive period. Disney fans in other countries had to wait a little bit longer, with Tangled not being released in certain countries until 2011. In the UK, it was not released until 28^th January 2011, so it missed out on the Christmas and New Year crowds in some areas. There were 3D showings for Tangled at the theatres as well. I believe I watched Tangled in 3D at the cinema and the floating lanterns did look pretty good in that format.

It turns out 2010 potentially was not the best time for Disney Animation to release a movie as there was huge amounts of competition. In animation, DreamWorks had released How to Train Your Dragon in March 2010, which would become just one movie in a major franchise for the studio, and Despicable Me was released in July 2010, with this also being the first film of a huge franchise. Shrek Forever After was also released by DreamWorks in May 2010, and Tangled received internal competition from Pixar’s Toy Story 3, which hit theatres in June 2010. Outside of animation, and with a more direct threat, we can’t forget that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was released roughly a week before Tangled. It was a big year for cinema, especially for families and children.

But have no fear, because Tangled, with an estimated budget of $260 million, made just over $200 million domestically, so perhaps a bit disappointing, but ended its run on a worldwide total of around $590 million, becoming the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2010 at the worldwide box office; Toy Story 3 was top of the list.

Tangled did receive many positive reviews, with critics praising the visual look of the movie in particular, with one even calling Tangled the best-looking Disney animated feature film since Sleeping Beauty (1959) [11]. The story and script contained a good mix of humour and adventure and many also stated that they liked the new direction Disney had taken in creating a more powerful, driven female character, instead of the typical princess. The supporting characters were also praised, and most were a fan of Disney’s newest villainess. There was the odd negative comment, such as the film potentially not being “good enough” to stand up as Disney’s 50^th animated classic, but those were few and far between.

When Tangled was released, the public were quick to compare it to the previous Disney animated release, The Princess and the Frog (2009). These comparisons were more favourable to Tangled in general, showing it had wider appeal. However, of the two, I personally prefer The Princess and the Frog, because the return to traditional 2D animation, after a number of CGI flops, and the “Broadway musical style” was welcomed by myself. It also made people sit up and pay attention to Disney Animation again. But that’s just my opinion, and I can see that Tangled perhaps did more to confirm that Disney Animation did in fact have the attentions of the public again.

However, despite this positive reception, Tangled was not nominated in the Best Animated Film category at the Academy Awards, surprisingly, with there only being three nominees in total in this category. Those were How to Train Your Dragon, The Illusionist, and Toy Story 3, which won the award. At the Annie Awards and the Golden Globes, Tangled did receive nominations in this category, but lost out to How to Train Your Dragon at the Annies, and to Toy Story 3 at the Golden Globes, missing out on any major awards for the movie.

LEGACY

But Tangled kept its status as one of Disney’s most popular contemporary hits, especially at the time, and successfully spanned a huge franchise. On screen, we were first treated to Tangled Ever After, a short focusing on Flynn and Rapunzel’s wedding where Pascal and Maximus have to hunt for the wedding rings over the kingdom. This was released in 2012 with the 3D theatrical re-release of Beauty and the Beast (1991). It tied up the events of the movie nicely, giving Rapunzel her own “fairy-tale wedding” fit for a princess.

This short then led to a made-for-television Disney Channel Original Movie in 2017 called Tangled: Before Ever After which is set between Tangled and Tangled Ever After, specifically six months after the events of the first film, as Rapunzel is set to be coronated as Princess of Corona. From this, there was then a spin-off television series called Tangled: The Series, renamed after Season 1 to Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, continuing on from the television film story. There were three seasons of the series, running from 2017 to 2020. The series won five Daytime Emmy Awards, for its animation, its writing, its main title, and its music. and one Annie Award for character design.

So, if you wanted to watch all the Tangled projects in chronological order, you’d need to watch Tangled, then Tangled: Before Ever After, then Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure and finally Tangled Ever After. Given all the interruptions and difficulties that Rapunzel and Flynn face during the television series, it’s probably not too much of a surprise to find that Tangled Ever After, their wedding, apparently takes place three years after the events of Tangled – despite being released only two years later than the film, and five years before any other spin-off. No theatrical sequel to Tangled itself has ever been announced.

Despite many fans of Tangled calling for Disney to make a live-action version of the film, a Tangled remake has not yet been confirmed. As Disney basically announced that they were going to remake practically every animated feature they have ever made at one point, this has led many to speculate it is just a matter of time, with some fans enjoying posting their choice castings on social media.

In early April 2024, a social media post, which was soon deleted, stated that Milo Manheim, who plays Zed in Disney’s ZOMBIES (2018-present) franchise, was screen testing for the part of Flynn Rider. Manheim had previously expressed interested in playing the part of Flynn in an interview promoting ZOMBIES 3 (2022), potentially alongside his ZOMBIES co-star Meg Donnelly as Rapunzel. However, this post stated that Avantika Vandanapu, who recently starred as Karen in Mean Girls (2024), was actually screen testing for the part of Rapunzel alongside Manheim. Despite the post reportedly being purely fan-led, and Disney never confirming that a live-action Tangled is even in the works, this led to many stating their views on the casting choice, with a handful expressing anger at Avantika Vandanapu for “not looking anything like Rapunzel”[12]. The exact same thing happened when Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel for the 2023 live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, and frankly, it’s ridiculous. I really wish people would stop doing this. If you don’t like the casting choice for any film, for whatever reason, then just don’t watch it. You don’t need to vent your feelings on social media, because it is insensitive, disrespectful, and offensive to the actors that you are talking about. Just don’t do it. It’s hard enough being in the public eye without being attacked for stupid reasons like this.

At the Disney Parks, there are a few references to Tangled with more coming in the next couple of years. At Walt Disney World, in Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland, strangely enough, there is an area dedicated to Tangled – it just happens to be restrooms! In this heavily-themed area, opened in 2013, Rapunzel’s Tower can be seen high above the area, with the actual restrooms being themed to houses from the Kingdom of Corona, complete with bunting. You can also spot the various Pascals that have been hidden around there. It’s a very popular area to sit down and charge your phone too, as the benches have charging points. This area was a much-needed redesign of the old Skyway station that had ceased operation in 1999. Aside from toilets, Rapunzel, Flynn, and the ruffians appear during the Mickey’s Magical Friendship Faire stage show to perform “I Have a Dream”. Rapunzel and Flynn did meet guests regularly in the years after Tangled’s release, either at Epcot or Magic Kingdom, but they are harder to see together now. They used to be at the Bon Voyage Adventure character breakfast at Trattoria al Forno at Boardwalk, but this has not returned since the COVID-19 pandemic. Rapunzel has been known to still appear by herself at Fairytale Hall at Fantasyland in Magic Kingdom though. There is also a very pretty Tangled mosaic mural at Disney’s Riviera Resort.

At Disneyland, as part of Storytelling at Royal Theatre in Fantasyland, you can watch a retelling of the Tangled story. Rapunzel and Flynn are also regularly spotted meeting guests at Disneyland, and Rapunzel may be one of the visiting princesses at the Disney Princess Breakfast Adventure character breakfast at Disney’s Grand Californian Resort. Mother Gothel has even been seen at the Oogie Boogie Bash at Disney California Adventure for the Halloween season in 2022 and 2023.

At Disneyland Paris, as part of their rebranding of the Walt Disney Studios Park to Disney Adventure World, it was announced that they are looking to add a new Tangled attraction. To be called Raiponce Tangled Spin, it will be a typical teacups attraction, but with guests sitting in gondolas, like the one Rapunzel and Flynn ride in to see the “floating lights”. A miniature scene of Rapunzel’s Tower, complete with her hair braid coming out of the top window, can also be seen on Les Pays des Contes de Fées, the Paris version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats. For meet-and-greets, Rapunzel and Flynn were seen at the Passholder Party in March 2023, but are not regularly seen in the parks.

At Shanghai Disneyland, there is a whole scene of Rapunzel and Flynn with the floating lanterns within the Voyage to the Crystal Grotto ride. Within the show Mickey’s Storybook Adventure, Rapunzel also sings “I See the Light” as part of the Princess Trio section, with Mulan and Moana. Though this overall show is generally the same as the one in Hong Kong Disneyland, Mickey and the Wondrous Book, in this case, Hong Kong’s version actually shows Rapunzel singing “When Will My Life Begin?” alongside Ariel and Merida. Also at Hong Kong Disneyland, a section of the walkthrough attraction Fairy Tale Forest is dedicated to Tangled. In terms of meet-and-greets, Rapunzel and Flynn have been seen in the park recently, with Mother Gothel appearing in 2021 for Halloween.

But the most exciting Tangled addition arrived in June 2024 at Tokyo Disneyland. As part of their Fantasy Springs expansion for Tokyo DisneySea, an area dedicated to Frozen, another to Peter Pan, and a final one especially for Tangled were added to the park. In the area themed to Tangled, there is a quick-service restaurant called the Snuggly Duckling, named for the tavern in the film, as well as a dark ride called Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival. The boat ride does not follow events from the movie exactly, but focuses on Flynn and Rapunzel’s romance instead. The animatronics look great and the lantern scene in particular looks amazing. Since the Germany pavilion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot was supposed to have a boat ride when it first opened, and because Rapunzel is a German fairy tale, I think Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival would fit nicely there… The Fantasy Springs Hotel with also see some Tangled theming, as well as some from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Rapunzel and Flynn have been seen at Tokyo Disneyland previously, but are less frequently seen now. They should be more available here now that Fantasy Springs has opened.

Generally, due to the popularity of the film, songs and clips from Tangled have appeared in nighttime shows including Disney Dreams! in Disneyland Paris, Disneyland’s Fantasmic!, and Happily Ever After at Walt Disney World. The characters also appear in parades, such as Festival of Fantasy at Walt Disney World, which includes many of the ruffians and Ulf the mime, and Harmony in Color at Tokyo Disneyland, where Rapunzel is even swinging by her hair! Not her actual hair, obviously. That would be a health and safety issue. Any children that want to dress up as Rapunzel can also do that at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique locations that exist in the Disney Parks around the world.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All this shows just how popular Tangled is, not only as a film but an entire franchise. I do like Tangled, and I like the majority of the characters: Mother Gothel is a great Disney villain, there are lots of fun moments between Maximus and Flynn, and Rapunzel and Pascal, plus the gang of ruffians. The film also looks visually amazing.

The best thing though is that it certainly continued to spark a new direction for Disney Animation which has gone on to make many more brilliant movies and push the boundaries of more contemporary stories, and technological advancements since 2010.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Kaitlyn Nickol, ‘Celebrating 10 Years of Tangled: How Rapunzel Modernized The Disney Princess’, Atom (online), 24^th November 2020.

[2] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016).

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Tangled’, pp. 148-150.

[4] Credit: Disney, “Untangled: The Making of a Fairy Tale”, from Tangled (2010) Blu-Ray (2011).

[5] Credit; Chris Morgan, ’20 facts you might not know about ‘Tangled’’, Yard Barker (online), 4^th November 2022.

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Tangled’, pp. 148-150.

[7] Credit: Adam Markovitz, ‘How did Rapunzel become ‘Tangled?’ Directors Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard set the record straight’, Entertainment Weekly (online), updated 24^th November 2010.

[8] Credit: Disney, “Storybook Openings”, from Tangled (2010) Blu-Ray (2011).

[9] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016).

[10] Credit: Disney, “Untangled: The Making of a Fairy Tale”, from Tangled (2010) Blu-Ray (2011).

[11] Credit: Helen O’Hara, ‘Tangled Review’, Empire (online), 2^nd January 2011.

[12] Credit: Edward Segarra, ‘Avantika Vandanapu receives backlash for rumored casting as Rapunzel in ‘Tangled’ remake’, USAToday.com, date unknown.

19th Apr 202427th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#26 The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

BACKGROUND

The 1980s were a difficult time for Disney Animation. New management from “outside studios” had come in and didn’t understand the concept of making an animated movie, nor did they particularly understand the animators. This caused a few years of conflict and misunderstandings between the two opposing sides.

On top of that, 1985 brought the Walt Disney Company one of their worst ever financial flops with the release of The Black Cauldron, a movie quite unlike anything that Disney Animation had ever produced before; it took years, and cost a fortune, to make. By pushing the boundaries with this film, they pushed many of their core audience anyway, who were not expecting this mish-mash of fantasy, adventure, and even light horror.

The pressure was on. Disney’s next movie had to change all that, and bring those families back to the theatres to experience a charming movie, reminiscent of those made during Walt Disney’s time in charge of the Disney Studios. It also had to be convincing enough for new management to believe animation was still worth it.

Luckily, The Great Mouse Detective, released in 1986, just a year after The Black Cauldron, did make positive steps towards a renewed animation department. It is yet another adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories to sit alongside those movies and television series of earlier decades, like Basil Rathbone’s series of films, released between 1939 and 1946, and those of more contemporary times, like the BBC series Sherlock (2010-17), starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the man himself, and the 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes and its 2011 sequel, with Robert Downey Jr. portraying the famous detective.

The Great Mouse Detective wasn’t a huge hit, nor was it a particularly smooth process getting the movie made, but overall, it was certainly a move in the right direction, getting back to Disney’s basics of good story-telling, likeable characters, and being progressive with their use of technology.

Sadly, The Great Mouse Detective has not been referenced at the Disney Parks for many years, and it isn’t generally remembered even amongst Disney fans, unless they had a love for the film as a child. It’s been surpassed by the amazing movies of the “Disney Renaissance”, as well as some of the more contemporary blockbuster hits like Frozen (2013) and Encanto (2021), which seem to have more “star quality” than poor Basil.

I personally really like The Great Mouse Detective. My family never owned it on VHS for some reason, but I remember always watching it at friends’ houses, or borrowing their VHS tape, so this was a film that I did not grow up with, like many of the “Disney Renaissance” films, but one that I gradually came to enjoy. It has an easy-to-follow plot, unlike some adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that can be difficult to keep up with. The Great Mouse Detective also benefits from strong characters and good music, in my opinion.

PLOT

The story of The Great Mouse Detective follows Basil, a mouse detective – funny about that – who is basically the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world, living underneath that famous apartment, 221B Baker Street in London in 1897. He is asked to investigate a case brought to him by a young mouse, Olivia, whose father has been captured. Olivia was brought to Basil by Dr David Q. Dawson, a surgeon who has returned to England after being in Afghanistan for military service. Basil cleverly deduces this purely from the clothes Dawson is wearing – how very “Sherlock” of him. Basil is initially reluctant to help Olivia, not caring much that she has lost her father. But when she mentions that he was taken by a bat with a pegleg, Basil is immediately intrigued, as this bat is the henchman of Basil’s most troublesome nemesis, the evil Professor Ratigan.

Ratigan has ordered the capture of Olivia’s father, Hiram, as he is an accomplished toy maker. Ratigan wants a model robot of the current Queen, Queen Moustoria – like Queen Victoria, get it? – and he expects Hiram to do it. Ratigan plans to use this robot so that it looks like Queen Moustoria herself is giving the order for Ratigan to be the “Supreme Ruler of all Mousedom”, because naturally, a Disney villain’s ultimate goal is always for world domination. Under the threat of his daughter being kidnapped, Hiram gets to work.

Meanwhile, Basil, Dawson, and Olivia set out to find her father, with the help of Basil’s dog Toby, who can get them to places much quicker than a little mouse can, after seeing Fidget, the bat with the pegleg appear at his window. Basil orders Toby to follow his scent and they find themselves at a toy store. Here, Fidget has been told by Ratigan to collect gears, uniforms, and Olivia, so that the plan can be carried out correctly. He takes gears and uniforms from the toys in the shop, and then proceeds to take Olivia whilst Basil and Dawson are distracted by all the toys coming alive.

Basil is annoyed at himself for letting this happen. But Dawson finds a clue – Fidget’s checklist. Back at his apartment, Basil uses his lab equipment and discovers that this piece of paper came from the “Rat Trap”, a tavern by the sewers. Disguised as sailors, Basil and Dawson head over there to try and get some information on the whereabouts of Ratigan. On mentioning Ratigan’s name, the bar maid and locals become suspicious of the two, and Dawson accidentally drinks the drugged beer that was served to them. After he starts a bar fight, during the performance of a bar singer, Basil ushers Dawson out of the tavern, as he has seen Fidget heading to supposedly Ratigan’s headquarters; they follow the bat.

But when they reach the headquarters, they discover it was all a trap and they have been captured too. They also see Olivia is there, trapped inside a bottle. Ratigan believes he’s won, and ties Basil and Dawson to a mouse trap. And, much like the board game Mouse Trap, he has rigged the mouse trap to be squashed after a series of contraptions have been set off, which will all begin once Ratigan’s song, saying farewell to Basil, finishes on the record player. Basil seems to have lost all hope, but Dawson inspires him to work out how to escape this trap. He manages to do so with some quick-thinking, simultaneously freeing Olivia from her bottle prison. The three quickly head to Buckingham Palace.

At Buckingham Palace, Ratigan and his henchmen have successfully supplanted the Queen with their robotic figure, and the real Queen is set to be fed to Ratigan’s Persian cat, Felicia. However, Basil and the others arrive just in time to save her. Toby chases Felicia away, and Basil ties up Fidget and the henchmen. Meanwhile, Ratigan has been named the Supreme Ruler and is detailing his list of rules to those in the palace. Basil manages to take control of the robot and announces that this was all a ruse by Ratigan.

Angry at Basil for ruining yet another of his great plans, Ratigan and Fidget escape on his dirigible, and take Olivia hostage. With Olivia’s father, Basil and Dawson create a rudimentary airship, using a matchbox, balloons, and a flag, and set off after Ratigan. Basil jumps onto Ratigan’s ship, and the ship crashes into Big Ben. Ratigan, Basil, and Olivia are thrown into the clock. Inside, Basil tries to rescue Olivia from being squished by one of the mechanisms, whilst also dodging Ratigan’s pursuit of him. Basil manages to hand over Olivia to her father on the makeshift airship, but Basil is attacked by Ratigan on the hands of Big Ben. Soon, the clock strikes 10, with the noise causing Ratigan to fall seemingly to his death – but not before he grabs Basil to take him down with him. Dawson, Hiram, and Olivia look on helplessly, believing their friend to be gone for good.

However, this is Basil we’re talking about, and we soon see that in the process of him falling, he grabbed some of Ratigan’s broken airship and managed to create some contraption that brings him back up to Big Ben. He boards the airship and they head home.

Olivia and her father leave for their home, thanking Basil and Dawson for all their help. Despite Basil’s initial dislike for Olivia, and children in general, it is quite a tearful goodbye for him. Dawson is about to leave Basil as well, when a new client arrives needing Basil’s help. Basil introduces Dawson as his investigative partner, so Dawson decides not to leave, and the two continue to work together solving further cases for the mice of London.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Though The Great Mouse Detective may appear to just be a loose adaptation of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in actual fact, the movie is inspired by a children’s book series, a five-part series titled Basil of Baker Street, written by Eve Titus. The books were published between 1971 and 1982. This series was clearly based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, with the characters of Basil and Dawson being based on Sherlock and Dr. Watson, and Ratigan being inspired by Moriarity. The Disney film bears little resemblance to Titus’ books though, except for the location and time setting of Victorian England, and the three main characters of Basil, Dawson, and Ratigan, with some differences. Dawson, for one thing, is actually an intelligent resource in the books, whereas in The Great Mouse Detective, Dawson is a bit of a bumbler. Ratigan in the books is meant to be a big mouse who is frequently mistaken for a rat, whereas in the film, Ratigan is actually a rat, who insists on being referred to as a mouse. Only, one of his henchmen forgets this rule when he gets drunk and ends up being eaten by Ratigan’s cat, Felicia… “Oh, my dear Bartholomew. I’m afraid that you have gone and upset me.”

But Basil of Baker Street still remains as the key figure of the story, the professional detective who never gets anything wrong. Most of the time. Originally, Basil was going to be like the Sherlock Holmes of the novel world; a cold, detached man, albeit one of unmatched intelligence, who reacts abnormally to social situations. In the BBC series, Sherlock (2010-17), Holmes even refers to himself as “a high-functioning sociopath”, rightly or wrongly. When Disney tried this approach with the character of Basil, it didn’t work, nor did their attempts to make him more like Bing Crosby. In the end, the basis for Basil’s character actually came from actor Leslie Howard’s portrayal of the strict, arrogant Professor Henry Higgins in the film Pygmalion (1938), along with the voice performance of Barrie Ingham[1]. Basil of Baker Street is quite egocentric and unfeeling at the start of the movie, ignoring Olivia’s pleas for help, being too busy with his deductions and experiments to notice that this young girl is completely lost without her father. As the story progresses though, Basil becomes more caring. He saves Olivia’s life in the clockwork of Big Ben; is visibly pleased to see her returned to her father and heading home, even though he still doesn’t know or can’t pronounce her surname, a recurring joke in the movie; and he clearly values the friendship of Dawson because he quickly gives him a job as his assistant to stop him from leaving. Basil goes through a lot of character development and personal growth in the film.

As I’ve just mentioned, Basil was voiced by English actor Barrie Ingham. Before The Great Mouse Detective, Ingham had performed on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, as well as performing in musicals, such as in the 1973 London production of Gypsy alongside Angela Lansbury, and in the 1981 revival of Camelot with Richard Harris as King Arthur; Ingham played King Pellinore. After The Great Mouse Detective, Ingham starred in the Josh Kirby… Time Warrior! Series of films from 1995 to 1996, and in Jekyll & Hyde – The Musical (2001) as Sir Danvers Carew, after appearing in the Broadway musical of the show from 1997 to the 2001 closing. Ingham was also in the final cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Aspects of Love on Broadway, from 1990 to 1991, as Sir George Dillingham, alongside Sarah Brightman. Ingham passed away in January 2015, with his final screen role being in the sci-fi miniseries The Triangle (2005).

Despite Basil not being quite like Sherlock Holmes, you will hear Sherlock Holmes in this movie. He is seen in his apartment, 221B, and the lines are from an actual recording of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes in a 1966 telling of “The Red-Headed League”. Rathbone was most known for playing the character of Sherlock Holmes in film. There were originally financial disagreements over using the recording in the movie but a last-minute deal was made to keep it in. Basil of Baker Street is named after Basil Rathbone[2].

You can’t have Sherlock Holmes without Dr. Watson, so in this case, you can’t have Basil without Dr. Dawson. Major Dr. David Q. Dawson has returned to England after serving in the Queen’s 66^th Regiment in Afghanistan, something that Basil deduces immediately on seeing Dawson for the first time. Although Dawson can be a bit of a fool, getting him and Basil into more scrapes than necessary by being clumsy and overly trusting, he is very warm and caring, being very protective of young Olivia when Basil gets too caught up in the thrill of the chase. Dawson is very different to Dr. Watson, who generally doesn’t cause Sherlock problems by tripping over things, or drinking drugged beer! He is a good opposite to Basil though, and the two complement each other more so than they disrupt each other. The appearance of Dawson was modelled, in both appearance and behaviour, after animator Eric Larson, one of Disney’s “Nine Old Men”, who worked at the studios from 1933 until his retirement in 1986. Larson had trained many of the animators working on The Great Mouse Detective, and was the animation consultant on this film, his final role with the company before his retirement. Larson died two years later in 1988[3].

Val Bettin provided the voice for Dawson. After appearing in a few movies in the 1980s and voicing Dawson for The Great Mouse Detective, Bettin became a voice actor, taking over the voice role of the Sultan from Douglas Seale for the direct-to-video sequels Aladdin: The Return of Jafar (1994) and Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), as well as the television series Aladdin (1994-95). Bettin also voiced characters in the television series’ Mighty Ducks (1996-97) and Hercules (1998-99), as well as voicing Professor Porter in the 1999 Tarzan video game. Despite being American, Bettin was adept at British accents.

We also have the two Flavershams: Olivia and Hiram; the ones whose case the whole plot revolves around. Hiram is an only parent after the death of Olivia’s mother and he clearly adores his daughter, and working as a toymaker, he makes her numerous special gifts, like a dancing ballerina mouse. The opening of The Great Mouse Detective is similar to Pinocchio (1940) in that he has a workshop just like Geppetto, filled with puppets, which I don’t like much… There’s also that scene in the toy store, which I do not like either – though there is a short Dumbo cameo, which is nice. Hiram is kidnapped in quite a violent fashion from his shop by Ratigan’s bat henchman, Fidget, as Olivia hides in a cupboard. She is found wandering the streets by Dawson as she tries to find Basil of Baker Street to help her. Olivia is quite sweet as a character, and it is very sad seeing her so distraught at losing her father. It’s great that she is reunited with him and all that, but I can’t ignore just how annoying she can be at times, not doing as she’s told and then getting kidnapped herself as a result. Why can’t anyone just do as they’re told in the movies? I would. Basil is not overly kind or sympathetic to Olivia at times, but she either isn’t bothered or doesn’t seem to notice, as she has Dawson, as well as Basil’s faithful sidekick Toby, the lovable, energetic Basset Hound.

There were hundreds of applicants for the role of Olivia, but in the end, Susanne Pollatschek, was chosen; a girl from Glasgow who had no formal training. Olivia’s father Hiram is voiced by the same actor who voiced Scrooge McDuck for over 40 years, Alan Young. He was chosen for the specific Scottish accent that he could replicate. Young began voicing Scrooge in the 1974 Disneyland Records album An Adaptation of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and voiced the character again for the short film Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983), which was nominated for Best Short Film at the Academy Awards, reprising the role for Disney until his death in 2016. Before this, Young had his own sketch show The Alan Young Show during the 1940s and 50s, and appeared in movies like The Time Machine (1960).

Moving on to easily the best character in the whole movie, the villain Professor Ratigan. Although he is not referenced often within the Disney Villain franchise, I think Ratigan is one of Disney’s best villains. He’s a completely over-the-top, charismatic showman, yet he’s also evil and ruthless at the same time, not caring one bit about feeding someone to his big white Persian cat, Felicia – reminiscent of Bond villain Blofeld’s cat – or about taking someone hostage. He has a group of loyal henchmen, which includes Felicia, and a crew of mice – and one lizard, which is a bit odd. It also includes Fidget, the bat with a peg leg, voiced by Candy Candido in his final role, and supposedly his favourite one. Candido had also voiced the Indian Chief in Peter Pan (1953), one of Maleficent’s goons in Sleeping Beauty (1959), and the Captain of the Guard in Robin Hood (1973) for Disney Animation. He was known for his deep bass voice.

Animator Glen Keane, who would go on to animate characters like Ariel and Beast, designed Ratigan. Originally, Ratigan was going to be a very skinny, weaselly-looking rat, but that made him look too similar to Basil, so they had to make him bigger. The character just wasn’t working, until Keane heard the actor Vincent Price in the 1950 film Champagne for Caeser, where Price played corporate chieftain Burnbridge Waters. Keane loved the sharp speed of his lines. Suddenly, Ratigan became a huge rat instead. Supposedly, the stature of Ratigan was based on that of then-Disney president Ron Miller, Walt’s son-in-law, who was 6ft 6in, an ex-football player, and physically intimidating. Luckily, Ron Miller did not recognise anything of himself in the character when the designs were shown to him and he allowed them to go ahead! Vincent Price was 75 years old when he was cast for the film and he generally enjoyed recording for the character, saying in interviews that he “adored” Ratigan. Price made sure to be larger-than-life in his sessions and wanted to put some fun into the evil. He also noticed that his expressive eyebrow movements were put into the character[4]. Ratigan is just an overall great character; devious but also funny.

Vincent Price was an incredible character actor, with numerous credits to his name. Just some of these include appearing in adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe works, such as The House of Usher (1960) and The Haunted Palace (1963). Price also appeared in The Three Musketeers (1948) as Richelieu, and as Baka in the religious epic The Ten Commandments (1956). In popular culture, Price is the voice speaking at the end of the Michael Jackson song “Thriller” and is The Inventor in Tim Burton’s movie Edward Scissorhands (1990). It just so happened that Tim Burton’s lifelong idol was Vincent Price; therefore, Price also narrated the short film Vincent (1982) by Burton. Price died in October 1993, with one of his final film credits being the voice of Zigzag the Grand Vizier in the unfinished animated film The Thief and the Cobbler; a version of which was released in September 1993. Price has received many lifetime achievement awards for his contributions to cinema from organisations such as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films; the Bram Stoker Awards; and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Comedic actor Bill Hader used to impersonate Vincent Price during his tenure on Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2013, as did actors Dan Aykroyd and Michael McKean during their stints on the show. Well, they do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

MUSIC

In what was surely not what he was most known for, Vincent Price actually sings two of the three original songs that were written for The Great Mouse Detective. Yes, the villain got two songs in this Disney movie! And they are both great, in my opinion. The first is “The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind” and this is Ratigan’s big showpiece that reveals his devious plan to supplant the Queen and make himself “The Supreme Ruler of All Mousedom”. It’s incredibly flashy, full of champagne and jewels, that I can only assume were stolen. Ratigan even has a top hat, cane, and huge cape to fully ensure he is the centre of attention. He even plays the harp at one point as he goes through his sad backstory of being hounded by Basil. The song is briefly halted by Felicia the cat being called, but the rest of the mice soon get back in line and sing about how wonderful Ratigan is again. It’s a very funny, camp song.

His other song is called “Goodbye, So Soon”. It’s such an upbeat song, considering it is telling Basil that he and his friends are about to be eliminated for good. It shows Ratigan’s extreme over-confidence, as it is playing on a record to Basil and Dawson as they are tied to a mouse trap, awaiting their death, because once the record stops playing, there is a very elaborate trigger of mechanisms to eventually release an iron to squish them. Getting this carried away with the overall performance proves to be Ratigan’s undoing, as the song’s length gives Basil enough time to calculate a plan to free all of them, but it’s hilarious. “Goodbye, So Soon” also reappears during the End Credits, as a goodbye to the audience, but don’t worry; this version sounds a lot less threatening than Ratigan’s. You wouldn’t want to traumatise the kids at this stage.

Both songs were written by Henry Mancini, Larry Grossman and Ellen Fitzhugh. Grossman and Fitzhugh had written the 1985 musical Grind together, with their score being nominated for Best Original Score at the Tony Awards that years. Grossman later composed the scores for Disney’s movies such as Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) and The Princess Diaries 2 (2004) for Disney. Fitzhugh wrote the lyrics for the songs in The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (1997).

Henry Mancini won numerous accolades during his career as a composer, winning four Academy Awards, two of which were for his work on Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and another for his score for Victor/Victoria (1982). Mancini is also known for composing “The Pink Panther Theme”; “Theme from Love Story”, the 1970 film; and the theme for the Peter Gunn television series (1958-61), just to name a few. Mancini died in June 1994; he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. As well as writing the music for the two songs, Mancini composed the score for The Great Mouse Detective, with this being his first time working on an animated feature. I particularly like the “Main Title” of the film, especially its opening section, which sets you up for a high-paced adventure. “Big Ben Chase” is also a good piece of music, especially as the Big Ben fight scene has barely any dialogue, so the music has to tell the story, and increase the sense of peril, which it does.

The other song in the movie is “Let Me Be Good to You”, which is performed by a mouse bar dancer, which Basil and Dawson hear when they are trying to find their way to Ratigan’s lair. After a quiet introduction, the song changes tone quite quickly, moving into a full-on showgirl number, even down to the point where the mouse pulls off her skirt and starts dancing in a leotard with a feathery tail…And the mice men sure are loving it… I mean, it’s not really risqué, but it is a bit surprising to see in a Disney film.

There was always going to be a song at this point in the film, but it wasn’t that easy for the team to settle on what the song should sound like. Very early on in production, then-CEO of the Walt Disney Company Michael Eisner suggested that perhaps Michael Jackson or Madonna could perform the song here. Henry Mancini had written a song for the scene, called “Are You the One Who Loves Me?”, which was a parody of a Victorian Music Hall tune. It was even recorded by Shani Wallis, who played Nancy in the movie Oliver! (1968). Jeffrey Katzenberg, then-Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios said the tune wasn’t contemporary enough and wanted to bring in Melissa Manchester. She was a Grammy award winner in 1982 for her recording of the song “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”, and two movie themes that she had performed were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1980; “Through the Eyes of Love” from Ice Castles (1978) and “I’ll Never Say Goodbye” from The Promise (1979)[5]. Manchester was a big name at the time, so you can see why Katzenberg hired her. She wrote and performed “Let Me Be Good To You” for the film. Manchester would return to Disney to write the songs for Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001).

PRODUCTION

The Great Mouse Detective gets the honour of being the first Disney animated film to be officially approved by the new Disney management of Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, President and Chief Operating Officer Frank Wells, and Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg, who came into the company in 1984. However, the first time that an animal version of Sherlock Holmes had been considered at Disney Animation was actually during production on The Rescuers (1977). Eve Titus’ books Basil of Baker Street were mentioned as a possible basis for this Sherlock Holmes-inspired movie. Since this animal detective movie would end up being quite similar to The Rescuers, it was decided the project would have to wait a while.

It’s a good thing too, because Disney’s story for Basil of Baker Street took years to figure out, as it was discussed in the early 1980s with former CEO Ron Miller. Originally, Olivia was going to be older and a potential love interest for Basil, however, Miller suggested making her a little girl instead to gain audience sympathy. Other ideas such as a seedy informant of Basil’s were removed, and a whole instrumental scene around lamplighters, written by Henry Mancini, was also cut. Burny Mattinson and John Musker were named as the directors of the film, but when Ron Miller was ousted from the Walt Disney Company in 1984, Roy E. Disney wanted Mattinson to be both producer and director. Eventually, it was decided this was too much work, and another director, Ron Clements, was brought in; Clements had always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes. Over three years of work had been done on the movie by the time the new management came in, yet in order to proceed, the entire film had to be re-pitched.

So, the storyboards were laid out and the team went through the whole movie. The pitch took around three hours, and by the end of it, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg were very confused and couldn’t even remember most of what they’d been told. It was decided that as the animators were being paid whether they made this particular movie or not, the movie was indeed approved – but with two caveats. The first was that the movie’s release date was being brought forward to July 1986, instead of the original date of Christmas 1987, giving the animators only a year and a half to animate the full movie. The second caveat was that the budget was going to be less than half of the budget of The Black Cauldron (1985), which ended up at around $44 million when it was released in July 1985.

The Black Cauldron was a huge failure at the box-office, something that would not be forgotten quickly by the new management, who did not have sufficient time to “fix” the movie before its release date. To make matters worse, in Christmas 1985, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) was re-released in theatres and made $33 million, making it the most successful re-release in Disney history. Disney Animation were already concerned for their jobs, as they had been moved out of the original animation building in Burbank, over to a building in Glendale, which was an uninspiring place to say the least. The whole department were just waiting to be fired, as rumours had also been circulating that management planned to simply re-issue all the previous Disney animated films as there were plenty “in the vault”, and didn’t want to make any more. To celebrate what they believed to be “the end of Disney Animation”, the animators acted out a full-scale re-enactment of Apocalypse Now (1979) in their dingy office space. Finally, the two warring sides of Jeffrey Katzenberg and the animators had to settle their differences; Katzenberg told them he wanted to learn about animation, as he had never worked on animated movies before, having come from Paramount with Michael Eisner, but that they had to make good movies that were financially viable. It was decided by the animators that it was best to get on board and see where this wild ride took them, so work on Basil of Baker Street continued[6].

The animators were inexperienced and unproven, although some of these did become very big names in the Disney world: Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, Rob Minkoff, Mark Dindal, and Ruben Aquino. The directing team of Musker and Clements were also inexperienced, and they were not given much time to animate the movie. The runtime was cut from 90 minutes to around 75 minutes to save money, using a smaller cast of characters and a tight, fast-paced story. However, a lower budget didn’t mean that the team wanted to forget about technological innovation.

Although The Black Cauldron contains the first ever use of computer-assisted animation in a Disney film, it was never marketed that way, whereas the two-minute computer-assisted scene in what became known as The Great Mouse Detective was; this was the first time hand-drawn characters had been added to a computer-generated background and it can all be seen in the final battle between Ratigan and Basil. The finale was first going to be a fight scene on the hands of Big Ben’s clock, but layout artist Mike Pereza asked if it could be restaged inside the clock, because he had been inspired by a similar scene in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated movie Castle of Cagliostro (1979)[7]. Peraza was even allowed inside Big Ben for research purposes, even though public tours were not allowed. He noticed how the entire tower would vibrate every time the bells chimed, which I think is recreated well in the movie. Peraza also made sure to capture any photographs from ground height so they were at “mouse level” to replicate how the mice characters would see and interact with everything. Whilst in London, other popular sites were photographed in this way, such as Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge[8]. Having the mice navigate the perilous clockwork and gears made for an exciting finale, and the scene recreates 54 moving gears, winches, ratchets, beams and pulleys. I particularly like the part where Olivia is trapped within a cog about to be squashed by its counterpart, when Basil grabs a rope which takes him up to pull her out of there just in time. The computer allowed Disney to play about with camera angles to suit the action of the scene, instead of being limited to panning into artwork. This paved the way for further use of computer animated sequences within animated films, for example, the ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast (1991)[9].

Although the movie was originally titled Basil of Baker Street, as per the book series, the marketing department changed the movie to The Great Mouse Detective, which angered some of those who’d worked on the film. Disney said that test audiences did not like how “British” the title sounded, but to others, it felt that they were “dumbing down” the title for no good reason. One artist even sent out a fake memo, in the name of Peter Schneider, then-president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, saying that all previous titles of Disney animated movies were to be renamed. Some examples of these included “Seven Little Men Help a Girl” for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and “The Girl with the See-Through Shoes” for Cinderella (1950). This was another case of animators clashing with the new management team, and the joke soon spiralled out of control to the point where Peter Schneider called all of the animators to a meeting. But instead of telling everyone who wasn’t happy to get out, Schneider said he wanted to make great movies here and that settled the animators down to some extent. The memo was so infamous that it even ended up as a category on Jeopardy! in January 1987[10]. It is worth noting though that in some countries, including the UK, the film was released under the name Basil the Great Mouse Detective, so this title is kind of the best of both names.

RECEPTION

The Great Mouse Detective was released on 2^nd July 1986, and brought in a total of $24 million against a budget of $12 million. The film was accompanied by the short Clock Cleaners (1937) which starred Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. The Great Mouse Detective received fairly positive reviews from critics and audiences. Some said that this was Disney Animation being as creative and free as they had been in the earliest days of Disney Animation. The use of computer animation was praised, as well as the interesting backgrounds. Many enjoyed the villain of Ratigan and the quick pacing. It was seen as a fun, enjoyable Disney movie, though some do not feel it ranked highly against others in the Disney catalogue. This was all very positive and a good step forward for Disney Animation.

However, the shine of their success faded four months later in November 1986, when the movie An American Tail (1986), another “mouse movie”, which was a collaboration between Universal Studios, Steven Spielberg, and Don Bluth – the animator who had worked at the Disney Studios up until 1979 when he left the Studios taking half the animators with him – would do even better at the box-office, beating out The Great Mouse Detective by $22 million. At the time, An American Tail became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated movie in history. This was a bit of a blow to the Disney Studios, but it is worth noting that many critics felt An American Tail was depressing, and compared it less favourably to The Great Mouse Detective. The Great Mouse Detective was later re-released in theatres in 1992 under the name The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective, before being brought out on VHS and Laserdisc.

LEGACY

Even with this legacy of setting Disney Animation back on the path to greatness, The Great Mouse Detective is not generally remembered by a large proportion of Disney fans, nor is it referenced at the Disney Parks. After that fake memo by an unnamed Disney animator, as retaliation, marketing funds were apparently pulled from the movie prior to its release. Roy E. Disney personally funded the creation of “meet-and-greet” characters for the parks, which is why costumes for only Basil and Ratigan existed[11]. These two were seen at the Disney Parks, at least the two US parks – it is unclear if they were ever at Tokyo Disneyland, the only other Disney Park to be open in 1986 – around the time of the film’s release but gradually became rarer and rarer to see, before apparently being officially retired in 2004. I have not been able to find evidence of Basil or Ratigan being seen since then, even at Special Events, but perhaps their time to return will come. But with all Disney animated movies, including the forgotten ones, you can see a tiny clip of The Great Mouse Detective within the finale of the Wonderful World of Disney Animation nighttime show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

Around the movie’s milestone anniversaries, you are most likely to find merchandise, though you might be lucky and be able to find a pin or two of the characters. In 2021, for the film’s 35^th anniversary, a MagicBand and Christmas ornament were released. As part of the Disney100, different decade collections were released. Disappointingly, The Great Mouse Detective was not included in the 80s Decade Collection line, which instead chose to focus on Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989-90), Oliver & Company (1988), and Roger Rabbit. Even The Black Cauldron (1985) got a new MagicBand+ here!

The animated characters did make appearances in some episodes of House of Mouse (2001-03) and in the short film Once Upon a Studio (2023) alongside pretty much every character in Disney Animation history. In recent years, there have also been Funko Pop’s in the form of Ratigan and Basil, and Ratigan was included in the Disney Villainous board game, alongside Scar from The Lion King (1994) and Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) in the Evil Comes Prepared expansion pack.

Another thing to mention is that in 2002, there was going to be a Mickey Mouse short in honour of his 75^th anniversary that would have featured Basil of Baker Street helping Minnie Mouse find Mickey who has been “mousenapped”. It was to be called The Search for Mickey Mouse and would’ve featured multiple cameos from Disney characters, but was cancelled due to struggles writing an interesting story idea. A live-action remake of The Great Mouse Detective was also rumoured in 2019, however, it was never announced by Disney as being in development, and no progress has been made on it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If it weren’t for The Great Mouse Detective, it’s possible the Disney Animation department would have ceased to exist. After all, it’s not like Disney weren’t aware that they had a huge list of titles that could simply be re-released over and over again, especially as the VHS tape was becoming popular in the 1980s. The directors had a huge part to play in saving Disney animation as Ron Clements and John Musker would be the two to pitch the story and then direct The Little Mermaid (1989), the film that began Disney’s “Renaissance”.

I really like The Great Mouse Detective. It’s one of those Disney films that I watch over and over again, and never tire of. It shows a big turning point in Disney animation after several years of trouble, and it’s a good watch. It’s definitely one of those underrated classics that deserves more attention than it gets. It will always be one of my favourites regardless.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 3 (2014), ‘The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street’, pp. 55-65.

[2] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Films (2015), ‘The Great Mouse Detective (1986)’, pp. 76-78.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 3 (2014), ‘The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street’, pp. 55-65.

[4] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘In Their Own Words: Glen Keane and Vincent Price on Ratigan’, CartoonResearch.com, 22^nd October 2021.

[5] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 3 (2014), ‘The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street’, pp. 55-65.

[6] Credit: Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009).

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Films (2015), ‘The Great Mouse Detective (1986)’, pp. 76-78.

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 3 (2014), ‘The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street’, pp. 55-65.

[9] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? Unravel 8 Sneaky Facts from The Great Mouse Detective’, D23 (online), 30th June 2016.

[10] Credit: Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009).

[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 3 (2014), ‘The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street’, pp. 55-65.

12th Apr 202428th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#62 Wish (2023)

BACKGROUND

Firstly, here is a spoiler warning.

As Wish was only released on Disney+ recently, and apparently not many people went to see it in theatres, here’s your chance to check it out for yourself now.

2023 was a big year for the Walt Disney Company. They were celebrating their 100^th anniversary and Wish was going to be the only Disney animated film release of the year. It had to be something good; it had to be something special.

Disney Animation chose to go back to their roots, by making a fairy-tale musical. The movie also includes many references and Easter eggs pointing to some of their previous animated movie releases, giving die-hard Disney fans plenty to look out for.

Although Disney have had many fairy-tale successes, going all the way back to their first ever full-length animated feature of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Wish did not hit fans of today in the same way. Many critics did not like the storyline, and the animation style was not favoured by many. Others were more positive, saying that they enjoyed the throwbacks to Disney’s earlier films, and liked the return of the Disney villain.

Now I have seen Wish for myself, I’m ready to commit to one side of the debate.

I am here to defend Wish.

I had every intention of not liking Wish, though I didn’t think I’d dislike it. I’d watched the trailer and didn’t like the art styling; I’d listened to the preview of the villain’s song and hated it; I didn’t like Valentino the goat’s voice. It didn’t look at all special to me, and when I read reviews of the film, some of which were brutal, I didn’t think I’d missed out on anything by not going to the cinema to watch it, instead choosing to wait for its release on Disney+.

I was pleasantly surprised, finding that, although a bit jarring at first, I got used to the animation style for the most part as the movie progressed; the villain was actually very good, in my opinion, despite the song still not living up to the character; and I teared up at many of the songs, culminating in a full breakdown during the final showdown between the villain and everyone else. It was great, and I can’t stop thinking about Wish.

But I am clearly in the minority here, as many reviews called the film many things, like: “a rip-off”, “aggressive Disney propaganda”, “forgettable”, “a cop-out”, “a confused mess”, “personality free”. We must have been watching very different movies – or I’m just a naïve dreamer. You’re free to think that if you want, but I would disagree; I’m just looking at Wish from an entirely emotive stance, and not from one of suspicion and pessimism. Yes, Disney is not perfect, and nor is Wish, but come on, you’ve got to give it more of a chance than this. Just because it was released as part of Disney’s 100^th anniversary doesn’t mean it had to be the best film ever; it just had to have heart – and I think Wish has plenty of that.

PLOT

Wish begins with a typical storybook opening, where we are told that there once was a man who believed in the importance of wishes, those wishes that drive your heart, however, he soon learnt that those wishes can easily be destroyed, so he studied magic to learn how to protect and grant wishes for others. He moved with his wife to a Mediterranean island where he built a kingdom for all, the Kingdom of Rosas. Many people flocked to the city on hearing about this newly built community by this man, King Magnifico. Every citizen, on their 18^th birthday, willing gives up their wish to the king so that it can be protected. Although this means forgetting their wish, ultimately, they trust that Magnifico, when the time is right, might choose their wish to be granted during the monthly wish granting ceremony.

The narrator telling us this story turns out to be a 17-year-old girl called Asha, who lives with her grandfather, Sabino, her mother, Sakina, and three-week-old baby goat, Valentino, in the Kingdom of Rosas. They learn that a wish granting ceremony has been called for today, and believe it is no coincidence that the day also just happens to be Sabino’s 100^th birthday; his wish will be granted today. Also on this day, after Asha completes her daily duties as a tour guide, welcoming people to Rosas, Asha has an interview with King Magnifico to become his new apprentice. She’s nervous, but she loves Rosas, and believes in Magnifico’s mission. Queen Amaya, Magnifico’s wife, calls Asha to her interview, telling her how she hopes Asha will be the new apprentice, but warns her not to ask to see the wishes – which makes Magnifico’s hoarding of wishes seem very suspicious to me.

As Asha waits for Magnifico in the King’s chamber, she becomes fascinated with a “big book” that is housed behind a glass cabinet. King Magnifico arrives, and sees Asha looking at the book. After a slight mishap with the spell protecting this book, the interview then begins. Asha honestly tells Magnifico that she “can’t do much” – please, no-one take job interview advice from Asha – but does say that her father taught her how to draw, and taught her all about the stars, that they are there to guide and inspire. Asha’s father died when she was just twelve years old. Magnifico then tells Asha how his family’s lands were destroyed by thieves, and that after that, he built Rosas to keep others safe from harm.

Magnifico decides to show Asha all of the wishes, and she is completely in awe. She soon finds her grandfather’s wish and asks for it to be granted, at which point, Magnifico’s whole demeanour changes. He is offended, but asks to see the wish. He tells Asha that actually her grandfather’s wish is too dangerous and too vague. Sabino wants to create something to inspire the next generation, and Magnifico claims that “something” could destroy Rosas for all they know. To be fair to Magnifico, inexact, vague wishes have been known to cause all kinds of trouble in stories like this! King Magnifico says he will continue to protect the wish, but will likely never grant it. Asha says that if he doesn’t intend to grant the wishes, then they should be returned. King Magnifico is infuriated by this idea, and tells Asha that she will not be his apprentice and that none of her family’s wishes will ever be granted. At which point, the queen arrives to tell Magnifico it is time for the wish granting ceremony; Asha is told to sit with the queen for the ceremony.

At the ceremony, Asha sees her grandfather and mother in the crowd waiting expectantly. However, as promised, Magnifico does not grant the grandfather’s wish, instead granting a citizen named Sonya her wish, which was to be a dressmaker. Back home, Asha is disheartened, as are her grandfather and mother. Asha tells her grandfather that Magnifico deemed his wish too dangerous, which shocks Sabino, as he doesn’t know what his wish is anymore, but he understands Magnifico’s decision. Asha does not, and says the king should not be keeping these wishes for other people, but her family do not believe this, accepting that King Magnifico is a benevolent ruler and that Rosas is perfect as it is. Asha angrily runs into the forest, with Valentino the goat following her. As Asha walks through the town, she remembers citizens’ wishes and becomes even more annoyed. She runs to the “wishing tree”, where her and her father used to sit, and wishes on a star, for the people of Rosas to have “something more than this”. The whole town feels the magic, and they believe King Magnifico has done something great. Magnifico knows it was not him, and feels threatened. He cannot find anything in any of his spell books about what has happened, and wants to open the “big book”, which is full of forbidden magic. The queen tells him not to go there.

In the forest, Asha learns that the star she wished on has come to life. It begins to make all the animals around her talk, including Valentino, where they all proceed to tell her that she is in fact a star, as is everyone, and that they have the power to make their own wishes come true. But Star cannot grant wishes, so Asha decides to take the wishes back from Magnifico and return them to their rightful owners, so that they can make their own wishes come true, or at least try to, as none of them can remember their wish after it’s been given away. In the castle, Asha goes to her friend, Dahlia, who works as the royal baker. She conceals Star and the talking Valentino in a closet while she talks to Dahlia, saying how she challenged the king. Dahlia, as well as the other six “teens”, who seem to either just hang around in the royal kitchen or all work for the king, who knows, become suspicious of Asha’s behaviour, so Asha shows them Star and Valentino – the closet is also now full of dancing, singing chickens, thanks to Star’s power! Dahlia tells Asha that the dumb waiter can be used to get into the king’s study where the wishes are kept. An assembly is called by Magnifico and Asha asks Dahlia to stall him while she retrieves the wishes.

At the assembly, King Magnifico tells the people of Rosas that there is a traitor amongst them, using magic to put the kingdom at risk, and that they will be punished. Whoever identifies the traitor will have their wish granted; whoever helps them will never. Dahlia attempts to stall Magnifico, but it doesn’t work for long, and he returns to his study, angry that someone would dare challenge him, believing his grip on the citizens is weakening. Asha, meanwhile, is in the study with Valentino and Star, having obtained her grandfather’s wish. They make a quick escape home.

At home, Asha returns her wish to her grandfather, but as Asha tells her mother she plans to go back in for hers, King Magnifico arrives – and he wants Star. Magnifico crushes Asha’s mother wish, which they discover hurts her, but gives Magnifico more power. Asha knocks the king out and they all rush away on horses to the shore. Asha puts them all on boat, and they head for the island opposite them. Asha then realises that she can’t just run away, and that she needs to stop Magnifico once and for all. She tells her grandfather and mother to wait on the island, and she swims back to Rosas with Valentino and Star.

Back in the castle, Magnifico has fully given in to dark magic, fashioning himself a magical staff by using the power of others’ wishes. The queen is devastated to find he has done this to himself. King Magnifico calls another assembly, where he reveals that Asha’s friend Simon has revealed that the traitor is Asha, and that she planned to destroy all their wishes. Simon’s wish is then granted, which was to become a knight of the kingdom, however, at the same time, he comes under the control of Magnifico. Asha tries to rally Dahlia and the other five teens at a secret hideout, where she calls for all of them to fight Magnifico with her. Queen Amaya says she will also join. A plan is concocted.

Queen Amaya tells Magnifico that Asha is in the forest and that he should capture her. Asha plans to lead the king away from the wishes so that Star and the teens can set them all free. Dahlia tries to find a way to defeat the king, but there is no way to do this; once someone has given in to the darkness, they are corrupted for all eternity. Asha is captured in the forest, but although she believed it was Magnifico pursuing her, it was in fact Simon in disguise. The forest animals subdue Simon, and Asha rushes back to Rosas to protect Star.

Atop the castle’s tower, Magnifico absorbs all of the wishes and Star, making him all powerful. He blocks out the sky and immobilises all of the citizens in a floor of thorns. Asha rushes to the high tower and tries to battle Magnifico, but his magic is too powerful. Asha is tortured by the dark magic but encourages everyone to wish to defeat the king. Although they cannot look up at the night sky to do this, their collective wish overpowers Magnifico, sucking him into his staff, and Star and the wishes are released.

Asha is thrilled to see that her mother’s wish has returned, even though it had been destroyed by Magnifico. Simon, now free of his curse, apologies to Asha for revealing her as the traitor and he is forgiven. Queen Amaya is left to be the sole ruler of Rosas, and helps everyone pursue their wishes together. As for Magnifico, well, he becomes trapped in a shard of mirror; Queen Amaya orders him to be kept on the wall of the dungeons. Star will soon have to return to the sky, but first, Star gifts Asha a magic wand and she becomes the Fairy Godmother of the kingdom, the one who will inspire everyone else to keep believing in their wishes. A short but sweet end credits scene shows Sabino playing “When You Wish Upon a Star” on his guitar by a lake, just to really get that message to sink in!

CHARACTERS & CAST

Asha is the 17-year-old lead character in Wish. She has a clear love for the kingdom of Rosas, and for her community, and shares her love for the area with the tourists that come to see this magical kingdom. She believes wholeheartedly in King Magnifico’s dream for the citizens, and honestly thinks he will grant her grandfather’s wish on his 100^th birthday. It’s not until that fateful interview that she realises Magnifico is not the king she thought he was, and from that point on, she decides to go up against him to retrieve these wishes. She wants to make things right again, and refuses to just accept that this is the way things have always been. Asha is a warm, empathic character, who cares more about others than she does about herself, as we see by the fact she puts himself in danger for her grandfather’s happiness, then her mother’s, and then the whole kingdom’s. At the end of the movie, these characteristics are fully realised when Star basically names her as the Fairy Godmother of Rosas. This idea is foreshadowed in some of Asha’s clothing, as her dress is blue and purple, like the Fairy Godmother’s cloak in Cinderella (1950); Asha even wears a very similar cloak when she is being chased by Magnifico in the forest. It also turns out that purple is the colour of hope in North African culture, which is handy as Asha’s mother is from North Africa, and her father was from Southern Spain. There are also pumpkin seeds sewn into Asha’s dress and on her anklet as another reference to Cinderella[1].

Ariana DeBose voices Asha. DeBose has starred in stage musical productions since 2011, after appearing as a contestant on Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance in 2009. On stage, she played Nautica in Bring It On from 2011 to 2012, and was a part of the ensemble in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original Broadway production of Hamilton. From 2017 to 2018, DeBose played Disco Donna in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. Since then, Ariana DeBose has been featured on the silver screen, in movies like The Prom (2020), where she was cast as Alyssa Greene, and in West Side Story (2021) where she starred as Anita. For this role, she won the Academy Award, the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, and the SAG award, amongst others, in the category of Best Supporting Actress. In 2024, she appeared in the spy comedy film Argylle and has many more film projects coming out soon.

As for Asha’s family, Sabino, her grandfather, and Sakina, her mother, they are very trusting of the kingdom of Rosas and of Magnifico. They both gave up their wishes at the age of 18 and handed them over to Magnifico, to await the day they may be granted. They are protective of Asha, however, as older generations tend to be, they are reluctant to see the need for change. Their community has always been the way it has been, and Sabino, although saddened by the decision, seems to accept Magnifico’s choice to not grant his wish. The two finally come to Asha’s way of thinking after Magnifico crushes Sakina’s wish right in front of them, and stand up for Asha as she is trying to defeat Magnifico, knowing they need to be brave and stand up for what is right too.

Sakina is voiced by Natasha Rothwell, who is an actress and a writer. Her writing credits include work on the sketch show Saturday Night Live from 2014 to 2015, and the television series Insecure from 2016 to 2021. As an actress, Rothwell appeared in the teen romcom Love, Simon (2018) as Ms. Albright, and in the comedy film Like a Boss (2020), where she played Jill. In recent years, Rothwell starred as Belinda, the spa manager, in Season 1 of The White Lotus (2021-present), for which she received a Primetime Emmy award nomination. It seems that she will be returning to the role for Season 3 of the series. She also appears as Rachel in the Sonic the Hedgehog series of films.

Sabino is voiced by Victor Garber. Garber has appeared in numerous stage musicals, starring as Jesus in Godspell from 1972 to 1975, and appearing in the 1973 film version of it – this stage production featured other big names like Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner, and Martin Short – before going on to the 1979 Sweeney Tood: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; the 1983 Noises Off; the 2007 Follies; and the 2018 Hello, Dolly! Broadway musical shows. On screen, Garber has featured in many films of all different genres, including Titanic (1997) as Thomas Andrews; Legally Blonde (2001), as Professor Callahan; Milk (2008) as Mayor George Moscone; Argo (2012) as Ken Taylor; and Sicario (2015) as Dave Jennings. On television, Victor Garber also had roles in Cinderella (1997) as King Maximillian; Annie (1999) as Oliver Warbucks; The Orville (2017-22) as Admiral Halsey; and in the series Family Law (2021-present) as Harry Svensson.

Then, we come to Asha’s sidekicks. First, we have Valentino, her little pet goat. He’s quite cute when he’s not talking, but when he does start, I find him a little bit irritating! It was obviously meant to be funny to hear this goat have a deep voice, when you’re expecting it to have a cute, little voice, but I don’t personally like his voice much at all. Luckily, he didn’t have all that much to do with the story, just saying the odd like quip or stupid thing – I did like him counting the teens down when they’re trying to open the roof of Magnifico’s tower, I’ll give him that, because obviously he’s a goat and never learnt to count. Valentino also talks about how his wish is “for a utopia where all animals are equal. And wear clothes”, which is a clear reference to Zootopia (2016), that’s kind of funny too. Disney “good luck charm” Alan Tudyk voices Valentino. His Disney voice roles include: King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Duke of Weselton in Frozen (2013), Alistair Krei in Big Hero 6 (2014), KnowsMore in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), and even Iago in the 2019 Aladdin live-action remake. Outside of voice acting, Tudyk was the voice and motion capture for Sonny the robot in I, Robot (2004), and also appeared in the films Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), as Steve the Pirate, and Trumbo (2015), as Ian McLellan Hunter.

Star…the star was originally going to be a talking human shape-shifter, not just a cute little star with a face. There were so many options for the character since it was coming from another world. But it was felt the human shape-shifter idea was too close to Maui in Moana (2016) or even the Genie from Aladdin (1992), so new ideas were pitched. These consisted of things like abstract shapes, and hybrid animals, with one of those even being some sort of space platypus. It was storyboard artist Dan Abraham who pitched the idea of a cluster of stardust with a face. It was so simple, but it captured the essence of what they wanted. This idea morphed into more of a physical star shape, with the five points, and then it was given a heart-shaped face mask. This is in homage to Mickey Mouse, who has the same shape on his face. Star trails a constant sparkle to reference Tinker Bell’s pixie dust and Fairy Godmother’s magic in Peter Pan (1953) and Cinderella (1950) respectively. The sparkly dots were created to be imperfect as though they were hand-drawn. Star is non-verbal so the visual expressions make it obvious what Star is thinking and how it is feeling[2].

The others who guide Asha on her journey are the “Seven Teens”, in a clear reference to Snow White’s seven dwarfs. Each of them is based on a specific dwarf, with their personalities, clothing colours, and the first letter of their name giving a clue as to which dwarf each teen represents. Firstly, there is Dahlia, based on Doc, who is the royal baker and arguably Asha’s closest friend since she gets the most screen-time of the seven. The team working on the film said that they felt Dahlia was like Ethel in the sitcom I Love Lucy (1951-57), and that Asha was Lucy, as she always drags Dahlia into situations she doesn’t want to be in. She does have a disability, as Dahlia uses a crutch to help her walk, but she doesn’t let it define her, and she is a very capable and successful woman. It’s a very small reference that I didn’t even notice until about halfway through the film, but I’m not always the most observant person! Dahlia is voiced by Jennifer Kumiyama.

Then, we have Gabo, who is the cynical, uncertain one in the group. He takes a bit more persuading to believe that Asha deserves their help, and is reluctant to get involved in the scheme to defeat Magnifico initially. Gabo is therefore based on Grumpy. He is voiced by Harvey Guillén, who appears as Guillermo in the comedy horror mockumentary series What We Do in the Shadows (2019-present). Guillén has also voiced characters for series such as Human Resources (2022-23) and Harley Quinn (2019-present). There is also Hal, the “Happy” one of the group, who is voiced by Niko Vargas. For Bashful, we have Bazeema, the shy, quiet one, voiced by Della Saba. Saba voiced Young Judy in Zootopia (2016).

For the final three, let’s start with Simon, the one who betrays Asha. Before he becomes a traitor and unwillingly becomes a minion for Magnifico, he spends a lot of his time sleeping in the palace kitchens – one guess which dwarf he’s based on. But it’s not his fault. He used to be athletic and full of energy, and when his wish was handed over to Magnifico, he suddenly became very sleepy, as some sort of weird side-effect. Having his wish granted is the primary motivation for Simon betraying Asha, and although wrong to sell out your friends, I can kind of see why he’d do it; Simon wouldn’t have known just how evil and crazy Magnifico would get I suppose – and luckily, he sees the errors of his ways once the spell wears off and his friends forgive him, so it’s all good. Evan Peters is the voice actor for Simon. He played Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). Peters has also recently appeared in the American Horror Story anthology series (2011-present) in a variety of roles, and starred as Jeffrey Dahmer in the miniseries Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022), for which he won a Golden Globe award, amongst others, in the Best Actor category. He also won a Primetime Emmy for his supporting role as Detective Colin Zabel in crime miniseries Mare of Easttown (2021).

Safi is the teen who has multiple allergies – including one to chickens, despite apparently really liking chickens… Safi is based on Sneezy, obviously. Actor, writer, comedian, and director Ramy Youssef voices the character. Youssef created and starred in the comedy-drama series Ramy (2019-22), winning a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Youssef has also appeared as Samar Swailem in Season 3 of Mr. Robot (2015-19). More recently, he was cast as Max McCandles in the critically acclaimed movie Poor Things (2023). Finally, we have Dopey, I mean Dario, who is the “least bright” one of the teen group. He even has the wiggly ears that are an iconic trait of Dopey. He is voiced by Jon Rudnitsky, who was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for 2015 to 2016, and played McWatt in the miniseries Catch-22 (2019)[3].

One criticism I do have of Wish is that there are too many supporting characters, many of which we don’t learn much about. This is particularly obvious with the “7 Teens”, as only Dahlia seemed to come across as a friend to Asha, and Simon had his whole traitor thing going on, but other than that, I don’t think most of the teens were necessary to the story, though I understand what Disney were trying to do with their seven dwarfs reference.

Let’s move on to the royalty in Wish, and start with Queen Amaya. She is a kind, caring queen, dedicated to the kingdom of Rosas. She is also a loyal wife to King Magnifico, and tries her best to stop him succumbing to the power of dark magic – to no avail. At this turning point, Queen Amaya knows she must do what is best for Rosas and fights against her husband, which is very brave when he’s become a complete psychopath! Angelique Cabral voices Queen Amaya. Cabral has had main roles in recent television series such as Life in Pieces (2015-19), playing Colleen Short, and Undone (2019-22) as Becca Winograd-Diaz. She also voiced the recurring role of Hazel Gonzalez in DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms (2021-23).

And last, but certainly not least, we have King Magnifico. At first glance, Magnifico seems like a well-meaning king, with his wish to create a safe community for others seeming like quite a noble aspiration to have. Sure, he takes people’s wishes from them when they are 18-years-old, but he protects them and plans to grant them at a later date, which doesn’t seem like an issue initially. However, we soon learn that Magnifico likes to have power over his choice of which wishes are granted, and which are not. The king can decide whether a wish is “too dangerous” or not – and that’s a problem for Asha, who doesn’t like Magnifico hoarding all these wishes, for no purpose other than to have control over the citizens of Rosas. When Magnifico is confronted by Asha, he feels threatened and his mood instantly switches, and from that point on, he descends into darkness, madness, and insanity. Disney had not created a classic villain in quite a few years. I’d probably consider the last good villain to be Yokai in Big Hero 6 (2014), but if we’re talking menacing and evil for their own purposes, I’m thinking Mother Gothel in Tangled (2010) – or maybe Prince Hans in Frozen (2013), but I’ve never been a big fan of his. Is anyone, actually?

King Magnifico had to be a true villain, a completely unredeemable one. Early on in the story, there were plans for Magnifico to be showing his evil side straight away, with one idea being him smashing Asha’s grandfather’s guitar to pieces right at the start, which would’ve been awful to see! It was then decided that there would need to be too much explanation about why anyone would give up their wishes to that kind of person, so King Magnifico got an origin story, about his family’s lands being destroyed, and he became quite a charming character to begin with, albeit a tad narcissistic, always playing with his hair and looking in mirrors, because King Magnifico is quite handsome for a villain.

The team working on Wish loved Chris Pine’s voice performance, finding that he was able to find the hidden depths to Magnifico, and was able to be as menacing as they expected this classic Disney villain to be, commenting that the quieter his voice gets, the more dangerous Magnifico is, which is something I also noticed and particularly liked[4]. I was very impressed with Pine’s acting here, as after hearing the villain’s song, I was sure this villain was not going to be a good one, just a silly, overly confident one, but I was completely wrong. Magnifico, I think, is a truly scary classic Disney villain but with some humour to him as well. I will admit that I may be biased though, since I have been a fan of Chris Pine since he first rose to fame in the movies The Princess Diaries 2 (2004) and Just My Luck (2006). Pine then became Captain Kirk in the rebooted Star Trek trilogy of films (2009-16). He also portrayed Jack Ryan in the movie Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014). For Disney, Pine appeared in A Wrinkle in Time (2018) as Dr. Alexander Murry, and played the self-obsessed Cinderella’s Prince in Into the Woods (2014) before becoming the self-obsessed King Magnifico in Wish – I think that’s called career progression. More recently, Chris Pine starred in the controversy-hit thriller film Don’t Worry Darling (2022) alongside Florence Pugh, which I actually really liked, and he recently made his directorial debut with the movie Poolman (2023).

MUSIC

Speaking of Chris Pine and King Magnifico, he actually gets to sing twice in this film. His biggest song is obviously “his” song “This is the Thanks I Get?!”. This is Magnifico saying how he thinks the people of Rosas are really ungrateful for everything he’s done for them – and then he decides to get rid of wishing altogether by using dark magic. I did not like this initially when I heard it, nor when I heard it in the film, however, I have found myself thinking that it’s not actually that bad and fits Magnifico’s character well, because at this point in the movie he is slowly becoming a madman, too obsessed with his plan, and that comes through in this song. My issue with this “villain’s song” is that it doesn’t sound very sinister or evil, and those are always the best kind. I had hoped to hear something more on the lines of “Hellfire” or “Be Prepared” since Magnifico is meant to be an amalgamation of all the best parts of the Disney villains – and character-wise he is – but hearing a comedic, pop-rock song threw me a bit, but maybe I’m stuck in the 90s and need to move on. “This is the Thanks I Get?!” has started to grow on me, but it’s nowhere near my favourite song here.

That accolade goes to “At All Costs”, a sweet song performed by Pine and DeBose as Magnifico and Asha, when they are looking at all the wishes Magnifico protects. It’s a quiet, calm song, and I love it. I also think Pine gets to show his singing talents here, whereas he doesn’t exactly get to in the villain’s song. Taken out of context of the film, because Asha and Magnifico are not singing to each other and definitely are not an item, it’s quite a romantic love ballad. I could see someone choreographing a great contemporary dance to this song actually… I just love it; I think it’s beautiful. It is likely this song was meant to be a love song in an early version of the story, between Asha and the human version of Star, as written in the official book of the film, The Art of Wish (2023).

Moving on to the signature song of Wish, “This Wish”. It is initially performed by Asha solo as she wishes to the star to give the people of Rosas something better than the life that Magnifico has given for them all. Her wish is so strong that it brings the wishing star to her. It is a very powerful song, and was actually the first song written for the film, written before the script had even been completed, so “This Wish” helped with the story development. As lovely as this song is, the reprise of “This Wish”, sung by Asha and then the people of Rosas as they collectively wish to defeat the evil King Magnifico is even more powerful, and this is my second favourite in the soundtrack. The whole showdown between Asha, Magnifico, and the citizens is just amazing, and with this song going at the same time, it just makes it even better. I’ve always loved a good ensemble number.

Another song I like is “I’m a Star” performed by the forest animals, and Valentino, as they tell Asha that we are all made of stars, so we don’t need stars to make wishes. This song is quite sappy, but it is a nice song to listen to if you’re having a particularly bad day; it’s nice to hear random voices saying “you’re a star” to you sometimes…

Rounding out the main movie soundtrack are two numbers I didn’t particularly enjoy. The first is “Welcome to Rosas”, which is just Asha leading a tour and showing us the wonders of living in the city of Rosas. I quite like the vaguely Bollywood-vibe to the song, but other than, I didn’t take all that much from it. It was just a quick round-up of the backstory of Rosas and Magnifico, kind of like “The Family Madrigal” in Encanto (2021); too much information to really understand the first time you’re hearing it as it’s so quick. The other song that I really didn’t like was “Knowing What I Know Now”, which is Asha calling all her friends to help her fight against Magnifico. I just didn’t like it; it sounded too serious for this film, and more like a song you’d hear in Mulan (1998) as they are actually headed into a physical war, not a magical one like Asha and her friends.

The End Credits song of “A Wish Worth Making” is quite nice though, another slow song full of feeling. It is performed by Julia Michaels, who co-wrote the songs for the movie. I might have liked this song more because the credits featured a lot of Disney characters from Disney Animation history, with Quasimodo making an appearance to my delight. I will just say not every animated film was referenced here though, with some exceptions being many of the “package features” of the 1940s, The Rescuers (1977), and The Black Cauldron (1985). It is odd that Disney couldn’t find room in the credits to include a character from each movie, although I can understand ignoring sequel films.

Singer songwriter Julia Michaels and record producer Benjamin Rice wrote all the songs for Wish, with Canadian musician JP Saxe also being credited for the song “This Wish”. Michaels has a background in writing pop songs, having written songs for the likes of Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, and Olivia Rodrigo, so this gave a contemporary feel to the soundtrack. Dave Metzger composed the score for Wish. He had previously worked for Disney Animation many times, arranging and orchestrating the music for Tarzan (1999) and Frozen (2013) for example, but hadn’t composed a score for them before[5]. Of the instrumental pieces, I like the pieces that play during the finale scenes the best. Overall, I think this is a good Disney soundtrack, not the best, but I do count “This Wish (Reprise)” and “At All Costs” as two new favourite Disney songs of mine, which is much more than I expected when I first sat down to watch Wish.

PRODUCTION

Wish began production in 2018, although it was not announced until January 2022 that Chief Creative Officer of the Walt Disney Animation Studios Jennifer Lee was writing this next movie. In September 2022, at the D23 Expo, the title and further details were announced about the movie. In 2018 when Lee began developing the story, it was known that this film would be released during the Disney100 celebrations, so it had to be a tribute to all of Disney Animation, as well as be a new addition to their movie catalogue. Initially, some of the animators wondered if they’d be making a movie like Fantasia (1940). Pictures were lined up of every Disney animated feature that had been released, like a timeline of their history, and they discussed how they feel watching Disney films and what Disney magic is to them. As well as the fact that Disney animation looks at an ordinary hero fighting their way through extraordinary circumstances to achieve something big, another factor that kept being mentioned was about wishing. Having a whole movie about wishing would fit well with the themes of many other Disney animated movies, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937); Pinocchio (1940), where we first heard “When You Wish Upon a Star”, the “theme song” of the Walt Disney Company; Cinderella (1950); Aladdin (1992); and The Princess and the Frog (2009), just to name a few. Looking through Walt Disney’s history as well, they found that even Walt Disney had a “wishing tree” on his parents’ farm in Missouri. This is why Asha and her father have a wishing tree in the movie[6].

With this in mind, the initial concept of Wish was for it to tell the origin story of the wishing star, that star that Gepetto and Tiana wish on in their respective movies. But, much like The Princess and the Frog, Wish tells the viewer that although wishes may be powerful, just wishing on a star won’t make it come true; you have to take responsibility for pursuing it yourself, or get help and support from others. It also reminds us that no matter how long it’s been, whether you’ve had that wish on hold or its strength has wavered, whether you’ve hit a problem and don’t think it’ll ever happen, you can always feel inspired to get back to it, just like Asha’s grandfather; he’s 100 and he still wants to see his wish come true! Unlike previous fairy tale movies from Disney, Wish is an original fairy tale from Disney[7].

If you’ve seen Wish, you’ll probably have noticed that the art style is quite unique. Well, that is because the team wanted to pay homage to the past, by referencing the romantic fairy-tale feel to the artwork that was seen in the earliest of Disney animated movies, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio, with their use of watercolour backgrounds and traditional hand-drawn characters. The team working on Wish wanted to mimic that hand-drawn look, despite using CG. This was quite difficult to do as computer-animated characters do not have any line work around them, since they aren’t drawn, and the backgrounds normally blur so that the foreground can be the primary focus. In 2D animation, everything is visible all at once, which meant making backgrounds less detailed to avoid detraction from the main focal points. For example, in the crowd scenes, the characters at the far back of the crowd will not have a face, and the further forward you go, the more detail has been added. Once all these details had been worked through, the team did a test shot of Asha walking through a painted background from Pinocchio to see if she would fit in that world[8].

Since Wish is a fairy tale and most classic fairy tales take place in medieval times and usually in Europe, the kingdom of Rosas had to be reminiscent of this setting. Disney looked at setting Wish in a warmer climate, so looked at areas like Southern Spain for inspiration. Rosas became a melting pot of cultures, with many people from other countries flocking to the kingdom because of the promise of their wish coming true, so that was factored in to all of the citizens. Wish also has a king, and what king would be complete without his castle – and what Disney fairy tale would be complete without an iconic castle. Looking at the architecture of Spain, Magnifico’s castle includes many decorative and ornate details such as pillars, spires, elaborate window designs, and even bridges[9]. To me, Rosas looks quite similar to the kingdom of Corona in Tangled (2010), which makes sense as they are both island kingdoms in similar climates.

Because of the need to pay tribute to Disney Animation as a whole, there are numerous references and Easter eggs to Disney’s animated history. Some are more obvious, like the various Hidden Mickeys, including one made of fireworks right at the end of the film in typical Disney fashion, and some are more subtle, such as the fact that Magnifico has 1,923 wishes, which is a reference to the Disney Studios beginning in 1923, and that Magnifico’s “secret lab” has a skull and an apple like Snow White’s Evil Queen does. There are plenty to look out for, and you’ll never catch them all just viewing the film once.

RECEPTION

After all that time and effort, Wish was released on 22^nd November 2023 in the United States – to fairly negative reviews for the most part and disappointing box-office figures. The general consensus from critics seemed to be that the story was not well thought-out and lacked Disney’s usual story-telling magic, saying that it seemed that the movie was too busy referencing previous Disney animated movies to have an actual plot. Some were even bold enough to claim that parts of Wish had been written by AI, which is frankly offensive to the creators. Many did enjoy Chris Pine and Ariana DeBose’s performances as King Magnifico and Asha, but responses to the soundtrack were mixed.

Sadly, Wish did not do nearly as well as it was predicted to make at the box-office, despite being released the week before the five-day Thanksgiving weekend. During that weekend, it only made $31.7 million, and in its opening weekend, it grossed $19.5 million domestically. In total, Wish grossed only $64 million in the US and Canada, and made a worldwide total of just over $250 million, not much more than its predicted budget of $200 million, making it a box-office disappointment. Wish failed to outgross The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023) or Napoleon (2023), both of which were released at similar times. Wish did, however, do better at the box-office than Disney’s previous movie release of Strange World (2022), probably because it is more universally appealing than Strange World, which was…strange, but not bad[10].

To make matters worse, Wish was not included in the Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, nor did any of the songs end up nominated for Best Song there or at the Grammys. It did receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Feature though, losing to Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron (2023), and “This Wish” was nominated at a few awards, like the Astra Film Awards, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.

Reading all of this negativity surrounding Wish has been disappointing for me. In all fairness, I am not a film critic; I don’t need to be overly critical about what I’m watching, I just watch it and see how it makes me feel. For me, that’s all I want from anything I watch; it just has to make me feel something. If it can make me cry, or shock me, or make me sad, angry, happy, hopeful, then I’m quite easily satisfied. And with Wish, that’s what happened. Some of the songs really hit me emotionally and that kept me interested, and I did like Asha’s relationship with her family. King Magnifico being a “real villain” also helped, and generally I liked the story, even if it was a typical fairy tale with very few surprises.

I know that we aren’t all going to have the same opinion and as much as it upsets me, all those critics who wrote mean things about Wish had every right too. I just think it is unfair to criticise Wish for its lack of story when I believe that Encanto (2021), although it was very heart-warming and endearing, has even less of a story than Wish. This was never meant to be a film that was action-packed or super thrilling; I believe it was made to make viewers feel hopeful and positive, and yes, it was a tribute to Disney Animation, but I didn’t get sucked in to all the hype around the Disney100, so I just saw Wish as another addition to Disney Animation history. I didn’t have high expectations of it, but maybe others did.

I think many people were avoiding going to the cinema to watch it, in part because of the negative reviews, but more so perhaps because of this: why pay to see Wish twice? If you are already paying for Disney+, you might as well wait for it to come out there. That was my thinking on it, especially as I wasn’t expecting to like it much. Disney had been adding their theatrically released movies to the platform around three months after their theatrical run, but in this case, we had to wait around five months for it. Maybe this was punishment from the Disney company for not going to movie theatres to see it… Thankfully, Wish was finally released on Disney+ on 3^rd April 2024. It has recently been stated that Wish had 13.2 million views in its first five days on Disney+, making it the third most-viewed streaming premiere for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film, after Encanto (2021) and Frozen II (2019). It did not, however, reach the heights of Elemental (2023), Pixar’s movie, when it was released on the platform as that received 26.4 million views[11]. I am hoping that Wish can finally find its audience now – if viewers are willing to ignore all the bad buzz.

LEGACY

As promotion for the upcoming movie, Wish started to appear at the Disney Parks from the start of November 2023. At Walt Disney World, Asha began meeting guests in Epcot from 1^st November, and she still continues to meet guests daily at World Showcase Plaza in Epcot. Also at Epcot, there was a light show on Spaceship Earth, the park’s icon, from 22^nd November that used the song “I’m a Star”. There was also a preview of the film being shown at Walt Disney Presents at Disney’s Hollywood Studios from 11^th November; this had stopped by 2024. There were numerous treats themed to Wish debuting that month too, including the Star Cookie, which was the “completer cookie” for 2023’s Festival of the Holidays Cookie Stroll. At Disney’s Animal Kingdom, there were limited time animation classes to draw some of the characters from Wish, like Valentino, at the Animation Experience in Conservation Station at Rafiki’s Planet Watch. In 2024, a Wish topiary of Asha, Valentino, and Star, did debut at the entrance to Epcot for the 2024 International Flower and Garden Festival in February.

Similar offerings were available at Disneyland, such as Asha meeting guests outside Royal Hall in Fantasyland, in an area made to look like Rosas. This area was removed in early 2024, however, Asha has still been seen roaming the area. There was a Wish pre-show prior to the World of Color – Season of Light nighttime show at Disney’s California Adventure from 20^th November for a limited time; this used the song “This Wish”. Animation classes were also held at the Animation Academy at Disney’s California Adventure Park. Additional merchandise such as a Valentino popcorn bucket and Star sipper were available.

At Disneyland Paris, Ariana DeBose performed “This Wish” in front of their castle as part of The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration, which aired on ABC on 26^th November. Asha met with guests from 29^th November to 7^th January at Animation Celebration at Walt Disney Studios Park. There were also limited time animation classes at the Animation Academy here. At the reopening of the Disneyland Hotel Royal Banquet restaurant on 25^th January 2024, it was discovered that a portrait of King Magnifico was hanging on the wall alongside other villainous royals.

Shanghai Disneyland held the China premiere of Wish on 17^th November, which featured a Wish-themed projection show as well, however, other than that and some merchandise lines available to purchase at the Disney Store Asia from December 2023, neither Tokyo Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland, or Hong Kong Disneyland appeared to have any special offerings or events to celebrate Wish, nor does Asha seem to have made an appearance at these parks. For the merchandise, figurines, dolls, plush toys, kids’ clothing, pins, MagicBands, and even a Dooney and Bourke bag collection have been sold over recent months. Some of these items differ between Asia and the US and Europe.

Finally, Asha made her Disney on Ice debut in winter 2023, skating to her signature song “This Wish”. It remains to be seen whether she continues to feature in this show, whether the storyline is expanded, or if Wish is cut altogether in the coming years. It also remains to be seen whether Wish, its songs, or its characters will be featured in new parades, or new nighttime and daytime shows at the Disney Parks – I hope it does.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I can understand that over recent years, there has been some distrust and dissatisfaction directed towards the Walt Disney Company. The corporate side of the company has been laying off jobs at an alarming rate, cost-cutting, threatening to sell off portions of the company, and finding seemingly endless ways of taking as much money from consumers as possible – thank you, Genie+. But that is not Disney Animation.

If you watch the animators who worked on Wish discuss the film, you’ll see that they wanted to make the best film possible, to celebrate the legacy of Disney Animation that they feel lucky enough to have been a part of. They didn’t just make Wish because they had to, because it was part of their production schedule. The amount of effort, time, and creative thinking that went into Wish shows how much it meant to the animators to make a movie reminiscent of the fairy tales that Disney have made over the decades, but that had all the contemporary, modern touches to appeal to today’s audience; they never once have just “phoned it in”, so for viewers to think that Wish was a plain rip-off and lacklustre addition to the Disney Animation canon makes me feel very sad for those who worked on it.

Wish deserves to be celebrated for its references to Disney history, its salute to the famous art stylings of Walt Disney’s era of animated movies, as well as for its unique characters, emotive soundtrack, and touching message, about never giving up on your wishes and dreams, no matter how long it’s been.

It’s unfair for Wish to be tarnished as a mediocre fairy-tale musical, not worthy of having been released during the Disney100. Don’t just take the critics’ word for it; watch it and decide for yourself.

Which side will you be on: the dreamers, or the non-believers?

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Disney, “Asha Means Wish”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[2] Credit: Disney, “Star Is Born”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[3] Credit: Disney, “Those Who Stand Beside Me”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[4] Credit: Disney, “The Return of the Disney Villain”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[5] Credit: Disney, “The Wish Equation”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[6] Credit: Disney, “What Makes Disney, Disney”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[7] Credit: Disney, “The Wish Equation”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[8] Credit: Disney, “Looking Backward to Go Forward”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[9] Credit: Disney, “Where Dreams and Reality Collide”, from Wish (2023) Disney+ (2024).

[10] Credit: Conor Murray, ‘Wish Had One of Disney’s Worst Openings Ever For An Animated Movie – Here’s Why’, Forbes (online), 27^th November 202.

[11] Credit: Selome Hailu, ‘’Wish’ Hits 13.2 Million Views on Disney+ in Five Days’, Variety (online), 8^th April 2024.

5th Apr 202427th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#55 Zootopia (2016)

BACKGROUND

The 2010s saw Disney Animation release hit after hit.

Well, for the most part. We don’t need to mention that 2011 Winnie the Pooh remake, a minor speed bump on the road to success.

Now that Disney Animation was fully immersed in the world of computer animation, they were doing well. And not even just with fairy tale musicals, like Tangled (2010) and Frozen (2013), which, obviously became a huge phenomenon all of its own, but with non-musicals too, that were based on video games and superheroes – I’m looking at you, Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Big Hero 6 (2014). It was great to see Disney branching out and doing something different. All of those films did well both financially and critically.

Disney just needed to keep that momentum going, and they did just that in 2016, with Zootopia, a movie about a city full of anthropomorphised animals. It dealt with issues such as prejudice, discrimination, and unconscious bias – all topics that have been discussed amongst the human population for a few years now, but 2016 was a big year for these types of debates. Disney managed to get their own message in at the perfect time.

Although this message about not judging others by what they look like, which in Zootopia’s case is masked behind the metaphorical city of Zootopia and its war between predators and prey, may not be fully explored in the movie, it certainly caught the attentions of the public, with many praising this effort to weigh in on the topical discussions. Some, however, felt Zootopia was a bit preachy at times, and that the message itself could be confused, not standing up to scrutiny and dissection if it’s thought about for long.

But generally, Zootopia was a hit, with critics and audiences alike. I watched Zootopia at the cinema when it was first released, and I really liked it then. It was funny; the design of the city was clever, colourful, and engaging; and the characters were flawed like any person but still remained likeable. I also enjoyed the movie’s theme song, “Try Everything”, with its message of not giving up and keeping going, even though you might fail.

However, nowadays, I don’t find myself liking Zootopia. At the time, I found the message touching, and that it hit quite close to home, in terms of our own prejudices against others who might be seen as “different” to ourselves. The moment in the film on the train, where prey animals are moving their children away from predator animals was a surprisingly moving one for me. I’m not really sure why but now, I don’t find myself ever thinking about watching the film. It could just be that I’ve over-watched it, as Zootopia has been on television over the festive period here in the UK pretty much every year since its release, or it could be that it is just too long a movie, as it stands at close to two hours. Or perhaps, I find the overall message of Zootopia to be a bit simplistic now, like it is trying to solve all the problems of the world – even though I know Disney weren’t trying to succeed in achieving world peace with their film. It’s probably a combination of all three, but many people like Zootopia, and I feel that children in particular will get a lot out of it.

PLOT

The movie begins with a brief backstory of the world, told via a school play, where it shows that there once was a time when predators attacked prey, and prey had to protect themselves or risk death. In present day, though, predators and prey have lived alongside each other peacefully for centuries. Judy Hopps, a young rabbit, has just performed in this play and has always dreamed of being a police officer. Despite the fact that others, including her parents, and a bullying fox, tell her that it’s not possible for a small rabbit to do anything great, she is determined to see this through. She enrols at Zootopia Police Academy, and although she begins training as the weakest recruit, she soon learns how to make the most of what she’s got and graduates, getting a job at the Zootopia Police District, in the thriving city of Zootopia, which is split into districts of differing ecosystems and environments, like the rainforest and the tundra. She leaves her town of Bunnyburrow, with her parents still believing she will ultimately fail and have to return home. Great parenting there…

Once at the city, Judy reports to the Zootopia Police Department (ZPD) station, where she meets Benjamin Clawhauser, the bubbly desk sergeant, and the hard-to-read, hard-to-get-close-to Chief Bogo. Whilst Bogo hands out missing resident cases to the larger, predator species of police officers, Judy is tasked with traffic offences, basically being a “meter maid”. Judy is determined to be the best she can be, so sets out giving tickets to any resident who has wrongfully parked – which doesn’t make her very popular…One day she goes into the local ice cream shop, which is run by elephants. They have a sign up saying that they have the right to refuse custom to anyone they want, so when a fox and his young son comes into the store wanting a jumbo pop, a huge ice pop meant for elephants, the elephant refuses to sell one to him. That is until Judy comes over and says it’s unlawful for him to do that and that she’ll have someone over there to shut the shop down if he still doesn’t sell the kid a jumbo pop. The elephant relents and Judy feels happy knowing she’s already made a difference – albeit a small one – in Zootopia.

However, Judy soon realises that she has been conned, as the same fox and his “son”, actually not his son or even a child, are spotted melting down the jumbo pop in the hot sun, and taking the liquid to Tundra Town to freeze into smaller popsicles. Judy then follows the two back to the city where the popsicles are being sold to lemmings who seemingly work in finance at the Lemming Brothers Bank – I would’ve thought health and safety was a better profession for lemmings. Judy confronts the fox, Nick, who tells her that he has all the permits needed to make this enterprise legal and that the “dumb bunny” can’t do anything about it. Feeling emboldened after this put-down by Nick, Judy sets about looking for crime. She sees a weasel, Duke Weaselton, robbing a florist and chases him through the city, all the way to Little Rodentia. Luckily, no-one is hurt in the chase, though it comes very close. Big doughnut models speeding towards tiny little animals isn’t a nice image…

Back at the station, Judy is being reprimanded by Chief Bogo for her little escapade when an otter comes in, enquiring about her husband’s case; Emmitt Otterton is one of the 14 missing animals in the city. Chief Bogo is about to fob Mrs. Otterton off with some excuse when Judy hastily volunteers to look for Emmitt. The mayor’s assistant, Dawn Bellwether, a sheep, is only too glad to hear this and so Bogo gives Judy 48 hours to solve the case or she will have to resign. Judy believes she can do it, even though the case file contains just one piece of evidence: a photograph of Emmitt’s last known location. But within the photo, she sees Nick, so he is her first port of call. Nick is blackmailed into helping Judy, as she recorded their conversation earlier when he was bragging about his cons being legal. It turns out he hasn’t been paying tax on any of that “income” – big shocker there – and that is tax evasion, so Nick begrudgingly agrees to help Judy.

After a meeting with a chilled-out hippie yak, who remembers the license plate of the car Emmitt got into that day he disappeared, and a stressful wait at the DMV run by sloths, where Judy waits for an excruciatingly long time to find out where that car is, they finally are led to a limousine in Tundra Town. It turns out this limo is owned by Mr. Big, a tiny shrew that sounds an awful lot like the Godfather. He is feared by many residents of Zootopia, but luckily, just as he is about to “ice” Judy and Nick for trespassing – and because Nick once sold him a “skunk butt rug”, which he’s understandably not happy about, Mr. Big’s daughter comes in and announces that Judy was the one who saved her from the rolling doughnut during the chase earlier at Little Rodentia. They are instead invited to the daughter’s wedding, where Mr. Big tells them to talk to the chauffeur that drove Emmitt that day; he is called Manchas, a black jaguar who lives in the Rainforest District.

Nick and Judy go over to the Rainforest District, and find that Manchas is quite injured. He tells them that Emmitt said something about “night howlers” and then went savage, attacking Manchas in the car, before running into the night. Suddenly, Manchas then goes savage and chases after Nick and Judy. The two manage to tie up Manchas and call for police back-up. Chief Bogo and other officers arrive to find that Manchas has gone. Bogo orders Judy to resign, as she is an embarrassment to the force, but Nick says they still have ten hours left to solve the case. The two continue on their journey, where Judy learns that Nick has been struggling with self-doubt for years as he was bullied by other prey animals as a child. As a young fox all Nick wanted was to join the Junior Ranger Scouts; he would be the only predator in the group, but he didn’t think it mattered. Unfortunately, the other members of the troop were not so forward-thinking and during Nick’s “initiation ceremony”, the kids pinned him down and tied a muzzle to him, saying they would never trust a predator. This is why Nick doesn’t see any point in trying to be a better fox, because if the world is only going to see him as a bad guy, he may as well be one.

Nick and Judy decide they need to see the traffic cameras from the area that night to figure out where Manchas went. Dawn Bellwether shows them at the mayor’s office, where they discover that wolves took him. Judy believes these must be the “night howlers”. Judy and Nick follow the wolves to an abandoned building. Breaking inside, they discover that all of the missing residents are being housed there – and it turns out Mayor Lionheart was behind it, though he claims he was only keeping them there to find out what turned them savage. He is arrested for false imprisonment and Bellwether becomes the new mayor. At a press conference, Judy is given the spotlight to explain the solved case. She accidentally seems to imply that the predators are going savage because they are giving in to their natural instincts, which both alienates Nick, who himself is a predator, and makes all the prey suspicious of all the predators in the city, igniting a war between them. Judy soon quits her job as a police officer, believing this mess to be her fault, and returns to Bunnyburrow.

Back home, Judy is managing her parents’ vegetable stand, when an old foe from her past comes to the stand. It is the fox who bullied her as a child, Gideon, but he is just a hard-working farmer now. At the same time, Judy’s parents tell their children not to go near the Midnicampum flowers. Gideon says that’s a fancy name for them and that he used to call them “night howlers”. Judy asks for more information on them. Her father says that her mother’s brother ate one once and went crazy, biting Judy’s mother. Judy realises that this flower is actually causing the animals to go savage, and that it can happen to prey too.

She rushes back to Zootopia and apologises to Nick, who seems uninterested at first but soon forgives her, especially as she calls herself a “dumb bunny”, which makes Nick laugh. The two need to speak to Duke Weaselton, who has been stealing these flower bulbs, and, using Mr. Big, they get him to admit that a ram named Doug told him to steal them. They follow Doug into the subway, into a disused train, where a whole lab has been set up to manufacture the night howlers’ poison into pellets that can be shot at animals, turning them savage. Judy and Nick attempt to take the train all the way to the police station as evidence, but the whole train explodes and they are left with just the loaded dart gun. They try to get to the police station on foot, but are followed to the Natural History Museum by the rams. Their leader is also with them – and it’s Dawn Bellwether! Judy and Nick become trapped in an exhibit and Bellwether shoots Nick with the gun. Bellwether reveals that this was all her plan, wanting the predators to be shut away so that the prey can dominate the city. Nick is seen to go savage, but actually it is all an act; the two swapped out the night howler pellets for regular blueberries from Judy’s parents’ farm.

They also recorded Bellwether’s confession and luckily, the police soon arrive to arrest Bellwether and her accomplices. The predators are cured and go back to their normal ways, living peacefully in the town. Judy also gets her job back and encourages Nick to go through police training too. He graduates and becomes the first fox police officer, joining Judy as partners. They also seem to be a couple now, so whether or not their relationship can last whilst working together remains to be seen! The movie ends with all the characters attending pop star Gazelle’s big concert.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Zootopia takes place within a city built by animals where they all live “in harmony” together, living as humans do by wearing clothes, talking, and walking around on two legs. Zootopia has strong characters to get behind. Judy Hopps is a great character, as she is so positive and determined to be taken seriously that you can’t help but like her, even if she does come across as naïve at times. She is shown to have the same unconscious biases as all the other animals do – and humans do – by fearing Nick at times just because he is a fox, a rabbit’s natural enemy. The fox deterrent she takes to Zootopia to please her parents ends up being a safety tool for her, even though she doesn’t always realise it. Judy is a great role model, as she doesn’t let life get her down for very long, and she is eager to move forward at every chance she gets.

Ginnifer Goodwin voices Judy Hopps. She has appeared in television series such as Big Love (2006-11), where she played Margene Heffman, and she starred as Snow White / Mary Margaret in the ABC series Once Upon a Time (2011-18). Goodwin has also been seen in romantic comedy movies such as He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) with an all-star cast, and Something Borrowed (2011). She voiced the character of Fawn for another Disney movie: Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast (2014). As Judy Hopps, Ginnifer Goodwin won Best Animated Female at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists awards, where she tied with Auli’I Cravalho, the voice of Moana, from Disney’s Moana, their other 2016 movie release. An interesting fact is that Josh Dallas, Goodwin’s real-life husband, as well as her on-screen husband, as he portrayed Prince Charming / David in Once Upon a Time gets a cameo voice role as “The Frantic Pig”, the unnamed owner of Flora & Fauna which is robbed by Duke Weaselton.

Nick Wilde is my favourite character as he is just a lot more fun, and some of the things he says are patronising, but funny: “It’s called a hustle, sweetheart” – though that comes back to bite him a couple of times in the movie! He’s a con-artist, but he’s not actually harming anyone by what he’s doing. He’s sort of a lovable rogue, I suppose, and he does have a sensitive side; it’s quite emotional to hear how Nick became that cynical from his experiences as a child. It was because of this that Nick learned he would never let anyone know that they’d got to him, and that if the world was only ever going to see him as one thing, then what was the point in trying to be something else. It’s horrible to think about, but it’s all too real. Kids can be cruel, as can adults, and it just shows how discrimination and fear of others can start at a young age, and how people feel they have to change how they act either to fit the rhetoric surrounding them, or change themselves to fit in.

Nick Wilde is voiced by Jason Bateman, who won the Annie Award for Outstanding Voice Acting for this character. Alongside Ginnifer Goodwin, the two also won the Favorite Frenemies award at the Kids’ Choice Awards. Outside of Zootopia, Jason Bateman has appeared in numerous screen projects. He starred as Michael Bluth in the series Arrested Development (2003-19), where he won Golden Globe and Satellite awards for his performance in 2005. He also starred as Marty Byrde in the series Ozark (2017-22), this time winning three Screen Actors Guild awards for his acting, and a Primetime Emmy award for his directing. Bateman has also appeared in movies such as Horrible Bosses (2011) and its 2014 sequel as Nick Hendricks, and recently acted alongside Matt Damon in Air (2023).

So that’s the two main characters, but we can’t forget our villain, Dawn Bellwether. As a sheep, the audience doesn’t believe that she could ever be evil – that shows how we judge everyone based on appearance. Bellwether seems over-worked and under-appreciated by Mayor Lionheart, who disrespects her frequently. The viewers feel sorry for her, so when she does finally became Mayor, because Lionheart has seemingly been behind the whole missing predator scandal, it feels like a victory for the “underdogs”, showing that you can get somewhere in life even if you seem small and helpless. But it turns out that is not the case, as Bellwether had her own plot to have prey dominate society by turning them against predators, and forcing predators to go savage. I have always liked surprise villain twists, and this is one of the good ones. I personally didn’t see it coming, but then again, I’ve never been particularly good at guessing movie plots; I get too absorbed in the story to think ahead. Although Bellwether isn’t the most fearsome or evil villain, it shows how one person can force their ideas and opinions onto more people, especially when they are in a position of power. Judy and Nick manage to out-think her in the museum though, and their little scene of pretending that Nick has gone savage and is about to kill Judy is a very clever throwback to the first scene in the movie, of Judy in her school play.

Dawn Bellwether is voiced by Jenny Slate, who has a long career of voice acting. For example, she voiced Gidget the Pomeranian in The Secret Life of Pets (2016) and its 2019 sequel. She has also voiced characters in these series: Big Mouth (2017-present); The Great North (2021-present); and Bob’s Burgers (2012-present), and its 2022 movie. Slate recently appeared in the romantic comedy I Want You Back (2022) for Amazon Prime. Slate was also a cast member on Saturday Night Live for one season between 2009 and 2010.

There are plenty more characters to mention in Zootopia after these three, so here are some of my favourites. Chief Bogo is a buffalo and police chief at the ZPD. He’s brusque and grumpy, but he does have one of the best lines in the film, a very deadpan “Let it go”, when he’s telling Judy that life isn’t about singing a song and all your dreams coming true; obviously a reference to one of the most common Disney tropes and to one of the most famous Disney songs of all time. Idris Elba voices Chief Bogo. Elba also voiced two other characters for Disney’s 2016 movie releases: Shere Khan for The Jungle Book live-action remake, and Fluke the sea lion in Finding Dory (2016) for Pixar. Elba has recently voiced the character of Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022) and is set to reprise the role for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) and the Paramount+ series Knuckles. On television, Idris Elba appeared as Stringer Bell in The Wire (2002-04), and starred as DCI John Luther in the BBC series Luther (2010-19), for which he won a Critics’ Choice Television award, a Golden Globe award, and a SAG award. Elba portrays Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Also, there is Flash, the “fastest” sloth at the DMV. This whole scene is just a mickey-take of how slow administration workers can be, which I think many people can relate to! Flash speaks and does everything annoyingly slowly; I really feel Judy’s pain when she’s waiting for him to type a few simple letters into the computer, and then Nick decides to tell a joke to Flash mid-typing so he takes even longer to finish the task. It’s a good scene, probably my favourite one in Zootopia. It’s also hilarious to find at the end of the movie that the speeding car Judy and Nick have seen and followed is actually being driven by Flash, who would’ve thought it? Raymond S. Persi voices Flash. Persi has directed episodes of The Simpsons (1989-present) and won a Primetime Emmy award for the episode “The Seemingly Never-Ending Story”. For Disney, Persi has also provided the voices for other characters, including Gene, the Mayor of Niceland, in Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). There is another voice cameo here too. Kristen Bell voices Priscilla, one of Flash’s colleagues. Apparently, she got the role because of her love of sloths. Kristen Bell is obviously well-known for her voice role of Anna in the Frozen franchise.

Some other great voice castings include Bonnie Hunt as the voice of Judy’s mother, and she has voiced a few characters for Pixar movies, including Sally in the Cars franchise (2006-2022), and Dolly in the Toy Story franchise since 2010. She also voiced Rosie the spider in A Bug’s Life (1998). Octavia Spencer provides the voice of Mrs. Otterton, wife of the missing Emmitt Otterton. Spencer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and the BAFTA, for her role as Minny Jackson in The Help (2011). Most recently, Spencer played Poppy Parnell in the AppleTV+ series Truth Be Told (2019-23), and was cast in other notable movies such as The Shape of Water (2017) and Hidden Figures (2017).

Rounding out some of the voice cast, we have Disney’s “good luck charm” Alan Tudyk, who has voiced numerous characters for Disney films. Here he voices Duke Weaselton, which is another Frozen reference, but this time to Tudyk’s character the Duke of Weselton in that film. Other voice roles of his include King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Alistair Krei in Big Hero 6 (2014), Hei Hei in Moana (2016), and Valentino in Wish (2023).

I also particularly like Benjamin Clawhauser, a cheetah who is the desk sergeant at the Zootopia Police Department. He is clearly meant to be the stereotypical lazy police officer who spends all day eating doughnuts! He’s funny, and obsessed with Gazelle, a famous pop star – and gazelle. He spends most of the movie talking about her and playing with some sort of app that puts his face on one of her dancers. Nate Torrence voiced Benjamin Clawhauser. He played the part of Lloyd in the comedy-action film Get Smart (2008) and its direct-to-video sequel. He also appeared in the film She’s Out of My League (2010) and the sitcom Hello Ladies (2013-14). Speaking of Gazelle, she is voiced by Colombian pop sensation Shakira. Gazelle is part of an important scene during the “species war” as she is leading a peace rally, stating the dangers of becoming so divided. It’s not a big role but she makes an impact.

MUSIC

Shakira gets to sing the only song in the film “Try Everything”, and luckily, it’s a good one! The movie ends with a huge dance party, and this song being sung at Gazelle’s big concert. Everyone starts dancing to it, even Chief Bogo, who we see is actually a closet Gazelle fan, something that Clawhauser is ecstatic to find out! “Try Everything” also plays during the amazing train journey that Judy takes from Bunnyburrow to the city centre, as she goes through all the other districts that make up Zootopia, experiencing all the different plant life and weather cycles that go with it. We are hearing “Try Everything” at this point through Judy’s iPod. At the Disney Parks, the song has also been performed during shows like Tokyo Disneyland’s Mickey’s Magical Music World stage show, and at Mickey’s Storybook Adventure at Shanghai Disneyland. “Try Everything” was written by superstar singer Sia with Stargate’s Tor E. Hermansen and Mikkel S. Eriksen, and was nominated for Best Song at both the Teen Choice Awards and the Grammys, however, it lost out to “I’m in Love with a Monster” from Hotel Transylvania 2 (2016) at the Teen Choice Awards, which I don’t understand because I’ve watched Hotel Transylvania 2 many times and can’t even remember that song, and to “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from Trolls (2016) at the Grammys, which is kind of understandable.

Along with that, Michael Giacchino composed the score for Zootopia. Giacchino had previously composed the score for Pixar’s film Up (2010), for which he won the Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Award for Best Score. Giacchino has composed numerous scores for Pixar movies, beginning with The Incredibles (2004), and its 2018 sequel, Ratatouille (2007), and Inside Out (2015). Outside of Pixar, he has composed music for the most recent Spider-Man films, the three latest Jurassic World movies, and for the series of Disney television Christmas specials, Prep & Landing (2009-11). Giacchino was also nominated for Primetime Emmy awards for his work on the series Lost (2004-10), winning one for his underscore of its pilot episode. For the Zootopia soundtrack, Michael Giacchino made sure to include many different percussion instruments from around the globe to create a “world music” feel, to enhance the diversity message of the movie[1]. I particularly like the pieces “Ticket to Write”, which plays as Judy is working as a traffic warden, for its upbeat, dance music feel, and “The Naturalist”, from the yoga retreat, though all of the score is placed well in the film.

PRODUCTION

Zootopia is an original story from Disney. It was first pitched as an idea to John Lasseter in the early 2010s, by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, who were the directors of Tangled (2010). They pitched six different ideas for new film plots, with many of them involving anthropomorphic animals, i.e., animals that act like humans. John Lasseter liked the sound of Disney making another animal movie, as Robin Hood (1973) was one of the last ones to do that. Once the “animal movie” had been agreed upon, the team did over a year of research looking into animals and their behaviours. Part of this research was done close to home, at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom Park, where they spent time talking to the animal care staff. More research was completed on a trip to Africa. During this visit, they found themselves watching the animals at the watering hole, where they discovered that actually, although natural enemies, the lions drank next to the zebras with no issues; they just drank their water and left. This gave the team the idea of cooperation and understanding despite differences, so that became the central core of Zootopia, where animals co-exist together, regardless of the fact they have different behaviours and instincts. This idea grew into becoming a story about bias and discrimination, but moving it into the animal world made it more of a fable or metaphor, so that it wouldn’t become preachy[2].

The movie plot ultimately moved away from one of the ideas they’d worked on for quite a while. Though they knew that they wanted to make a movie about animals, specifically mammals and the divide between predator and prey because of what they had encountered in Africa, they had a very different angle to begin with. Nick Wilde, that sleazy con-man, or con-fox, I guess, was going to be the main protagonist of Zootopia. The idea was that all predators would receive on their fifth birthdays a “tame collar”, which is basically like a shock collar, so it would emit a shock to the predator whenever they became too emotional or angry, and this was because even though prey outnumber predators 10:1, the prey only felt safe around predators if they were wearing these collars. I watched one of the deleted scenes from this original story, of a polar bear giving his son his “tame collar” on his birthday; the father obviously feeling sad about it as it is the first step to his son losing his freedom, but the son happy about it because it means he is all grown up. He receives his first shock soon after… It’s quite an emotional scene considering it wasn’t even fully animated, just storyboard images. This version of the movie did not do well in internal screenings as it felt very negative and cynical through Nick’s eyes so the idea was scrapped, and they decided to tell the same predator vs. prey story and convey the same message as they had originally intended but from Judy the rabbit’s point of view.

Zootopia’s overall message is one that hits quite close to home, even seven years later, because there has been so much division not just between different countries, but between residents of those countries; there are less and less people willing to see the other side’s point of view, turning us into “black-and-white thinkers”, so co-operation is at an all-time low around the world, where suspicion and tension are rife. The scene where Judy has inadvertently started a war between prey and predator is not nice to watch, as it feels very real even in our lives, where we are striving for inclusion and equality, yet can’t see past our differences or even see our similarities. It feels like a very relevant take on life today. I hate the brief scene where there is a tiger getting on a train, and the mother moves her child away from it, even though the tiger isn’t doing anything, and doesn’t look dangerous, all because the media have got to the prey animals, making them think these predators will attack them seemingly for no reason. Sometimes it just feels all too real, and it is saddening.

But Zootopia isn’t meant to make us feel “doom and gloom”, as there are plenty of positive points to focus on, and one of those is the look of the film. To make the world of Zootopia look realistic, Disney decided early on that they needed to create the animals to scale in the real world, so that an elephant would be much bigger than Judy and Nick, as they would in real-life. Judy and Nick also have quite a height difference as would be natural for them. The other challenge was that the animals would be walking on two legs, like humans, however, their body shapes and structures did not make tailoring clothes to them easy, or even just having them stand up look natural! It took a lot of modifications to allow these characters to work. There was an impressive number of hairs that needed to be added to each character, and across 60 different species of animal. Nick and Judy have over two million hairs each, and one giraffe has over nine million! This required an upgrade to the technology as their computer system had mostly been used for human hair. Now the fur had to be specific to each animal, i.e., coarse, soft, dark, or light. Disney even went into enough detail to add different shades of colour to the fur so that it was darker closer to the skin[3]. To ensure that the animals didn’t act too much like humans, the animators exaggerated some of their natural instinctive movements that are obvious at times, for example, Judy’s ears go up and her nose twitches when she hears something or feels scared, as rabbits do[4].

The animals also got to wear clothes, including trousers, unlike many other Disney characters, including those in Robin Hood (1973) and even Donald Duck himself! Though it wouldn’t be a real world if we didn’t have naturist animals, as we see during the scene at the yoga retreat. Judy gets really freaked out seeing all these animals not wearing clothes and contorting their bodies into unnatural positions, and her reactions are brilliant! To be fair, many of us wouldn’t probably feel the same should we ever be faced with naked people when we aren’t expecting it!

Disney went into very specific detail when creating the city of Zootopia itself. It is split into several districts, with some of these that we see in the movie being: Sahara Square, Tundratown, Rainforest District, and Little Rodentia, as well as Downtown. We also see Judy’s hometown of Bunnyburrow, but it is a rural neighbourhood miles away from Zootopia. When Judy is travelling to the centre of Zootopia, the train goes through all these districts, and we see how they are situated next to each other and their specific climates. The animators spent a lot of time figuring out how the animals would move around the city, as they were all different sizes. I like the train with its three separate doors, with the tiny one at the bottom being for rodents; it shows the level of detail that went into this film[5].

RECEPTION

Before Zootopia’s official release, attendees of the 2015 D23 convention got to see a panel about upcoming film releases from Disney. Directors Byron Howard, who had pitched the initial idea, and Rich Moore, who came on as director later in production and had previously co-directed Wreck-It Ralph (2012) told the crowd about their research in Kenya where they studied animals in the savannah, and explained the different neighbourhoods of Zootopia. The panel released a few exclusive clips, like the one of Nick and Judy at the DMV, and another of Judy making sure Nick got to buy his “jumbo pop”. This pre-release footage increased excitement for the movie and many attendees seemed to think it was going to be a high-quality, comedic film[6].

Zootopia was widely released in March 2016, after being shown at the Brussels Animation Film Festival in Belgium in February of that year. Due to trademark reasons, Zootopia was released under a different title in some countries. In some European countries, including the UK, as well as parts of the Middle East and Africa, the movie is called Zootropolis, referencing the term “metropolis” instead of “utopia”. In Germany, the film was actually named Zoomania, as a children’s book called Zootropolis was published in 2010 in over there; it was written by author Kay Fischer. Despite the change of title in some countries, generally the movie is the same in any country – apart from one thing. The animal newscasters are tailored to the country they are reporting from in some cases. The news anchor on the left is always a snow leopard but the anchor on the right changes. Mostly, the right anchor is a moose, including in Europe and the US, however, in Australia and New Zealand, it is a koala; China has a panda; and Japan has a raccoon dog[7].

Zootopia did incredibly well at the box-office, becoming the second-highest-grossing animated film of 2016, behind Pixar’s Finding Dory, and the-second-highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film at the time, after Frozen. It was the fourth-highest-grossing movie of 2016, with Finding Dory at #3 and The Jungle Book live-action remake at #5. Zootopia currently stands at #11 in the highest-grossing animated films list – if you include The Lion King (2019) remake as an animated movie, which you should, because it really is.

The movie made over a $1 billion worldwide, making $73.7 million in its opening weekend in just the US and Canada; this was even more than Frozen (2013) made in its opening weekend, which was $67.4 million. Zootopia benefitted from very favourable reviews, as well as a lack of competition in theatres at that time of year especially in the children’s entertainment sector[8]. Normally, Disney and Pixar release their movies either in summer or during the festive period.

Although Zootopia did get many positive reviews, which credited the state-of-the-art animation, the humour, the mystery element to the plot, and the overall inclusivity message, it did not escape criticism of its overall theme. Zootopia tells us not to judge others based on pre-conceived ideas, however, many of the gags within the film involve just those types of stereotypes, such as jokes around sloths being slow, and rabbits multiplying. The city also claims to live in a peaceful time of co-existence between all species, yet because there once was a time when predators and prey did not live in harmony, then the fear remains that life could revert back to these original biological instincts. So, if you think about it for too long and start to question the message, then it doesn’t hold up under this intense examination[9]. But I think Disney were just trying to simplify the message and say that you shouldn’t judge others by their appearance and that anyone can be anything they want, regardless of their circumstances. It’s supposed to be motivating for the children of today, and is unlikely to hit adults in quite the same way.

Zootopia went on to win numerous awards, including in the Best Animated Feature category at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, Annie Awards, and the Academy Awards. It did not win the BAFTA in this same category, though, losing to Laika’s Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). Zootopia also won other awards, including many at the Annie Awards in Character Design, Directing, Storyboarding and Writing.

LEGACY

Following on from the success of Zootopia, Disney released a series on Disney+ in November 2022 titled Zootopia+ which consisted of six short episodes looking at characters from the film that perhaps didn’t get enough screen time, such as Mr. Big’s daughter, Fru Fru, Duke Weaselton, and Clawhauser, with those voice actors returning to reprise their roles. The series also included some new characters. It was a relatively amusing series, and they were short episodes, making them easy to watch, but it wasn’t overly necessary in my opinion. Zootopia will also soon have its own sequel, with Zootopia 2 due to be released in November 2025, after Bob Iger announced it was in the works in February 2023. Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman are set to return to their roles of Judy and Nick respectively.

At the Disney Parks, Zootopia is slowly but surely being seen more and more. It started early with a limited time exhibit opening 29^th January 2016, just over a month before the movie’s theatrical release, within Rafiki’s Planet Watch at Disney’s Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. This exhibit showed some of the research of animals that the team completed during production on Zootopia. A preview of the film was also shown at the Walt Disney Presents attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World from 21^st January 2016, and at the Bug’s Life Theater, which was closed in 2018 to make way for Avengers Campus, in Disney California Adventure at Disneyland from 22^nd January[10].

Also at Disneyland, Judy and Nick were added as character meet-and-greet opportunities at both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in March 2016, as part of promotion for the new movie. Similarly, at Walt Disney World in Magic Kingdom, Judy and Nick were both added to the Move It! Shake It! Dance & Play It! street parade. The two characters also debuted at Disneyland Paris in 2016, and were spotted on top one of the floats in the Disneyland Paris 30^th anniversary parade, Dream…and Shine Brighter, but have not found themselves permanently featured at these parks yet. At Hong Kong Disneyland, Judy and Nick continue to be listed as characters you can meet at the location Meet Disney Friends at Karibuni Marketplace in Adventureland.

Due to the continued interest in the movie, it is likely characters will continue to appear at Special Events, such as DVC After Hours events and Halloween parties. Judy and Nick were available for meet-and-greets for the Earth Day celebrations at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 2024, for example. They may be featured more as new attractions are made, and with the upcoming movie sequel. At Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom, Zootopia was considered as a theme to replace the Dinoland, U.S.A, area, however at D23 2023, it was basically confirmed that this area would instead be themed to Encanto and Indiana Jones. It was confirmed, though, that a 3D show based on Zootopia will replace the It’s Tough to be a Bug! show that is housed within the Tree of Life. No expected opening dates have yet been given.

Currently, at Tokyo Disneyland, there is a float section dedicated to Zootopia within the Harmony in Color Parade that debuted in April 2023 for Tokyo’s 40^th anniversary. It features Judy, Nick, and Clawhauser, as well as a sculpture of Flash sitting in a doughnut atop the float/ There was also a castle stage show here, titled Judy and Nick’s Jumpin’ Splash that only ran during Summer 2019. It took some inspiration from Shanghai Disneyland’s Summer Blast show of 2017, which also featured the song “Try Everything” and Judy and Nick in its opening section.

But the most exciting Zootopia-themed attraction is at Shanghai Disneyland, where a whole new land opened on 20^th December 2023. The city of Zootopia has been re-created with as much fun and colour as the movie. You can even see animatronic characters from the film who will interact with each other from the windows on the street in the atmosphere show Disney Zootopia Comes Alive, which operates throughout the day. At Jumbeaux’s Café, you can purchase the famous paw-shaped popsicle and Clawhauser’s favourite doughnuts. There is also a shop called Fashions by Fru Fru. Judy and Nick also feature as meet-and-greet characters in their police uniforms. There is a trackless dark ride, Zootopia: Hot Pursuit, which sees you go on a police chase through the various neighbourhoods of Zootopia as you try to save Gazelle from Dawn Bellwether, who has kidnapped her on the day of her big performance at the Zootopia Day Concert. The queue and pre-show have very impressive animatronics of Officer Clawhauser and Chief Bogo. Finally, at Shanghai Disneyland, at their Garden of the Twelve Friends, Judy Hopps replaced Thumper from Bambi (1942) as the icon for Year of the Rabbit from 2023.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Although I don’t particularly enjoy Zootopia, I do find it very clever and funny. Sadly, I just can’t love it. I think it makes me feel too uncomfortable and emotional watching it, because it’s clear to see how our world is divided; we seem to be getting further away from living in any sort of harmony. It’s a scary time at the moment. If I’m watching a Disney movie, I’d rather be escaping from the troubles of today than have them portrayed as some sort of fable. But Zootopia is certainly a good movie for children, who don’t necessarily need to know about the realities and cynicism of life quite yet, but need to know how important it is to be kind to others, and strive to be whoever they want to be.

Zootopia is probably the most powerful and hard-hitting film to come out of Disney so far, because of its message, which it cushions with a colourful, bright, fun city, full of interesting characters and habitats. I can certainly see why Disney are increasingly including the film in their Disney Parks, and why many people love the film, even if I don’t myself.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Disney, Zoology: The Roundtables (2016).

[2] Credit: Ed Gross, ‘Zootopia: a final behind the scenes look’, Empire (online), 14^th June 2016.

[3] Credit: Jeremy Kay, ‘’Zootopia’: the painstaking journey behind a billion dollar hit’, Screen Daily.com, date unknown.

[4] Credit: Disney, “Research: A True Life Adventure”, from Zootopia (2016) Blu-Ray (2016).

[5] Credit: Disney, Zoology: The Roundtables (2016).

[6] Credit: Mark Hughes, ‘Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ Earns Big Laughs At D23’, Forbes (online), 15^th August 2015.

[7] Credit: Trent Moore, ‘The Untold Truth of Zootopia’, Looper.com, updated 3^rd April 2018.

[8] Credit: Frank Pallotta, ‘’Zootopia’ roars to biggest opening in Disney Animation history’, CNN.com, 6^th March 2016.

[9] Credit: Emily St. James, ‘Zootopia wants to teach kids about prejudice. Is it accidentally sending the wrong message?’, Vox.com, 7^th March 2016.

[10] Credit: Shawn Slater, ‘Discover the Real World Research Behind Walt Disney Animation Studios’ ‘Zootopia’ in a New Exhibit Coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdom’, Disney Parks Blog, 20^th January 2016.