#Mouse and Firebird Stories

[rainbowxocs]

FIREBIRD CHARACTER REF

Name: Firebird

Alt Names: Sasha Mayfleet

 Age: 26

Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bi?Demi?

Gender: Female

Species: Human(mutant?)

Disorders: ADHD, ODD

Job: Babysitter

Lives in: Smithsberg Oregon

 Languages: English, French

Height: 5’8

Color of Eyes: Amber

The color of Hair: Light brown, blond highlights

Hobbies: Music, Fire spinning, Arson, Parkour, Fencing

Fears: Does not trust anyone outside her core group, losing control, totally insecure and mistrusting of the world.

Assumed external perception: Most people consider her very capable and responsible, as well as kind and understanding.

Self-Confidence: Sky-high

Race: Caucasian

Accent: California Accent

RELATIONSHIPS:

Fox -Dating

Serenity – Friends

Mouse -Friends

Axum – were friends

Todd -Acquaintances

Vagabond- Dating

Mamma Dragon- Adoptive mother

Vehicle: Dirtbike/a repainted Schoolbus

Powers: Pyrokinesis

Weapons: Dagger, Meteor hammer (Flaming), Matches, Fire

Alignment: Neutral Good

Text Color: RED

 Main Animal: Phoenix

 Favorite Food: S’mores

Favorite Flower:  Red Celosia

Scent: Flame and Ash

Awareness: none

Birthday: March 18

Theme: Firebird’s Child by SJ Tucker

 Special Interests: Fire, Music

Fashion Board:

 Comfort Objects: Her Father’s deerskin drum, her mother’s old long Red Trenchcoat which she wears everywhere. Both have been fireproofed

Brief Personality: Firebird is a feisty confident young woman who has a moral compass that can be boiled down to “Don’t hurt kids and don’t let anyone else hurt kids” and “Murder is fine if they were hurting the people I care about.” Most people see her as a one-dimensional cheerleader/babysitter type. If you piss her off you get the “Demon sent from hell to get you specifically perspective. Due to childhood trauma she hates adults but she's recently agreed to get a therapist and might start trusting that specific adult in the next year or so. (This woman is 26)

Brief Backstory: After a burglary gone wrong, a 5 year old Sasha’s parents are killed. In a panic the young girl burns down the house, hiding in the bathtub with her mother’s coat and father’s Drum as the house burns around her. The Burglars died in the fire, but she ‘miraculously’ survived. Naturally she is immediately dumped into the American foster system and is soon labeled a problem child but also a jinx: when she’s placed in abusive homes they tend to burn down but it’s really hard to pin the six year old with no access to flammable materials as the one who keeps committing arson so it’s usually pointed at unsafe wiring.

 When she’s about 8 she imprints on an older kid who is involved in some serious gang activity. Said older kid figures out her fire abilities and she is for a short time trained as a weapon by the gang. Something goes sideways, four city blocks burn down, and Sasha is picked up by a government agency tasked with suppressing these newfound mutants so things don’t go out of hand.

While in the facility she starts taking a disliking to the name Sasha and preferring the Name Firebird. Nobody really knows where that name came from, maybe it was her parents, or a foster home that gave it to her. Maybe she made it up one day. She gives a different answer anytime you ask and no one will ever know but her. (When I went to neverland peter pan called me Firebird. Once I jumped over a bonfire and the name stuck. My red jacket flares out like wings when I ride my bike fast. Etc,) She also begins to hate adults in general as they have never done anything good for her or anyone else (so she believes.)

Firebird Befriends another child named Axum and they make their escape around the time she turns 10 years old. Firebird causes so many problems for so many people and discovers that bullets have a melting point. She can no longer be contained or controlled. She makes a bunch of friends in her year (10-11) on the street, including finding a young girl who has no real name, except the moniker Mouse, and a dozen kids and teens in various states of homelessness. She also pisses off a lot of adults who keep trying to human traffic the defenseless street kids only to find their best guys burnt up.

  Exactly a year later, on the other side of the country, Firebird appears in a locked sheriff’s office in Maine. She is shuffled through the foster system, makes a few more friends, then is shipped back to Oregon, and fostered by a few families before being adopted by Miss Trudy, or as Firebird immediately renames her; “Mamma Dragon”.  She also establishes her friendship with Fox and Vagabond, the three of them becoming very close and very capable young women.

   Nowadays Firebird runs a babysitting and daycare company, the HQ of which is an old hotel retrofitted to be one of the coolest community centers of all time, with space for kids and teens and designated art, music, and study rooms as well as a floor that’s been remade into a lasertag arena. This is what happens when you let 18 year olds design a kid and teen friendly space.  Once a year Firebird and her crew will head out on a roadtrip around the states to give the various bounty hunters and pissed off government agents with chips on their shoulders a shot to come for their heads- and then promptly get reminded why they stopped bugging her when she turned 15 and learned what “Proper fighting form” and “Control” were.

[alex-the-nonsensologist]

Disney Dreamland - Part 5: Create-It-Land

Quite possibly the most visually eclectic of all the lands. This land embodies creativity and the arts, and quite frankly there is no one way to be creative or artistic, so I think the motley visuals are perfectly on theme. That said, I decided to tie the land together by having giant objects themed to each area. For this reason, I specifically wanted Wonderland and 100 Acre Wood next to the border of Fantasyland/Create-It-Land, so that the giant plants and cards of Wonderland and the giant book facade of Pooh would help transition to the giant toys of Toy Box Land and/or the giant art supplies of Toontown. The parade route exits down here.

Showtime Boulevard

The entrance street of the land from the hub. Dedicated to the performing arts. Would resemble a city street, like a small town version of Broadway, but then transition to include giant objects. Giant instruments of the music playground. Giant sheet music. The ballet house could look like a giant music box. Even the normal buildings could have giant props on them, like giant comedy and tragedy masks, or giant film reels and clapperboards. There would also be a decent amount of performers to bring energy to the area, so that it doesn’t feel like a regular city street. Living statues and street musicians. 

Journey Into Imagination: If EPCOT isn’t going to put back Dreamfinder, I’ll gladly take him. Heck, I’ll even settle for a pseudo-sequel with an older Figment now taking on the role of Dreamfinder in honor of his friend. Sets and scenery from the original incarnation are mandatory. There could be a path leading off the boulevard to an area between Create-It-Land and Discoveryland where this ride could be placed, since it does reflect the spirit of both lands. 

Fantasia Music Hall: In the spirit of Walt’s original idea for Fantasia, certain classic segments would be permanent fixtures of the show (such as Sorcerer’s Apprentice) and performed by Animatronics on instruments and as dancers in the same vein as the former Mickey Mouse Revue show, while other segments could be animations shown on screen and switched out throughout the year (such as the segments originally planned for Fantasia 2006 that were later released individually). I would love it if the Animation Studio could create new unique animated segments exclusive to the attraction. Permanent animatronic segments would include characters from Pastoral Symphony, Rhapsody in Blue, Dance of the Hours, Night on Bald Mountain (though I could also work with it being a seasonal segment during Halloween), and The Firebird. Playing the full versions of every song would take too long, so the show would feature abridged versions in a medley. 

“Music Playground”: Interactive playground of giant musical instruments. Think of the piano scene from Big, but on a grader scale. Piano slides, trampoline drums, xylophone bridges, brass instruments the size of trees. I’ll admit, I don’t know if the audio results of this attraction would be wacky fun or pure tortuous chaos. I was originally imaging this as an outdoor attraction, but it might be better if this were indoors with each type of instrument given its own room with soundproofing.

“Russian Animal Ballet House”: I just wanted an excuse to see animals in fancy costumes performing ballet. Could be costumed actors or animatronics. Nutcracker performances during Christmas are mandatory. Building would resemble a giant music box. Alternatively, the stage could also be used for any original cultural performances from countries not already featured elsewhere in the park (Greek dramas, Bollywood dances, etc.). 

Muppet Comedy Theatre: Would have the same mixed media techniques as Muppet*Vision 3D (a screen movie, actual puppeteering, and costume characters), but features a new original story. Could also feature a small meet-and-greet area with Kermit and friends.

Hollywood restaurant: American cuisine. Themed to the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

Toontown

I want this area to have the same energy as Seuss Landing from Universal’s Islands of Adventure, which I personally feel makes for a better Toontown than Disney’s actual Toontown. The buildings would be slightly more distorted and more stylized. I’m wondering if it would also be possible to put some buildings on a moving platform so that they could tilt back and forth for a squash and stretch illusion. Maybe even have a few with giant faces that can emote. This area prominently features giant art supplies that are implied to have brought the land into existence, including giant paintbrushes that are poised in the middle of putting “finishing touches” to the buildings. The entire area would have lots of kinetic sculptures (think of the new Super Nintendo World at Universal) to make the land feel alive. Interactive gags like the Post Office and the Fireworks Factory would of course be included. I would remove the residential area and have the area only themed around Maroon Cartoons Studio, and the downtown area. Characters that don’t fit in any other area of the park could walk around here. 

“Mickey Mouse presents…”: Guests would take on the role of camera crew with Mickey as director. The star of the movie is late and we follow Mickey as he accidentally crashes various movie sets looking for the missing actor, who turns out to be none other than Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. The various movie sets would portray different genres of cinema. Based on the Mickey short cartoon Roll ‘Em (which, by the way, would have been a more appropriate replacement for the Great Movie Ride than Runaway Railway). While I intended for this to be part of Toontown, I am also okay with this being the last building on Showtime Boulevard to help transition into Toontown.  

Backstage Meet-and-Greet: Again, I personally do not care much for meet and greets (With the exception of Goofy. Goofy is the best.), but for the people that do, here you can meet Mickey and Friends including Oswald, Roger and Jessica. 

Maroon Cartoons Studio Tour: Based on Roger Rabbit Cartoon Spin but using the art style of Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway (but with actual sets, not screen projections), as well as an interactive element (partially inspired by Monsters Inc Ride & Go Seek in Tokyo). Guests would interact with the sets by “spraying” paint or thinner from the paintbrushes attached to their vehicles. Based on the video game mechanic from Epic Mickey, where paint brings objects into existence, and thinner erases them. For example, a guest could “paint” an anvil that would drop onto Roger’s head. Even spraying the animatronic characters would elicit funny dialogue, “Hey! Watch where you’re spraying! I just got a new paint job yesterday!” While the sets would be physical, the paint and thinner effects could be projections. The trickiest part is projecting a physical object to look like it’s been erased, and since it would set off chain reactions, the projections would have to hide certain objects’ movements. It would be very difficult, but I insist that this ride does not follow the Toy Story Mania route (I’m looking at you, Web Slingers). Please consult actual engineers.

Art of Animation Academy: History of animation exhibit, with animation from all over the world. Japanese anime, Soviet animation, stop-motion, etc. With acknowledgements that Quirino Cristiani and Lotte Reiniger’s films actually pre-date Snow White as the world’s first animated features. Drawing workshops included.

Happy-Go-Lucky Merry-Go-Round: In the same wacky spirit as the Caro-Seuss-el in Seuss Landing. Like the Caro-Seuss-el, the music could speed up and slow down when it operates. Rather than just having wacky versions of real animals, this carousel would have hybrid animals, like the Wuzzles! Also, what if the carousel could run backwards? 

Jolly Trolley: The vehicles would run on an elevated track to solve the problem of crowds blocking the way. The track could wind around Toontown, the same way as The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! does in Seuss Landing. Originally I was only going to have it stay in Toontown, but then I realized the wind-up key on the roof could make it pass for a toy, so why not have it travel through Toy Box Land too, for an even more scenic route. 

Goofy’s Bakery Studio: Decorate your own cupcakes and cookies with edible paint. 

The Art of Disney: Disney prints, paintings, figurines, and other art. Get your caricature drawn here.

Minnie Mouse Fashions: Disney apparel and headgear. Design and customize your own ears.

Handwich cart: I dunno about you, but I think the Handwich is pretty neat.

Toy Box Land

Yes, Toy Story Land has been both overused as a land and under-utilized as a proper theme, but I simply love the giant toy aesthetic. It feels like being inside an I Spy book (does anyone remember those books?). I probably could have just made this land fully original with no ties to IP (like I did with choosing not to theme Winter VIllage to Frozen), which I am still open to, but also found it too irresistible to include everyone’s favorite lovable rascals. The movies’ existential themes of jealousy and self-worth, moving on and letting go would be difficult to adapt into attractions, so Toy Story’s inclusion here is to embody reconnecting with your inner child and creativity through play. The name change is just my attempt to make the IP sound less in-your-face. The giant art supplies from Toontown could transition into giant crayons in this area. Also, like Toontown, the entire area would have kinetic sculptures to bring energy to the area, like giant windup keys and pinwheels. To keep with the playful and friendly energy of the land there should be plenty of characters walking around interacting with guests. Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and Bo Peep should preferably be characters that can talk, not just silent costumes, and there would not be any giant static statues of them in the land. Bullseye and the Green Army Men are okay to keep as silent costume characters. Potato Head, Hamm, Rex, Slinky, and Wheezy are talking animatronics, preferably mobile animatronics that can roam the land alongside costume characters. I think the Little Green Aliens and Bo Peep’s sheep are the only characters that are okay to portray as static statues. Sid’s toys could be available characters during the Halloween season.

“Rube Goldberg Machine roller coaster”: Dual track wild mouse roller-coaster, based on a classic, over-convoluted Rube Goldberg design. One track has guests ride in giant toy karts, the other has guests inside giant marbles for a giant marble run track. Vehicles would set off chain reactions, possibly help other vehicles move forward, or create “obstacles” for others. Pulleys and wheels and dominoes galore.  This is another one of those ideas where I only know how I want it to function without knowing how to accomplish it. Please consult actual engineers. 

“Andy’s Playtime Theater”: Basically Mad Libs / Choose Your Own Adventure. This could either be a show or a ride, but I personally prefer the ride idea. If it were a show it would be part improv, involve guest participation, and have lots of giant props and gags. The Toy Story gang would mingle with the audience and be on stage at the same time. If it were a ride, guests can choose the path their vehicle takes. Andy narrates and has his toys act out a story. At several points, Andy offers two options on how the story can proceed. Stories would have wacky scenarios, like that of the opening scene in Toy Story 3. Multiple endings. Would have plenty of animatronics, and NOT just be screen-based. 

“Giant Toy Playground”: Build with LEGO bricks the size of your head, climb actual towers made of alphabet blocks, play on a chessboard with human-sized chess pieces. 

“I Spy Scavenger Hunt”: I absolutely loved looking at Walter Wick’s I Spy and Can You See What I See? illustrations for hours, and this activity is basically that come to life. I really want this land to be super detailed (and I mean absolutely LOADED) with lots of toy props hidden everywhere. The search criteria can change everyday for different routes. Winners can earn exclusive pins.

Pizza Planet restaurant: Customize your own pizza. Mix your own slushie. Gluten-free and vegan options. Also serves the Alien Mochi from Tokyo. Would follow the retro space building design of the movie .

“Build-A-Toy” shop: Inspired by the former Toys R Us Times Square location. Would include things like a Build-A-Bear Workshop, “Build Your Own Potato Head”, a LEGO play area, a nuiMOs plush modeling studio, and a mini indoor Ferris wheel.

Disney Dreamland Railroad Create-It-Land station: “Built” out of blocks and tinkertoys.

World Galleria

Adventureland

Mysteryland

Fantasyland

Discoveryland

[xxxcertifiednerdxxx]

Ok literally one person expressed an inkling of interest in Fantasia 2000, so that’s my sign to let y’all know how amazing the music and animation is.

First, the movie opens with Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5, telling a story of good and evil with butterflies and bats in an abstract style of animation.

[image description: colorful, abstract butterflies all flying in a circle with a blue background]

Steve Martin comes and introduces the concept of Fantasia, then Itzhak Perlman introduces the next song: Pines of Rome, which tells the story of a pod of humpback whales, specifically two whales and their baby.

[image description: a pod of humpback whales soaring through clouds] Quincy Jones introduces Rhapsody in Blue, which tells the story of four different people who all live in New York City and all have dreams they hope to achieve.

[image description: a bunch of people are crowded in a subway car. Anyone tall enough is holding onto those handlebars that hang from the ceiling. Everyone looks grumpy, and each person is one color with various shades and tints]

Bette Midler introduces Piano Concerto No. 2, which tells the story of the Steadfast Tin Soldier.

[image description: the tin soldier, dressed in a red and white uniform, stands with a ballerina figurine. The ballerina has brown curly hair and a white ballet dress with blue trim. They gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes]

James Earl Jones then introduces Carnival of Animals, which is a story about a flamingo that is shamed by his flock for his love of yo-yos. I’m not making this up.

[image description: a flamingo jumps out of the water, using its feet to play with a yo-yo]

Penn and Teller perform magic tricks as they introduce The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the only animated sequence also used in the original Fantasia. Mickey Mouse is the apprentice of a powerful magician, but when he tries to use magic to take care of his chores, he realizes he’s created more trouble than he can fix.

[image description: Mickey Mouse, dressed in a red robe and a blue wizard hat, holds on to a giant book as he’s trapped in a whirlpool]

James Levine introduces Pomp and Circumstance, although he is interrupted as Mickey Mouse tries to find the star of this story: Donald Duck. Donald Duck helps Noah load animals onto the ark before the big flood, and he and Daisy think they’ve lost each other forever]

[image description: Donald Duck stands in the foreground, satisfied, as many animals walk towards Noah’s ark]

Last but not least, Angela Lansbury introduces the final song, The Firebird Suite, which tells of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

[image description: a green spirit/goddess/creature uses her magic and starts to bring a tree to life after winter]

Hopefully the beauty of these images convince y’all to give this movie a try. And maybe you recognize some of the musical pieces!

[motionsickishreader]

Redwall Review

Redwall 

Brain Jaques 

The community within the Redwall Abbey is a peaceful one, swearing off all violence with the sole purpose of providing aid and care for those who need it. But when warlord Cluney and his band of misfit critters declare war and threaten peace within Redwall, the citizens must prepare to fight. In order to help protect his people, young mouse Matthias sets off on a journey to reclaim a sword that once belonged to Redwall’s previous hero, Martin the Warrior. Redwall encompasses exactly what it means to be an excellent fantasy story. Jaques does an incredible job at world building and establishing the setting in which this story takes place. Every location, character, and event is described in vivid detail which allows for the reader to become completely immersed within the universe. From epic battle scenes to characters simply eating a meal with one another, the reader is able to visualize exactly what is taking place on each page. Suspension of disbelief is created from the first few paragraphs through the humanity of each and every one of the characters. Despite being various animals, all of the characters within the Redwall universe are extremely human. Every creature has their own motivations, quirks, and distinct ways of interacting with one another. The dialogue between characters is very natural, with some having their own specific dialects that are easy to read and hear within one’s head. There are also mentions of animalistic behaviors or habits, to remind readers that these characters are non-human and further develop each animal as a unique individual. Even the most minor of characters are well developed, receiving their moments in the spotlight even if only for that chapter. The majority of the book bounces in perspective between protagonist Matthias and antagonist Cluney, with the occasional chapter that is from a side character’s point of view. This method of storytelling is very effective, as the plot is driven forward and becomes more intense as these characters and their sides of the war continuously outsmart each other without personally being aware of it. This is the first book published in the Redwall series, and as such there is even more of the universe and unique characters to be explored within other installations of the series. Middle age readers ready to dive into an extensive universe with a diverse cast of characters are sure to become enchanted by this book. 

BIBLIO: 2002 (orig. 1986), Firebird Books/Penguin Young Readers, Ages 8 to 15, $9.99. 

REVIEWER: Jessica Hummel 

FORMAT: Middle Reader 

ISBN: 978-0-1423-0237-8

[adamwatchesmovies]

Fantasia 2000 (1999)

Coming 60 years after the original, Fantasia 2000 mostly captures the majesty and wonder of its predecessor with a visually stunning, inspired blend of animation and music.

Introduced by a variety of celebrities which include Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller and Angela Lansbury, the program includes several classical musical pieces, each brought to life by distinct styles of animation, including:

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, in which abstract shapes resembling butterflies and birds (or perhaps bats) battle.

Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi, about a family of flying humpback whales who become separated and must find each other again.

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin is set in 1930’s New York City and follows four people who dream of a better life.

Piano Concerto No. 2, Allegro, Opus 102 by Dmitri Shostakovich, which is loosely based on Han Christian Andersen’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier, in which a one-legged toy soldier falls in love with a toy ballerina and protects her from a lustful jack-in-the-box.

The Carnival of the Animals (Le Carnival des Animaux), finale by Camille Saint-Saëns, about a disapproving group of flamingos that attempts to discourage one of their members from playing with his yo-yo.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas, a segment carried over from the original Fantasia that sees Mickey Mouse play with the magic spells of his master, with disastrous results.

Pomp and Circumstance – Marches 1, 2, 3 and 4 by Edward Elgar, in which Donald and Daisy Duck act as assistants to Noah and help him gather two of each animal for his ark before the world is flooded.

Firebird Suite – 1919 Version by Igor Stravinsky. In this final tale, a forest sprite accidentally wakes the Firebird, a volcanic creature that burns everything in its wake.

Besides the occasional use of CGI imagery, the biggest difference between this film and its predecessor is the hosts that introduce the musical segments. While some of them do make the film a tad dated (I’m not sure how Penn and Teller will be seen by the time we get “Fantasia 3000”, for example), generally they serve their purpose. When Fantasia was conceived, it was intended to be in a constant state of flux. Every few years it would’ve been re-released with segments added or removed. Had this plan gone forward, we probably would've had Deems Taylor introduce some of the “Fantasia 2.0” releases but not others. This would've been weird and Fantasia 2000 seeks to rectify this with a slew of different hosts. Had it been a big hit (it wasn’t), it would’ve been much easier to remove or add pieces in subsequent releases.

Enough about that. Let’s talk about the main feature. I wouldn’t call this 1999 film as ambitious as the one in 1940 but in some ways, it is. The Rhapsody in Blue story, for example, does not use a style of animation that resembles anything else Disney but you wish more films would ape its style. Less successful is the whales’ story, which utilizes a blend of CGI and traditional animation. Unfortunately, the mix is often glaring. The finale is strong but the whole thing is too cutesy. Similarly, the Tin Soldier story is visually dynamic, vibrant and able to cram a sweet little bit of romance in its short running time but has been softened from the original tale – seemingly to appeal to kids. Many of Disney’s first pictures weren’t afraid to be frightening. Stories like Dumbo, Bambi or Pinocchio could be too intense for the littlest ones… and we love them for it. You can tell the years have made the studio more cautious.

The comedic stories are where Fantasia 2000 fares best. The yo-yo spinning flamingo is a riot. The slapstick and musical beats are so perfectly choreographed you’ll wish it could last longer. Similarly, forever-favorites Donald Duck and Daisy make for big laughs. The aforementioned Rhapsody in Blue also contains many clever moments to bring a smile to your face.

Then, we get to the finale, one that’s worthy of following up the Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria conclusion of the 1940 picture. Dynamic uses of color, fluid visuals that tell a narrative without needing words or being too on-the-nose and plenty of memorable imagery. It caps off a picture that began with a wonderfully abstract interpretation of music and paves over any rough patches that might’ve been in between. It makes you crave more “Fantasias” but we're unlikely to see any for a while. A shame.

There’s so much imagination in Fantasia 2000 and it’s so refreshing to see. Perhaps a higher-up at the studio will find a way to convince the right people and green-light another. Until then, Fantasia 2000 is a fine picture. Perhaps not a must-see like the original, but a memorable program that offers a lot. (On Blu-ray, September 1, 2018)

[titles-for-tangents]

STRAP IN KIDS, THIS ONE’S GOT LORE

I cannot begin to tell you how fantastic this news is, because Beagle’s been unable to publish this one and has had it on the backburner for over fifteen years now. I’m Afraid You Got Dragons was originally supposed to have an Amazon release date of August 16, 2007, but as one reviewer in 2009 noted, “When this book first appeared in catalogues, I tried to order it. After some effort, I spoke with the publisher,” - alternatively listed across the internet as Puffin, Penguin Books, and Firebird - “who said that Beagle had withdrawn the book and it was never published. What a terrible shame! With that content summary, it would have been a fantastic Beagle story. Hopefully he will reconsider.” I wonder if we’ll get the original text or if he’s rewriting it? Either way I hope that Amazon reviewer hears the good news soon.

Per the 2007 description on Amazon:

“Dragons are common in the backwater kingdom of Bellemontagne, coming in sizes from mouse-like vermin all the way up to castle-smashing monsters. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax (who would much rather people just call him Robert) has recently inherited his deceased dad’’s job as a dragon catcher/exterminator, a career he detests with all his heart —in part because he likes dragons, feeling an odd kinship with them, but mainly because his dream has always been the impossible one of transcending his humble origin to someday become a prince’’s valet. Needless to say, fate has something rather different in mind...”

Like described above, The Bookseller notes a similar premise and that Gollancz will publish it alongside Saga Press (S&S) in 2024. AM HYPE

For the sake of media preservation here is the original, rad as hell cover art by Justin Sweet:

And the full version via John ONeill at blackgate.com:

I can’t wait to see what the new art will look like. All of the cover art for Beagle’s books is so contemplative and beautiful.

ONeill further notes that since the book was never published, no physical copies of it exist. He states, “The closest I’ve come to finding an explanation is this brief note at the bottom of an excerpt from the novel at Green Man Review, quoting a defunct section of Beagle’s website:

“’The story was originally supposed to be a 40,000 word novella, no longer. But it grew. The first draft came in at more than twice that: nearly 90,000 words…I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons was originally contracted to Firebird Books, and announced for a Summer 2007 release — but completion of the final draft was delayed as the manuscript insisted on growing, and because of time lost to unavoidable family issues, so the book was rescheduled for Summer 2008. Before it could be turned in, however, a serious business conflict came up between Peter and Penguin USA over the 40th Anniversary Edition of The Last Unicorn. This ultimately led Peter to conclude that after many years of association with Penguin imprints it was time to move on. Since Firebird was a Penguin imprint, that meant pulling I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons.’

“The site also notes that publication is likely in 2008 or early 2009 from Conlan Press, where ‘Peter will have the control over the book that he wants.’ But that never happened.”

ONeill wrote that article back in 2015, the same year Beagle sued his former manager at Conlan Press for a litany of serious claims. Six years later in 2021 Beagle finally regained the rights to his intellectual property, and if his bibliography on Wikipedia is to be believed, he’s been on a spree ever since following up on his various, previous works. I’m not just referring to The Way Home, the sequel novella to Two Hearts; Beagle is supposedly rewriting and expanding The Folk of the Air and turning his novella The Unicorn Sonata into a 4-part book series. HOLY SHIT. And we get an announcement the never-before-been-published I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons IS GOING TO GET PUBLISHED?!

The fact that A Fine and Private Place and The Innkeeper’s Song are getting reissues too is incredible; it appears Neil Gaiman will do a forward for the former, which he’s previously gone on record to describe as his, “I’d-wish-I’d-written-that-first” novel. Which is to say he must be over the moon. Hopefully we’ll see other future reissues too, like Tamsin, Return, and A Dance for Emilia.

Me when I finally get a physical copy of I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons:

Brace yourselves, Beagle fans, we have some big news coming today.

[hellonoblesky]

The more I look back at the series that really struck a chord with me as a child, like very deeply hit me at my core and that I read over and over again because I was actually CAPTIVATED by them are all books that stuff in it that like.

I don't know the words for it exactly but when Zita the Space Girl fell into another world to save her best friend and selflessly threw herself forward to save people even if it wasn't HER doing the saving, she still wanted to help no matter what. And she DID help. Even as she was hunted down and put in prison, even as she thought she'd never see the friend she originally came to this world to save again, and when she got overwhelmed by the attention she RAN AWAY because of course she did!! SHE WAS A KID!! And she KNEW she was just the figurehead because of her charisma, it was Randy and Mouse and Piper and One and Madrigal, everyone, all of her friends/family she'd made along the way. She's special to them all because she never gives up hope and she brought them together so they'd be able to do the things they did and she REALLY WAS STILL JUST A KID!!!!

Or like everything about Emily in Amulet, and how she's angry and impulsive and she IS a firebird she IS a phoenix she falls into ashes and burns and falls into ashes and burns and her story starts with loss, and she keeps losing, but she digs her nails in to hold onto every win she can. How her first interaction with Trellis is him trying to kill her under the control of i-forget-it's-name but you know the little creature thingy if you know you KNOW ok but they end up allies in the end and HES REACHING OUT TO SAVE HER??? And how Emily deals with too much power put on her shoulders at a young age and being the eldest daughter in an already scarred family thrown into another WORLD just parallel to ours??? HELLO?? How she deals with such betrayal from Max, how she has such close encounters with things that control time and space and monsterous things that kill and control and. and and she's so Stable and Strong but at the same time she is so defined by her burning rage-determination.

Or just everything about BONE?? GOD. The war. The closeness of the valley, the weaving evils of the rat creatures and the Locust. THE DRAGONS?? THE DRAGON QUEEN????? The way in the end it's greed and hell and chaos that started that war and how Thorn was given this. this destiny sort of thing AND IT HAS BENE MUCH LONGER SICNE I READ BONE THAN IT HAS SINCEI READ AMULET OR ZITA BUT GOD. HER STORY AND ROSE'S STORY STICK WITH ME SOOO MUCH. ROSE ANDD BRIAR ALONE?? THE WAY LUCIUS ENDS UP DYING AT THE END AND HES WHO THEY FOUGHT OVER BEFOER OH MJY GGOD. AND BARTLEBY?? BEINGA LITERALL CREATURE AND OTHERED BUT HE'S JSUT SOOME LIL GUY HES JSUT A GUY IOH M YDGOD. Also the LOCUST being the symbol i am. sorry . I jsut. OUGH. GOD. DEVOURERER OF LIFE the LOCUST. The GREED of a SWARM the DEVASTATION that bLOCKED OUT SKYS I could talk about Locusts as living destruction for EVER AND EVER AND the CYCLE of REBIRTH AND GROWING AND., AND SAUFDHSGJSDZGKHGDGHJKHDS

Also calvin and hobbes. If you know you KNOW.

[go-events]

GO OTP Prompts Spotlight on: @darkshadows93​ (also darkshadows93 on AO3)! 

For a little background, each of the OTP Prompts participants is writing or creating art to a prompt based on a prompt from a generator, while Myst AU participants are creating in the mystery genre!

Tell us about your project!

Start us off on the right foot: are you participating in the OTP Prompts or the Mystery AU event? Can you share a brief 2-line synopsis?

I'm participating in the OTP event! My prompt that I chose was "Aziraphale is a dragon (or another mythical creature- for the sake of this fic- a Phoenix.) and Crowley is a knight who has to slay them, but they end up falling in love". I don't want to say too much about Quest of the Firebird. But I will say this: Imagine Swan Lake meets a touch of Slavic mythology, Good Omens, and female knights.

Is this going to be an Alternate Universe, a post-apocalypse canon extension, a historical?

A fairy tale blend.

What’s one of the things you’re most looking forward to about this fic/art? Any sneak peeks into a favourite scene or detail you can share?

What I'm looking forward to the most in Quest of the Firebird is the combination of different well-known stories. I got most of the ideas from the Swan Lake Ballet by Tchaikovsky and The Firebird Ballet by Stravinsky, both stories are beautiful, the music is exquisite. Also, did I mention that it's Ineffable Wives (I can't get enough of Wives fics).

We don’t see much of the Firebird Ballet in fic - I adore that one and I can’t wait to see more! 

Here's a snippet from the first chapter:

“Gabriel.” Beezlebub hissed as they stood over the crying princess, “It appears that we’re not alone after all.”

“Hm? What do you mean by that, Lord Beezlebub?” Gabriel mused as he stalked towards the mountain of books, “Did you find a bird? A fly? Perhaps… a little annoying mouse?”

“A mouse indeed, dear King.” They laughed as they pulled the princess up by her delicate bodice, “It seems to be that the annoying mouse had come to seek her death early.”

“Oh no, Beezlebub, not die quite yet. Let’s make her suffer a bit.” Gabriel gave the Lord of Hell a wicked smile as he approached Aziraphale, grabbing at her wrist with a death-like grip, “I thought I ordered you not to leave your room, Aziraphale.”

“I-I- was-” Aziraphale sobbed, struggling to pull her wrist away from the viper’s grip, tears pain streaming down her cheeks as the grip  pull her wrist away from her brother, sobbing as his monstrous grip cripple her in agony, “Gabriel, please don’t-”

“Don’t do....what, Princess?”

“I found where the mouse crawled in, Gabriel.” Beezlebub chuckles coldly, their hands glowing a pale yellow revealing the tattered servant’s entrance. They turned back to the royals, lips pulled back in a sneer,” I thought you had all the walls sealed up.”

“I did. But… we know how mice are. Always burrowing into things they don’t belong… isn’t that right, Aziraphale?”

“I won’t tell! Just let me go! I’ll go back to my room… I-I-I promise I won’t try to leave. Just please don’t hurt them!”

“Ah! So that’s what this is all about! You were trying to go help that poor family….” Gabriel pouts as he tosses the sobbing princess onto the floor, “oh, what a shame. Too bad, they’re  already dead.”

“Wh...what?” Aziraphale gasps out, staring up at her brother with teary eyes, “No… Gabriel, you said that you wouldn’t!”

“What do you want me to do, your highness?” Beezlebub asked, their hands glowing green with magic.

“Curse her. Turn her into a rat. Something that the castle cat could hunt. I don’t care, as long as she suffers from it. ”

“Gabriel, please! Have mercy! Don’t-”

Oh, I’m on the edge of my seat! What was your favourite element of Good Omens that you’ve adopted into this work?

I would say the imagery. I'm a very descriptive person and love writing sceneries. So I hope that Quest of the Firebird displays that.

Finally, to wrap up, I’m going to steal this question from Amanda, who stole this question from The Good Place: The Podcast---tell me something “good.” It can be big or small; it can be about your friends, your pet, a favourite charity, or just some good news you’ve gotten in the last few days.

I adopted a new cat a few weeks ago. Since I brought her home, she had been hiding in the attic and only comes out a night. Yesterday, Olivia made strides and let me pet her and hung out for some of the day (until my brother scared her).

Ah, that’s so exciting! What a good kitten, I hope the two of you will be so happy! 

Watch out for DarkShadows Swan Lake/Firebird fairy tale coming soon!! 

[ihni]

A cock named Phil #23: A phobia (ornithophobia)

While quite a lot of people knew that Steve (and Billy) had a pet cock by now, not many seemed to understand it. They had both been forced to fend off questions about Phil, and while no one was outright rude, people seemed to be confused about it. A dog or a cat was a pet – maybe a hamster or a budgie – but a cock? Living in a house? It seemed to shake the residents of Hawkins to their cores.

Of course, there were a couple of lovely exceptions. Claudia Henderson was delighted to hear that Steve had gotten a pet (“Oh, a pet is such great company, don’t you think?”), and Joyce Byers laughed and told them to bring Phil the next time they were over for dinner.

They thought nothing of it, thought she was just being polite, until the day before the monthly dinner at the Byers’, when Billy was at Melvald’s to buy smokes and Joyce was ringing him up.

“So, are you bringing your bird tomorrow?”

For half a second, he thought that she was referring to some kind of girlfriend, which – she’d seen him make out with Steve in Steve’s car in the parking lot behind the store less than a week ago – but then it clicked, and he smiled at her. “What, Phil? No, Mrs Byers, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“I’ve told you, it’s Joyce!” she said and swatted his arm lightly. “And I want you to bring him.”

Billy put his pack of cigarettes in his pocket and watched her with his eyebrows raised. “What, really?”

“Yeah, I wanna meet him. All the kids have so many stories to tell, I simply have to meet Phil the great and powerful firebird, or whatever they call him.”

“It’s actually Lazarus the Phoenix, in the … in the game”, Billy said and blushed bright red when Joyce gave him a knowing look. “But, uh, if you’re sure?”

“I’m sure. What do birds eat? Should I make him something special?”

Billy scratched at the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll bring some food for him.”

He had to look away when Joyce beamed at him. “Great! I’ll see you and Steve tomorrow then – and Phil.”

***

“Are you sure she said it was okay to bring Phil?” Steve said the next day. He was driving, and hesitantly side-eyeing Billy who was in the passenger seat, holding Phil steady in his lap and trying to keep him from eating the bouquet of flowers they’d bought at the gas station.

“Yeah”, Billy said, putting the flowers on the dashboard and wrapping an arm around Phil’s neck to keep him from going after them. “She seemed excited about it, even.”

“Huh”, Steve said. And then, after a moment’s thoughtful silence, “Joyce is the best.”

Billy couldn’t help but agree. “Yeah.”

They got to the Byers’ house early, and were greeted at the door by Will and Lucas, who was already there. Joyce accepted the flowers, cooed over Phil, and when Billy asked if she wanted to hold him, she nodded excitedly. When Phil – who was not exactly used to just being handed over to new people – flapped his wings in discontent, Joyce let go in surprise and they all watched as Phil half fell, half flew onto a nearby table, where he knocked over a porcelain figure of a mouse in a boot. It fell to the floor and broke into a dozen pieces, and Phil jumped in fright but stayed on the table.

No one said anything for a couple of heartbeats, before Steve made a weak ‘ta-daa’ gesture and said, in a slightly unsure voice, “Um, so yeah. Now you’ve met Phil? Yay?”

“Sorry about your … boot”, Billy said and bent down to pick up the broken pieces, while Steve grabbed Phil and put him under his arm.

Joyce, like the angel she was, just laughed and waved it away. “Oh I hated that thing, don’t worry about it. Got it from an aunt that one time. I’ve been keeping it around in the hopes that someone would bump into it eventually. Phil did me a favor, really!”

She went to the closet to get a broom, which Billy took from her hands without a word. She gave him a soft smile and let him clean up the mess without commenting.

“I hope you’re hungry! I made lasagna.”

Joyce wasn’t the best cook, but it wasn’t the food they were there for. It was the sense of warmth, of familiarity, of being welcome. It was the highlight of Billy’s month – if one didn’t count the all the quality time he managed to sneak in with Steve, one on one.

Claudia drove Dustin and Mike over later, and Susan dropped Max off almost at the same time (Joyce went out to exchange a couple of pleasantries with the other mothers). Nancy and Jonathan showed up next, Jonathan having picked her up.

Hopper and El were the last ones to arrive.

And suddenly, it became quite apparent that Joyce had had an ulterior motive, inviting Phil along. Because as soon as Hopper showed up, she grinned at him. Really widely. Like she knew something he didn’t. Hopper, wisely, faltered in his step and narrowed his eyes.

“Uh, hey Joyce. What’s up?”

“Hi, Hop”, she said, and something about her voice made several people look over. She took him by the arm and escorted him into the house. “We have a special guest here today, who’s just been dying to meet you.”

“Uh”, Hopper said cleverly. Joyce placed him in the middle of the couch, where he sat all ramrod-straight and looked around the room nervously.

By now, the rest of them had gotten inside too, and were watching Joyce. Because she was clearly planning something. She went into the kitchen, looked around and walked out again. Then she went into the hallway, disappearing from sight. A quiet “aha!”, and soon she was back – struggling to hold a squirming and flapping cock in her hands.

Most of the people in the house were watching Joyce, because it really did look like Phil would escape her grip at any moment – but Billy glanced over at Hopper, and once he did, he couldn’t look away.

Because Hopper – at the sight of Phil – went white as a sheet. He stood up so fast he almost lost his balance, and as Billy watched in wonder, Hopper actually backed up onto the couch, and then over it to get to the other side. With a piece of furniture between himself and Joyce-holding-a-bird, he held one hand out and put the other at his side, as if he was itching to draw his gun (which he wasn’t wearing, thankfully).

“Hey now!” he said, gruffly, but everyone could hear the waver in his voice.

Billy jumped in and plucked Phil from Joyce when it looked like he was going to claw at her, and the bird immediately calmed down. Joyce turned to Hopper, still grinning.

“Have you met Phil?” she said, sweetly.

“Hrm”, Hopper said, not moving from behind the couch – and keeping one eye on the bird in Billy’s arms. “We’ve met.”

“Briefly”, Billy added, because now when he thought about, Hopper hadn’t exactly seemed thrilled the last time, when he’d pulled Billy over in his car and had Phil as a passenger. “But I believe proper introductions are in order, don’t you?” He took a step closer and got the pleasure to witness Hopper – big, burly Chief of Police Jim Hopper – back into the wall and shake his head.

“Nope. No, not at all. Nuh-uh.”

“What’s the matter, Hop?” Joyce said, voice like poisoned honey, still grinning. “Something wrong?”

Hopper looked away from Billy and Phil for long enough to throw a despairing look at her. “Come on Joyce, I said I was sorry!”

“The spider was as big as my palm, Hop.”

“I killed it for you!”

“After you laughed at me for like five minutes.” She leaned in and, seemingly ignoring everyone else in the room, looked Hop dead in the eye. “Payback’s a bitch, Hop. Now come and say hi to Phil.”

Hopper glanced apologetically at Billy. “No offence, kid, but no way in hell am I getting close to that thing.”

Joyce laughed, and El frowned. “Don’t you like Phil?” She looked almost offended at this. Honestly, Billy could relate.

But Joyce pulled her close by her shoulders and gave her a half-hug. “Oh no, honey. Hop’s got ornithophobia.”

“Ornito…?”

Joyce looked insanely pleased as she turned and gave Hopper another sickly-sweet smile. “He’s afraid of birds.”

Billy had to bite his lip at that so he wouldn’t laugh, and he couldn’t look at Steve because Steve was obviously having the same troubles. The kids seemed to still be stuck on whether ‘ornithophobia’ was a real thing or something Joyce just made up, and Nancy hid a smile behind her hands.

“It’s not funny!” Hopper said, although no one seemed to be agreeing with him.

“It’s a little funny”, Joyce said and turned to Will and Mike, who were standing the closest. “Did I ever tell you about the time when Hopper had to deal with that owl who thought that Eleanor Gillespie’s hair was a nest? I’ve never laughed so much in my life.”

“It was the worst thing that happened to me in Hawkins since I moved here”, Hopper grumbled, looking a little red-faced, but taking a couple of steps out from behind the couch. Then he seemed to realize what he’d said. “Well. Until recently, at least.”

“How can you be afraid of birds?” Max asked, scrunching her face up in a way that made her look simultaneously confused and like she smelled something bad. “They’re basically just feathered balloons.”

“Look, kid”, Hopper said, sounding serious. “I saw ‘The birds’ in the theatre with a buddy of mine when I was their age” – here, he pointed a thumb at Billy and Steve, who were still trying hard not to laugh, “and it fucked me up.”

El levelled him with a disappointed stare. “Jim. Language.”

“I mean, I got really messed up from it, okay?” He turned to Jonathan, gesturing wildly. “You’ve seen that movie, right? It’s awful! You know?”

Everyone looked at Jonathan, who looked a little bit uncomfortable to be at the center of attention. But then he cleared his throat, shrugged one shoulder and said, “I don’t know, man, I kinda like Hitch– “ He cut himself off, abruptly. Then, with the face of someone who just realized that he’s made a huge mistake, he hesitantly finished, “–cock.”

Hopper’s face fell, Joyce snorted, and Billy laughed until he cried.

(from this prompt list) (first) (previous) (AO3) (next)

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The Nutcracker: A NY-Born American Institution

Above: Tanaquil Le Clerq leading the Waltz of the Flowers in Act II. She was the original Dew Drop.

The Nutcracker is so much a part of Christmas that it’s easy to assume that it’s always been this way. In fact, Nutcracker as a holiday treat dates back only to 1954, and the New York City Ballet.

It was not the first American Nutcracker. William Christensen’s production for the San Francisco Ballet, staged ten years earlier, has that distinction. But that production didn’t lead to a thousand copycat productions of one sort or  another, likely because the United States had few ballet companies in those days and, of course, it wasn’t in New York. The suite of music, drawn mostly from the second act of the ballet, was well known, but its context was not.

In the early 1950s, NYCB was still a very young company (it had been founded in 1948) and its home was the New York City Center, a city-owned theater (it moved in 1965 to the Philip Johnson-designed New York State Theater in Lincoln Center). The work of George Balanchine, founding choreographer and ballet master in chief of NYCB, was cutting-edged and appealed mostly to the culturati. Morton Baum, president of the City Center, was always after the company to stage ballets that would draw crowds. Balanchine had already mounted his own versions of Firebird and the second act of Swan Lake, but Baum thought they needed an evening-long production.

Above: The Snowflake Waltz at the end of Act I. Photo of 1954 original production.

Balanchine thought of The Nutcracker, a ballet in which he, first as a student and then as a dancer in the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, had danced several roles, including the Nutcracker Prince and Candy Cane (Trepak or Russian Dance). With NYCB, he occasionally appeared as Herr Drosselmeyer, the mysterious man who gives Clara the nutcracker doll. He choreographed it all except for the battle between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which was done by Jerome Robbins, the Candy Cane divertissement, which is the original Alexander Shiryaev choreography from the ballet’s premiere in 1892, and the prince’s mime speech in the second act, which also came from the original production.

It was by far NYCB’s most ambitious production to date. In addition to a large cast of company members, there were two alternating casts of 39 children from the NYCB-affiliated School of American Ballet (they now number 64), a Christmas tree that grew to gigantic proportions, and a blizzard—in addition to mountains of costumes and several sets. The costume for Mother Ginger alone is now 9 feet wide and weighs 85 pounds.

Above left: Edward Bigelow as Mother Ginger. Right: Michael Arshansky as Drosselmeyer. Photos of original production.

Balanchine’s production is one “by, for, and about” children. It makes no attempt to darken the ballet’s story by suggesting that Drosselmeyer has wicked designs on Clara, as some modern productions have done.

It opened on February 2, 1954. Baum wanted the company to perform in December, when theater attendance was light, so they put it on again later in the year and were rewarded by sold-out houses and a demand for more performances. Since then, NYCB has danced it for five weeks, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, 8 or 9 performances a week, with double casts of both adults and children and numerous opportunities for soloists and apprentices.

Above left: Janet Reed as lead Marzipan Shepherdess. Right: Balanchine rehearsing a child dancer playing the Bunny and an adult dancer playing the Mouse King.

It quickly became a financial bedrock for the company, as it has for ballet companies all over the country, both professional and amateur, who were quick to adopt it as a holiday treat. In New York state alone, one list has 32 productions in addition to NYCB’s.In some cases it accounts for fully half of a company’s revenue over the season. Many companies, including Miami City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theater, and the Pennsylvania Ballet, dance Balanchine’s version. Others, some too small or insufficiently high-powered, dance alternate versions with the number of adult soloists reduced. Many import stars from NYCB and American Ballet Theater to dance Sugar Plum and her cavalier.

Above: Francisco Moncion, the original Coffee (Arabian Dance). This divertissement is now danced by a woman.

Over the years, many of the ballet’s child performers have gone onto professional careers. At NYCB, Zina Bethune and Bonnie Bedelia, both former Claras, became well-known actresses; Eliot Feld (Nutcracker Prince) turned into a noted choreographer; Peter Boal (also Nutcracker Prince) became director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle; and at least 4 former Claras grew up to join the company. Two of them, Judith Fugate and Jennie Somogyi, eventually became principal dancers and danced the role of Sugar Plum Fairy.

NYCB has recorded the complete ballet twice, once in 1993 with Darci Kistler, Damian Woetzel, and Kyra Nichols, and again in 2011, with Megan Fairchild, Joaquin de Luz, and Ashley Bouder. Both recordings are available on disc.

Links What NYCB principal Abi Stafford learned dancing 48 Nutcrackers How Balanchine’s version compares to that of a company performing a version based on the Russian original NYCB’s first black Clara (now called Marie after the Russian original) My First Nutcracker: Eight NYCB dancers recall their first experience with Nutcracker Balanchine’s Christmas miracle. Includes comments from NYCB dancers Behind the scenes at NYCB’s Nutcracker (photo album) Nutcracker Nation, a book about how the ballet became an American institution

[spaceorphan18]

Fantasia 2000

The idea for another Fantasia had been kicked around over the sixty years before Fantasia 2000 became an actual thing.  I mean, Disney’s original concepts were really about merging music with visual media, and I’m not surprised that, after enough time had passed, it was something they wanted to bring back into culture.  Did culture want it? I have no idea - I think this film has kind of been forgotten by the mainstream, which doesn’t surprise me much. 

Like the original Fantasia, I feel like this is a tax to sit through -- even at roughly 75 minutes.  Maybe it’s because my classical music tastes differ (somewhat) from what’s presented here? Maybe it’s because I have a hard time focusing on segmented shorts in general? Maybe this whole thing isn’t my cup of tea in the first place, and if I want to hear classical music, I’d rather think up my own imagery to them.  

I don’t think Fantasia 2000 is bad by any means, but I don’t really think it’s all that memorable either, and sometimes feels like more of an experiment for the animators more so than an interesting specimen for a film going audience.  Or maybe I’m less evolved.  It could be debated. 

SYMPHONY NO. 5 IN C MINOR - I. ALLEGRO CON BRIO

Like the original Fantasia, there are a bunch of different segments.  We get a little bit of the original Fantasia being clip-showed back to us before we settle in to our first piece.  

They claim this is an abstract piece like the Toccata and Fugue that kicked off the original Fantasia, but it’s really not that abstract.  There are little triangle creatures that bounce around and fight against other triangle creatures, and there’s clearly a story here, which I almost find disappointing.  This piece, being a Beethoven Symphony, is one of my favorites, and I feel like it deserved a little more than the trite color battle that happened on screen.  But that’s just me. 

PINES OF ROME

The rest of these all have a celebrity introduction, and this one is kicked off by Steve Martin doing a little schtick, as if he were hosting an awards ceremony.  It’s cute in an awkward way. 

So -- this one is about whales.  Whales who float in the sky instead of water.  Because sure.  Fantasia 2000 was originally made for IMAX theaters (which were newer at the time?) This one was all CGI, and probably looked pretty impressive on a huge screen.  However, watching on a laptop probably does it no favors, and I was kind of bored, ngl. 

RHAPSODY IN BLUE

Introduction by a suave Quincy Jones, this is perhaps my favorite of the bunch.  It’s the story of a bunch of New Yorkers going about their lives in the 40s.  The stylized art is nice, the story is cute, and the music fits in really well with the animation.  I liked it! 

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN F MINOR - I. ALLEGRO

Better Midler awkwardly recounts scrapped Fantasia ideas.  Because sure why not. 

And then we get a little story about a tin soldier fighting off a Jack-In-The-Box for a ballerina.  It’s cute, except there’s this whole weird part where the solider ends up down a sewer drain, in a fish, and then the fish ends up in the original owner’s home.  I mean, why take the ridiculous detour? But I liked this one a lot more than most of the other ones, so I’ll give it that. 

THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS, FINALE

James Earl Jones being funny! I can appreciate that! 

This one is a short, two minute piece about a flamingo using a yo-yo.  It’s a little ‘meh’ but cute enough as any traditional cartoon short. 

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

We get a little Penn and Teller infomercial about stage magic being fake -- which is super weird -- and real magic is Mickey Mouse.  Sure.  

And then we get the entire segment from the original film.  This feels a little like a cop-out, tbh.  This film is barely over an hour long, and they use a good fifteen minutes of it to redo the first film? Why? 

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, MARCHES 1-4

This one.  ug.  Okay.  

As far as objectively talking about cartoons, this one is cute, it stars Donald Duck as Noah’s assistant in a retelling of Noah’s Ark, and it’s fine.  I think kids would enjoy it.  

However - I just massive issues with the story of Noah’s Ark in the first place, just lots of them, and it got me thinking about them as I was watching it, so any joy was kind of sucked out of watching this.  I will give it a point for having unicorns and dragons off to the side laughing at the whole thing. 

But more so, the music, if you don’t know, is famous for being the Graduation March.  And having played it a thousand times in my youth, it’s firmly connected to things such as endings and goodbyes and life changes (and I suppose a life killing flood would suffice for that) but it just doesn’t work here for me -- played as the animals get on and off the boat in pairs.  I found myself rolling my eyes at the schtick of it all.  Oh well.  

FIREBIRD SUITE

Angela Lansbury shows up, being the most goddamn professional person in this entire production, and leads us into the finale.  

It’s the story of a forest spirit who breathes life into her land after dearth (and winter) have ripped through it.  While Firebird Suite isn’t my favorite piece of classical music, this might be the most artistically dramatic of all the sections, and the one (besides Rhapsody in Blue) that fits the animation the best.  The story is relatively good for what it is, and gives the film the majestic finish that is going for.  

Final Thoughts: Did I like it? Meh.  These kind of things just aren’t my cup of tea, and while I think it mostly holds together as an idea, I think that these anthology type films, especially ones that kind of are thrown together without thematic elements to tie them together, don’t necessarily work for me.  As I said earlier, it works better as a thought piece, and an animator’s experiment, more than enjoyable film. 

[rainbowxocs]

MAY "Fox" CHARACTER REF

Name: May Campbell

 Nicknames: Fox

 Age: 26

 Pronouns: She/Her

Sexuality: Bi

Gender: Female

Species: Human

Mental Disabilities: Autistic.

Physical Disabilities: Is a Ginger

 Active Addictions: Caffeine, Tower defense video games

Religion: Raised Catholic, currently researching polytheism.

Job: Babysitter

 Degree: Business Studies

 Lives in: Smithsberg, CA

 Languages: English, Gaelic

 Height: 5’4

Color of Eyes: Blue (Sometimes reading glasses or red contacts)

The color of Hair: Red

The color of Skin: Pale as FUCK

Height: 5:4

Type of Face: Foxlike

 Race: white

Disabilities: Hypermobility

 Ethnicity: Irish descent

 Accent: California/tv accent

Vehicle: Dirtbike, and a bright orange subaru

 Weapons:  Slingshot, Knife, Nerf Hatchets, Glock

 Alignment: True Neutral

 Text Color: BLUE

 Main Hobbies: Fashion magazines, Krav Maga, Watching RuPaul’s Drag Race, Parkour, Mountain Biking, Music, Paintball/Nerf/airsoft wars, Parkour, Riling up Karens and then watching them implode, Managing Firebird and Vagabond

 Favorite Food:  Kebabs

 Favorite Flower: Solanum Xanti (Purple Nightshade)

Greatest Fear: Firebird snapping.

 Scent: Baby powder and spring wind

Awareness:  none

Birthday: November 17

Theme:

Fun Facts: Was nicknamed “Fox” after getting chased by some douchebags on the playground and promptly luring them into a trap where they ended up wiping out in the mud and getting themselves in trouble for roughhousing. Has partial access to the AX.Database.

Special Interests: Fashion, Nail art, makeup art, Astrology, Mathematics (especially fractal patterns)

Stims: flipping a coin across her knuckles

Fashion Board: WIP

Comfort Objects: She insists she’s to mature for that. (a Fox stuffed Animal Firebird won her at a carnival)

Family:

Maria Campbell (Mother)

Clarence Campbell (Grandfather

Friends:

Serenity Smith

Mouse Thoroughgood

Laney Thoroughgood

Todd Thoroughgood

Tom Thoroughgood

Romance: Firebird and Rabia/“My Lady Vagabond”

Enemies: The Smithsberg PTA. The FBI. Four CIA Agents.

Brief Personality: Was a pretty wild kid but ended up leveling out to compensate for Firebird and Rabia’s shenanigans. Don’t get her wrong, she’s down to cause chaos and a little arson, but she’s taken to covering their bases to make sure the consequences don’t get out of control. As a result, she’s considered the “Moral Compass” by outsiders- This couldn’t be more wrong but she goes with it. May runs the business side of Momma Dragon’s Babysitting Company and she handles a lot of the scheduling. She doesn’t express her own emotions outwardly very often, but her close friends can read her like a book and she is highly emotionally intelligent when it comes to herself, but can’t read other people for shit. She is clever and the second best strategist out of Firebird’s Crew and the Streetrats.

Brief Backstory: Grew up in Smithsberg, her father abandoned her mother, Maria, before May was born. Maria threw herself into the church and did everything she could to make sure May had a good childhood. She was a young single mother so it was important to her to set May up for a good life. When she was in middle school she got a bit rebellious and her and Rabia entered a bit of an alt-punk phase. This was when Firebird blew into town. At first everyone was hesitant about the new girl but May was assigned to show her around the school and pretty soon they hit it off. May, Rabia, and Firebird soon became close friends and nicknames popped up for them. They got in trouble, and Firebird would go missing for weeks at a time, only to come back with wild stories that seemed to change every time she told them. May was infatuated with the novelty of it all but was also hitting a point where she wanted more pocket money. So, she picked up some babysitting jobs. The other two started helping out, and pretty soon “Firebird’s Crew” were some of the most reliable babysitters in town, helped by the fact that Firebird’s Foster mother, the elderly Miss Trudy, was completely okay with running a daycare out of her home. Things scaled and the business was thriving and well established by the time it was time for May to go to college, which she did part-time to get her business management degree. A good portion of what was supposed to be her college fund went into the business and earned itself back before she could get in trouble for doing something so foolish.  May also had a few partners before the Crew realized their relationship wasn’t exactly platonic.  

[epic-summaries]

Ranking all the Fantasia Segments

I have seen both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 way too many times in the last month (they have become my background noise while studying). Now for fun I’m making a numbered list of my favourites.

This is 100% subjective.

Since Tumblr only allows 10 photos, I chose to have gifs for the top 10.

15. Toccata and Fugue in D minor By Bach

This is the first segment we watch in Fantasia (‘40). I will admit I’m not a fan of Bach and most of Baroque music. It might be my modern ears or it might be my lack of taste (probably the latter). So pretty colours and Bach is not for me.

14. Symphony No. 6 by Beethoven

This is the most skippable for me, and I actually skip it most of the time. I feel like I should love it. I love Greek Mythology. I like Beethoven. Together? Meh. Honestly, I think this segment is too long and it drags. It loses my attention. I forgot about the totally racist scene because I stop paying attention at that point or I have already skipped it. Also, this one also feel the most Silly Symphonie to me and it feels out of place because of it.

This was almost number 15 but Bacchus’ donkey is named Jacchus which automatically moves it up a spot.

13. Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack

This is cute and fun. But there’s just so high I can put this.

12. Symphony No. 5 by Beethoven

Yes, I am putting this higher then the introduction for the first Fantasia. I like Beethoven more than Bach. This piece is iconic. ICONIC.

Pretty colours and Beethoven>Pretty colours and Bach.

11. Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major by Shostakovich

I’m a little surprised how low this ended up but I like every other segment more. There is nothing really wrong with this segment, other than the dated CGI, but there’s a certain charm to it. It’s placed here more because I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s a retelling of the Steadfast Tin Soldier, it’s nice.

10. Pines of Rome by Respighi

So, this segment is freaking adorable.

Does this remind anyone else of the Pedro the Plane from Saludos Amigos or Little Toot from Melody Time?

9. The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky

I feel similar about this one as I do about Pines of Rome. It beats it out purely on animation. It’s so pretty! Look at that leaf freezing over! I’m glad this was made before The Nutcracker became popular in the west because it gave us a more unique segment where the music spoke and not the actually plot of the ballet.

That being said:

8. The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Dukas

Why am I putting something so iconic so low? It’s my list and my personal tastes. And I honestly feel meh on this piece of music. But the rest of it good. And like I said iconic. Even though I’m a little miffed that this is in both Fantasias, I felt like it was there to pad out the movie because they didn’t have enough time to make another segment.

I like to think of this segment as a foil to Symphony No. 6. I said Symphony reminds me of a Silly Symphonies and which makes it feels out of place in Fantasia. However, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice which stars Mickey Mouse, does not feel like a Mickey Mouse Cartoon. This segment feels like it belongs in this movie.

7. The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns

Is it a dumb little short? Yes. Was the introduction from James Earl Jones one of the cringiest? Yes. Do I love it? Yes.

6. The Firebird by Stravinsky

This is so freaking beautiful! The music. Beautiful. The Animation. Beautiful. The Emotions I feel during this segment. Beautiful. The hopeful story! Beautiful!

5. The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky

Both Stravinsky segments made it back to back. And both Stravinsky segments are epic. But this one has dinosaurs. And this segment fascinates me on the evolution 😉 of the cultural depictions of dinosaurs. And where else can you see a stegosaurus fight a T-rex? This segment is not scientifically accurate (it’s wasn’t scientifically accurate at the time, the T-Rex with three fingers) but it wasn’t trying to be. It wanted to be an artistic version of the history of life until the KT extinction, and it succeed.

Plus I love how they explain the evolution of tetrapods going on land as “Some fishes more ambitious than the rest.” It gives me joy for some reason.

Another addition, I find it funny the one called the Rites of Spring is not the Stravinsky piece that includes the spirit of spring.

4. Pomp and Circumstance Marches by Elgar

Donald Duck 😍 and like the Nutcracker Suite, this unique take on a popular piece of music (even though the Nutcracker wasn’t popular as the time that segment was created).

It’s fun and epic.

3. Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria by Mussorgsky and Schubert

There is a good reason that this tops most people’s lists. It starts out pretty awesome with demons and Chernabog (while like Hades he gets devilfied) is awesome. But then, the sun rises and Ave Maria starts and I get chills down my spine. Hope and goodness wins! Deems Taylor is right, they do perfectly condict but fits so perfectly together.

2. Dance of the Hours by Ponchielli

This is my favourite piece of music in both Fantasias. I freaking love this piece of music. I was going to put this lower than Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria but this is the segment I go back and back again. It’s a fun segment.

1. Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin

This is my list and I’m putting this at number 1. I freaking love this segment. The music great. The animation great. It tells multiple stories all we stastifying resolutions. The colour plate is great. The concept is great. It had everything! But not only is it great, it’s different from everything else.

Here’s hoping this decade will introduce a new Fantasia movie.

[sidhewrites]

Storyteller Saturday! 💖 If your characters had the opportunity to get any pet they wanted, what would they choose? Who already has a pet?

Hey hey! Thanks for sending something in. I’ll pick a few characters from different projects below

Coriander, from my main project (found here) techincally has pets – she and her mother have two chickens, but they’re more so treated as livestock than pets. She would probably want a big hunting/sheep dog (that of course is just a big softie) or a small lizard to sit on her shoulder and eat worms and things. Both, of course, would be strays she befriended and adopted over time.

Jasper, from the same story, wants a firebird, or a peacock, or a Bagwyrm – a massive caterpillar that builds a mobile cocoon on its back. Info here.

Bette, from A Crown of Hoarfrost, also has a not-quite pet, Skau their mousing cat. Cats in this world are regular household fixtures, in a sense, meant to ward off malevolent spirits and unwanted mice, as well as eating leftover scraps of fish. However, she wants another, even bigger and fluffier than Skau to use as a pillow.

Her husband Endymion meanwhile is the most extra to ever extra, and requires a living stag made of ice and nothing less.

Beck, from Mx. Fortune, also has a cat named Quincey (tfw you realize everyone has cats), but she’d love a boa or python that’s as big as she is. Something big and slithery and scaley with a perfectly boopable snoot, while her friend June wants a thematically appropriate “henchpet,” aka a semi-sentient who-knows-what that goes along with her supervillain theme of evil pastries. A talking cupcake would be, in her words, “sweet.”

Finally, Lise, from my latest and untitled project, really wants a kitten. A soft tiny cat that would sit on her lap while she crochets and can be carried about in her pocket. She also wouldn’t mind a rat, but kittens are her favorite.

[upontheshelfreviews]

Last year I talked about Fantasia, which is not just one of my favorite Disney movies, but one of my favorite movies in general. And if I may be self-indulgent for a moment, it’s also one of the reviews that I’m the proudest of. Fantasia is a visual, emotional masterpiece that marries music and art in a manner few cinematic ventures have come close to replicating. One question that remains is what my thoughts on the long-gestated sequel is –

…you might wanna get yourselves some snacks first.

As anyone who read my review on the previous film knows, Fantasia was a project ahead of its time. Critics and audiences turned their noses up at it for conflicting reasons, and the film didn’t even make it’s budget back until twenty-something years later when they began marketing it to a very different crowd.

“I don’t wanna alarm you dude, but I took in some Fantasia and these mushrooms started dancing, and then there were dinosaurs everywhere and then they all died, but then these demons were flying around my head and I was like WOOOOOAAAHHH!!”

“Yeah, Fantasia is one crazy movie, man.”

“Movie?”

Fantasia’s unfortunate box office failure put the kibosh on Walt Disney’s plans to make it a recurring series with new animated shorts made to play alongside handpicked favorites. The closest he came to following through on his vision was Make Mine Music and Melody Time, package features of shorts that drew from modern music more than classical pieces.

Fast-forward nearly fifty years later to the golden age known as the Disney Renaissance: Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney surveys the new crop of animators, storytellers, and artists who are creating hit after hit and have brought the studio back to his uncle’s glory days, and thinks to himself, “Maybe now we can make Uncle Walt’s dream come true.” He made a good case for it, but not everyone was on board. Jeffrey Katzenberg loathed the idea, partly because he felt the original Fantasia was a tough act to follow (not an entirely unreasonable doubt) but most likely due to the fact that the last time Disney made a sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, it drastically underperformed (even though the reasons for that are entirely Katzenberg’s fault. Seriously, watch Waking Sleeping Beauty and tell me you don’t want to punch him in the nose when Mike Gabriel recalls his opening weekend phone call).

Once Katzenberg was out of the picture, though, Fantasia 2000, then saddled with the less dated but duller moniker Fantasia Continued, got the go-ahead. Many of the sequences were made simultaneously as the animated features my generation most fondly remembers, others were created to be standalone shorts before they were brought into the fold. Since it was ready in time for the new millennium, it not only got a name change but a massive marketing campaign around the fact that it would be played on IMAX screens for a limited run, the very first Disney feature to do so. As a young Fantasia fan who had never been to one of those enormous theaters before, I begged and pleaded my parents to take me. Late that January, we traveled over to the IMAX theater at Lincoln Center, the only one nearest to us since they weren’t so widespread as they are now, and what an experience it was. I can still recall the feeling of awe at the climax of Pines of Rome, whispering eagerly with my mom at how the beginning of Rhapsody in Blue looked like a giant Etch-A-Sketch, and jumping twenty feet in the air when the Firebird’s massive eyes popped open. But did later viewings recapture that magic, or did that first time merely color my perception?

We open on snippets from the original Fantasia…IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!

It reminds me a little of the opening to Simply Mad About The Mouse, where bits of classic Disney nostalgia fly about to evoke the mood of this upcoming musical venture. In a clever conceit, snippets of Deems Taylor’s original opening narration explaining Fantasia’s intent and music types plays over the orchestra and animators materializing and gearing up for the first sequence, which jumps right into –

DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUN – I mean, Symphony #5 – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Here, a bunch of butterflies flee and then fight off swarms of bats with the power of light – I can’t be the only one who saw these things and thought it was butterflies vs. bats, right?

It does look cool with its waterfalls and splashes of light and color bursting through the clouds, but this brings me to a bit of contention I have with the movie.

When I planned this review I was going to do a new version of “Things Fantasia Fans Are Sick of Hearing”, except there were only four major complaints I could think of that. On further introspection, I admit they are legitimate grievances worth addressing. I’m going to get them out of the way all at once in order to keep things rolling.

#1 – This Seems Familiar…

Certain sequences are noticeably derivative from the first movie. It’s as if they were afraid of trying too many new things that would alienate audiences so they borrowed from their predecessor in an effort to say “Hey, we can do this too!” Symphony #5 is clearly trying to be Tocatta and Fugue with its abstract geometric shapes swooping all over to kick things off. Though I love how much character the animators managed to give two pairs of triangles, Tocatta’s soaring subconscious flights of fancy leaves me more enthralled. Carnival of the Animals literally began as a sequel to Dance of the Hours until the ostriches became flamingoes. And Roy E. Disney openly stated he wanted the last sequence, The Firebird Suite to have the same death and rebirth theme as Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria, which they got, right down to a terrifying symbol of destruction emerging from a mountain to wreak chaos.

‘Sup, witches?

#2 – Too Short

Speaking of repeating the past, the original idea for Fantasia 2000 was to follow Walt’s vision in that three favorite segments would make a return amongst the newer ones – the Nutcracker Suite, which was eventually cut for time, Dance of the Hours, which I’ve already stated morphed into Carnival of the Animals, and finally, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the obvious choice to keep since that’s the most popular piece out of any of them. Cutting things for time doesn’t make that much sense, however, when you realize that Fantasia 2000’s runtime is only 75 minutes. A very short animated film by today’s standards that lasts barely half as long as its previous installment. I don’t see why they couldn’t keep at least one other sequence from the first Fantasia to make things last a little longer and keep in the original idea’s spirit.

#3 – All Story, No Experimentation

Unlike the first Fantasia, all of the sequences have a linear narrative structure that’s easy to follow. Not a bad thing and kudos to you if you’re among that group who prefers Fantasia 2000 for because of that, but again, I admire how the original film didn’t stick to a coherent story the whole time; how it was unafraid to let the music, atmosphere, and visuals speak for itself without sticking to a three-act plot and designated protagonist for every piece.

#4 – The One You’ve Been Waiting For, The Host Segments

One of the things that turned Fantasia off for its detractors was Deems Taylor’s seemingly dry narration. But maybe Fantasia 2000 can fix that with some folks who are hip and with it, perhaps a wild and crazy guy or two…

Eh, he’ll do.

Now, the idea of varying segment hosts isn’t an altogether bad idea. Most of them work well: Angela Lansbury gives the lead-in to the Firebird Suite plenty of gravitas befitting the finale, as do Ithzak Perlman, Quincy Jones, and James Earl Jones, who build plenty of intrigue for Pines of Rome, Rhapsody in Blue and Carnival of the Animals respectively; this seriousness makes James’ reaction to what the Carnival segment is really about a successful comic subversion. Even Penn and Teller for all their obnoxiousness kind of works with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice due to the linking magic theme.

I suppose what turns people off is the self-congratulatory tone and seemingly forced attempts at comedy you get from Martin, Penn, Teller, and Bette Midler. But you know what? They still make me laugh after all these years (well, you have to laugh at Bette Midler’s antics or she’ll come after you when the Black Flame Candle is lit). In fact, I have to hand it to Midler’s intro in particular. Fantasia 2000 came out right around the time I began taking a keen interest in what animation really was and how it was made. For me, her preceding The Steadfast Tin Soldier piece with tidbits about Fantasia segments that didn’t make it past the drawing board was like the first free hit that turned me into an animation junkie (plus this was before you could look up anything on the topic in extraneous detail on the internet, so it had that going for it). If I have to nitpick, though, The Divine Miss M referring to Salvador Dalí as “the melting watches guy” is a bit reductive. That’d be like calling Babe Ruth “the baseball guy” or Walt Disney “the mouse and castle guy”. Plus, Dalí and Disney were close compadres with a layered history. They planned on many collaborations, though the fruit of their labors, Destino, would not be completed in either of their lifetimes. Couldn’t show just a modicum of respect there, Bette?

Ahhh! I take it back! Don’t steal my soul!

So, I wouldn’t say I hate or even completely dislike the host segments. Sorry to disappoint everyone who was hoping for me to rip into them. They’re not awful, just uneven. And if you think they ruin the movie for me, you’ve got another think coming.

Pines of Rome – Ottorino Respighi

The idea for Pines of Rome’s visuals came about due to an unusual detail in some concept art. Someone noticed that a particular cloud in a painting of the night sky heavily resembled a flying whale. So why make a short about flying whales? The better question would be why NOT make a short about flying whales? A supernova in the night sky miraculously gives some whales the ability to swim through the air over the icy seas. Again, seeing this in IMAX was incredible. There’s just one minor issue I have with. This and another segment were developed well before Pixar made its silver screen debut, and unfortunately, it shows twenty years later; the worst cases are the close-ups.

Okay, who put googly eyes on the moldy beanbag?

There are ways of blending CGI and hand-drawn animation well, and this isn’t one of them. I understand the necessity of having expressive eyes but simply dropping one on top of a CGI creature gives it a bit of an uncanny valley feel. They should have either stuck with traditional all the way or made the whales entirely CG. The CG animation of the whales themselves isn’t too shabby, so they could have pulled it off.

Because simply giving whales flight apparently isn’t enough to hold an audience’s interest, we have an adorable baby whale earning his wings, so to speak. Once he gets his bearings above the surface, he swoops ahead of his family and bothers a flock of seagulls. They chase him into a collapsing iceberg, leaving him trapped, alone and unable to fly. The quiet dip in the music combined with the image of this lost little calf adds some genuine emotional weight to this piece. The baby navigates the iceberg’s claustrophobic caverns until he finds a crevice that elevates him back to his worried parents. From there a whole pod of whales rises out of the ocean to join them as they fly upwards to the supernova’s source.

“So long, and thanks for all the krill!”

As the music reaches its brilliant crescendo, the whales plow through storm clouds until they reach the top of the world and breach through the stars like water. It’s an awe-inspiring climax of a short that, flaws and all, reminds you of what Fantasia is all about.

Majestic.

Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin

The music of jazz composer George Gershwin? Timeless. The art of renowned caricaturist Al Hirschfeld? Perfection. All this brought to life with the best animation Disney has to offer? It’s a match made in heaven. Eric Goldberg, who animated the Genie among other comedic characters, idolized Hirschfeld and drew plenty of inspiration from drawings, so getting to work alongside him while making this was nothing short of a dream come true. That attention to detail in rendering Hirschfeld’s trademark curvy two-dimensional style goes beyond mere homage. It is a love letter to a great artist that encapsulates everything about him and his craft, and to a great city that we both had the honor of calling home. The story goes that Goldberg screened the final product for Hirschfeld shortly before his 96th birthday and his wife told him after that it was the best gift he could have ever received.

All this to say I am quite fond of this particular short, thank you very much.

The piece follows four characters navigating 1930’s Manhattan and crossing paths over the course of a single day:

Duke, a construction worker torn between his steady, monotonous job and following his dream of drumming in a jazz band,

Joe, a victim of the Great Depression desperately looking for work,

Rachel, a little girl who wants to spend time with her parents but is forced to attend lesson after lesson by her strict governess,

and “Flying” John, a henpecked husband longing to be free from his overbearing wife –

And her little dog too!

By the way, John is modeled in name and in looks after Disney animation historian John Culhane, who also was the inspiration for The Rescuers’ Mr. Snoops, hence why the two look so similar. He’s not the only name who appears in this sequence: Gershwin himself makes a surprise cameo as he takes over Rachel’s piano solo halfway through the story.

Speaking of, my family used to compare me to Rachel because at that point in my young life I was doing or already did the same mandatory activities as she – swimming, ballet, music, sports, all with the same amount of speed and varying degrees of success.

No one can argue that art is where we both excelled, however.

The physical timing of Rhapsody in Blue’s animation is hilarious, though it doesn’t rely wholly on slapstick for its humor. The sight gags and clever character dynamics all weaved into the music milk plenty of laughs, and envelop you in this living, breathing island that is Manhattan.

I speak from experience, this is the most accurate depiction of commuting on the 1 train that there ever was.

Even with such a premise and two masters of combining comedy and art, there is still enough pathos to keep the story rooted. Take when all four characters are at their lowest point. They look down on some skaters in Rockefeller Center and picture themselves in their place fulfilling their deepest desires. Seeing their dreams so close in their minds and yet so far away while paired with the most stirring part of the score is heartwrenching.

In the end, things pick up as the characters unwittingly solve each other’s problems. Duke quits the construction site, leaving an opening for Joe to fill. Joe accidentally snags John’s wife on a hook and hauls her screaming into the air, allowing him one night of uninhibited fun at the club where Duke performs.

“Anyone hear something? Nah, it’s probably just me.”

Rachel loses her ball while fighting with her nanny, which Duke bounces off the window of her parents’ office, which in turn gets them to notice their daughter about to run into traffic and they save her. Everyone gets their happy ending and it ends on a spectacularly glamorous shot of Time Square lit up in all its frenetic neon glory.

And not a single knockoff costumed character hitting up tourists for photos. Those were the days, my friend.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I adore Rhapsody in Blue. It’s easily my favorite part of the movie; a blissful ménage-a-trois of art style, music and storytelling, and it’s so New York that the only New York things I could think of that are missing are Central Park and amazing bagels. This sequence is gut-busting, energized, emotional, and mesmerizing in its form. I don’t often say I love a piece of animation so much that I’d marry it, but when I do, it’s often directed at Rhapsody in Blue.

  Piano Concerto #2 – Dmitri Shostakovich (aka The One With The Steadfast Tin Soldier)

This piece has an interesting history attached to it. Disney wanted to do an animated film surrounding Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales – including The Little Mermaid and The Steadfast Tin Soldier – as far back as the 30’s, but the project fell by the wayside. During Fantasia 2000’s production, Roy E. Disney asked if they could do something with Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto #2 since he and his daughter were attached to that piece. He looked over sketches and storyboards made for the unrealized Tin Soldier sequence and discovered the music matched in perfect time with the story.

This is the second sequence that features CGI at the forefront. Unlike Pines of Rome, though, it works because the main characters are toys, and you can get away with your early CGI looking shiny and metallic and plastic-like when you’re animating toys.

Hell, it worked for Pixar.

The story centers on a tin soldier cast with only one leg who is shunned by his comrades for routinely throwing off their groove. He falls in love with a porcelain ballerina when he mistakes her standing en pointe as her also missing a limb. Despite his embarrassment when he learns the truth, the ballerina is enamored with him as well. This rouses the jealousy of an evil jack-in-the-box who I swear is a caricature of Jeffrey Katzenberg minus the glasses but with a goatee and Lord Farquaad wig.

“MUST. CHOP. EVERYTHING!!!”

The jack-in-the-box and the soldier duke it out for a bit before the former sends the latter flying out the window in a little wooden boat. The boat floats the soldier into the sewers and attracts a horde of angry rats who attack him, because animated rodents seem to have a natural hatred towards toy soldiers.

Case in point.

The soldier hurtles into the sea where he’s eaten by a fish – which is caught the following morning, packed up to be sold at market, bought by the cook who works at the very house he came from, and he falls out of the fish’s mouth on the floor where his owner finds him and places him back with the rest of the toys. Now the story this is based on hints that the jack-in-the-box is really a goblin who orchestrates the soldier’s misfortunes with his malicious magic. But based the extremely coincidental circumstances of his return home, I’d say the soldier’s the one who’s got some reality-warping tricks up his sleeve.

The soldier and jack-in-the-box duel again that evening, but this time the harlequin harasser falls into the fireplace and burns up. Our hero gets the girl and lives happily ever after. A nice conclusion, though a far cry from what happened in the original tale: the ballerina is knocked into the fire, the soldier jumps in after her, and all that remains of them by morning is some melted tin in the shape of a heart. I gotta say, for all my love of classic fairytales, Disney made the right call. Andersen’s life was far from magical and it reflected in his stories, making many of them depressing for no good reason. The triumphant note the music ends on also would have clashed horribly if they stuck with the original. Even the Queen of Denmark agreed with Disney’s decision to soften their adaptations of Andersen’s work. I don’t know if I’d call The Steadfast Tin Soldier one of my very favorite parts of Fantasia 2000, but in the end, s’all right.

  Carnival of the Animals: Finale – Camille Sant-Saëns

This shortest of shorts (clocking in at less than two minutes) kicks off with James Earl Jones asking with as much seriousness as he can muster from the situation, what would happen if you gave a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos?

The answer –

Good answer!

Fie on those who dismiss this part as a silly one-off that doesn’t belong here. Fie, I say! It’s a pure delight full of fun expressions and fluid fast-paced action. Once again we have my man Eric Goldberg to thank for this, though this time he animated it entirely by himself. I’d call it a one-man show except for the fact that his wife Susan handpainted the entire thing with watercolor, making it look like it sprung to life straight from a paintbrush. It’s a simple diversion about a flamingo who wants to play with his yo-yo while the other snooty members of his flock try to force him to conform. As you can see from the still, they fail quite epically. Nothing beats the power of nonconformity and yo-yos (also every yo-yo move featured here is authentic; I love when animators go that extra mile).

  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice plays next, but since I already touched on that in the first Fantasia review, I’m skipping over it. The segment ends with Mickey congratulating Leopold Stokowski (again), then crossing the barriers of time and space to inform the conductor, James Levine, that he needs to track down the star of the next segment, Donald Duck. Levine stalls by explaining a bit about what’s to come while Mickey frantically searches for his errant costar. The surround sound sells the notion of him moving around the back of the theater accidentally causing mischief all the while. Thankfully, Donald is found and the sequence commences.

Pomp and Circumstance – Edward Elgar

This famous piece of music was included at the insistence of Michael Eisner after he attended his son’s graduation ceremony. He wanted to feature a song that everyone was already familiar with. Of course, since this was after Frank Well’s untimely passing and no one was bold enough to temper Eisner’s worst instincts with common sense, his original pitch had every animated couple Disney created up to that point marching on to Noah’s Ark – and then marching out with their babies.

Okay, A: Unless you’re doing a groin hit joke or are Ralph Bakshi or R. Crum, cartoon characters don’t have junk as a rule. And B, one of the unwritten rules of Disney animation is that barring kids that already exist like the titular 101 Dalmatians or Duchess’ kittens, the established canon couples do not in any official capacity have children.

To which Eisner laughed maniacally and vowed that they would.

But in order to placate Eisner’s desire to turn every branch of the Disney corporation into a commercial for itself, the animators compromised and agreed to do Pomp and Circumstance with the Noah’s Ark theme, BUT with only one couple – Donald and Daisy Duck. In this retelling of the biblical tale, Donald acts as Noah’s beleaguered assistant (I guess Shem, Ham, and Japheth were too busy rounding up the endangered species). Daisy provides emotional support while preparing to move on to the ark as well. It’s refreshing to see these two not losing their temper at each other for a change. I wish we got to see this side of their relationship more often. Donald returns Daisy’s easily lost plot device locket to her and as the rain rain rain comes down down down, he starts directing the animals on board; the lions, the tigers, the bears, the…ducks?

Anyway, all the animals and Donald get on board – well, most of them do.

The world’s first climate change deniers.

Donald realizes Daisy hasn’t arrived yet and runs out to look for her, unaware that she’s already boarded. Daisy sees Donald leaving but is too late to stop him before the first floodwaters hit their home. Donald made it back to the ark in time, however, though both of them believe that the other is forever lost to them. I find it astounding that they never run into each other not even once during the forty days and forty nights they’re cooped up on that boat. It’s the American Tail cliche all over again, and well, at least it’s happening in a short and not the entire movie.

Soon the ark lands atop Mount Ararat and the animals depart in greater numbers than when they embarked on their singles cruise. Daisy realizes halfway down the mountain that she’s lost her locket again, which Donald finds at that very moment while sweeping up, and the two are joyously reunited.

“I thought you were dead!” “I thought YOU were dead!”

I kid around, but I truly enjoy this short a lot. There’s so much warmth to Donald and Daisy’s relationship that makes their reunion at the end all the sweeter, and there’s plenty of great slapstick to offset the drama in the meantime. I will admit it’s nice to hear there’s more to Pomp And Circumstance than just the famous march, and the entire suite matches flawlessly with the visuals, though the main theme itself is so ingrained into the public consciousness that it’s difficult to extricate it from that what we’ve seen accompany it countless times.

Come on, you all know what I’m talking about.

“What? Don’t tell me YOU don’t think of heads exploding like fireworks when you hear Pomp and Circumstance! Name one other life-changing moment could you possibly associate it with…you weirdo.”

The Firebird Suite – Igor Stravinsky

Fantasia 2000 comes to a close with a piece that has some emotional resonance if you know your history. You might remember from my first Fantasia review that Igor Stravinsky was disappointed with how Rite of Spring turned out, especially since he was a big admirer of Walt Disney and really wanted to do more projects with him beforehand. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they picked his premiere ballet to end the movie on decades later. After all these years, Disney worked hard to do right by Stravinsky – with a few twists, though. Instead of a balletic retelling of Russian folktales involving kidnapped princesses and immortal sorcerers, we have a fantastical allegory for the circle of life.

No, not that circle of life.

A lone elk who I’m fairly convinced is the Great Prince of the Forest walks through the forest in the dead of winter. With his breath, he awakens the spirit of the woods and one of the most beautiful characters Disney has ever created, the Spring Sprite.

I. Love. This character. Her design is gorgeous, shifting from a shimmery opalescent blue as she steps out of the water into an eternally flowing fount of live greenery spreading from her hair in her wake. Wherever she moves, grass, flowers, and trees blossom, fulfilling the idea of a springtime goddess more than Disney’s own Goddess of Spring ever did. The Sprite was a massive influence in developing my art style, particularly in her face and expressive eyes, and I used to draw her a lot. Visit any relative of mine and chances are you’ll find a picture of her by me hanging up on a wall somewhere in their house. Yet there’s far more to her character than just a pretty representation of nature; there’s plenty of curiosity, spunk, determination, and a drive for creativity. I love her frustrated expression when she’s dissatisfied with the tiny flower she sculpts out of the ground and how her face lights up when she morphs it into a buttercup as tall as she is.

The Sprite paints the forest with all the colors of the wind (mostly green) until she reaches a mountain that isn’t affected by her magic. Perplexed, she climbs it until she finds a large hunched over rock figure – or is it an egg? – standing inside. She reaches out to touch it and…

The Sprite has awakened her counterpart, the wrathful and deadly Firebird. Think giant evil phoenix made of smoke, flame and lava. And it goes without saying that seeing this on the biggest screen left quite the terrifying impact. One of the biggest inspirations for this sequence was the eruption of Mount St. Helens (though the shot of the Sprite surveying the breadth of the Firebird’s destruction reminds me far too much of the Australian bushfires going on) and the sheer horror of nature’s irrepressible chaos is fully captured here. But the Firebird refuses to settle for merely destroying the Sprite’s handiwork, oh no. It won’t rest until creation itself is consumed, and the Sprite is reduced to a powerless mite as she scrabbles to escape the Firebird’s relentless pursuit of her. Try as she might, however, the towering monster corners and devours her in one fell swoop.

The forest is reduced to gray ashes in the wake of the Firebird’s rampage, but the Great Prince has survived. Once again he brings the Sprite to life with his breath, only this time she is tiny and weak (the animation of her slowly developing from the ash into her huddled ragged form is breathtaking). Now, I didn’t think I’d get emotional revisiting a small part of a single movie I’ve rewatched countless times before but viewing this through a mature eye combined with the beauty of the Firebird Suite’s climax and its timely message has caused me to see it in a new light:

The Sprite is utterly broken by what she’s been through and the destruction she carelessly caused. She’s lost all faith in herself and in the idea of returning the forest to what it once was. Even so, the Prince gently insists on carrying her on his antlers to the remains of their favorite cherry blossom tree. Where her tears fall, grass shoots begin to sprout. This fills the Sprite with hope, and she soars into the air becoming one with the sky and rains life down on the forest. New trees burst from the earth. The air is filled with leaves and pollen and new life flowing from her essence. The Sprite’s joy and power grow so strong that she even encircles the Firebird’s mountain in all her verdant glory. Life and creation overcome death and destruction. It’s not Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria, but it’s close.

And unfortunately, that’s the biggest problem Fantasia 2000 has.

While working on the original Fantasia, a storyman made the mistake of referring to the work they were doing in “the cartoon medium” in Walt’s presence. Walt turned on him and snapped “This is NOT ‘the cartoon medium’. It should not be limited to cartoons. We have worlds to conquer.”

And conquer they did…just not the way Walt intended.

The point I’m trying to make is Walt was breaking new ground and experimenting with things nobody ever tried when it came to Fantasia. While those risks were initially deemed a failure, it eventually gained the recognition it deserved from the animation and filmmaking community. Any attempt to recreate the magic of Fantasia is no small feat. But rather than taking new risks that not even the first film dared, the studio opted to adhere to Fantasia’s formula with pieces that recall if not flat out copy from the original segments. I hesitate to call it a pale imitation or cash grab however because this was done for the art much more than the money (though Eisner was probably hoping it would bring in some bank). There’s even a little bit of depth to it: while the first Fantasia had themes of differing natures in conflict – light vs. dark, fire vs. water, etc. – Fantasia 2000’s theme is accidental but brilliantly meta: CGI vs. traditional animation, a conflict Disney would become very familiar with in the decade following the film’s release. In some ways, it reminds me of Epcot’s genesis. The driving force behind it was long gone, but the attempt to bring it to life as close to the original vision as possible is still much appreciated.

For all my gripes, I really do enjoy Fantasia 2000. Perhaps not on the same level as its predecessor, but it has its moments, oh yes. And believe me, as far as Disney sequels go, you could do far, far, far worse than this one. Fantasia 2000 is Fantasia’s kid sister mimicking its beloved older sibling in an attempt to show it can be cool like the big kids too. But hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this review, please consider supporting this misfit on Patreon. Patreon supporters receive great perks such as extra votes for movie reviews, movie requests, early sneak-peeks and more! If I can hit my goal of $100 a month, I can go back to weekly tv series reviews. As of now, I’m only $20 away! Special thanks to Amelia Jones, Gordhan Rajani and Sam Minden for their contributions! I’ll see you in a few weeks when I and review the 1959 Disney animated classic, Sleeping Beauty!

Artwork by Charles Moss.

Screencaps from animationscreencaps.com

Yes, I know The Lion King and Lady and the Tramp ended with the titular characters having babies, but was there anyone out there apart from Eisner who demanded there be sequels to those films that focused on their offspring?

January Review: Fantasia 2000 Last year I talked about Fantasia, which is not just one of my favorite Disney movies, but one of my favorite movies in general.

[onceuponasimblr]

Get To Know Me Tag <3

I was tagged by @blackcatsims idk even how long ago but ya know better late than never!

Name / Nickname : Malise

Height : 5'7''

Zodiac sign : Scorpio Sun, Aquarius Moon, Aquarius Rising

Hobbies : Drawing, gaming, studying gemstones, witchcraft, gardening

Favourite colours : Grey, Sage, Olive, Mustard, Ochre, Burgandy, Plum, Violet, Teal, Black, Charcoal

Favourite books : Howl's Moving Castle, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Askaban, The Cygnet and the Firebird, The Sorceress and the Cygnet, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Sandman comics, The Art of Asking, Collected Irish Folk and Fairytales, Peter Pan, Insomnia, Where the Sidewalk Ends...so many more, I can't list them all.

Last song listened to : In My Mind by Amanda Palmer

Inspiration for muse : Like honestly I just like making characters and then letting them akwardly die off in a side story that I will literally never get to.

Dream job : Traveling the planet buying and selling gemstones and visiting mines.

Meaning behind your URL  Fanciful spin on the lives I used to have my sims live, back when I actually posted gameplay.

Cats or dogs? Both! But I lean more cats for sure. They get me, I get them.

YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities? I guess real? I'm not much on YouTube, except for cats. But I don't really do TV.

If you could live anywhere where would that be? In my bus, traveling New Zealand.

Disney or DreamWorks? Don Bluth

Favorite childhood TV show? DarkWing Duck

The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020? Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears

Favorite book you read in 2019? The Silmarillion...again.

Marvel or DC? Marvel

If you choose Marvel favorite member of the X-Men? Mystique or Magik

Night or Day? NIGHT )O(

Favorite Pokémon? Ekans

Top bands: The Dresden Dolls, Rilo Kylie, Amanda Fucking Palmer, Regina Spektor, The Beatles, Van Morrison, Modest Mouse

Top movies: The Fifth Element, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Practical Magic, Moana, Tangled, Hercules, Die Hard, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Harry Potter Series, The Song of the Sea

America or Europe? As a bisexual American...LITERALLY ANYWHERE BUT HERE GET ME OUT PLEASE GOD.

Tumblr or Twitter? Tumblr

Pro-choice or Pro-life? PRO CHOICE BECAUSE DECENCY

Favorite YouTuber: .....cats?

Favorite author? Neil Gaiman, Patricia A. McKillip, Tolkien, Diana Wayne Jones, Shel Silverstein, Dr. Suess, H.P. Lovecraft

Tea or coffee? BOTH! Gimme coffee and tea all day long.

OTP? I...I don't know anymore.

Do you play an instrument/sing? Tone Deaf as a board....

I tag whoever wants to do this! Join in and overthink your answers!